Companion from Russia... in Arkansas

It was great to hear from Justin today. How exciting that later this week he's getting a companion from Russia, all the way out in the sticks of Arkansas! :-)

What a sweet week! I had the best birthday ever! On Tuesday (my birthday) we went and saw the Lemons in the morning. We had a WAY spiritual lesson with them, Krista was bawling the whole time and even Kurt was crying a little bit. The spirit was so strong. And we set a baptismal date! March 28! It was the first baptismal committment that I've ever extended (obviously we've done others but this was the first time that I did it, which was cool) and they're way ready. They're such a solid family and they are really excited for their baptism. The only hold up would be the Word of Wisdom, but they've kept it for the last 5 days now and they said it gets easier every day. I love that family so much though. I'm going to be sad to leave them. But we just found out that I'll have at least another transfer here. Transfers are on Friday, and Elder Johnson will be leaving. He's going to Owasso, Oklahoma (a suberb of Tulsa) to be a Zone Leader, and my new companion is Elder Simikov from Russia. It's pretty cool because 6 months ago, right before he came to train me, Elder Johnson trained Elder Simikov. And now he and I are serving together! It's pretty rare for that to happen. I'm excited, I've heard alot of great things about Elder Simikov. There's so much great work going on here, too! Thom Vannoy also set a date for April 4. I'm a little more skeptical about whether that will go through, but I really hope it does. I don't really think I have too much else to report this week. Everything is going great, just keep me and all of our investigators in your prayers! Especially Francis. And the Vannoys. And the Lemons. And the Alvarados. That's all the main ones right now. Btw 3 families! How sweet is that!? Please continue to pray for them. I love all of your letters too, thank you so much. Oh and also Dad just because you're traveling doesn't give you an excuse not to write me... :) you could at least shoot me a short email. Anyway, things are great here, I love you all so much!

Three generations - Me E. Johnson, E. Simakov & E. Jurgensmeir at transfers.

Elders Goodale and Johnson

Elders Goodale, Johnson and Simakov

Our old car the 2006 Malibu.

Our beautiful new car. The 2009 Malibu.

Miracle in Knoxville, Arkansas

Nearly a week late in posting, but here is the e-mail from Elder Goodale this previous Monday, February 16th. It's amazing, all of the miracles that Justin is experiencing! It's amazing the power that Christ has in peoples' lives!

Thank you so much for my Birthday/Valentines present! I loved it! That was really great. I needed those shirts and I really liked the tie too. And all the candy. Sounds like you all had a really great week! I wish I could've gotten to see the Hi-Tops performance last week, though from what Brianna told me they did all of the numbers that would have made me cry, so maybe it's good that I wasn't there... I'm glad the weather's been nice there too. It's SO nice out here right now! It's getting into the 60's every day. We are so ready for suit coat season to be over... It usually ends March 1. I just wish it would stay this way, though I know it will get really hot, especially with all of the humidity. But for know it's really really nice.

Otherwise, we had a great week. The last couple of days were a little rough because all of our appointments cancelled on us and there really just wasn't anyone interested in talking to us the last couple days, but the rest of the week was awesome! We found 2 amazing families! The first we found tracting on Tuesday. Their names are Kurt and Krista Lemons. He's 25 and she is about the same age. They have a little 2 yeard old girl named Nevaeh (ne-vay-ah. It's heaven backwards. It's a pretty name, and it's pretty popular out here.) They are AMAZING! Such an awesome family. They were so ready for the gospel, too. They didn't make it to church yesterday, because she had to work til 4am Saturday night, but they were really bummed that they couldn't come. That was such a miracle finding them. Then the other one is even more of a miracle:

About 6 weeks ago we were in Knoxville, which is crazy in and of itself. It's a little town on the very edge of our area, about half an hour from where we live, and there are only a few hundred people there. Because of that we really never go there. We had never been there before, and we've never been there since. But for some reason that day we felt prompted to go to Knoxville. So anyway that day we were tracting and we knocked on the door and this crazy lady came out. She was there basically hiding from the law (there's really nothing anywhere near Knoxville Arkansas) and she looked horrible, all emaciated and stuff and you could tell drugs had kind of messed her up. So we talked to her a little about Jesus Christ and the healing power of the atonement, left her a pass along card, and left. To be totally honest, we never expected to see her again. Well... Fast forward 6 weeks. We were walking around in Clarksville and this lady ran up to talk to us, and she was really excited to talk to us. We vaguely recognized her but couldn't really tell where we knew her from. Well as it turns out, it was that same woman! Except she was so different! She was super super happy and she looked great! As it turns out, shortly after we talked to her she went and checked herself into rehab, and she had just gotten out when she came and talked to us. It was really exciting. She actually lives over in Little Rock, so we got her information and sent the missionaries there to her. But her daughter lives here in Clarksville, and that's who we started teaching. We talked to her that day as well and she said we could stop by. Her name is Tabitha, and her husband is Juan. They have twin girls that are 6 months old. We finally got to see them on Thursday, and they loved it too! They were at church yesterday and loved it. I'm so excited to be able to teach and baptize both of these families! They are both so ready. So things are going really really great here in Clarksville, and the Lord definitely hasn't forgotten us here. There have been alot of disappointments, but it seems like every time we get one of those there is an even bigger miracle right around the corner. I love this work! I know it's true, and there's no greater work that we could all be a part of! I love you all so much! Thanks again for everything!

Me, Krista, Nevach (baby) and Kurt Lemons

Oh by the way was Mark serious about having Bells Palsy? What's the deal with that?

Two Weeks of Updates

As I've been wrapped up with travels for a new job, I apologize for not updating Elder Goodale's blog here. Following are the two e-mails Justin has sent each of the past two Mondays.

Elder Goodale's e-mail of Monday, February 2nd:

Hey everybody! We had another great week! To be totally honest, it wasn't quite as good as the previous couple, but it still went really really well. Francis is still totally set on baptism this Saturday, which I'm SO excited for! Jerry didn't make it out to church yesterday, and his baptism will most likely have to be moved back to March 7. It will definitely still happen though, which is the most important thing. Then the craziest thing just happened about half an hour ago! Well not the craziest, it wasn't really that big a deal, but it was still cool. We hadn't gotten to see Kris all week (though we were trying really hard to) and he didn't come to church, either. It was the second week in a row he missed. We were a little worried about him, but then as we came up to email we saw him outside and were able to talk to him again. Basically the first thing he asked is when can I be baptized! It was way sweet. He decided to do it on February 28. He wanted to wait so that he had the whole month to try to quit smoking, so we'll be helping him do that. Other than that, he's totally set. So that was pretty sweet. We see little tiny miracles every single day, and I love it. We see prayers answered every single day. It's amazing. My testimony of prayer has grown so much since I've been out here. I have always been a firm believer in the power of prayer, but I am still constantly amazed at the miracles we see in response to our prayers. I have especially learned alot about specific prayer. I know that while the Lord answers every sincere prayer, the more specifically we pray the easier it is for the Lord to answer our prayer and the easier it is for us to recognize that answer. It's amazing how many blessings we can receive (and recognize) when we do offer those sincere, heartfelt, specific prayers.
We also had Zone Conference this week, which went really really well. I love Zone Conference! It's always great seeing President and Sister Seal and the assistants and all of those other missionaries. It's also fun because Elder Helsley, who was in my district (and one of my roommates) in the MTC, is in my zone so we have alot of fun seeing each other there. Zone Conference is always so uplifting and energizing, I am way pumped up for the rest of this transfer. It's going to be awesome. We're going to have at least 2, possibly 3 baptisms this month! Also the Vannoy family is very ready, though their's might have to wait a little bit because of some legal trouble. So please be praying that that works out.
Also, you probably heard about the crazy ice storms in Northwest Arkansas? Maybe not. I don't know. I just heard that they declared it a federal disaster area or something. I don't really know that's just what I heard. Well anyway if you did hear about that, don't worry. Unfortunately it missed us. We really wanted to see a huge ice storm but we didn't get this one. Just 10 miles north everything was covered in like an inch and a half of ice, but apparently we're in a little hot pocket or something because we were fine. Even 20 miles south of us got it alot worse than we did. But from what I heard it was really, really bad up north of us. It just barely missed us. Too bad... Maybe we'll get one soon.
I'm so glad everything is going so great at home! I loved Andrew's (Andrew Clark) letter, he needed that smack in the face. :) Hopefully he listens this time. I'll write him soon. And in response to your question, yes feel free to email me as much as you want but if it comes down to emails or letters, I would still prefer letters. We always prefer letters. Well everything is still going great! Keep praying for us! I love you all so much!

Elder Goodale's e-mail of Monday, February 9th:

Hey everybody! Happy Valentines day on Friday! And can you believe I'm going to be 20 a week from tomorrow! Crazy! That was so exciting hearing about everything going on with Dad's new job. I'm way bummed about my camera's card, though! The post office equipment demagnitized it? What's up with that?! I'll try and see if there's anything I can do about it here.
[Editor's Note: Justin mailed one of his digital camera's Memory Stick Duo cards home to share his pictures with us, but apparently the card got damaged en route, rendering it completely unreadable. If anybody has any clues as to how we might repair this, we'd love to hear from you.]
The work here in Clarksville is still going good, though honestly it is a little slower. Remember that amazing miracle with Kris last Monday? Well after a couple of days of trying to get in contact with him with no luck, we ran into him Wednesday and he seemed really weird. But he did say we could come by his place the next day at 5, so we decided that he was probably just a little embarrassed cuz his friend was right there but everything was still cool. Well, the next day at around 4, he called us and totally dropped us. I don't know what happened between Monday and Thursday, but he basically told us he doesn't want to meet with us anymore. I don't know what happened. Hopefully we'll "just happen" to run into him soon, so we can figure out what's going on... Sometimes I hate free agency. :) So that was a major bummer. I was pretty upset about that. But life goes on. Oh also something came up with Francis and his date had to be moved back to the 21st. But he still really wants to be baptized. So moving away from the negative... We still had an awesome week! The Vannoy family keeps getting sweeter and sweeter! It's amazing to see how the gospel has changed them and really blessed them in every single facet of their lives. It's phenomenal seeing the power Christ has to change peoples hearts and their lives. We spent alot of time this week focusing on finding, too. This week we did alot more tracting and other finding activities then we had been doing in the last few weeks, and we saw so many miracles. Things are still going great here, even if not always quite as planned. The Lord works in mysterious ways. Please keep those prayers coming, we need them! Love you!

Ajay, Enos & Eliza Griggs

Julia (she's freaking awesome!)

Griggs Family. Julia, Marie & Jessie, Sister Griggs (who is pregnant with child #9), Eliza, Me, Enos, Ajay, Eve, Brother Griggs (counselor in Bishopric) and Hannah