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