One Stoplight Town

Pretty amazing... Elder Goodale is serving in a town that has just one stoplight. And he says of all the areas he's served in, he could actually move to this one-stoplight-town. :-) Last week we received another SD card from Elder Goodale's digital camera, and to the right here is one of the photos from that, from Miami, OK (his last area). To see all the photos, go to the Facebook photo album linked here. Enjoy his e-mail from today:

Hey family! This was an awesome week! We had 6 new investigators, and 2 of them came to church! So that was really good, we're starting to get this area going again. We had 206 OTM's this week, so that's not bad at all! The Zone Leaders challenged every area in the zone to get 200 OTM's in a week (I've only seen that happen once before. I know it does happen occasionally, but it's tough) and it was a little competition to see which area could get 200 in a week first. Well, about half way through the week it became apparent that it would be either us or the Zone Leaders who got it, and then the race was on. (for them anyway. We obviously don't see their indicators so we had no idea they were trying to beat us) Well, we won by two. They had 204, we had 206. I think it was pretty fair too because granted they were teaching more lessons than us, but also they are in Branson. It's a little easier to get OTM's there, especially during the summer, then here in little Ava... The problem is that now we've talked to every person in Ava, so that number will drop off significantly... Things are going great though. It's definitely been a challenge, and I'm learning a ton, but it's amazing how the atonement can apply to EVERY aspect of our lives. We're still struggling to get the teaching pool up to where it should be, and we're a long way away, but we've recieved so much strength beyond our own this week, and we've seen some incredible miracles. We've really been blessed as we've relied on the Lord. We've got this investigator named Angela who came to church, she's 19 and has a 2 year old daughter. She's kind of quiet, but she's awesome. She's really starting to progress, so please pray for her that she will still have that desire and that she will begin to really understand the significance of the restoration. Also pray that we'll be able to figure out who would be best to fellowship her, since we don't really know the members here too well yet... The other investigator at church was Sarah. We've only taught her once, but she's cool. She was a member referral. I always love those!

Since you wanted more detail about the area, mom - We do have a Wal-mart Supercenter here in Ava, but that's really the only chain store. Well actually we have a Dollar General as well. But other than that the answer is yes it's mostly little mom-and-pop stores. We have one light here in Ava, at the entrance to town right where the Wal-mart and the McDonalds are. Of course. At the opposite end of town we do have a stop sign with one of those blinking red lights hanging above it though, if you want to consider that a light... I just found out the other day that Ava is the only incorporated town in all of Douglas County. We also cover all of Ozark County. We never really go down there unless a member there is feeding us though, as the biggest town in the whole county is Gainesville, a booming metropolis of 600 people! We also cover significant portions of a couple of other counties. I was talking to a member that's a school teacher on Friday, and found out that our ward boundaries cover something like 9 school districts!!! North to south the boundary goes from Seymour, MO, all the way down to the Arkansas state line. If you look on a map you'll see that that is a pretty significant area... It's something similar east to west, but I'm not even exactly sure what the boundaries are that way. There's nobody that lives there anyway. But I LOVE this area! Missionary work in an area with this few people is tough (especially on a holiday weekend. NOBODY is home!!!) but the area itself is absolutely beautiful. I love how green it is here, and how spread out it is. I like these small towns. You pretty much need a truck here, but you know I don't have a problem with that. :) I feel much more in my element now anyway now that I'm driving a truck. The ward here is also incredible. If I was to move to any of the areas I've served in so far, it would be Ava hands down. I really love Clarksville and Miami (well I kind of love Miami. I LOVED being a missionary there, but I wouldn't necessarily want to live there...), but Ava is the best. The thing that amazes me is that missionaries have been here forever and everyone has talked to missionaries at least 500 times and they aren't interested at all, yet we still manage to find people to teach. We ask everyone we talk to for referrals, and the main thing we ask for is if they know anyone who just moved in to the area. We've been trying to find all the new people here, and it seems to be working pretty well. Well that's about it for this week! Everything here is going great! We still have a long way to go though, so keep praying for us! I love you all!

Additionally, in my letter to him last week, I asked him how they handle transfers in his mission. Following is his reply to that specific question:

To answer your question, for transfers there are two transfer loops that leave from Tulsa at the same time, the "north loop" and the "south loop." One of them takes the 3 pick-up trucks that are in the Tulsa area, and the other loop takes "the bull" and a couple other cars. The bull is a big 15 passenger van that they also pull a big trailer behind. The north loop goes up from Tulsa and the first stop, or "transfer point," is Joplin, MO. They then go on to Mt. Vernon, MO; Rogers, AR; Ft. Smith, AR; then Muskogee, OK. Those are the 5 transfer points. The south loop basically goes the other direction, from Tulsa to Muskogee to Ft. Smith, and so forth. We get told what loop we're on, and what time the cars will reach whichever transfer point is closest to us. Members give us a ride there. For instance this last time I was on the north loop, and we had to be in Joplin at 9 am, so Brother Gibson drove us out there. Then I got on the bull and road with a bunch of other missionaries (I think there were like 16 or 17 of us in that van...) to Mt. Vernon. I got off at Mt. Vernon and met Brother Anderson, who drove us home to Ava. So that's how the system works here. It works pretty well.