OTMs in Ava

It was great hearing from Elder Goodale today. I was sad that last week our letters to him didn't arrive during the week, but hopefully he received those today. One of our Sunday afternoon activities each week is that we all sit down and each member of our family writes him a letter. Then we mail all of those off in one packet. Anyway... we know he'd LOVE to hear from you, too, so please write him: Elder Justin Michael Goodale, Rt. 1 Box 499-C, Ava, MO 65608

Hey everybody! How's your week going? I never did get those letters, so hopefully they come today. I hope you all had fun in Utah, though. This week was awesome! Angela wasn't able to make it to church because her brother was visiting from Indiana, but she's been reading and she's starting to really get it. We may be able to set a baptismal date with her this week. We also had 7 new investigators this week, including Mikayla (that's probably spelled wrong), who's from a part-member family, and Stacy, a woman in Seymour that is REALLY solid. So prepared. This week things have definitely started moving here, and we're getting to teach alot more. The only bad part is that we've now knocked on basically all the doors here in little Ava , so it will be a little tougher to find people through our own efforts. We may not need to, though. The best thing of all this week is that with all of the work we've been doing is that the members have been really recognizing it and we've really gained alot of member trust. After we got 206 OTM's last week, we basically challenged the ward to beat us. Elder Conrad and I tried that in Miami and it didn't work that well, but here in Ava the ward is totally different. The whole ward is super pumped up about it! I was talking to Brother Wilber, the Elder's Quorum President (WAY sweet guy), and he said that all of ward council was basically focused on our "OTM challenge." The ward is excited and ready to take us on. It's awesome. There are a couple of other members that came up to us this Sunday and told us that they had friends that they've been working with that are wanting to meet with us, and they had already set up the appointments to have us in their home to teach their friends and everything! This ward is incredible! In two weeks here we've gotten more member referrals than I had in my first two areas combined. So basically I'm super excited for this coming week. It's amazing that even in a tiny town like this, where the whole town gets tracted out by missionaries pretty much every single month, there are still people who the Lord is preparing who are ready for our message. I love this work! Have a great week everyone!