Greetings from Stockton, Missouri

Baptism of Gary Simmons: me, Gary, E. Davis

Gary Simmons with his parents, Agnes & Gary Sr.

We received the following e-mail from Elder Justin Goodale today. Subsequent to this e-mail, too, he sent a note to Michelle that his new companion is also a member of the National Guard, with a lot of experiences similar to Christopher's. Cool stuff.
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Hey everybody! Greetings from Stockton! This is such an awesome area! It's even smaller than Ava (the sign says 1900 people), but it's not quite so out in the middle of nowhere here... Still pretty secluded though. But it's a really interesting place. Probably the most unusual place I'll ever serve in... In addition to the typical Baptist and Pentecostal religions around here that I'm used to dealing with, in this county there are pretty sizeable groups of polygamists, amish, and white supremecists. It's been fun. The ward is great though, and there are alot of really great people here. It's another little no-stoplight town where everybody knows each other. I love serving in these small towns! The town is built around a beautiful lake, too. It's a really nice spot. And on Friday when we got here, we found ourselves right in the middle of the annual Walnut Festival, which is a HUGE deal! We were here for the last 2 days of it, and it was a really good opportunity to walk around and talk to everybody and get to know basically the whole town in one day. It should be a fun couple of transfers here, I'm really excited. I've pretty much adjusted to all my District Leader responsibilities, so I'm ready and excited to just get out and work! My companion is amazing, too. He doesn't even need to be trained... (just like last time I trained! I've been way lucky) His name is Elder D. Scott Moxon,

he's from Provo Utah. He's an amazing missionary and we get along great. Well I'm just about out of time, but here's our address:

Elder Justin Goodale
PO Box 877
Stockton, MO 65785

Love ya!

Great Week / Transfer

Following is the e-mail we received from Elder Goodale today. Interesting that he's getting transferred to yet another small town; I'll post his new snail mail address when we get it. I added the links in Justin's text below.
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Hey everybody! We had an awesome week! Thursday we went to Joplin for Mission Tour (when a General Authority comes to visit the mission). Elder Marlin K. Jensen from the First Quorum of the Seventy came to speak to us. He's been a Seventy for like 20-something years, he's pretty awesome. We had to leave Ava at 5:30 in the morning so we could get to Joplin on time, but it was worth it. I learned a ton and the Spirit was very strong the entire meeting too. It was especially cool because Elder Davis and I were asked to sing for it. We sang Be Still, My Soul (this link cannot be played due to copyright restrictions) and it went very very well. So that was really cool. I also got to see Elder Johnson again which is always fun, and I was able to talk to Elder Anderson, who replaced me in Miami. He came over to let me know that Jared, Carrie, and Chance Mountford, a family that I was teaching back in Miami, were just baptized on Saturday. That was really exciting to hear. Then on Sunday Donald was baptized! There were a ton of people there and it was a really good service, definitely one that he'll remember. Danny Mackey got the priesthood yesterday, too. It was a very good Sunday.

Donald and Brother Peery

Then one other piece of news - I'm getting transfered. Transfer calls were Saturday night and they're sending me to Stockton, MO (map here; Wikipedia page here; local newspaper here). It's not too far from here (at least based on how huge and spread out our mission is), just a couple hours north. I don't know a ton about it other than that it's about the size of Ava, it's really tiny. There are a bunch of polygamists up there, which should be really fun, and a couple years ago Stockton was wiped out by a tornado. That's about all I know about it so far. Should be alot of fun. :) I don't even know who my new companion is yet because I'm training again! Kind of crazy though, I'm going to be shotgunned in AGAIN. Shotgunning (or what alot of other missions call whitewashing) an area is when they pull both missionaries out at the same time and send 2 new ones in. Usually it doesn't happen a whole lot, except to me... This is my 4th area, and the 3rd time I'm being shotgunned in. I think the Lord is really trying to compel me to be humble because this will be my second time in a row shotgun training and now I'm going to be the District Leader as well. I'm pretty nervous, but it should work out alright. Please pray for me though. Also any mail you want to send this week just send it to the mission office since I don't know my new address yet. I'll send that to you next Monday. But that's it for this week, we don't have a ton of time because we've got a bunch to do to get ready for me leaving plus in a little bit we have a meeting with the Elders Quorum President to go over some stuff. Hope you all have a great week! I love you!

Me with a snake

Singing

Following is Elder Goodale's e-mail from September 14th. He and his companion sang during a conference with a visiting general authority this week; I wish we could have been there to hear it! Donald is scheduled to get baptized today; I hope he happens as scheduled.
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Hey family! How's everything going? Life here is going good. I don't have a ton of time because myldsmail hasn't been cooperating today (not unusual), but there isn't that much new to report anyway. Donald is still set for his baptism on Sunday, everything is all ready for that. Oh but there is one really exciting development! Danny Mackey finally agreed to get the Priesthood! Danny is a recent convert and is good friends with Donald and has been for a long time. Danny is actually the one who first gave Donald a Book of Mormon. Well anyway, Danny was just baptized back in February, but for some reason has refused to get the Aaronic Priesthood since then (he's 52. But he looks like he's about 30). Nobody can figure out why. He just hasn't wanted to do it. Well this week we finally got him to agree to it! So he'll be ordained during the 3rd hour this Sunday, then right after church he'll get to baptize his best friend! It's going to be awesome. Then the following Wednesday Gary Simmons will be baptized! Everything's all arranged there too, we're good to go for both. Nothing else really new is going on, things have slowed down a little but they'll pick back up. Everything's great. Just pray for Elder Davis and I for our singing on Thursday. I guess I forgot to tell you about that, didn't I? Thursday Elder Marlin K. Jensen from the 70 is coming to speak to all the missionaries, and they asked Elder Davis and I to sing for it. That should be exciting... Also transfer calls are on Saturday. I'm fairly positive that Elder Davis and I won't be staying together since we've already been together 2 transfers now (but who knows how things will work with the new mission president), but I honestly don't have the slightest idea who will be staying and who will be going. But I'll know by next week. But until then I love you! Have a great week!

Bro. Lewis our ward mission leader and 2 of his grandkids the night before I left Ava

Gordon and Tina Simmons the night before I left Ava

Don't Forget to Pray

Following is Elder Goodale's e-mail from September 8th. It includes an amazing reminder to pray before doing anything. Good advice! It also sounds like Justin has had the opportunity to visit other areas of Missouri around Ava, which is cool.
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Hey everybody! Sorry I didn't email you yesterday, we moved our Preparation Day to Tuesday because of Labor Day yesterday. I don't have a ton of time today because we're going to be going up to Springfield in a little bit to go mini-golfing with the Elders from Springfield 3rd ward and the Elders from 4th ward. A member up there has a little mini-golf place and she gave us one round free. Actually the Elders up there are teaching the guy that works for her up there, which is another reason we're going, to hang out with him and teach him while we golf. He's pretty cool, I got to teach him while I was on exchanges there on Thursday. I was constantly gone this week, I spent Tuesday on exchanges with the Zone Leaders in Branson, then Thursday I was on exchanges in Springfield. We spent Friday working in Seymour, so I basically didn't get to spend any time in Ava at all this week... Branson was alot of fun, as usual. It's such a weird place to do missionary work, at least during the summer. Once the tourist season dies down it's probably more normal. We talked to alot of foreigners that were there working again, though this time mostly from Belize. It was pretty cool. I had alot of fun in Springfield, too. There was one experience there in Springfield that was pretty cool. In the evening we went to go tracting in this apartment complex. Usually before we start knocking on doors we always say a short prayer, but we were in a hurry and so this time we didn't do that. (not a good step to skip...) Well we went in and talked to several people without any luck. There was one young family in particular that we talked to that seemed like they may have been interested, but basically said that they are too busy for us. The husband works full time and goes to school full time, so understandably they were pretty busy. She said that it was rare that he was even home on a Thursday night so they were going to spend time as a family. We continued on, but after a few more rejections we realized that we had never prayed, and decided to take the time to do that in a secluded corner of the complex. In my prayer I told Heavenly Father that we knew that there was a family who He had prepared to hear our message, and asked that He lead us to them. Well we didn't even get to knock on two more doors, when that woman we had talked to 10 minutes prior chased us down! Keep in mind that we are now 3 buildings down from where they live, in a secluded corner of the apartment complex. She came and found us though, and asked us to come back and teach them! She said that her husband had just told her that since he happened to be home that night she should invite us in so they could hear what we have to say. So she chased us down, and we went back and had a really great lesson. That was an awesome miracle. Friday and Saturday were a little slower with it being Labor Day weekend (in a small town like this with nothing to do, nobody sticks around for the long weekend. Most people were down at the lake...), but Sunday was a really good day. Church was awesome as usual, all 3 hours were really good, and Donald and Gary both came to church. Donald is still set for his baptism on the 20th, and Gary decided that night to be baptized on the 23rd! Both of their interviews will be this week. (Donald tomorrow, Gary Thursday) So it's been a pretty good week. Friday we also had interviews with the Mission President. When President Merkley instructed our District he told us about several changes he's going to be making that are very exciting. With what he talked about the work is going to really start taking off soon. I'm very excited. So thing here are going great, we're in for another hectic week with exchanges in Springfield again on Thursday, along with two baptismal interviews this week, but it's going to be a great week. Hope all is well at home, I love you!

Cold August

I've really fallen behind on posting Elder Goodale's letters. Following is the main letter (e-mail) he sent on August 31st.
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Hey family! How are you? Things are great here. Still basically the same. Except cold for August! The last two days early in the morning it's gotten down into the mid to high 40s. All last week highs were in the high 70s, and it's supposed to be the same way this coming week. On one hand I can't believe it's already cooling down, but on the other hand I'm not too surprised based on how cool the whole summer has been. Christopher was talking about how over in Georgia right now it's 100+ degrees with heat indexes of 110-115. Well that's how it usually is here too. All the locals kept saying all summer that this weather was unusual and that we were sure to get a heat wave soon, but it never came! And now it's already cooling down to where we have HIGHS in the 70s! Totally not typical for Missouri, but we're not complaining! I'm just worried that this might mean an extra cold winter...

Elder Goodale with Brother Robert Braccia

Elder Davis with Brother Braccia

Nothing really new here, though. We had 3 investigators at church yesterday: Gary Simmons, Donald Phillips, and Kevin Olsen. We're planning on setting baptismal dates this week with each of them, which will be exciting. It was Kevin's first time at church and he enjoyed it, Donald has come 3 of the last 4 weeks now, and actually over the last 2 weeks he has read the entire Book of Mormon! In two weeks! He's still not quite sure what he wants to do about baptism, he mainly just doesn't feel ready to take that step quite yet. He is though. This week we'll mainly just be trying to help him realize that. Alot of good work going on here, there will probably be a whole bunch of baptisms right after I leave, just like my last 2 areas...It's still exciting though.

Oh mom to answer your question about the temple, I won't get to go to the temple at all. About 2/3 of the mission is in the Oklahoma City Temple district, and the Springfield, Springfield South, and St. Robert stakes are in the St. Louis Temple district. Both of those temples are far too far away for us to be able to go. I'll have to wait until after my mission to go again. :(

That's it for this week. I love you! Have a great week!