Autumn in Stockton

Elder Goodale's e-mail of October 19, 2009:
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Stockton Lake

Hello!!! How is everybody doing? It's exciting that Christopher got to come home this last weekend. It sounds like everyone really enjoyed his visit. Are you all getting excited for the haunted house now? Just a couple of weeks! I can't wait to see pictures, it just keeps getting bigger and better every year. That's always super fun.

So how is everything else going? Is school going well for everybody? How cold is it there? Here it started cooling down earlier that usual and it was getting down into the mid-30s every night, a couple of nights it even froze. And during the day it wasn't getting above the mid to high 40s. Usually that doesn't happen in Missouri for another month or so... But it's warmed up a little bit this weekend. I hear tomorrow it will get up to 74! But then it will start cooling down again, probably for good this time... Which is good. I love the fall. It's one of my top 4 favorite seasons... I'm really glad that I got sent somewhere that actually has all 4 seasons.

The work has been going really great here. This week we had 14 new investigators! It was a really great week. Only two of those were here in Stockton, though. Most of them were up in El Dorado, a town of 4000 about 22 miles north of here. There is so much work to be done up there. Then 5 of our new investigators were from the polygamist colony about 10 miles out on J Highway. It's cool out there in the woods, probably the prettiest part of our area... And there are alot of great people out there who would make really great members if they could just give up the extra wives. It's been really interesting though, learning all about their beliefs and everything. I've learned a ton. Believe it or not, it actually makes alot of sense... Just kidding. :) As I've studied for how to work with them, I've also learned alot about Priesthood Keys and Church organization and the importance of all of that. It's been a really neat experience. Nothing else really new to report, though. Everything is still going great, it's been awesome really getting the work going here and seeing the ward get so excited. We've been working alot with the Bishop to get a new, up to date ward mission plan into effect, and really get everything going even more. We've been super busy though. But we've been seeing so many miracles every day! It's been incredible. We know that you are praying for us, we can definitely feel it. Thank you, and keep it up! Have a great week! I love you!!!

Elder Goodale's e-mail of October 12, 2009:
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Stockton Lake

Hey everybody! We had another awesome week! Thursday was Zone Conference, and I learned so much. It really got me pumped up for the rest of the transfer. There's so many things I need to improve on, I'm really excited to make those changes too. Hopefully I don't let the excitement wear off and slack on those things that I've committed to do better. Then Friday we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders, who are in Springfield 1st ward. I always love going on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I learned a ton there too. The rest of the week was great too. Since we're both brand new here and the area was closed for a little bit, we're trying to get into every single home on the ward list, both active and less-active. It's been tough with such a huge, spread-out area, (the 3 major towns are Stockton, where we live, El Dorado, which is 22 miles north, and Greenfield, which is 22 miles south. There are a lot of spots in our area that are even more spread out than that) but we've been having a good amount of success with it.

Stockton Lake

Our purpose is kind of 3-fold: helping us get to know the members (and re-activating the less-actives), helping the members get to know us, and helping the ward get excited about missionary work again. One thing we're trying to do with each active family is to help them create their own family mission plans, with specific goals for how many people they're going to talk to each week, how many copies of the Book of Mormon they can give out as a family, picking a date that they will have a referral for us by, and other goals like that. Then also making action plans for those goals. Generally we just start the mission plan with them, then commit them to finish it as a family during family home evening or some other time during the week. We just started doing that this week, so we haven't seen any fruits from it yet, but I have confidence that we will. Otherwise the Spirit wouldn't have prompted us to do it... This coming week we're also going to be sitting down with the Bishop and Ward Mission Leader and laying the groundwork for a ward mission plan as well, since they don't really have one. I'm pretty excited about that, I know we're going to have tons of success from this. Please pray for us that we'll be able to accomplish all of these goals. Thanks! I love you!

Our District plus the ZLs and APs (Robinson (Willard), Me, Moxon, Schofield (Aurora), Jensen (AP), Raleigh (Aurora), Meteer (ZL), Hancock (ZL Springfield)