Busy with Splits & Baptisms

Dear Family,

We had another really great week. It was super busy, though, with 3 exchanges again this week. Tuesday I got to go to Salem, which was alot of fun. (it's a tiny little town out in the middle of nowhere, just like Ava or Stockton. Except not quite as small as those two towns...) Then Wednesday we were both back in St. Robert, but not together, because we were on exchanges with the Assistants. I got to be with Elder Conrad again for the day which was a lot of fun. If you remember we served together in Miami last April/May back when we were both really young missionaries, before either one of us were in leadership. Now I'm a Zone Leader and he's an Assistant, so things are way different then when we were together. It was a lot of fun remembering the good old days back when we didn't have any responsibility (and we were so young we really didn't know what we were doing...) we just went out and worked hard! And had a lot of fun doing it. We had so much fun together. So this Wednesday was alot of fun being together again. It definitely made me feel old though, realizing that it was almost a full year ago that we served together. Thursday we were on exchanges again, Elder Hirshfeld went to Eldon for the day. Wow I just realized that I totally had that backwards. He went to Eldon on Tuesday, and I was in Salem on Thursday. I had them switched. These days all my days just run together. I never know where I am... We also had interviews with President Merkley on Thursday, which I always enjoy. Transfer calls are coming up on Saturday, but he wouldn't give us any hints about what's happening. We've already been together 2 transfers though, so I'm guessing that most likely Elder Hirshfeld will be leaving next week. The best part of the week was Saturday though, when Tamela and Daniel Bennett got baptized!!!

I know I've already talked about Tamela, but I don't know if I've mentioned her 9 year old son Daniel before. He's an awesome kid. We've been teaching him along with her, but for some reason he just hasn't wanted to get baptized. He wouldn't do it, and we couldn't figure out why. But Tamela wanted to go ahead with hers on February 27th, and just hope that he would come around later. Well Friday (the day before the baptism) we pulled up to their house and Daniel was outside playing with some friends. So we called him over to the car and he ran right over (he loves us) and we asked him "so Daniel, are you going to get baptized with your mom tomorrow?" And he was just like, "Sure!" We were shocked! It was pretty amazing. So we told him to go inside and tell her, and she just ran outside crying, she was so excited. She is SO excited about the gospel and she was so happy that he had decided to be baptized. Meanwhile while he was inside telling her, we called our District Leader in Salem and asked him if he could come down that night and do the interview. He was very flexible and came down on very short notice to do the interview, which we really appreciated. Daniel was totally ready, since we'd been teaching him too, he just needed to be interviewed. The coolest part, though, was that we had to leave to go to a couple appointments before the interview and while we were doing that Tamela, who had just had her own baptismal interview the day before, took about an hour and sat down with Daniel and very thoroughly went over all of the interview questions to help him make sure he was ready. So then Saturday they were both baptized! And confirmed on Sunday. It was one of the best baptismal services I've been to on my mission, too. It was really awesome. I really love that family, it sucks they are moving to Tennessee soon. When we come back to tour the mission, we'll have to make a little detour to Tennessee (only 5-6 hours from here...) to see them too. So it was a great week. We also saw the Riveras last night, and they are all set for their baptism this Saturday! Their interview is on Wednesday. They are totally ready too. Marcos (the 14 year old) even brought a friend to church yesterday! His name is Juan, and he's really cool. We taught him at the Riveras home last night. So everything is still going great here! I hope everything is going well for you as well. Thanks so much for all the letters and constant updates on what's goin' on at home, I love it! I love you all, have a great week!

Love,
Elder Goodale