More Mighty Miracles

Dear Family,

     Wow, we saw a lot of miracles this week. It was a busy week, but it was definitely worth it. Tuesday was a pretty normal day, except we taught seminary so we had to get up at 5 am. I don't miss that... Seminary was a lot of fun and I'm really glad I went to seminary all 4 years, but I don't miss waking up at 5 one bit. Then Wednesday we had Zone Conference.

Elder Hirshfeld, Brother Holifield and Elder Goodale

President Merkley gave a really powerful talk on the Book of Mormon, and our instruction went pretty well too. I was pleased with how it went. After Zone Conference we lost Elder Robinson, though. Kind of a relief and also sad at the same time. He left with the Assistants after Zone Conference to go down to Ava, as I mentioned last Monday he was getting Emergency Transferred in there. He'll do good. It was tough being in a tri-panionship, so it's been nice since he left, but we miss him. After Zone Conference I went down to West Plains and spent the rest of Wednesday there as well as all of Thursday. I went back to St. Robert Friday morning. It was fun in West Plains, but a little rough too. They didn't have any set appointments (they had tried but couldn't get any) and even their dinner appointment canceled. We didn't teach a single lesson all day, which of course wasn't any fun, plus their car was in the shop so we were on foot all day. And it was pouring rain all day. Needless to say it was a difficult day... We got really wet. We were able to knock on a lot of doors though, and talk to a lot of great people. So it was good. Then Friday morning I got to wake up at 5 again and go teach seminary down in West Plains! Up to this point I'd only taught seminary one time my whole mission (way back in Miami) and this week I was asked to do it twice! In 2 different areas! It was fun. I'm going to skip Friday and Saturday (both good days), and just skip to Sunday, because that's when the biggest miracles happened! First off, we had 9 investigators at church, which was amazing! The whole Clewis family came (Rocky, Jessica, and 13 year old Austin. Plus 6 year old Rocky Jr., but he's not an investigator... The only thing holding them back from baptism is the husband. Jessica is ready whenever he is.), Shawn Jacobi was there,

Elder Hirshfeld

Wyteria with her 2 sons (we haven't taught the 2 kids before and didn't count them as investigators, but she's a new investigator we got Friday. She ended up walking out halfway through the meeting, but we ran into her today while shopping and I think we resolved everything. We were able to set up another appointment at least.), Amber Hook, Mickey, Gloria again (she's still set for baptism on April 10), and Danielle Smith all came. It was really cool. After church Shawn Botti, an 18 year old kid from the ward that just joined the church last year and is now getting ready for his mission, came out with us all day. It was the second Sunday in a row he's done it, which was cool. He's a cool kid and a lot of fun. In the evening we were able to have a really good lesson with the Clewis's, probably the best yet. As I said Rocky is really the biggest hold up, but lately he's been making a tiny bit of progress. He and Jeff Barretta, who we baptized a couple of months ago, are in the same platoon (in the army) and have started hanging out and working out together lately. Jeff's been working on him, so he's made a little bit of progress. Then we went and taught Danielle! Holy cow it was amazing! We could see a big difference in her today at church, like a physical difference. We knew she'd finally gotten her answer. It was just last Saturday that she tried to drop us and we had that really powerful lesson with Brother Norris, but we could feel such a huge difference in her yesterday. All the crazy stuff that's happened with her the last two weeks was just the trial she needed to help her realize that she knows it's true. She told us last night that she knows for sure now that it's true, and nothing can change that. So we asked her what's holding her back from baptism and her response was "Nothing. Let's do it!" So we set it for this Saturday between Conference sessions! We figured she's been taught everything, she's been to church plenty of times, why wait? I'm SO excited! It was such a huge miracle. So that's the biggest news this week. I'm really excited for Danielle's baptism, and Gloria's the following week. There's still a slight chance that Gloria's son Daniel (who's 24) will we baptized on the 10th as well, but it doesn't look too likely right now. We're going to keep trying though. We've got an awesome week coming up, it's going to be great. Have a great week! Welcome home Christopher! I love you all!

Love,
Elder Goodale