Amazing Three Transfers

(April 19, 2010)
Dear Family,

Hey! How are you! Sorry I'm emailing you so late, Elder Hirshfeld and I went out to Brother Stith's place today and went fishing. He has a couple of stocked lakes on his property, it was alot of fun. The weather has cooled down a little bit, so it was perfect today. It was really beautiful. The weather has been great. Not enough storms (nothing compared to last spring) but later this week we might get some good storms to make up for that.

So the biggest news this week is that Elder Hirshfeld is getting transferred! After 4 1/2 months together we're finally getting separated. It's been such an amazing 3 transfers. I've had a lot of fun. But he's going down to Branson now, and next transfer should be a lot of fun. Elder Ewert, from Modesto California, is coming in to replace him. I've worked with him a lot before because the 3 months I was in Ava, he was my District Leader. If you look back at my Ava pictures, in one of our district pictures all of us are standing up in a line holding up one Elder in front of us, he's kind of laying across us (see pic posted here). That's my new companion. That call came Saturday night, then Sunday morning right before church started President Merkley called again and asked if we'd be willing to train again! It's so hectic being a Zone Leader and training at the same time.

Elder Ewert will be a brand new Zone Leader too, so it'll be doubly exciting! Elder Ewert is a stud though, a far better missionary than I am, so I'm not worried. This will be my 4th time training! Isn't that nuts? I can't believe it.

Elder Ewert

Things around here are really picking up, really throughout the zone. President Merkley has been making alot of changes since he got here 10 months ago, and they are all starting to finally pay off. It's crazy because the last month of President Seal's mission, last May, we had 117 baptisms, which was a new mission record. Well the highest we've had since then is 68, I think. Usually it's around 40-50. It's weird because I've never met anyone who is so inspired and so in tune with the Spirit as President Merkley, and I would've thought that all these changes would have made a bigger impact. Well Satan was fighting it super super super hard, but it seems like as a mission we've finally overcome many of the obstacles that satan was putting in our path. Even just the last two weeks we've seen monumental leaps in performance and in key indicators, in every single area in our zone and throughout the mission. As we've studied it it's very obvious that it's a direct result of those changes that he's been trying to implement. It's exciting. Well that's all I've got time for right now. I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Goodale