AP Splits & Mileage

Dear Family,

Oral Roberts University Tulsa, OK

     Hey! A tornado in Boise? That's crazy! I can't believe it! Was it a pretty impressive storm? Out here whenever we have tornadoes they are always part of huge storms with lots of thunder and lightning and hail and all that fun stuff. Did you get all that too? I love those big storms, that's one thing I'll really miss when I leave my mission.

How was the rest of your week? Wikipedia entry / city profile entry), about half an hour away, to see Rose Carter, who was baptized my first month here. She's been struggling lately because her boss won't let her have Sundays off, so she hasn't been to church in a while now. We had a great lesson with her, then we went to try to contact some of the part-member families in the Dixon area. Elder Ewert and I have really been working that list hard lately, that's really been our main focus. It's hard though because even though Dixon is such a small little redneck town out in the middle of nowhere, over half of our part-members live out there! And we very rarely get to work that area. Elder Anderson and I had a lot of success out there though. We found several that aren't too interested, a couple that aren't there any more, and a few that are really friendly, really great families. The most promising one was the Eshke's. Sister Eshke is in her 30s, and according to our records her husband is not a member, and they don't have any kids. They live REALLY far out in the sticks, even by Dixon standards, but we were glad we were able to find it. Sister Eshke was a little stand-offish at first, but as we talked to her and kind of built a relationship she really opened up to us a lot and ended up being really friendly and pretty cool. We also found out that she's divorced now, but she does have three kids- 17 year old son Cody, 15 year old daughter Sierra, and 12 year old son Tyrel. She let us in to talk to the kids and they are awesome! They are great kids, really smart, and they all want to be baptized. It's amazing how much success we've found using the part member list.

Oral Roberts University

At the same time that we were there, Elder Ewert was back in St. Robert and he finally got in contact with a family that ended up having a 16 year old daughter who isn't baptized but wants to be. Most of what we've found so far is just kids, actually mostly teenagers, but they need the ordinance of baptism just as much as anybody else! I've never worked with kids and teenagers and stuff on my mission, I've mostly only taught adults, so this is a new but very good experience. It's really interesting because a couple weeks ago we were praying about a goal for baptisms and Elder Ewert said he felt very strongly that he should set a goal of 19 before he goes home at the end of August. That's 2 transfers, or 3 months. I felt very good about it as well, so that's what we're working towards. Of course that's an unheard of number for our mission, a lot of Elders won't even get that their whole mission, but that's what we felt impressed to work towards and with all of these part members, it's going to happen. One prompting I did receive while I was praying about it a few days ago was that if we just stay in St. Robert and Waynesville, that goal isn't going to happen. It simply won't happen. The Spirit told me that if we want to see that kind of success that we need to branch out to the other towns, most notably Dixon and Crocker. St. Robert and Waynesville are right next to each other, St. Robert is right out the main gate of Fort Leonard Wood and Waynesville is right out the West gate. Most of our work has always been there, because of mileage constraints we've hardly touched those other towns (which are pretty far away). But we're going to start spending more time out there so pray for us that we'll be able to continue to have success in those areas.

Praying Hands

Friday morning we went and taught Amanda Magoon, who is still just waiting until her husband gets home from deployment before she can be baptized (which will be in July) and had a really good lesson with her and were able to resolve a lot of her concerns, then we went to teach the Taylor family. I'm so excited for them, they are really starting to progress. We've been teaching the mom Nicole, and their 3 kids: Philip, who's 15, Kimmy, who's 12, and Hunter, who is 7. They are really progressing well and falling in love with the church, the only real hold back is that her husband, who is deployed in Iraq, is pretty against the church. He's seen how much we've done for his family, though, and the changes they've made, and I think he's softened quite a bit. Please also pray hard for them. The biggest key is getting them converted enough and involved in the ward enough that when dad gets home from Iraq on July 10 (Andrew's birthday!!!) that he won't want to pull them away from it. Please pray that that will happen and that his heart will soften enough that he will be willing to listen when he gets home. We really need lots of prayer with this one. They are a really great family that will really make awesome members.

We taught them the Plan of Salvation Friday morning and that went well, then we raced off to Tia and Brother Spaulding's wedding. (she's the one who was baptized two weeks ago). That went really well, then we had to go to our apartment to get picked up by Elder and Sister Maughan (the senior couple assigned to Fort Leonard Wood) to go to Tulsa. A member in the Rolla ward let us borrow her van, and the whole district (us, the Maughans, the Sisters in Rolla, and the Elders in Salem) carpooled down there together. We stayed in members homes in Owasso (a suburb of Tulsa) Friday night, then Saturday morning we got to go to a special meeting with Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles! That was really special, we all got to go meet him and shake his hand and everything, which was a really cool experience. We also met Elders Garret W. Gong and Richard J. Maynes from the first Quorum of the 70, and heard them speak. It was a really amazing experience.

Then yesterday was church, and now we're here. This will actually be a full week of missionary work, so I'm excited. I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Davis, Elder Jamison, Sister Tailor, Sister Hill, Elder Goodale, Elder Ewert

We had an awesome week. Thursday the Assistants were here to come on exchanges with us, I was with the new Assistant Elder Anderson. He's awesome. We've served around each other before and we both became Zone Leaders at the same time so over the last 6 months that I've been here we've gotten to know each other pretty well. He's a lot of fun and a great missionary. We took advantage of the unlimited miles the Assistants have in their car and went out to Dixon.

Love,
Elder Goodale

Oral Roberts University

Oral Roberts University

Oral Roberts University

Praying Hands

Praying Hands