New Area / Pictures

It was great to hear from Justin today; his e-mail below. We also received another digital camera card from him this past week. To the right here is one of those pics, of he and Elder Hirshfeld, taken back on April 21st. In the text of Justin's e-mail, below, is also a pic of his St. Robert district, taken July 14th. Then at the end of this posting are two videos that Justin took of the awesome storms they get in that area. To see all 34 photos and vidoes, check them out on Flickr.
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Dear Family,

     Hey everybody! How's your week been? Things are great here. Joplin 1st Ward has been a little slow for awhile now, but we've been working hard and have a lot of things going for us. We did set one baptismal date this week, her name is Maria, she's a member referral, she's 19. We are hoping to set a couple more dates this week as well. We've got a lot of building up the area still to do but things are going pretty well so far. We work really well together, and we've been laying the groundwork for a lot of great things to happen really soon. In answer to your questions about tri-panionships, it is pretty rare. It only happens when there are an odd number of missionaries in the mission, there will be one group of 3. So there is never more than one. There have been 3 or 4 times lately when there is an odd number so President Merkley has had a pair of Zone Leaders train one of the new missionaries coming out, so I've been lucky and have had that opportunity twice. Then this time there was an odd number and President Merkley just decided to have an extra Zone Leader I guess. So Elder Anders and I are kind of training Elder Day as a new Zone Leader. I'm guessing that a big part of it was that next transfer there are a whole bunch of Zone Leaders going home, so this way he doesn't have to call a huge number of new ones all at once. I don't know though. But yes, I have been extra lucky. You never know what you're going to get with President Merkley. :) Crazy stuff always happens when you're in leadership too. It's pretty exciting. :)

     That's just about everything... oh except that the 3 of us spoke this Sunday. Elder Day got up and spoke about the Restoration, then I gave a talk about the Book of Mormon (which I thought went well - I told the story of Jim Bird, the truck driver I told you all about a few months ago, and what effect the Book of Mormon had on him, and like everybody was crying. Including me. I love that story) then Elder Anders talked about Doctrine and Covenants section 4. The 3 of us had the whole Sacrament Meeting. Then next Sunday we are having a ward fast for missionary work. I think this was a great idea by Bishop Hoffman, it was a really good meeting, it built member trust a lot, and with the fast next week I'm really excited to see the work take off here. It'll be good. I hope you all have a great week! I love you!

Love,
Elder Goodale
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 Here's a video Justin took during one of their awesome storms.

And another one.