A Great Week

We had a great time talking to Justin on the phone on Christmas day - he sounded great!!! He's doing very well, and working very hard, teaching quite a few people. To the right here is a picture of us gathered around the speakerphone Thursday (Christmas) evening, and Michelle is holding her cell phone (also on speakerphone) up to our phone, and Bailey joined for part of the call, from her grandparent's home in St. George, UT.

Much of what we discussed on the phone is also posted below (his e-mail to us today, his Preparation Day):

Dear family -

This week was so amazing! You already heard a lot of this on the phone on Thursday, but I'll give it to you all again so you can send it out to everybody.

In some ways this week felt less effective because we only had a couple full days. Monday we had interviews with President Seal and exchanges with the Elders from Alma so that was only like a half day of work, then Tuesday we had preparation day (moved from Monday because of interviews), Wednesday was mostly normal except we didn't go back out after our dinner appointment because it was Christmas Eve, Thursday was Christmas and we didn't do anything, then we had our weekly planning session on Friday morning from 10 to 1. With church on Sunday, our only normal full day of work was Saturday. The time we had was awesome though!

Francis didn't come to church last Sunday (the 21st. He was there yesterday) so after church we went over to check up on him and see why he didn't make it out to church. It turned out he just slept in, but then we had a really sweet lesson with him. He's still been doing all of the reading we've been asking him to do and keeping all of those commitments, but we found out that he still hasn't prayed specifically about whether or not the Book of Mormon and our message are true. As it turned out, he was still scared to pray about it because even though he always feels really good when he reads the Book of Mormon and when we visit with him, he feels like if he prayed to find out if it was true he would be turning his back on everything he's done his whole life as a Catholic. To help him resolve that, we got down on our knees and prayed with him right there. First Elder Johnson prayed, then I prayed, then Francis prayed (in Spanish, which was cool). It was one of the most powerful spiritual experiences I've ever had. It was amazing. When we went back on Wednesday, we set a goal for him to be baptized January 4!!! The only bad thing is that he left Wednesday afternoon to go visit family for Christmas (understandable, of course), so we couldn't meet with him for the rest of the week. At church on Sunday, it seems that the bishopric didn't realize that our goal was just that - a goal. It wasn't set in stone yet just because we still had some concerns to resolve and some more things to teach him. They announced his baptism though, which they shouldn't have done, and it kind of scared him. After church we went over and we were able to smooth most of it over and things look pretty good. There's a good chance that the baptism won't happen until January 11, but it's definitely going to happen.

We also met this AWESOME kid named Kris as well. We've been talking to his mom, Kathy, and she was really nice and loved talking to us and her little kids really love us, but she doesn't ever keep commitments. The other day, though, we met Kris. He had spent a couple of days in jail for being drunk in public and some other stupid stuff he did while he was drunk in public, and he's really trying to turn his life around. He had gotten away from church, though, because he hated all the hypocrisy he saw in all of the churches he has attended. But he said that the very first time that he saw us out walking in the cold he knew we were good people and felt really strongly that he wanted to come to our church. As we've taught him the Spirit has been really strong in every lesson and he really really gets everything. He's amazing. It's really exciting teaching him. He didn't make it to church yesterday, and it seems like his mom had alot to do with that (we can't seem to figure out why), but he'll be there next week. We have also started teaching the Williams family, who are a really sweet family of 4 that is very very interested. They originally had ordered a Lamb of God DVD, but we messed up and brought them Finding Faith in Christ, which is ok because it's way better than the other one anyway... So now they have both of those and a Book of Mormon and they're amazing. We had a total of 10 new investigators this week! It's been great. We have seen a lot of very direct answers to our prayers this week and have really seen a lot of success. It was also so great to talk to you all on Thursday. It was really nice. I loved it. It was too bad hearing about BSU's loss and all the Angels bad fortunes, but it's alright, I guess... Boise State is still a very young team, and next year will be amazing. I also really loved all of your gifts! Thank you so much to everyone that has sent cards and gifts, I really appreciate it. We now have more food, and especially sweets, than we will ever know what to do with... The ward has fed us very well, and everyone sends food home with us too. After doing a really good job watching what I eat and everything the first 5 weeks of my mission, I've gained 10 pounds just in the last week... It's good though. And one nice thing is that it really warmed up over the last few days, so we were actually able to go running on Friday and Saturday morning and we felt a lot better after that. Thanks so much for all of your love and support and prayers for us, we've really felt it. The work is really moving forward here in Clarksville. Everybody stay good and healthy and remember to keep sharing the gospel with everyone you meet! It's the greatest gift you can give them! I love you!

Additionally, Michelle has been asking questions of Justin in her weekly letters to him, to help him maintain details of his mission journal. Below is an e-mail with his answers to her:

To answer your questions:

-We're in the Fort Smith, Arkansas stake -We have not had one inch of snow as of yet. Just ice.
-We live in Brother Kennelly's basement. He's 70 and his wife is 67 so while they do have 6 kids none of them are at home any more. It's just Brother and Sister Kennelly and Sister Kennelly's 90 year old mother, who is one of the coolest people on the planet.
-No we haven't had any weird food yet. We've eaten very very well, though.
-I covered our most promising investigators in my other email, and I'll let you know when those things change. John and the Hicks family both dropped us. We also have Lloyd, who is the man that was a member of the reorganized church. I didn't mention him in my other email, but he is really awesome too.
-Yes, we have to part our hair. And I'm kind of starting to like it...

That's so exciting that everything is working out for Dad's work! Hopefully some good things materialize next month in those meetings. I'll keep praying for it. I hope everything is going well at home. Hope everything is going well! It was great talking to you on Thursday! I love you!

Tough and Joyful Times

Elder Goodale's P-day this week got moved to Tuesday, so we just got his weekly update today. The "moving to Germany" reference is that Justin has heard that I interviewed in Germany. NO... we would not be relocating to Germany (I've explained that to Justin in a letter this week, which he hasn't received yet). Rather, if I get that job, I would continue to travel quite a bit between the U.S. and Asia.

For the fun of it, I'm posting a MTC photo of Justin, with he and his MTC companion (Elder Philips) pointing to where they're going (and where Justin is now). We look forward to speaking to Justin on Christmas day!!! His e-mail from today is below:

Hey everybody! So are you all moving to Germany? You keep hinting at this job but nobody's ever said anything for sure yet. I need to know what's going on! That would be way crazy if you had to move out there. Sounds like a good job though. Yeah everything worked out with my wallet. Hopefully I get my card soon! And yes I got Grandma's packages. Yesterday I just got your package too. Sorry I couldn't email you yesterday, the President came down for interviews so we had to move our preparation day to Tuesday. Things are still going well here. We aren't having quite as much success as when we first got here. It's a poor area, so everyone is really humble and willing to listen, but they've also all been on welfare their whole life and so they're lazy and won't keep commitments or change anything in their life. That's not everyone though. There have been some frustrating one's like that, but there are alot of really awesome people here too. Like Francis! Things are going so well with him! We're totally setting a baptismal date with him tomorrow. We have a couple of other awesome investigators too that are really progressing. As I'm sure you could tell this week's been alot harder then the last couple. Since we were the first missionaries here in awhile all we were doing at first was seeing less active and part-member families and spending alot of time trying to find people to teach, and it's been alot harder this week seeing people choose to reject it and trying to help those new investigators progress. It's been been alot more frustrating and sometimes kind of discouraging seeing these people who seemed so awesome when they first let us in choosing to reject it. As I've been teaching the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone I meet (dozens of times a week) my testimony of it's importance and my love for this gospel have grown so much, and it's really hard when people choose not to accept it. We're still having alot of success though and I am really really enjoying things out here. It totally makes up for all of that when we get someone like Francis or Kathy who feels the spirit and responds to it and is so willing to accept things. I really am loving everything out here. I'm eating really well (sometimes too well. I've already gained 5 pounds...) and people here are so nice and I'm really loving it. I can't wait to talk to you all on Christmas!

Bro. Booth, one of the Brother Schuborth's and mee. Whis is when Bro. Booth's car broke down and we had to push it on the trailer.

It was nice that we found that hill to back the trailer up to. It was the perfect height to push the car right on. We were really very blessed.

Car washing

Pics from Justin

Justin has a digital camera with him on his mission, and four SD cards. What we've arranged is for him to send home one of the SD cards occasionally, and that we'll prepare and post his photos. Justin also prepared a simple one-sheet description of what each photo is - it was great; I hope he can maintain that the whole two years!

We got his first SD card this week, and it contains mostly shots from the MTC. Here you'll see posted a shot of Justin's MTC district, with one of Justin's instructors, Brother Yao (is squatting immediately to Justin's right).

Also herein is a shot of Justin with his mission president and his wife, President and Sister Seal. This was taken at the Oklahoma Tulsa mission home, right when he arrived in Tulsa from the mission field.

There we also two videos on the card, of elders being silly (I'm sure sister missionaries never get silly, eh?!). :-) They decided that they would see how many elders they could fit in to a closest. Their experiment, caught on digital video, shows SEVEN!!! I'm amazed by the video, embedded below from Flickr.

Anyway, to view all the pictures he sent (almost 60), please click here to see them on Facebook, or please click here to see them on Flickr.

Busy in Clarksville

Below is the e-mail we got from Elder Goodale on Monday (December 15th). It sounds like he's really in a rural area, and loving it! If you get a chance, I'm sure Justin would love receiving lots of Christmas cards (see the posting last week for his address).

Hey everybody! Things are going great here in Clarksville! We are finding new investigators left and right, this new area was so ready for the gospel. We actually had 8 investigators who committed to come to church yesterday! (including a really close family of 4, which is every missionaries dream) Granted only one showed up... That will change though. We've got the Hicks family we are teaching and they are way cool and really good people who will progress very quickly once we're able to address some small concerns they have (hopefully they'll come to church on Sunday because that would really help), and this guy from the Marshall Islands (we actually had to get him a Marshallese Book of Mormon cuz he doesn't read English) named John who's also way cool. Things are moving slowly because there is a slight communication barrier but he loves meeting with us and reads everything we ask him to read, now we just need to get him to pray about it so he can get a testimony. We are also teaching this woman who is a single mother of 6 (though one died and her two older sons that are 22 and 18 are both in prison) who has had a really really tough life but she is awesome and I love her 3 younger kids. I can't wait til she starts coming to church regularly and reading from the Book of Mormon so that she can recieve the blessings that come from that. Finally we are teaching this hispanic guy named Francis who just moved here from New Jersey, though he's originally from Guatemala (I think). He has this really good friend from McCall, Idaho (he met her when she was down in Guatemala teaching English) and she was here this weekend and helped us teach him and got him to come to church again (for the 3rd time). He's way cool and I think he'll be baptized really soon. We're also teaching this 15 year old kid named Mark who is really cool and really interested in the church. The only problem is that his family is crazy (they are supportive of him learning about the church and stuff, they are just crazy and make it hard for him to do much of anything) and it makes it hard to meet with him. His uncle, however, is the 2nd counselor in the bishopric. He has a really cool conversion story himself and he's the one who referred us to Mark. That will help. So as you can see after barely a week here (as the first missionaries in 6 years here) we are already seeing lots of success, and are looking forward to even more. From what I've heard we've had TONS of success considering that this is our first week in a brand new area. We haven't really done anything, either. The Lord really prepared the people here for us to come.

Speaking of the Marshall Islands, that reminds me of something that Brother Menasco told me in the MTC that I meant to tell you all. Remember in Hawaii how we were wondering about whey there were all those wild chickens everywhere? Well apparently it's because they used to do a ton of chicken farming there, but a hurricane destroyed all the pens, letting the chickens free. Now they run wild everywhere. Anyway...

We're totally in the Ozarks here. I was kind of wondering whether we were because the town of Ozark, Arkansas is in my area (one of like half a dozen small towns we cover. It's probably the biggest besides Clarksville) and the University of the Ozarks is in Clarksville. I just wasn't sure because I hadn't actually seen any mountains... Lots of hills but no mountains. There are a couple of bigger hills, though, and I could see how people from the Midwest and South could mistake them for mountains. They need to go out to Idaho... But some of them are actually bigger than I thought though. Because of all the hills and trees everywhere it was hard to tell how big this one was until we drove up it to visit someone. We had a lot of fun on those horribly maintained dirt roads up the mountain in our little Malibu... I still wouldn't really call it a mountain though. But it was still tough. And we totally almost hit a deer on the way down! At night there are deer EVERYWHERE because so much of it is all forest and stuff, and it was dark by the time we came down the mountain. On the way we saw this deer way in front of us LAYING DOWN in the bushes (actually off the road) on the opposite side of the road. We were watching it carefully, and of course when we were within 50 feet the stupid thing freaked out and it jumped up and darted all the way across the road and in front of our car. We missed it by about 6 inches. It was so scary. Other than that there hasn't been anything too exciting though... Things are going great here. I can't wait to call you in 10 days! I love you!

Love,
Elder Goodale

Our district 2/25/2009. E. Lechausse (Greenwood), E. Osmond (ZL Ft. Smith), Me, E. Johnson, E. Patterson (ZL Ft. Smith), E. Brady (Alma), E. Goold (Alma), E. Brimhall (Greenwood)

Elder Goodale in London

OK... not THAT London, and not actually in London, itself, but that's where his mailing address is. But it makes for a good headline, doesn't it? :-) It sounds like he's doing really well. Well here... I'll let you read for yourself (the e-mail we received from Justin today):

Hey everybody! I'm totally loving my first area! I'm guessing you haven't yet received the letter I sent you on Saturday, so here's my address again:

518 County Road 2731
London, AR 72847

I'm not actually in London though. We live with a member (we actually live with the ward mission leader, which is pretty cool and very convenient) out in the country. It's a pretty nice setup. The only bad thing is that we live about 20 minutes outside town, and so we're for sure going to go over our monthly mileage allotment. At least we have a car, though. Our mission has one of the lowest accident and ticket rates in the church, and so because of that they keep giving us more cars. In our mission we have 77 companionships and 59 vehicles, which is pretty awesome. Regardless though, we would have a car, cuz the area we are in is really rural. We're serving in the Clarksville ward, which was a branch up until a few months ago, and the ward boundaries cover at least half a dozen small towns, the biggest of which is Clarksville. It has about 8,000 people, and it seems huge compared to the rest of them. It's kind of funny because we're a London mailing address (because London is the closest city to where he lives) but London isn't even in the same county and is actually outside our mission boundaries. (we found that out the hard way. Don't tell President Seal...) We're totally out in the Arkansas backwoods though. Totally redneck country. It's crazy. It's nice though because everybody we meet is Christian and has a strong belief in God, even if they don't go to church. All we have to do is let people see that we have the full, restored gospel of the Christ that they love so much, which I think is alot easier than teaching all atheists would be.

Elder Johnson

Elder Johnson and I on our first day together, right after we met

 It's kind of scary though, because we're opening a brand new area! Clarksville hasn't had full time missionaries (besides one crazy senior couple a couple years ago) in like 6 years. But Brother Kennelly, the ward mission leader, is awesome. They actually had a baptism yesterday, and they haven't even had missionaries! This area is SO ready though! That's why they shotgunned us in here. (when you open a new area we call it getting shotgunned in) This city is ready to explode. Right off the bat we had a couple of potential investigators to check up on; John, who is from the Martial Islands, and Francis, from Mexico (they both live in the same really really low income apartment complex). They actually turned out to be really cool and ready to receive our message. Francis actually has a good friend who lives in McCall (Idaho) who introduced him to the church, and he's thinking about moving out to the Boise area sometime soon. But we'll baptize him before that happens... As we've gone around tracting and meeting people we've found at least 3 people that the Lord has really been preparing for when missionaries came back to Clarksville. We were able to answer all of their questions and concerns and they seemed really interested in our message. In just two days here we've found like 6 new investigators and several more potential investigators. The Lord really has been preparing Clarksville, and we've seen lots of miracles already. The only bad thing (well not the only bad thing. But one of the worst things) is that EVERYBODY here smokes. Everyone. Alot. We just have to go into one house and we smell like smoke the rest of the day. It sucks. Luckily the gospel can help them all with that too...

My companion, Elder Johnson (from Orem, UT) is awesome. He seemed a little quirky right at first, but I love him now. The more I've gotten to know him I've seen that in alot of ways we are really really similar. He also had lots of the same troubles and trials and concerns when he first came out that I had my first couple days and he was great helping me through those, often times without even knowing it as he just shared his own experiences. He's an amazing teacher and has so much faith and I think that's why we've had so much success. We get along really great too. He's an awesome trainer.

I love being out here so much! I love teaching real people (unlike the MTC) and feeling the spirit so strongly in those environments. Even though we haven't met with anyone more than once or taught anyone anything beyond the 1st lesson, (the restoration of the gospel and the priesthood) it's really great feeling the spirit as we teach and seeing the spirit touch them and help them accept what we're teaching. I keep thinking of the friends I've had that have come into the church and been baptized and how great it felt seeing them come unto Christ and making those changes in their lives and seeing how the gospel has blessed their lives, and I'm so excited to help all these other people experience the same thing! And I'm way excited to be in a new area that is SO ready for the gospel. Love you all!

Love,
Elder Goodale

Arkansas River

Call from SLC

This morning Justin had a 6:30am flight from SLC to Atlanta, where he will have a two-hour layover to connect to Tulsa. Having heard that missionaries can call from the airport, we sent him a calling card, and he used that to call home from a pay phone (yes... they still have those!) this morning. It was really great to hear from him!

It was good to hear his voice, and it sounds like he is doing really well. He loved the MTC and had some great experiences there. He is excited, though, to get out and to start serving, and to start teaching "real people" (as he says it - I guess the people in the MTC aren't real). :-)

Justin said that they got a letter from the Tulsa mission president yesterday, and that they will actually spend a couple of days in the mission home before being assigned to their first areas on Friday. I'm sort of glad he'll still be in the mission home on Thursday, because I believe that's when our Sunday letters will get to the mission home, so he'll get those before he heads out to his first area.

Speaking of letters, we've already established the tradition that each member of our family writes him a letter on Sunday afternoon. Then we put them all together and mail them out in one envelope on Monday. Justin loves getting mail, so please feel free to write to him.

He told us that he took about 60 pics with his digital camera while in the MTC. As soon as he gets settled in his first area, he's going to send us the SD card with the photos on it. I look forward to seeing/posting those!

The new missionaries with President and Sister Seal

The new missionaries with President and Sister Seal and the assistants.

Thanksgiving at the MTC

We just got an e-mail from Justin, and it sounds like he's doing great. It's hard to believe that on Wednesday, already, he'll be heading out of the MTC and out to Oklahoma (or wherever they'll send him when he gets there). Just check out the puns/jokes in the e-mail below. I hereby officially apologize to the world for giving him my sense of humor! Here is Justin's e-mail:

You guys scared me with that surgery thing! I got your letter before I had a chance to check my email, so when you said Steven had a successful surgery I had no idea what you were talking about and I was a little worried. I'm glad he's doing well though. I can't believe I only have one more day in the MTC! Soon I'll be teaching real people! I can't wait! I'm a little nervous, but I feel ready. I've learned so much since I've been here. I'm so excited to get out in the real world.

Thanksgiving was really good. The dinner itself wasn't anything special because all they had was turkey and since I've been raised to believe that turkey is fowl, I didn't eat too much... Dinner was still fun though, because two of the Elders in our district had a pretty epic eating contest that was really fun to watch. And of course the Idaho boy (Idaho Falls, to be exact) won. :) The other Elder was from Phoenix. The rest of the days activities were really great. We had a huge service project in which we made 10,000 first aid kits that were sent to hurricane victims in Cuba and Haiti and that whole area. It was cool too because as Zone Leaders, Elder Phillips and I had a pretty big role in organizing the whole thing. Other than that there isn't really too much to talk about. All we do is sit in class all day... Oh and mom you asked for my favorite scripture on missionary work and it would probably have to be D&C 84:90. This is what the Lord told the first missionaries He sent out - "And he who feeds you, or clothes you, or gives you money, shall in nowise lose his reward." Just kidding. :) I really like D&C 15:6 and Mosiah 28:3. Those are both good ones. Well that's all for now! Thanks for the pictures and all the letters you've sent! I can't wait to hear from you again! I love you!

Me making first aid kits on Thanksgiving. I was running that table and totally wasn't ready for the picture.

Justin quoted Doctrine and Covenants 84:90, so I won't list that here, but here are the other two scripture references (linked above, but also posted below):

Doctrine and Covenants 15:6. And now, behold, I say unto you, that the thing which will be of the most worth unto you will be to declare repentance unto this people, that you may bring souls unto me, that you may rest with them in the kingdom of my Father.

Mosiah 28:3. Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble.

For those of you who have asked, "Why is Justin going on a mission?," those two scriptures explain his feelings pretty well. I know that he will find great joy and satisfaction in his missionary service, along with some difficult times, as well. In this regard, Alma 36:21 sum up how I felt about my mission to Nagoya Japan oh-so-many-years-ago, and I bet Justin will find this, as well, "Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy."

Now that Justin has left the MTC, please be sure to write him at his mission address:

Elder Justin Michael Goodale
Oklahoma Tulsa Mission
5215 E 71st Street, Suite 300
Tulsa, OK 74136