Mickey Dees with a Hitching Post

It sounds like Elder Goodale is off to a strong start in his new area. He just transferred on Friday of last week. We also got a SD card from him last week; as soon as we ship Christopher off to Basic Training this evening, I'll start working on going through those photos and posting them. Here is his e-mail from just a few moments ago:

Hey! How's everything going? Life is great here! It's been a tough few days, but I really love this ward. Ava is a little tiny town of about 3000 people. My area is about 70 miles from east to west, and from the northern tip to the southern tip it's about the same distance. In spite of that huge distance, though, Ava is the biggest town in the area. There are only 2 towns in the whole ward boundary that have over 1,000 people. (the other is Seymour, which is about 20 miles north of Ava. It has about 1800 people. There are also a couple of Amish clans up there. When I went to Seymour I'm pretty sure it was the first time I've ever seen a McDonalds with a hitching post...) So most of the area is extremely rural. Everybody lives out in the country, including us. We live a couple miles out of town in the Bishop's barn. It's a pretty nice set up we've got here. The ward is amazing though. I was blown away at how strong it is. There were a good 200 people at church on Sunday! For a town this size, that is incredible. Especially considering the size of my last two wards. And the members are awesome too. They are all really supportive and will do just about anything we ask. There are a whole bunch that are transplants from California and Idaho. So it's a very good ward.

It's so beautiful out here, too! We're right in the middle of the Ozarks, and it's amazing how green everything is. It's a really beautiful area. And the most amazing thing is the fireflies! They are everywhere! I can't wait to bring you all out here during the summer so you can see them. As far as missionary work here, it's a little slow, but it'll get better. We don't really have any investigators to speak of right now, but that will change soon. We're working our butts off, and I'm sure before long our teaching pool will be back up to where it should be. We'll definitely need your prayers, though.

The truck we were given to drive

As far as my new companion, his name is Elder Brian Davis, and he's from Maple Valley, Washington. As I said last week I'm training, so this is his first area, but he's doing really well. He's a good missionary. We have a new mission president now, too. His name is President Merkley from American Fork, Utah. I haven't met him yet, he just barely got here. In fact I'm pretty sure President Seal flies home today. It will be sad to see him go, but I'm sure President Merkley will be awesome as well. Two weeks ago I got to have my last interview with President Seal, which was really neat. He gave each of us a blessing, so it was a pretty special experience. Well that's about all for this week! Keep praying for us, we need all the help we can get! I love you all!

Elder Davis and Elder Goodale

Springfield South District: Budden, Wall, Davis, Call, Goodale, Ewert

Transfer to Missouri

It was great to hear from Elder Goodale today. This week he is transferring to Ava, Missouri; check out his new snail mail address, below. Michelle thinks that "shotgunning" is where he's transferred in to a new area as the senior companion. But perhaps somebody can help us out with the lingo...

Happy Fathers Day!!! How was your Fathers Day? It's too bad you have to be travelling again. But it sounds like you all had a pretty good week at home! And it sounds like every one had some great experiences at EFY this week, which is awesome.

Bro. Gibson, E. Goodale

E. Kowalk, E. Goodale

Things here have been going really well, too. The area is just exploding! We had 8 more new investigators this week (but that's mainly because of this family of 6 that we just started teaching. Well, 7, but 6 of them are over 8. They were a referral from our Ward Mission Leader and they are amazing!) and we saw alot of other miracles this week as well. We worked our butts off and were able to jump 6 feet again! 40 lessons and 144 OTM's. We also had 8 investigators at sacrament meeting! That's the most I've had so far. It was an amazing week. We have set a goal of having 7 baptisms here in Miami over the next 2 months, and we've asked all of the members here to include that in their prayers to help us accomplish it. We're also getting alot better at using the members and getting them to help us out, so I know that that goal will be acheived. To be honest, it's very likely that the ward could surpass it and have 8 or 9 baptisms between July and August. The field is white here, it really is. The Lord has really been blessing us. But there is one unfortunate thing... I won't get to see the harvest! Transfer calls came Saturday, and I'm going to be getting transfered to Ava, Missouri. It's in the Springfield South stake, in south central Missouri. My new mailing address will be:

Rt. 1 Box 499-C
Ava, MO 65608

Starting today, just send my mail there. I can't believe I'm getting transfered already! I kind of saw it coming though. It'll be good. It's kind of funny because last week in my letter I was saying that I wish I could drive a truck, and now I'm going to one of just 3 or 4 areas in the whole mission that has one! So starting on Thursday I'll be driving a Chevy Colorado. I'm pretty pumped about that. Of course the reason for that is that Ava is a really rural, spread out area, and it's very mountainous as well. You pretty much need 4-wheel drive to get around there in some places. So that's going to be exciting. I'll be out in the backwoods again... Not to mention I'm being shotgunned in, so I'll have alot of fun trying to learn the area quickly. Pray for me! I love you!

Additionally, Elder Goodale wrote Michelle separately. Here is his e-mail to her:

Dear Mom,

How are you doing? How's summer going? Ours has been HOT! And from what we hear, this isn't even bad yet. It's going to be getting even hotter, though. Luckily I'm getting transfered to Missouri, where it will be a little cooler. This week their highs are only about 99, as opposed to 102 in Oklahoma. So it's a little better there... It'll be interesting to go to another really small town, though. From what I here this one is really, really small. Everywhere I've served so far has been small, with the biggest town I've served in so far being here in Miami (about 15,000), but Ava is the most rural one yet from what I'm told. I love small towns though. The only bad thing is that after you've been there awhile it feels like you've already talked to everyone. But the people are always great, I love the small town feel, plus I'm going to be training so there's very little chance I'll be there more than 3 months. That's the other exciting thing about all this - shotgun training. It will be tough, but exciting too. I'm really grateful for this opportunity because I know I will grow a TON. It will definitely force me to be even more obedient and work harder than ever before, and most importantly to rely on the Lord even more and turn it all over to Him. I've felt him carrying me many times before throughout my mission (especially at the beginning of this last transfer), so I know he will help me now too. It's going to be alot of fun. And of course I can't complain when I'm driving a truck. :) Please pray for me, I need all the prayers I can get. Continue to pray for success in Miami as well. It'll be sad leaving before all of these amazing people get baptized, but I know that everything will work out if we just leave it in the Lord's hands. I love you! Have an awesome week!

President and Sister Seal at their last zone conference.

Joplin Zone top (l to r) Paget, Smith, Anderson, Mellies, Dill, David, Babbit, Pack Bottom Taylor, Madsen, Ritshard, Dunkley, Richins, ?, me, Kowalk, Otterstrom. Front Wilsons, sister serving in Nevada, MO, Pres. and Sister Seal, 2 sisters serving in Nevada, MO and Elder Josephson

E-Mail to Mom

Elder Patterson (one of the AP's) and I

Here is another e-mail that Justin sent separately to Michelle this afternoon. It's really AMAZING how many people they are teaching!!! The reference to Christopher looking forward to the heat this summer will be his U.S. Army Basic Training at Ft. Benning, Georgia beginning June 30th (referenced here). And no... I was not familiar with "Chuukese," so I Wikipedia'd it and the link will take you there.

Dear Mom,

Thank you so much for your letters! I always really enjoy them. I think you and Mark are the only ones who have written my every single week so far, so thank you. Well maybe Steven has too, I don't remember. But thank you. It's good to hear that everything is going well.

Hunter and his mom

Things here are awesome. It really is a huge blessing to be able to teach so much. Especially, like I was telling Dad, to be able to be teaching so many families. It's been really easy to get the 40 lessons per week that our leaders have asked us to get. The tough part, though, is that we have enough people to teach that we could be teaching all day and probably be fine without having hardly any finding time. But the apostles have said that every companionship should talk to 20 people ("OTM's") every day, so we have to make sure to put in time to get that so we can be obedient to that commandment. It really is a blessing, though, because I know that there are thousands of missionaries out there who do nothing but tract and street contact all day, and we're struggling to find time to talk to 20 people a day. It's a problem I'm definitely not going to complain about. :) We've seen some major blessings from getting out and talking to everyone though. For instance, on Wednesday we were out walking around and OTM'ing (street contacting, for those who are relatively new. It stands for Open Thy Mouth. OTM also happens to stand for Oklahoma Tulsa Mission, or as we call it, Only True Mission) and we talked to this kid (he's 20) named Shawn on his porch. He said to come back the next day at the same time. We did, and taught him the first lesson. He was really into it and very readily agreed to be baptized when he finds out it's true. That was pretty cool, but that wasn't the end of the miracles. About half way into the lesson, his wife's friend Bridgette came over. (she thought Shawn's wife would've been home from work already, but she wasn't) So she sat down and we quickly reviewed what she missed then finished the lesson, and she was also really interested! Possibly even more than Shawn! She also accepted the baptism invitation.

Hunter and Bro. Gibson who baptized him

Then yesterday we went over to see Bridgette, and we were also able to teach her husband Carlos. She said that she hadn't thought he'd be very interested with his Catholic background, but it turned out he was, and he was really excited to read the Book of Mormon! So that's 2 new young couples that we started teaching this week (with 3 really young children between them). We were also able to OTM Bruce, and then went back and taught him and his wife Krystal on Saturday night. They're in their mid-20s, so that's 3 couples in their 20s that we started teaching this week, all of whom I honestly feel will end up getting baptized. It's really incredible how much the Lord has been blessing us.

Me with Hunter after his baptism. At the Gibson's house.

Everything else here is going great as well. On Friday I got to go on exchanges to Neosho, which is always fun, and we had some incredible storms this week, as did the rest of the country from what I hear. I love the thunderstorms out here. I'm going to miss those back in Idaho. The humidity that they bring is killer, though. Over the night we had our AC set at 68, and when we got up all of our windows were fogged up. I stepped outside (this was at 6:30 in the morning) and it was probably already in the 80s, with what had to be 100% humidity. It was just like a wall I walked in to when I went out. And then my glasses fogged up too! And it's supposed to get into the high 90s this week, so I'm not super excited for the weather this week. Once it gets to a certain point with the heat, nobody is outside either. Except for the Micronesians, but we can't get too far there since most of them don't speak English (or at least pretend not to) and we don't speak Chuukese. It'll be a fun week. Luckily we've got a car and a lot of people to teach so we won't be out in the heat too much. But Christopher has a lot to look forward to, spending the hottest, most humid part of the summer down in one of the hottest, most humid parts of the country. That will be fun... Well that's all for this week! I love you all!

Our District: Me, Otterstrom, Pack, Babbitt, Davis, Kowalk

Elder Kowalk

The Work Goes on in Miami (Oklahoma)

I'm sorry that I've fallen so far behind in updating Justin's blog. Rather than work backwards from a few weeks ago on up until today, I'll just post Justin's e-mail from today. He's doing great, and it's so good to hear from him!!!

Our district: Poulson (Monett, MO), Me, Conrad, Jones (Neosho, MO, Caresia (Monett), Gass (Neosho district leader)

Hey Dad! How are you doing? I guess I can forgive you for not writing last week, that's pretty cool that E3 is a big deal again now. I bet you're glad to be out of California though.

Conrad, Janice Essex, Me

Things here are awesome. I'm really glad I haven't had to have any really challenging companions like what you've described yet. Hopefully I never will. Yes, I get to drive now, and it's interesting. The roads here SUCK. They are horrible. It's my personal opinion that every area in Oklahoma should get a truck. And probably Arkansas too. Maybe it's just because I miss driving my truck, but I think we'd be much better off that way. As far as the work here itself, it's going great. We got 6 new investigators this week, and our teaching pool is just growing and growing. The most awesome part is that we're finding a bunch of young families, too. We're hardly teaching any individuals by themselves, which is a really cool thing.

Nathan, Me, Marci

Marci, Nathan, Me, Kowalk

We've got this awesome couple named Nathan and Marci who are in their early 20s and have 2 little kids. They live across the street from the church, which is pretty convenient, and Saturday night we did a chapel tour with them, which they really enjoyed. Then we walked back to their place and had a really spiritual lesson. Every time we go over they have tons of questions, and they keep getting more and more excited (at the very beginning they were a little standoff-ish because of some things they've heard) because they say that no other church has been able to answer all of these questions that they have. It's amazing how many people say that, and it's so great to be able to explain why. I love this gospel! I really love Ephesians Chapter 4, it explains so powerfully why Christ called his 12 apostles:

12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

Me, Karlee, Conrad

Christ set up his church so that we could be perfected in Christ (a process explained beautifully in Moroni 10:32-33), edified together, so that we could be united, to grow in knowledge, to become more Christlike, and so that we won't be "carried about with every wind of doctrine." That's why he set up his church then, and that's what his restored church offers today. And only HIS church can offer all of that in it's fulness. There is so much confusion in the world today (especially here in the Bible belt) and literally MILLIONS of unanswered or only partially answered questions. Lately I've really come to know what it truly means that we have a living prophet and 12 living apostles on the earth today - among the many blessings that that entails, one is that there are no unanswered questions. Twice just this week I've had people who told me that while their current church has helped them to believe, that's not enough any more. Because of things that have come up in their lives, they needed more. They needed to KNOW where we come from, where we're going, who God really is, and what all of that means to them. There is no greater feeling in the world, no greater blessing or privilege I could ask for, then the opportunity I had to tell them that because of the restoration of Christ's true church, and because He is still speaking today, through his prophets, that they can know. They don't have to doubt or worry any more. The answers are there. The truth is there, and I know that all who diligently seek will find it. I know that all this is true from the bottom of my heart, with every fiber of my soul. I LOVE this work! I love you! Have a great week!

Big moth. They have a lot of sweet bugs out here.