Creek 1; Car 0

Following are two e-mails we received from Elder Goodale this past Monday, November 9th. The first one a general e-mail to the family, and the second one to Mom answering some of her questions. Separately, he was commenting to me about some of the small towns in his area. In his area there are 5 or 6 towns with a population of less than 400. He has considered going around taking pictures of all the small town signs posted. He said that in the town of Arcola the population is the same as the city's speed limit: 45. :-)

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One of the bigger areas we cover

Hey everybody! Sounds like the haunted house was a huge success this year! It sounds like those new things you incorporated were pretty popular and would have been pretty cool to see. And 12 people wet their pants this year! That shatters anything we've done in previous years, doesn't it? That's the true measure of how successful a haunted house is... From the pictures it looked like alot of fun.

Our week here went great too. Tuesday we set a baptismal date with Matt! He'll be baptized on November 28 (as long as his work schedule allows it), and he's super excited. So am I! Terry and Charles are still going to be baptized in December, and this week we are planning on setting baptismal dates with Curtis and May. Things here are going so great! I'll be sad to leave here in December. I hope I don't, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if I leave at the end of this transfer (December 18). But the work is going great here, we're being really blessed. Please keep praying for Emily and the Bradshaws, though, especially Emily. She wants to be baptized so badly and she's doing everything right, her mom is just being stubborn... Pray for everyone we're teaching, though. Thursday we had a pretty fun experience. Bishop Bliss came out with us all day and we went and met alot of less-active members and part member families down in the Greenfield area with him.

The river we had to drive up (and got stuck).

We had a lot of success. At one point, though, as we were driving out in the country, we came to a spot where the little creek that usually runs across the dirt road (not uncommon out in these rural areas) was pretty swollen, it was more like a small river. It wasn't anything too bad, so we decided to cross it. Bad idea. On the other side, after the road turned a corner (so we couldn't see this from where we had been) the stream was up over the road again. Except this time we would have to drive about 200 feet upstream in 3-4 foot deep water. And on top of everything else, there was a fallen tree across the water! Needless to say, we decided to not cross. But when we tried to go back across the river to where we had been, we discovered we were stuck! This little island type thing that we had accidently gotten ourselves on to was just a layer of really lose rock covering lots of mud and a lot more water. Basically the heavy rains that we've had had totally washed out the road, and there was nothing that his little two wheel truck could do about it. We just had to wait (over an hour) until someone could come pull us out. It was a lot of fun... But other than that we had a great day in Greenfield!

So that's the most exciting stuff that happened this week. We taught a total of 37 lessons this week, which is the best we've done since we've gotten here. Things are going awesome. I love you! Have a great week!

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Hello! I can't believe it's November already either. I remember New Years Day like it was yesterday... The time is just flying by way too quickly. I can't believe Brayden and Josh come home this month, and Matt will be married soon. That's so crazy. Don't worry about me rushing into anything, I'm not planning on it. I'll do whatever the Lord tells me to do, but I'm planning on taking things slow. But I still have a year before I need to worry about that...

Another small town in our area

As far as the Bradshaw's baptism goes, the only rule is that they have to be have First Presidency approval before they can be baptized. But the interviewer can be anyone that the First Presidency appoints to do it. Usually, however, it's Elder Holland who does it since of all the general authorities he has the most experience with that stuff. And he's just awesome... But he grew up in the St. George area, not too far from Colorado City, where they all live. Actually, his wife is related to several of the people from the community out here... So he knows his stuff when it comes to that, he was raised with it. So he's good at making them feel comfortable and answering all of their questions. Usually in the past he's done the interview via web cam. The 2nd wife lives in Stockton still, but wants nothing to do with all of that. They are no longer married. If a plig couple was to be baptized and were still practicing, he would have to get rid of the other wives.

As far as speaking in church so often, things are way different out here. Here the missionaries are really a part of the ward, unlike out there where the missionaries cover so many units.

I'm glad the distribution center got it worked out. I already got my cds and everything. Thank you so much for the tie! I'm glad Christopher got Elder Moxon's letter. He should write him back.

Elder Moxon

Sounds like everybody is doing great! I love you!

Our District plus the APx. Begay (AP), Raleigh, Sshofield, Moxon, Me, Conrad (AP), Robinson. You can tell none of us were really ready for the picture

Our district: Shofield, Begay, Scholle, Moxon, Me, Conrad, Robinson, Raleigh

Elder Begay and Me

Great Week in Stockton

I have posted Elder Goodale's e-mail home to us yesterday, with some edits as some of what he wrote about involves a minor.
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Me and Matt Logan

Hey everybody! We had another great week here in Stockton! Probably the biggest news is that we set a baptismal date with Lance! If he can quit smoking, he will be baptized on December 5. He's pretty excited about it, and I've definitely seen a difference in him as he's worked to change. He only had 6 cigarettes all day yesterday, which is pretty huge for him. He's totally going to do it. That makes 3 investigators who will be baptized soon, with Terry all lined up for November 21 (we'll be teaching her the Word of Wisdom tomorrow, pray for her to have strength to live it!) and Charles for December 12. No real hold ups for him. Tomorrow while we're in El Dorado we should also be setting a date with Matt. That's our goal, anyway. He's the friend of a recent convert, Leslie, who was baptized back in May. He's pretty awesome, he's been studying the church on his own for about a year and he finally just came to church the last 2 Sundays and is ready to meet with us, finally. He's really smart and really humble, I'm really excited for him.

Me and Leslie Williams

Unfortunately we are having some challenges with one of our younger investigators, a 17-year-old young lady. Her mother is using church as a punishment (withholding church and seminary attendance as a means of discipline - WONDERFUL). Her dad doesn't really care either way if she gets baptized (he's not all gung-ho about it, but he wouldn't keep her from it, either) but he doesn't have any custody so he can't give permission for it to happen. It's been pretty tough for her lately. She could really use everybody's fasts and prayers.

A big bug

Nothing else new is going on here. Keep praying for the Bradshaws that we'll get everything arranged for their General Authority interview, and that Brother Bradshaw will be able to accept the changes that he knows he needs to make. He's in a pretty tough situation, but with the Lord's help he can do it. It is a pretty tough change though. Promise me that none of you will ever live polygamy...

Transfer calls were Saturday night, and Elder Moxon and I are staying together here for at least another 6 weeks. And hopefully 6 more after that! I love you!

Brandon and Aaron Bradshaw. Two awesome little future missionaries. We were at their brother's wedding (there were a ton of non-members there, mostly pligs) and those 2 (they're both 6) wanted our name tags (they love being the missionaries). So we gave each of them a stack of pass along cards and told them to make sure every person at the party got one! They were awesome!

16 Investigators at Church (10/26/2009 Letter)

Last week I posted just two short e-mails that Elder Goodale had sent to Michelle and I. As it turns out, he had typed a longer, general e-mail; however, it got lost in cyberspace. As his computer time was up, he hand-wrote us the following letter, which we received late last week in the mail. I have retyped it, below. In his e-mail, Justin lists two church general authority talks that he referenced in his talk in church a couple of weeks ago. I have linked to those talks, and I encourage you to read them. I particular enjoyed Elder Oaks' talk on the Gospel of Jesus Christ challenging us to become something, not just know something.
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Dear Mom:

Our object lesson for teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Ealier today I wrote a big long general email, but just as I hit send (and also as my time on the computer was just ending) myldsmail "experienced an error" and erased my whole email. It was a good one this week, too...

But I'll briefly let you know what happened this week. Tuesday we had an awesome day up in El Dorado, where all of our work is. There's a woman named Terry, who's about 20, who we taught for the first time. We had a really good lesson and set a baptismal date for November 21! She's a good girl but she's had a pretty rough life. She doesn't have a whole lot of religious background. It was kind cool, about 2 weeks ago we just talked to her out on the street and found out that her aunt, who she lives with, is a less-active member that wev'e been workign with. So we just invited her to church, and she came! She seemed to enjoy it, and then on Tuesday we went back and taught her and set a date.

Our object lesson for teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ

The rest of the week was pretty good, too. On Sunday through tracting and dropping by some old potential investigators we actually found 3 new investigators here in Stockton! We haven't been having any trouble finding people in Eldo or Greenfield or the plig ranch, but Stockton itself has been slow. But now it's starting to pick up! Wednesday we've got some appointments set up that should allow us to pick up 3 or 4 more new investigators here in Stockton, which is awesome. Probably the biggest miracle this week was that we had 16 investigators at church!!! That's unheard of! My previous best was 8, which even that is pretty good... A big part of it was that the entire Bradshaw family (the plig family) came to church! That's 12 investigators just right there. By the way, I promise that "plig" is a very affectionate term for the polygamists... I really love the people out there; they're great.

Our object lesson for teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ

So we had all of the Bradshaws at sacrament meeting, plus 4 additional investigators. It was awesome. It was especially good because Elder Moxon and I both spoke in church. Elder Moxon spoke about charity, and did an awesome job, then I was asked to speak on repentance. I always love a good opportunity to call people to repentance! :-) It went really well though. For the bulk of my talk I used two different talks: "Repent... That I May Heal You" by Elder Anderson from this last General Conference, then a talk Elder Oaks gave in October 2000 entitled "The Challenge to Become." Both excellent talks. I thought mine went very well, also.

Well I'm out of time. We're meeting some members at Enriques (Mexican restaurant) for dinner in about 10 minutes! I love you! Have a fun Halloween!