Justin returns home

Justin returns home:

Last Batch of Pictures

David Ackley baptism on November 17, 2010

It seems sort of anti-climactic posting here two days after Justin arrived home (that posting on our family blog here), but Justin brought his last batch of pictures home, as well. Literally on the last night that Justin was in the mission field, on Wednesday they had a baptism; a picture from that is here on the right.

Enjoy the couple of pictures here; you can find all 44 of them posted here on Flickr.

Yesterday we spent doing some fun family activities, doing some shopping for Justin, and so on. Including Justin and Mom going to a Boise Philharmonic Orchestra concert; we're looking forward to hearing Justin playing the French horn again!

It's really good to have Justin home!!!

Signing out.
   - Justin's Dad

Brother Shipman, David Ackley and family

Elder Goodale, David Ackley and Elder Kowalk

Elder Goodale with his amazing mission president, President Merkley

Last transfer day November 18, 2010
Elder Kowalk

Elders Moosman, Phillips, Goodale, Kowalk

Elder Argyle

Elder Tarati

Flying home today! November 19, 2010
Elder Anderson

Elder Poulsen

Elder Britton Barnett

Elder Derrick Chapman

Sister Hill

Elder Brett Phillips

Elder Stout

Zuniga Family

Elder Goodale's Last Missionary E-Mail

It's hard to believe, but below is Elder Goodale's last missionary e-mail. He sent this yesterday, his last p-day in the mission field. We sure look forward to seeing him on Friday!!!
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     We had a really great week this week. Both of our singles branch investigators with baptismal dates had stuff come up last minute that kept them from church, we'll have to work on that, but we did have 3 investigators who attended sacrament meeting in the 1st Ward. David, who is being baptized this week, was there, as well as Chris and Jessica. They've now come to church 3 of the last 4 weeks, and yesterday Chris even wore a white shirt and tie for the first time! It has now been 14 days since they quit smoking cigarettes, and they have been reading out of the Book of Mormon together almost every night. They are really making a lot of progress. Chris is going to be baptized around Christmas time (he still has a couple of other things he needs to work through) but Jessica hasn't accepted a baptismal date yet. She still feels that she doesn't know enough, and she is still struggling with accepting a modern day prophet. They cooked us dinner last night though, and afterward we had a powerful lesson with them about everything. Yesterday was also the first time that Chris and Jessica stayed for the 3rd hour of church, and Jessica absolutely loved Relief Society. By the time Chris's baptismal date comes around, I think she will be more than ready to be baptized with him, because she is making a ton of progress. It was tough though last night, Chris and Jessica really wanted to feed us dinner before I go, so we had to suffer through two back to back dinner appointments... That's the fun part of leaving an area. There is a member taking us out to lunch today and someone else most likely feeding us lunch on Wednesday, so we'll be fed 2 meals 3 of my last 4 days here. These last 3 days of my mission are going to be extremely busy, because we'll also be getting ready for a baptism! David is going to be baptized Wednesday night! That will be pretty much the last thing I do on my mission is his baptism, which will be really cool. That will be a great way to go out. I'll look forward to seeing you in a few days!

Did He Really Say "Y'all's"???

     Hey! How is everyone? I can't believe I only have one more email home after this one! Scary. How was y'all's week? We had a pretty good week overall, though it was tough at the same time. A lot of the week, to be totally honest, I was somewhat frustrated because it seemed like we had all of our days filled with set appointments and just about all of them fell through. Of course that's just missionary work, though this was even worse than usual. I was getting a little bit discouraged, but I shouldn't have because we had a lot of great things happening. I think my frustration was just added to because I'm going home next week and I'm kind of tired of non committal people... And like I expressed before, it's hard to have these big plans and want to see certain things happen with these individuals and families and know that you don't have enough time to make it happen. But there are some really amazing things going on here. Chris and Jessica are a couple that have been making a lot of progress lately. They were progressing several months ago and about a month before I arrived in Bentonville they took a big dive and we haven't been able to get them going again most of the time I've been here. But lately they've just taken off! While they weren't at church last Sunday because they had some things going on, they came 2 weeks ago just for sacrament meeting and then yesterday they came to church again, and this time they stayed for the second hour as well. Today is their 7th day off of smoking, and they've been reading a chapter a night together out of the Book of Mormon for the last 2 weeks. They've missed a couple of days here and there, but for the most part they have been pretty consistent with that. It's amazing how much progress they are making. Chris is completely converted and ready to be baptized, he keeps telling us how much he wants it, but he won't accept a date until Jessica is ready to accept a baptismal date as well. She is also making lots of progress, she just has some concerns about the need for a prophet today. We had a really powerful lesson last night and she acknowledged that she definitely felt the Spirit, and we are expecting to be able to set a baptismal date with them this week.

David has stopped smoking and has accepted a baptismal date for the 17th of November, and then probably our biggest miracle this week is Caleb. We got a call Monday morning from Kyle, a member of the singles branch who's just coming back to activity. He told us he had a friend ready to meet with the missionaries and he wanted to meet us that day. Well unfortunately that was just a couple hours before we were leaving to drive to Tulsa (for Zone Leader Council), but we set up an appointment to teach him on Tuesday night in Kyle's home (or technically in Kyle's apartment...). Kyle gave him a Book of Mormon on Monday, and by the time we taught him on Tuesday he had already read the first 15 chapters! We could tell he had really studied them too, because as we taught about the great apostasy he asked "is that what it meant in the Book of Mormon when it talked about the plain and precious things that were taken away?" He asked all the perfect questions, and then was very excited to hear that there is a living prophet on the earth today. He also accepted a baptismal date for November 27. The next day he called us because he had some questions (from some information his mom had given him) and asked if we could meet somewhere. Since we were on bikes, we just met up at a nearby park and taught him again. We answered his questions and then felt prompted to teach the Word of Wisdom, which he readily accepted. He had also reread the first 15 chapters of First Nephi and had written down several questions. He was really studying in depth. And now he has set a goal of reading 5 chapters a day... Then Saturday we taught him at his mom's home because he really wanted us to teach his mom, who is a Jehovah's Witness. (Caleb was raised Jehovah's Witness as well) We actually had a really great lesson with her too. Caleb is completely converted and is really excited about the gospel. He has already even committed to go on a mission after he gets baptized, and he has gotten his friend Kyle excited about a mission as well. I don't know if I've ever taught anyone as prepared as him. On Sunday (his first time at church) during gospel principles when we were talking about how God answers prayers, he bore his testimony about how this gospel is an answer to his prayers and then said "I'm also so grateful to have the Book of Mormon, because it means that Joseph Smith is a prophet. It's so amazing that God has called a prophet to guide us today!" He really is an incredible young man.

I'm really sad I'm not going to be around for his baptism and all of that. I can't believe all the stuff I'm going to miss out on! :( Don't worry though, I'm excited to see you all though. I love you! See you soon!

Charles and Andrea Vannoy

Ashley and Austin Vannoy

11/1 E-Mail:Halloween Baptism

     Happy Halloween! (yesterday...) Did you do anything fun this weekend for Halloween? Ours was pretty exciting. The ward had a trunk-or-treat on Saturday, which we went to and handed out candy for some members while they went around the cars with their son. Then they took us to Sonic afterward. :) It was fun. Then Sunday night we went to a baptism. Of course we don't proselyte on Halloween night, so that was about the most perfect activity we could have asked for. It was one of the investigators that the sisters are teaching up in Bella Vista. Her name is Beverly, and it was really cool because Elder Kowalk served in Bella Vista this time last year and he is the one that actually tracted into her about 10 months ago! He only got to teach her a couple of times, though, then he got transferred. So when Beverly found out that he just got transferred back up to this area she asked if he could baptize her! That was a really neat experience for him. He hasn't seen nearly as much success as he deserves on his mission, so it was really awesome for him to be able to participate in that. The whole baptismal service was really amazing as well, one of the most spiritual that I've been to. It was cool. Honestly though, besides that our week was kind of rough. We only taught about half as many lessons as we taught last week, and of the 5 investigators that gave us really strong commitments that they would be at church yesterday, none showed up. We just had a lot of stuff fall through on us, and it was tough. It was good though, it gave us a chance to do a lot of tracting and talk to a lot of people. (it also helped that we were on bikes this week) We found a lot of great people that I'm really excited to get to start teaching this week. We've also gotten some great member referrals this week, so things are looking up. Just pray for us that we'll be able to see all these new people and build up the teaching pool here again! I love you all! See you in a couple of weeks!

with Elder Kowalk

Our District: Elder Schofield, Elder Phillips, Elder Moosman, Elder Rieske, Elder Goodale and Elder Kowalk