Mother's Day Call

Missionaries get to call home twice per year, on Mother's Day and on Christmas. So a little more than a week ago, we got to speak to Justin for more than an hour, and he really sounded great! We got the full run down on what he's up to, heard him say "really" (ie. "it was 'really' sweet!!!" about a bazillion times, and of course heard "y'all" quite a bit. We asked him if he could speak with a southern accent, but he said he had mostly lost it since transferring from Arkansas to Oklahoma earlier this year. So... he "yoostakood" speak southern, but no longer.

For the fun of it, to the right here is another picture from the set that Justin sent us last month. It's of he and his current companion, Elder Conrad (from Washington state). Anyway... for those whom were not in the call with him, following is the e-mail he sent on Monday, May 11th:

Hey everybody! It was so great talking to you yesterday! It was so nice to hear from you all and to know that all is well at home. I don't really have too much else to say though, other than that nothing has happened since we talked last night... I'm still alive... but for those that are getting this email that I didn't get to talk to, life is good.

With Brother Wooldridge

With her Mom

On Saturday we baptized Karlee Hood, who is the 13 year old daughter of a woman that just got baptized 4 months ago. Heather (her mom) got baptized, but Karlee and her 2 brothers (9 and 7 years old) kept going to their other church and had no desire to go to church with their mom. Their church was just more exciting. But Elder Conrad and I were able to get through to her and now she's way solid. She's a SMART girl, so once we were able to sit down with her and teach her she really understood, and then she couldn't wait to get baptized by the proper authority. She's really going to go places in the church, we can feel it. (yesterday we convinced her to go on a mission when she's 21, and she can't wait) And now because of her example, her 9 year old brother is getting baptized. He's a super smart kid too. So that's all going well. Otherwise it was just a normal week. Friday we had a major storm come through (80 mph winds where we are, and we just caught the bottom edge of it) and even some tornadoes touch down, but none nearby us. There were thousands of people without power. And according to Brother Wooldridge this was a small storm compared to what we'll probably get the rest of this season... but there was tons of damage for it. So that was pretty exciting. Otherwise life is good. The church is still true. I love you! Talk to you soon!

Elder Conrad and I just before he left

May 4th E-Mail / Pictures

Here is Justin's e-mail from May 4th - I'm finally getting caught up. Today he gets to call home for Mother's Day, and we're really looking forward to that!!! We also received from more pictures from Justin, which I have posted. The picture below is of Justin near the Arkansas River, right outside Clarksville, AR, taken on April 6, 2009. To see all 38 photos that I've posted, please click here for Flickr, and here for Facebook.

Hey everybody! How's your week going? Ours has been very wet. It rained non stop Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and some of Thursday too. It finally stopped last night, but there's some major flooding. Half the roads into town are closed, and a bunch of the city is under water too. It's pretty cool, but it also kind of sucks because one of our investigators (Karlee Hood, who is getting baptized on Saturday) wasn't able to make it to church because of the flood. It's also been tough to get ahold of alot of people, and there's been no one outside to talk to the last 3 days. It definitely led to some fun experiences, though. Saturday we were up in Baxter Springs and our car got stuck in the mud, and Friday while I was on exchanges in Neosho (over in Missouri) I got one real fun experience that I'll probably never try again: tracting in a hail storm. 

All the flooding from the storm.

Ouch. But otherwise things have been good. We really should be thankful because last year at this time the floods got even higher than this year. Though we may have that chance because another storm is supposed to be coming in tomorrow. I'm still praying for a tornado, too, so maybe this will be the one... Speaking of tornados, that's way cool that you got to see video of the one here back on April 9. I was kinda bummed I missed that, it was the day before I got here. We got pretty good storms that night, too, though. It was a huge nasty storm system, and pretty much the entire mission was under tornado watch that night. As far as I know there were only two that actually hit that night. There was that little one here in Miami, and then a huge tornado hit Mena, Arkansas. You should look that one up, Mena was just demolished. The next day I actually talked to the missionaries who serve in Mena, their house got pretty trashed too. Luckily they were safe in the closet, but I bet that would be scary. Also look up the Picher tornado in May of last year. Picher is a little town just north of Miami that used to be in our area. I guess it still is but there's not much left of the town after that tornado. This is just about the best area to be in if I want to see a tornado! Not to scare you or anything...

Everything else is going really great here as well. Jason and Savannah are still golden, we have Karlee's baptism on May 9, and hopefully Andy Arms later this month as well. Then there's always Sarah... Hopefully she'll get baptized sometime soon as well. She just needs to start living the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity and she'll be good to go. There's alot of other great work going on as well. The Lord was definitely testing us this week with all of the trials He threw our way, but I know it's always for our benefit. We were definitely compelled to be humble, which we needed, and we learned a ton too. We've got a lot of really promising investigators we're working with right now and this week with the nicer weather I know we will find a ton more. We have definitely seen alot of miracles and after the disappointments this week I can feel more coming. One thing I've learned is that as missionaries, and just throughout life in general, we have to expect miracles. Every time there's a major let down we know that there's a miracle right around the corner, because God loves us and wants so badly to bless us. We just need to have faith in Him, and He will shower them down. Of course, that doesn't mean we should feel entitled to blessings or get down if they don't come, but instead have that "but if not" faith, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego had. (Daniel 2:18) If we do, we have nothing to fear and no reason to get discouraged. I actually just read a really good talk on that subject this morning. It's called "Seeing the Promises Afar Off" by Anne C. Pingree. She gave it in the October 2003 General Conference. I'm not going to say much about it cuz I feel like I'm just rambling on, but ya'll should read it. Well, that's about it for this week. Keep praying for us please. I love you! Have a great week!

Pictures from storm damage

Here are pictures from the damage done by the storm in Commerce, OK on 5/8/09

Expecting Miracles

The following is from Elder Goodale's e-mail of April 27th.

Our sexy car

Hey everybody! I'm so glad they finally figured out what's wrong with Brianna! Well, at least what's wrong with her stomach... :) Hopefully that new plan will be able to get everything fixed up. It just sucks that she'll have to sleep in til 10 or 11 every day. I bet she's way bummed about that... It sounds like everything else there is going great as well. Sounds like Dad's work is going great and every one is staying good and busy and everything is looking up. It's good to hear that Lindsey Muir is doing so much better, too. I forgot to fast on the day that they were setting up that big fast for her, but I repented and fasted the following Sunday. Keep me updated on that situation. And on anything else exciting going on, especially with school ending pretty soon. I can't believe April is already over! I swear 2009 just started a couple of days ago!!! Time is going by way too fast.

This was a storm rolling in. I thought it looked cool. I was hoping it might bring a tornado

We had a great week here! Tuesday was Zone Conference, and it was amazing! We learned SO much and the Spirit was so strong, we couldn't wait to get out and work and start applying all the stuff we learned. In the morning we got some great instruction on how to have better and more effective planning and then the rest of the conference was about the Book of Mormon and how it is Another Testament of Jesus Christ and the Keystone of our religion. It was a very powerful conference. Well I don't have too much else to report this week. We're still working hard and having alot of success, things are going great. Oh yeah I guess I will tell you about 2 of the new investigators we had this week:

Elder Conrad

We talked to this man named Jason on the street on Wednesday as he was getting ready to go fishing, and he was way sweet. Really sincere. The Jehovah Witnesses have been meeting with him a little lately and trying to get him but you could tell he didn't believe too strongly what they believed. He just loved knowledge and was really interested in getting more. So we went back Friday night to teach him the 1st lesson and it was awesome. We went over dispensations and how God has always worked through prophets and he really really loved it and you could tell he really understood the importance of prophets. Then we go over Christ's earthly ministry and how He established His church, then the great apostasy. We taught the great apostasy really powerfully, and he totally got it. We asked him what he thought it would take to get the world out of the state it's currently in and he was like "well we would need more apostles!" Then right as he said that his wife, Savannah, got home from work and walked into the room. At first she seemed a little cold, but then she said to hold on a second while she settled the kids down, cuz she wanted to join us. So when she came back we summed up the whole lesson so far in just a couple of minutes for her, luckily she really understood, especially the great apostasy. You could tell everything just clicked. When we shared with them how Christ's gospel has been restored to the earth today through Joseph Smith, and how that means that there is a living prophet and 12 apostles on the earth today, they were so excited! They recognized how necessary the restoration was, and they were overjoyed to find out that it's happened, and that there is a living prophet again. They were SOOOO prepared! Such a miracle. We've come to expect those though. You have to expect miracles to be a successful missionary. But it was still such a blessing. This is such an incredible message we share, I wish everyone realized that as much as Jason and Savannah did. I guess that's why we're here though. Not just us missionaries, but all members. That's why Joseph Smith said that after all is said in done, our most important duty is to preach the gospel. This truly is a marvelous work! I love you all!

Jumping Six Feet Again

I am afraid that as I've been on a long road show in Japan, China, Japan again and now Germany, I have not kept up with Elder Goodale's weekly e-mail postings. So it's time for me to catch up a little. The following is his e-mail to us, dated April 20, 2009.

Elder Conrad

This is on the road about every 20 feet.

Hey everybody! I can't believe another week has come and gone already! It's flying by way too fast! We had an amazing week though. We jumped 6 feet again this week! Get used to it, because we're planning on doing it every week this transfer. It'll be tough this week because we have Zone Conference tomorrow (I'm so excited!!!) but we'll do it. Things have been crazy here, though. Monday after emailing we went Spoonbill fishing, and found out that we definitely aren't fisherman... It's a different kind of fishing, too. If it was just normal bait fishing we would have been all right, but when it comes to snagging we had no idea what we were doing. So that didn't work out. But it was still fun. Nothing really exciting happened on Tuesday, but we had quite an adventure Wednesday night. At about 6 pm Wednesday, a substation at the local power plant caught fire, then it totally blew up about half an hour later. The whole town was out of power! Everyone was saying that it was going to be a few days before it was back, but they ended up getting some sort of temporary fix while they repaired it, so we got power back early the next morning. But That night was pretty crazy. We were doing everything by candle light that night, and having a lot of fun with that... It was good though because we are teaching this couple that lives behind us so we jumped the fence in our backyard (not into their yard, there's a little alleyway there) and brought them some candles cuz we knew they probably didn't have any. It turns out we were right and they did badly need them, so we were able to build a good relationship there. Thursday night we had this way sweet lesson with Andy Arms, a man who has been investigating the church off and on for a couple years now. We were finally able to break through to him more than any other missionaries have been able too, I guess now he was just finally ready, and he'll be getting baptized next month! He's just going through a little bit of depression right now so please pray for him. Also there is a woman, Heather, who was baptized here a few months ago and we're teaching her 13 year old daughter. She will also most likely be baptized this month. We've also been teaching Sarah Laforce, a 21 year old girl (I say girl because she doesn't really act 21. Or maybe she does, and that's the problem...) who has a date for May 2. It'll be tough for that to happen, though, because she is has some problems to overcome. Other than that we've just been doing a lot of finding and teaching and trying to build up the area. It's been a blast! My companion and I are getting along really well. He's only been out 3 months longer than I have, so we're learning alot together too. We've been seeing alot of success though, these are going to be some exciting weeks ahead. The work is really starting to roll forward. We have been able to see the hand of the Lord blessing us so many times every day, it's really amazing. We have seen Satan try to interfere in many ways as well, but as we have relied on the Lord we've always been able to overcome all of those trials. I know that this is the Lord's work that we're doing, and there is nothing in the world I would rather be doing than helping to bring the people of Miami to Him. I know this church is true with all my heart, that there really is a living prophet on the earth today, and that it's through him that God is directing us every day. By listening to and following his words we can overcome anything Satan throws at us, and we will be able to find peace in these difficult times. How grateful I am to be a part of Christ's restored church!

Me Christian, Bro. Hughlett, Nick, Sisster Hughlett, E. Conrad

Oh and how could I forget!? We had a baptism on Saturday! Actually 3 baptisms! Brother Hughlett is a man in our ward who married a nonmember 14 years ago and went inactive. (or he may have already been inactive, I'm not sure) Anyway, he returned to activity not too long ago and started bringing his sons (age 13 and 10) to church with him as well. Then his wife started coming too, and on Saturday he got to baptize his wife and 2 sons. It was sweet. I didn't really have anything at all to do with that one, I only taught them a couple of times before their baptism and they were already set, but it was still awesome. They're a sweet family. Well that's all for this week. I love you! Have a great week!

Our cute little house and our car

Midwest Missionary

Justin has transferred now, from the "south" to the "midwest" part of his mission. Perhaps now we'll see a few less "y'all" references in his e-mails?

Last week, by the way, we received a package that he had shipped to us, just prior to his transfer. In that package were some pictures he printed from his companion's camera. I scanned those pictures; here's one of them to the left, taken with his companion Elder Johnson, on Christmas morning. The one to the right here is one where he says his hair is way too long, and that this picture was taken just before he got a haircut. Speaking of hair, how do you like Justin with a part in his hair?! This is the first time we've ever seen that! You can see all 27 scanned pics here on Flickr, or here on Facebook. Be warned, they gutted a cow in Clarksville, and there are pics from that in here.

Anyway... enough of me blabbering; here is his e-mail from today.
-------------------------

Hey everybody! Greetings from Miami (pronounced My-am-uh) Oklahoma! Before I forget, here is my new address:

Elder Justin Goodale (that part hasn't changed)
504 I St. NE
Miami, OK 74354

Elder Conrad and Elder Goodale

I love my new area! I'm in the very northeast corner of Oklahoma, we actually go to the border of Missouri (we're in the Joplin, Missouri stake) and our area covers a tiny bit of Kansas, as well. Actually that part is really cool. We cover the town of Baxter Springs in Southeast Kansas, and it's cool because Radiator Springs (from the movie Cars) was actually based off of Baxter Springs. I haven't been there yet, but apparently it's a pretty cool little historic town. We have a kind of cool historic district in Miami, too, because Route 66 goes right through it. Also another little claim to fame is that Mickey Mantle was born here... It's a sweet place. It's about the same number of people as Clarksville, but it seems like alot more because the town is more centralized and compact, as opposed to Clarksville which was really spread out and half the people didn't technically live "in town". I'm now in the Midwest (central Arkansas is really the only part of my mission that's actually considered "South") so I don't see all of the confederate flags and everything any more, but it's still pretty redneck here. There are a ton of Native Americans in Miami too. Another cool thing that you probably already figured out by now is that Jennifer Dillon's dad is serving in this ward! It's pretty fun hanging out with Elder and Sister Wilson. As for my new companion, he's AMAZING! He's from Richland, Washington (I think he said it's out by Spokane) and he's an awesome missionary. I've really been in heaven the last couple days, we get along so well! And we teach really well together too. We've got some big plans for Miami this transfer! I'm way pumped!

You know how once a year they do the regional stake conference broadcasts? I think I told you about the one we had a couple months ago in Arkansas that was for "the Gulf Coast area" when Elder Holland, President Uchtdorf, and Sister Beck spoke. Well now that I'm in a different region, I got to have another one of those this Sunday! It was kind of weird the first Sunday after General Conference, especially with it being Easter Sunday, but it was really good. Elder Steven E. Snow from the Presidency of the 70 spoke, along with Sister Lifferth from the Primary Presidency, Elder Oaks, and President Monson. It was way good, especially Elder Oaks. It wasn't my favorite talk President Monson's ever given, but it's still always awesome to listen to a prophet of God speak to us.

I don't know too much about Miami yet as far as specific

investigators and stuff as I've only had 2 full days here, but I definitely will have more to report on next week. I'm loving everything so far! I love you all! Have a great week!

Justin's Going to Miami

Wow... we thought it was cool that Justin's first area was London (Arkansas), but now he's getting transferred to Miami (Oklahoma). We never knew he'd get to see such exotic areas on his mission!

Hey everybody! How is life going? It sounds like everyone had an awesome time in San Fransisco! Sounds like an amazing trip! I'm really really glad Dad is enjoying his new job so much, too. That's awesome. We're so blessed. And what a great blessing it was to be able to listen to a prophet of God this weekend! Conference was so amazing! I hope you all had the opportunity to watch all 4 (or 5 for the priesthood holders) sessions. It was really amazing. I really loved all the messages this year was all about Faith vs. Fear, and what we can do to build faith and dispell fear in these times. It seemed like that was really the main theme. I especially loved Elder Pearson's talk in the Saturday afternoon session about faith, and the "6 D's" that destroy faith. That was my favorite. But the whole conference was awesome. I took like 10 pages of notes. I was really hoping they'd announce the new temple up in Rogers, AR, that I keep hearing all of these rumors about, but that's ok. Maybe next time. Besides conference, how was everybody's week? Mine was awesome. We've been super busy, which is always good. Monday night we went out to the Bishop's house, and taught this awesome woman named Bobbie. We found her tracting, and it turns out her family is like best friends with the Bishop's family! So we set up a time where we could teach her at their home. We had a great lesson, and we're going back tonight. I'm really excited for tonight. The only bad thing about her is that we had to find her tracting! She was SO prepared, what if we had never knocked that street? There are SO MANY prepared people out there, and you all know some! The missionaries should not have to find them tracting! It's just like Elder Perry said on Sunday, the only missionary system that works is a member oriented missionary program. It has to be that way. You all need to be the full time finders, it's your job to provide people for the missionaries to teach. But I digress... We've been finding lots of super prepared people left and right, though. It's really amazing. I don't have time to talk about them all individually, but definitely be praying for Erica, Ruth, Clay, the Lemons, Misty, Rodney and Katherine, and Rob and Tara. That's the biggest ones. It's still been tough getting people out to church, but it's great having so many really solid people to teach. I haven't even knocked on a single door in a couple of weeks. But unfortunately I'm not going to be here to see them all start to really progress, because I'm getting transfered on Friday! I'm going to Miami, Oklahoma! (pronounced Miama. Apparently people there get offended if you say Miami...) It's in the very northeast corner of Oklahoma, it's actually in the Joplin, Missouri stake. So it's pretty far up there. I'm pretty excited because they get WAY more severe weather up there than we do here in Clarksville. I'm going to like the most tornado-prone area in the mission! At the perfect time of year for tornados, too!!! I know how excited that makes you, mom... Don't worry, it'll be fine. I'm excited. It's nice because my trainer, Elder Johnson, was trained in Miami, so I know a little about the area already. He told me a little about it. Apparently the work is going extremely well there, too. My new companion will be Elder Conrad. I've never met him, but I've heard some great things about him. So I'm very excited. I'm sad to leave Clarksville and I know I'll really miss it, but I'm very excited, too. The saddest thing will be not getting to see Kurt and Krista Lemons get baptized. I have gotten very close to them, and I was actually supposed to baptize them a couple of weeks ago, but it's been pushed back because Kurt is still having some trouble with the Word of Wisdom. Krista is about as ready for baptism as she could possibly be, but Kurt's still struggling. I know that they will get baptized soon and that he will be able to overcome it, I'm just bummed I won't be here for that. It's ok though, I know they will get baptized and it doesn't matter who does it as long as it happens. And I'm super excited for my new area. But I don't know my address yet, so hold off on sending any more mail til I'm able to send you my address next Monday. Or just send it to the mission office in Tulsa. Well that's all for this week. I love you all. Keep us in your prayers!

Our district. E. Silcock (Alma), E. Harrison (ZL Ft. Smith), E. Lechausse (Greenwood), E. Brimhall (Greenwood), me, E. Brady (Alma), E. Simakov, E. Osmond (ZL Ft. Smith)

E. Lechausse & I at transfers

E. Simakov and I at transfers

E. Brimhall and I at transfers

Baptism in Arkansas

Justin had a great week this past week, including seeing one of the people he was working with come in to the Gospel of Jesus Christ! This guy is moving to the city right next to us, though. It'll be cool to meet him!!!

Hey everybody! Sounds like ya’ll had an awesome time in Fremont last week! It’s always so much fun going out there. I hope the weather got a little nicer. It was nice here for a little while, but then all of a sudden it dropped like crazy! We had actually had a little bit of snow on Saturday morning! It was insane! This was a crazy weather week. A couple nights before, on Thursday, we had the most intense lightning storm. It was awesome. I LOVE the lightning. We’ve actually had much more lightning then what we got Thursday night, but as far as how hard it was raining it was one of the worst we’ve had yet. It was really coming down hard. There was a heck of a lot of lightning, too. Not as bad as some of the nights when we get so much lightning that it just never gets dark, but there was still a lot. I just love these storms out here! But now it’s nice and sunny again. For now, anyway. Arkansas weather is even more fickle than Boise’s. I love it though. I really really love Arkansas. I wouldn’t want to raise a family here because the school system is awful (because this area is so poverty stricken) but other than that I would love living down here. Speaking of poverty, you are right Dad right now it is such a major blessing to have such a great job right now. I don’t think you could ask for anything better right now, which is awesome considering how the economy is right now. It’s kind of cool because obviously the economy sucks down here, too, and there are a lot of people out of work. But you’d be surprised how many times we’ve started to teach someone who tells us they have been out of work for months and can’t find a job anywhere, but then find one as soon as they start to meet with us. So many times we’ve seen people in that state but every single time they are interested and invite us back, by the time we return for our second appointment they’ve found work, often times jobs have just dropped right into their laps. It’s amazing how many ways the gospel can bless our lives.

As far as our week, it was amazing! Francis Estrada finally got baptized!

Brother Booth, Francis, Bishop Scott

Me, Francis and E. Simakov

It didn’t happen last week because several people were going to be out of town so he decided to push it back a week. Normally that would be fine, but Francis faced some challenges. So he set up a meeting with the Bishop Saturday at noon (the baptism was scheduled for 2:30). They were in that meeting until like 2:40! Everyone was just sitting there waiting for it to start for about 10 minutes when they finally came out, all smiles, and went in for the baptism. We were talking to Bishop Scott afterwards, and he said that up until about 2 minutes before they came out, he honestly didn’t think Francis was going to end up getting baptized. I don’t know what all they talked about, but finally, at like 2:35, they knelt down right there in the Bishop’s office and prayed. First Bishop prayed, then Francis prayed. He said that Francis prayed in Spanish, so he has no idea what was said, but he said that the Spirit was very very strong. When Francis finished praying he just looked up and said, with tears in his eyes, “I’m ready.” So then we baptized him! It was awesome. I was so happy to finally see that happen. It was amazing how happy he was, too. He knew he made the right decision. Or course, as our converts always seem to do, he’s moving to Idaho on Friday. At least he’s moving to Meridian so it’s not like I’ll never see him again. It still sucks though. Especially for the ward. They get so excited for all the growth that they so badly need but then everybody we baptize moves out! We’ve got a lot of good work going on right now, though, and hopefully everyone else we’re working with will stay here. I really hope so. We have a ton of people we’re teaching that could be progressing right now. It’s nice cuz this week is conference so they’ll all have 4 opportunities to come to church. No excuses now… I’m so excited for General Conference! My first one as a missionary! I can’t wait, I’m getting SO pumped. Btw speaking of conference mom could you send me the last couple conference reports? No hurry, just whenever you send another next package. Thanks. (speaking of packages, thank you so much for those thin mints!!! They were so delicious!!!) Not too much else exciting happened this week. Oh except that we got a new car! It’s a 2009 Malibu! SOOOO nice! I love our new car. According to the Assistants it’s one of the nicest in the mission. Well I’d say more, but the internet here at the library sucks, so I’ll need the entire 5 minutes that we have remaining just to send this email… Love you!

Francis Estrada

Jumping 6 Feet in OTM

It sounds like Elder Goodale had an awesome-but-roller-coaster week. Such is Missionary life!

Hey everybody! We had an awesome week! We finally jumped 6 feet this week! Haha I guess I better explain what that is... To start off with, President Seal is very numbers oriented. He puts a big emphasis on all the key indicators, that's how he keeps us accountable and working hard. Of course he also makes sure that we aren't just going for high indicators just for the sake of getting high numbers, he makes sure we can attach a name to every single one and that we realize that individuals are far more important than numbers. But he does put alot of emphasis on the key indicators. As part of that, he has us record our "OTM's", or street contacts. OTM stands for Open Thy Mouth, and they invented that and started calling them that because we are serving in the OTM (Oklahoma Tulsa Mission, also known as the Only True Mission) and so OTM is a very popular acronym here. So anyway, we call street contacts OTM's. We are expected to get 140 OTM's a week (so 20/day). In big cities where you spend alot of time finding I'm sure that isn't very difficult, but here it's mostly small towns and with the amount of time we spend teaching (remember the goal is 40 lessons/week) it's pretty hard work to get 140 OTM's/week. Jumping 6 feet, which is what we call it when you get both 40 lessons and 140 OTM's in a week, is significantly harder and pretty rare. We always shatter the OTM's (one time we had 97 in one day, though this week we didn't do quite as well and only had 151), but the 40 lessons is tough. But we did it this week for the first time! So, short story long, it was an awesome week. We worked our butts off, and we saw so many miracles as a result! We were really really blessed this week. We also had 11 new investigators. Yesterday we had a neat experience with one. We were super busy yesterday, and because we had so many people to see we didn't schedule in time for lunch or dinner. Our schedule was too packed. So around 5 we knocked on the door of this couple, Rodney and Katherine, who were some potential investigators that had said we could come back. They let us in, and she just happened to be cooking tacos that night and offered us some. They were so good! Then we taught them and it went really well. So we got dinner and two new investigators at the same time! It was amazing! We were definitely blessed for our sacrifice. Though that wasn't really even the greatest experience yesterday. The best part was this other new investigator named Erica. We had OTM'd her in the park last Wednesday and set up a return appointment for yesterday evening. As it turns out, she is actually dating Heath Sanders, who is a less active member. He hasn't been in like 10 years, since he was 13 or 14, but his dad is in the bishopric. They have been living together for 3 years and have a kid together, and she was basically the most golden investigator I've ever taught. SO ready. She's totally going to get baptized (again, probably right after I get transfered...) and her soon to be husband was present for the lesson and it sounds like he's wanting to come back to church too! It was such an amazing miracle. All of our days are filled with miracles, though.

But that's not to say that this week was all amazing. It was really an emotional roller coaster, actually, becasue Saturday was one of the most disappointing days on my mission so far. We taught the Lemons, and from the moment we walked in we could feel a lot of tension and we could tell something wasn't right. Kurt and Krista were majorly fighting. About half way through the lesson we found out why. Apparently Kurt has still been drinking Friday nights after work, and lately he started smoking and chewing again too. Krista is getting really excited for her baptism and is super ready and keeping all her commitments (and she's already read like half the Book of Mormon), but she was really upset at him because he isn't keeping his commitments and doesn't seem to care enough. So obviously Kurt isn't getting baptized this week. (and Krista actually had to move her's back to next weekend, though she has decided she still wants to go ahead and do it on her own even though he isn't ready) He really needs your prayers right now, hopefully it all gets worked out soon. So Saturday wasn't a great day. Francis is still set for his baptism on March 28, though. He's getting really excited, and he's really committed this time, too. He even biked to church each of the last two weeks because he doesn't have a car, but he still wanted to be there. So he's ready too. The only reason he didn't get baptized this last Saturday was that the man he wants to baptize him had to go out of town, so he decided to move it back. So we'll baptize him on Saturday, then the following weekend he'll be in Boise (actually Meridian) getting married! I gave him our address and he said he would stop by so he could get to meet ya'll. Hope that's alright.

Well that's it about us, how are ya'll doing? I guess you're in SanFran right now with the Grimms, that sounds way fun! I hope ya'll are having a blast. We always do with them so I'm sure you are. How are they doing? How's the rest of the family? Tell them all hi for me. In other news, I can't believe that news about Jourdan Watanabe. That's insane. I actually knew him very well, I can't believe he's gone now. You're right dad, it's so great to have that gospel in our lives and to be able to be grounded on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ. That's just unbelievable. But speaking of the gospel, how is Andrew doing? Is he getting baptized soon? Tell him he better be... Well I hope everything else is going well for everybody. I love you all so much! My thoughts and prayers are with you!

20 New Investigators in Two Weeks

Justin's e-mail today was sweet and short, but it's always great hearing from him!!! Regarding some of the people he is teaching, Justin had listed some personal stuff, so just to protect their privacy, I have partially edited today's e-mail. However, most of these entries I post exactly as we receive them.

Hey everybody! How's it going? We had an awesome week! Not quite like last week, but it was still pretty good. The weather wasn't quite as nice this week. Today it's real nice and sunny and it's supposed to get up to 73 which I'm very excited about, but most of the week it's been pretty overcast. But the temperature has been all right, for the most part. Except that on Thursday it snowed all day!!! It only got down to like 33 so none of it stuck but it was still very unexpected. It was so nice then all of a sudden we had snow for just the 3rd time this winter. But like I said it's real nice now and I think it's supposed to stay nice this time, which is good because that means lots of people outside to talk too. I actually like the cold (it's kind of funny because my 2 companions so far have been from Orem, Utah and Moscow, Russia, yet they both complained about the cold far more than me, the one who grew up in SoCal) but as a missionary the warmer weather is alot better because like I said that means people outside to talk too. So for that reason I hope it stays this way, but who knows. Arkansas weather is kinda like Boise weather, as far as how unpredictable it is. So what else is new up there? It's kind of too bad that Christopher had to finally get rid of the Camaro, I always hoped that he would be able to get it up and running good, that would have been fun. It's probably better this way though because it never would have been finished. And what's going on with Brianna? Why the heck can't she get better already? I hope everything else is going well, though. It sounds like other than that life is good, and Dad's work is going very well again as well, which is good. As far as the work here, it's still as good as ever. We currently have 6 investigators with baptismal dates. Really pray for them so that that can happen. Over the last 2 weeks we've had a total of 20 new investigators (14 last week, 6 this week) so we've been super busy all of a sudden trying to teach all of them. It's nice that we have so many people to see now. Hopefully several of them will start progressing over the course of this week and next. They're really great people. We're working hard and I feel really good about things. It's going to be a really crazy week, but it's going to be an awesome week. I'm excited. And I can't wait for Francis's baptism on Friday! Thanks so much for all of your prayers for him! He finally couldn't withstand them all. :) I love you so much! Have a great week!

Haha wow. I was just looking back at my email from last week and I realized that in that email I had said that we do only 1-2 hours of finding per week. Wouldn't that be crazy! Wow that would be a lot of teaching. That would be awesome. But what I meant to say was that we only do 1-2 hours of finding per DAY... well just thought I'd clear that up. Love you!

Wow. That part looks awful! I didn't really have the part down yet.

My hair was way too long. This is right before I cut it.

Accent: Fixin' to Get One

Justin's e-mail this week came in on Tuesday; they must have moved P-Day this week. Sorry I'm just getting around to posting it. It sounds like Justin's really getting to like the South! Justin's even likin' the accent, and fixin' to get one! Remember to write Justin; I'm sure he'd be thrilled to hear from y'all!

What's going on with Brianna? That majorly sucks, hopefully they get it all figured out soon. It seems like by now they could have figured something out. So was removing her gall bladder a waste or do they think that was also a problem? Fixing one problem just so you can find another... Her body is acting like Christopher's car! Hopefully it gets better soon. But I am glad to hear that Andrew is actually acting 13 and that he's not as perfect as we thought he would be. Christopher and I don't look quite as bad now... I'm also glad to hear that Mark's bells palsy is clearing up a little bit. And that Steven's eye was fixed! Crazy! our family has the weirdest health things going on... Any others I should know about? At least my body is doing alright. I don't have any exciting stories about hurting myself or anything yet. But I haven't touched my bike yet, so when I start riding it that will probably change... By the way I know I mentioned it last week but it's pretty cool that you've been having all of my friends over and everything. Next time you just need to tell them all to write me!

I'm way excited for Tucanos. Make sure you keep them in business until I get back. :) But yes Dad, we do get fed really well here so it's alright. One time the Eubanks (he's the high priest group leader) had just gotten a new smoker so they had us over to try it out. We had these delicious ribs (from their own cows, like most of the meat we have here. That's really cool too.) that they had been smoking for 7 hours and they were so delicious! One of the best meals I've had out here. One time I was on exchanges in Alma and we had this smoked tri-tip steak and that was really amazing too. The Kennelly's have taken us out to 2 different really good steak houses, which I loved, but the other home grown and cooked meat was just as good. We've been eating really really well. And I'll eat (and enjoy) pretty much anything now. But I have learned that I'm not too fond of potato salad, which isn't a good thing when you're serving in the south. (the rest of the mission is midwest, but the people here in Arkansas consider themselves south. And they sound it too. :) Elder Simakov can't understand anyone, but I LOVE the southern accent! I'm fixin to git me one...) As for the rest of your questions Mom, his full name is Maxim Simakov. I've got all those pictures, you'll get some eventually... The last preparation day before Elder Johnson left we printed a bunch of his pictures at Walmart so you'll get those as well. Lloyd's last name is Weitkamp (pronounced white camp). I have no idea how he's doing. We haven't seen him since his baptism... But just because he moved up to Bentonville. He actually moved the day before his baptism and just came back down for it. I'm sure he's doing fine though, they've got some good missionaries up there, and the church is really strong up there. Alot stronger than here. Down here it's really struggling. It's kind of funny hearing that Alex is now covering 2 wards because he has the whole county, whereas the ward that I'm in (which was a branch until just about 6 months ago) covers almost 3 counties). It's insane. It is really interesting to read the other missionaries letters though, and just see the differences between the different missions. Like for instance in some missions they do nothing but tract all day, and here we only do 1-2 hours of finding per week. The rest of the time we're in teaching. We are expected to teach 40 lessons per week. Most missionaries don't (we've done it a couple of times, and we're always close) but the First Presidency has said that all missionaries in the US should be able to teach 40 lessons a week. It's hard, but possible.

But anyway, back to our struggling stake. The Fort Smith stake is having a tough time, which is really amazing since Elder Bednar used to be the stake president here. It's kind of funny though because when he was here you had to have at least 50% home teaching to get a temple recommend, because home teaching was so bad. Now it's way down again. Last month the Fort Smith ward got 7%!!! Unbelievable. Our ward was actually one of the best in the stake, around 25%. But this month we're doing well, we may even get 30%... It's bad. And because of that the inactivity rate is through the roof! Especially in Fort Smith itself. The funny thing about it is that the Fort Smith Zone is actually leading the mission in most categories. The work is just exploding down here, in spite of the members.... I can't really say that about Clarksville though. They're doing alright. But the work here is exploding too! Last week alone, we had 14 new investigators!!!!! People here are SO receptive! I love it! We're having alot of success in finding people to teach. Right now we have 4 baptismal dates: Francis on March 21, Kurt and Krista Lemons on March 28, and Thom Vannoy on April 4. It was tough for awhile because we were opening a brand new area, but it's exploding now. I'll probably get transfered on April 10, which sucks because we are probably going to have alot of baptisms in April and May. Alot of baptisms. But if I do have to leave it's ok. Wherever I get sent I know that's where the Lord needs me so I can't complain.

For the rest of your questions, I honestly don't remember my first teaching experience in Clarksville. My first day after I got here we went out with some of the other missionaries in Tulsa and I had a couple cool ones then, that I wrote you about back then. After I got to Clarksville we didn't have anyone to teach yet so our first couple hours my first day we spent contacting less active members in Lamar. I think. I don't remember much though. I think it was this crazy couple named the Baxter's who haven't been to church in years. I do remember being AMAZED at the awful living conditions there. I didn't know there was so much poverty here in the United States. Now it doesn't even phase me. I'm just like "yup, that's Arkansas..." Not to complaing though. I really do LOVE Arkansas. I could even see myself living here some day after my mission. I don't remember the first door I knocked on either, but I do remember my first street contact. (we call them OTM's here. I'd explain but I only have 9 minutes left on the computer. Remind me to explain next week) It was this really overweight man in a wheelchair. He was drinking a mountain dew. His name was...shoot I forgot! I remembered up until like a week ago! I have it written down, I'll look it up. But he was Methodist and wasn't really interested. The next lady I talked too wasn't interested either, she actually ran away... But that's all I remember. Sorry. But thngs are going really great here. All of a sudden we just have so many people to teach! The warm weather has really helped, there are so many more people outside to talk too, and so we're finding alot more interesting people. My companion is also a stud and a way good missionary, so that helps too. We've been working ourselves to death and we pretty much just get home and collapse every night, but we've seen so many blessings because of it. It's awesome. So I'm really loving everything. AHHH!!!!!!! 20 seconds left before I get logged out!!! Love you! Bye!

Jessica Scott, Tim Trotter, Eliza Griggs, me, Heather Scott

Jessica Scott, me, Heather Scott (Bishop's daughters). I don't know what I am doing there. I think I'm about to laugh.

Comp from Russia AND Pocatello

Following is the e-mail from Justin today. The card he is referring to is the memory card from his digital camera which he mailed home to us, but was damaged en route. We couldn't read it in any card reader here, nor could he read it in his camera when we sent it back to him. :-( If anybody has a miraculous solution for getting data off a damaged Memory Stick Duo card, please let us know!

Hey everybody! How's everything going? So first of all, yes Dad you did send that print out, and no the card didn't work. I'm afraid those pictures are just gone forever. I printed out some of Elder Johnson's pictures so I could send those home, but of course there weren't as many with me in them. Plus his pictures just weren't as good as mine... And it really sucks cuz he forgot his camera for Lloyd's baptism, so I don't have any pictures of that anymore. But I got what I could from his camera. I'll just have to have a lot more baptisms to take pictures at to make up for it... That's so crazy about Brianna! I thought they had fixed her! That majorly sucks. Is Mark doing any better? That's cool that Ronnie and Andrew and Bailey all came over for dinner. Kinda weird though, that I'm gone and all my friends are still hanging out there.
But things here are still going great! I love my new companion! We get along really great. Like I said last week, his name is Elder Simakov, and he's from Russia. He was born there and lived there until he was 14, when he and his mom moved to Pennsylvania. He joined the church not too long after that, and then 3 years later his mom married an LDS man and moved to Pocatello. So that's where his family currently lives. But Elder Simakov isn't a citizen, and his real dad still lives in Russia, so he just introduces himself as being from Russia. That always gets peoples attention... Well... I really don't have anything else special to talk about this week. There's still alot of great work going on though, and I'm loving every minute of it! Please keep us in your prayers! I love you!

Schubarth Family (kids Jesalyn and Zach) - They feed us like every week. Bro S. comes out on exchanges with us 3-4 times a month. His dad also drives us to Alma every week for disstrict meeting. They are one of my favorite families (tied with the Griggs and the Scotts too.) I just love this whole ward but they're my 3 favorite families.