Samoan in the Water

Hey everyone!

This week was great! Yesterday we had 3 baptisms! The sisters in Parkland were teaching Bryce and his son (also named Bryce) and then it turned out that Bryce's mother-in-law was interested as well. She understands Samoan better so we went over and taught her with Elder Mose. They all got baptized yesterday and it was a very sweet experience! 

We had MLC on Friday and usually it feels like just a long burden but this one felt pretty short and the trainings were way good! We also had exchanges with Elders Ohman and Bauer and that was pretty cool! 

The work in our area is going really well and there's a lot of good things coming! Not much else for this week but I love you all have a great week!

Elder Goldsberry

The baptism

My new friend Andre

The Baptism

My friend Andre

It's a WATAC Christmas

Hey everyone! 

This week was super awesome! We had a great Christmas! We got fed by a bunch of members and played some board games too! Then we finished off the night playing some games at the church with the zone! It was a good time!

Yesterday my investigator from Commencement Bay (which is in my zone) got baptized! It was a very tender baptism! She did some time in a woman's prison (you wouldn't know it, she's the sweetest lady) and she attended a branch of the church there. While I was in Gig Harbor I knocked into members of the Branch/Relief Society presidency from there and they knew her!! I got their info so I could let them know when she would get baptized! Usually they don't get to keep in contact with the inmates and she was BEYOND happy to see them! It was such a great miracle!

Elder Mose, who is currently in Lakewood, is staying with us for a little while because his apartment caught fire. It's kind of a tender mercy because he loves the Allenmore ward and they love him because he is Samoan! So we got a bunch of good work going because he was there!

President Leishman went into our house and took a bunch of stuff he didn't want us to have and I had left my gold chain on the counter and he took pictures with it on and sent us the funniest text with it 😂

That's all for this week but I love you all! Make 2019 the best year yet!

Elder Goldsberry 

Meal from the Samoan Ward

President Leishman holding the sword

Picture a Random Stranger Sent

Selfie with Nic's Chain

Baptism

Back to Tacoma!!

Hey everyone! 

We got our transfer calls on Saturday and I will be leaving and headed back to my last zone Tacoma North! This time I will be in the Allenmore and Highland Hills wards! Yup still covering two wards so I'm REALLY looking forward to two hour church haha. The Allenmore ward is a Samoan ward and everyone who goes there LOVES it! I'll even get a name tag in Samoan! I'm kinda sad to be leaving Gig Harbor because Elder Rose and I have gotten some good work done here. My new companions will be Elders Harrop and Stratton and we will be training a new missionary! I was in the MTC with Elder Harrop and we are good pals :) We also live in a house with the APs Elders Beardall and Durrant so that will be a ton of fun!

This week was a great one! On Friday we went and surprise studied with Elders Parker and Remund in Belfair and it was awesome! We also had a member take us all to Taco Bell which was great because we don't have one in our area and I've been missin my t beezy. Saturday we went down to Tacoma and got some Buffalo Wild Wings with a bunch of missionaries for transfer call Saturday and that was a good time. We ran into some members from the Gig Harbor ward and they were so confused to see us haha. 

Yesterday our stake had a performance of Handel's "Messiah" and it was way cool! There was a fancy orchestra equipped with a harpsichord and a very talented choir! We had FIVE of our investigators there: Don & Katie, Darrel & Phyllis, and Joanne. Just a spirit filled night with classical music hahaha. 

Well that's all for this week! I love you all and hope you have a great week!!

Hey everyone!

This week has been super sick! Elder Harrop, Stratton and I are training Elder Smith. He's from Holiday Utah and he's a good guy! I'm loving the new area, even tho it's not all that new to me because I've served around here for 6 months. I saw a bunch of familiar faces at church and I'm surprised they remembered me, but it was great to see them!

We've gotten a lot of good work done... I've missed Tacoma. There's tons of crazy people when we are out knocking and it's just the best! Going to church is interesting, we still have 6 hours of it (until January THANK GOODNESS) but I don't understand anything for the first 3 hours bc its all in Samoan haha. It's way cool to hear them sing the hymns though, they are powerful singers too.

Well that's about it for this week! I love you all, have a great week! 

Final pic of the old Gig Harbor zone

ThanksGIGing, I Kicked a Door, and more

Howdy Y'all

Hey everyone!

This week was a good one! We got our new companion, Elder Allred. He's a good kid from Clearfield, Utah and he's excited to work! Not a whole lot to report on this week. 

Elder Mendenhall were out knocking and some lady lost her dog and told us to keep an eye out for him. The next door we knocked the dog came sprinting at us from around the corner, and we caught it and returned to to the owner. Nothing came of it but it was a very cute husky so that's a tender mercy. 

Halloween was pretty cool! We worked all the way up until 4 and then we went to the stake center and watched "The Best 2 Years" I had never seen it, but it's a good one haha. 

We had a "Why I believe" fireside last night, where recent converts share their conversion stories and testimonies. Also, the missionaries form a choir and we sing a few songs. They are always way awesome! 

Elder Rose and I were asked to give a training tomorrow at MLC. The crazy part is, it's on urgency, the thing I emailed y'all about last week! Pretty cool that I've had this on my mind and now we have an opportunity to train on it. Just goes to show that President Leishman is an inspired man, I don't think he sees my emails at least haha. 

I love you all and I hope you have a great week!

"If All Men Were Like unto Alf Gun"

Hello everyone!

This week has been another good one! We had the Port Angeles Elders staying with us for a couple nights so they could save miles to come with us to MLC. One of them is my old comp Elder Terry so it was fun to be with them. We even had a campfire in the backyard and roasted mallows and knocked back some m deezys, it was pretty cool. The training we gave at MLC went well! Well enough that we are giving it twice again at zone conference tomorrow haha.

I have a pretty cool story this week. So we have a couple of investigators named Don and Katie, they are an awesome old couple. They watched general conference and have been lightly reading the Book of Mormon. They don't have a car, but they were willing to walk to church, but I've seen Don walk and he just gets so winded. So we found some fellowship for them! There is a legend by the name of Alfred Gunn, he's ex-FBI and everyone in Gig Harbor knows him. He's very active in the communityand even volunteers for the GHPD. We texted him while we were at Don and Katie's home and told him we left them with his number. He immediately responded asking what their address was. When we left the appointment, he was pulling up to introduce himself and invite them to the chili cook off before church on Sunday. He brought them to church and absolutely took over, he sat with them and gave them a church tour. It was incredible. 

Other than that it was just a bunch of hard work this week! I love you all!

Elder Goldsberry

"ThanksGIGing"

Well hey there everyone!!

This week was a great one! We had zone conference and it was a ton of fun! The training Elder Rose and I gave went pretty well. At the end of us giving it the second time, the APs said we needed to take 10 more minutes because lunch wasn't ready, so we had some missionaries run a relay race to show urgency haha. There are some changes that came with this zone conference, and it gets me really excited! It shows that there truly is an urgency to this work. 

We have a UBC (unbaptized child of record) baptism tomorrow that kinda just fell into our laps. We have been working super hard and have been brought to much prayer and fasting (Alma 17:3) and we are being blessed for it. The mother of the child getting baptized used to work for President Leishman, so that was way cool to have that connection. 

I had a pretty cool experience. Just a little backstory, we are reading the Book of Mormon as a mission and I decided to pray to receive a spiritual witness that the Book of Mormon is true. I'm pretty deep into it and I hadn't received it. My testimony is not struggling by any means at all, but I was a little sad that I hadn't gotten it when Elder Rose had. Anyways, we were knocking and we found someone who said they were interested and to come back the next day. We did and he ended up bashing us. I did my best to defend the faith without getting confrontational. At the end of it we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and he said "So if I found anything wrong in this book, does that make your church wrong?" I told him yes, it is the keystone of our religion and if it's wrong then so are we. I then bore powerful testimony that everything in the book is true and he can know for himself by reading and praying. In that moment I felt the spirit fill me and give me my confirmation that the Book of Mormon is true. Although the man may not read with real intent, I was given the confirmation I was praying for and it was an awesome feeling!

With Thanksgiving this week, I want to tell you all what I'm grateful for. I'm grateful for my family and the way they raised me to not let me go too far off the chain so I could come out here. I'm grateful for this gospel and the blessing it is to spend this time sharing it with people. I'm grateful for the Atonement and the opportunity it gives me to become better and to know that I am not alone in anything I do. I'm grateful for all of you, my friends and spiritual brothers and sisters and the light you are to the world! Most of all, I'm grateful for my Lord, Savior, and Friend, Jesus Christ and that because of Him, all of this is possible. 

I love you all and I hope you have a great week spending time reflecting on what you have been given!

Elder Goldsberry

"I Kicked Down a Door Last Week" 

Hey everyone!

This week was a great one as always! We had a baptism for the UBC that our bishop referred us to. The mom knew President Leishman and asked him to speak at the baptism so that was pretty cool! The Leishmans also had some of their kids and grandkids here so we got to see them at the baptism. 

We've all gotten sick this week! Not too sick to work of course, but it's still not fun being sick. We had a cool Thanksgiving! In the morning we went to a park with one of our wards for a turkey bowl and played some football. Then we had a lunch with some members and they had some of the best dang turkey and stuffing I ever done tasted. After that, we just kinda hung out with the zone at a church building and played some games. 

So last week our door got locked, and it was a deadbolt. (We still don't know who locked it) We didn't have the key so I went to a side door and kicked it down call of duty style. It felt so cool. We searched the house looking for someone who was messing with us but found nothing. All the doors and windows were locked so we are confused as to how it happened haha. 

Not much else went on this week. Just been a lot of hard work! I love you all have a great week!

"Anotha One"

Hey everyone!

Not a whole lot went on this week. We had interviews with President Leishman and we got no transfer buzz at all so our transfer calls this Saturday will be a surprise. We pulled up to a knocking spot the other day and out of nowhere there was this good boy sitting outside of our car, I'll send the video and pictures. 

The Christmas devotional yesterday was way sweet! We watched it with a way cool family and it was a ton of fun! It rained wayyyyy hard this week when we were on exchanges and Elders Rose and Butterfield and I got SOAKED!! Easily the most soaked I've been on my mission and there was a ton of lightning. It was literally like taking a shower out there, it was nuts. Everyone we knocked into just said we were soaked and gonna get struck by lightning haha. 

Well I love you all have a great week!

Chuggin On

Chuggin On 

This week was pretty average, but as a missionary that means my week was great! Every week in the mission field is a great one! Not a whole lot went on, we did have zone conference and that was a lot of fun! It was the first zone conference I haven't had to set up for in 6 months since I'm not an Office Elder anymore! Of course I helped take all the tables down because I know how much that sucks lol. 

We met a way cool part member family where the husband and the son are not members. We helped them clean their house after a big smoke accident and we connected with them really well! The husband wants to play basketball with us so hopefully we can get that going with him. I have a really good feeling about them. We also have a bunch of other pretty solid people, unfortunately only one of them came to church yesterday but we just gotta be patient!

Conference last week was so amazing! And not just because church is shortened haha, I do have to say 6 hours of church every week isn't exactly the funnest experience. There were so many good talks, and watching with the perspective of also having investigators watching changes everything! It was so rooted in the doctrine of Christ and it was just awesome!! We are reading the Book of Mormon cover to cover and highlighting references to Christ just as President Nelson advised the sisters to do! It's so cool! 

Nothing else to report on really, we have interviews with President on Tuesday then Elder Whiting will be visiting the mission on Saturday so that will be way cool!

I love you all!

Elder Goldsberry

Respect my general authoriteh

The subject for this week's email is for my south park fans out there.

Hey everyone!

This week was a great one! We had interviews with President Leishman and those are always super fun and uplifting! He's a great guy. Word on the street is we Elder Rose and I will be getting another brand new missionary to train! Hopefully we get to keep Elder M, Elder W visa is here so he'll be flying to Zimbabwe here on Sunday. If not President said we would be getting 2 new ones. 

We had Elder Whiting of the 70 and the area presidency come visit the mission on Saturday! He is way cool and funny, he roasted a few people including president and it was way funny. He had a lot of great things to say and it really inspired me to push myself harder. He talked a lot about the Holy Ghost which was pretty awesome, it's sometimes hard to discern between promptings and my own thoughts and he give some pretty sick wisdom for that in specific. He's a very charismatic and funny guy. 

Also on Saturday we had an ex missionary Elder Jenks with his family and his girlfriend, also an ex missionary from this mission Sister Skinner, come and visit us for a quick second. It was way cool to see him again, he's a really good guy. He's Elder Rose's trainer so that was pretty dope. 

The work still moves forward here in Gig Harbor. We got good things going and we are really excited! 

I love you all!

Elder Goldsberry

Urgency

Hello everyone!!

First off, this week was great! We had a really good week and found some people to teach and just working with the same people. We dropped off Elder W on Saturday and he is now on his way to Zimbabwe! We are excited for him. We got our transfer calls and the 3 of us will be staying and getting another new missionary to train! We are very excited!

There's a subject that has been pressing on my mind lately and I just wanted to talk about it and that is urgency. Yesterday we had a member of one of our wards who was baptized 2 years ago telling us how lucky we are to be born into the gospel and how she could've used it 50 years ago. We ARE so lucky to have the gospel and because of that we have the responsibility to share it with our spirit brothers and sisters. I have noticed an attitude of urgency with our Prophet, President Nelson. There is NOTHING more important we can take part in than the gathering of Israel! 

Alma 13:24 says 24 For behold, ^aangels are declaring it unto many at this time in our land; and this is for the purpose of preparing the hearts of the children of men to receive his word at the time of his coming in his glory.

People all around us are constantly being prepared! Let's not be afraid to share the gospel with those around us! Let's pray for opportunities to share the gospel and for the spiritual sensitivity to recognize those opportunities! I would hate for someone to come up to me in the next life and say "You were right there, and you had what I needed. Why did you not try to share it with me?" Whether or not they know it now, EVERYONE needs the gospel! 

I love you all! 

Elder Goldsberry

That was a Year?

Hey everyone!

I hit my year mark this week and that was pretty weird. Time flies when you're having fun! It was Elder Webb's birthday this week,  and the ward found out and we came home to our front door decorated and a bunch of cupcakes and stuff on the porch. Everyone knows where we live, even random people we knock into. So that's kinda weird. But it's nothing like Tacoma here, so it doesn't worry me haha. 

The work here is picking up! We had an investigator that we knocked come to the Gig Harbor ward and the ward mission leader was blown away, especially since it was our first normal Sunday in the ward. They haven't had a lot of work done here lately so I can definitely feel the ward getting excited! We have a lot of potential and we are hyped!

We are having a ton of fun together! My companions are all awesome and we are just working hard! Not much else to report on, General Conference is this week and that is gonna be so great!! I got a feeling it's gonna be pretty crazy so buckle up everyone hahah! This week is gonna be fun! We are going on exchanges with the APs and then we have MLC! I'll let y'all know how it all goes!

I love you all!!

Elder Goldsberry

Gig is Good!

Hey everyone! 

This week has been a ton of fun. Elder Rose and I got our brand trainees one will be staying here in the WA-TAC and the other one is a visa waiter going to Zimbabwe. They are both awesome, I love them!

Our new area is way cool! Our Ward Mission Leader lives on his own island and we take a private boat to his house! Its nuts!! The work here has moved slow for a while but we are already picking it up! We are very excited! We had stake conference yesterday so we still know hardly anyone in the ward haha. 

I love you all!!

Elder Goldsberry

The boat to the private island. Our sleepy sons