Another week in Olympia

Howdy y'all!

This week was awesome as usual! I was able to give my first baptismal interview as district leader and it was such an amazing spiritual experience! The woman I interviewed had been taking lessons with the missionaries for a long time and her boyfriend is a member so she was beyond prepared, which made it easy! She was baptized on Saturday, we weren't able to go because we couldn't get an investigator to come with us, but it was great from what I know!

I went on exchanges with Elders B. and C. twice this week! Once just to do exchanges with our companionships and the second time because my companions went on exchanges with the assistants to the President. It was cool to go with them, they are awesome guys. 

I got to go to a zone leader meeting with the Stake president of the Olympia stake and that was way cool! The leadership of the church are called of God and they're always so in touch with the Spirit! He assumed I was a zone leader so I just got to play zone leader for an hour. 

WE GET TO GO TO THE SEATTLE TEMPLE THIS WEEK! We are having our mission temple trip on Thursday and I have never been so excited to go to the temple. Brothers and Sisters, I never took advantage of living so close to a temple and I really hope you can learn from my mistake! The temple is an amazing place where we can serve those who have passed on and receive revelation. It's an escape from the world and the place we can feel the Spirit the strongest. Please take advantage of living so close to a temple, and always strive to be worthy to enter it's walls! 

We were able to find a lot of new investigators this week which we are all really excited about! We found a kid who plays on the same basketball team as a kid I went to high school with! Small world huh?? 

I love you all! Keep on keepin on!!

-Elder Goldsberry

 

Fanny packs are a thing on this mission :) 

Honorary Zone Leader

HOWDY Y'ALL

This week has been a crazy one for sure. I gave my first training on Wednesday which went very well! My district is way awesome so they made it way easy! 

On a sadder note, my companion Elder B went home on Saturday. On a happier note, I'm in a threesome with the zone leaders and it's way sick!! They are awesome dudes and great missionaries! I'm really enjoying my time with them, it will probably be like this for the rest of the transfer! We have to cover both my area and their area so we have a lot of ground to cover AND my area's church is 9-12 and theirs is 1-4 so we get a full 6 hours of church every Sunday.. yay? We also had ward council yesterday at 7:30 so we were at the church from 7:30 - 4! 

Things are way cool out here and I'm getting along really easily with my new companions. I don't really have any funny stories unfortunately but I'll try to make some this week! Love y'all!

-Elder G

1) Me and the comps (yes those are women's glasses on my face)

2/3) The blessed land of Olympia

Turmwater Life

Hey everyone!

I'm loving the new area! It's nice having a lot more places to knock and stores/restaurants nearby so that's way cool. Elder B and I get along really well, we got doubled in to the area and the missionaries before us didn't really have a teaching pool so it's just been a ton of finding. Funny part is, yesterday was stake conference so we still hardly know anyone in our ward haha. 

I got to go to DLT (district leader training) last Thursday and that was great! President's trainings are always so inspiring. The only missionaries I have in my stewardship are the zone leaders and the sister training leaders, so they are pretty solid missionaries as is which makes my job easy. I do have to give a training every Wednesday and with the only people at my district meetings being leadership, I feel like my trainings will just be judged haha. They're great and kind so I bet they'll just judge silently. 

Elder B and I both love basketball and our apartment complex has an indoor court so you know where we'll be our P-Days!

Love you all!

-Elder Goldsberry

New Companionship

One and done with Morton

Hey everyone!

So we got our transfer calls on Saturday and unexpectedly Elder M and I will both be leaving Cowlitz Falls! The members were so upset. I will be going to the Tumwater 2nd Ward in the Olympia zone as a District Leader. My companion will be Elder B he's in my zone right now, in fact, I'm sitting next to him as we speak! He's a way cool guy and we are already friends so it's awesome to know my companion going into it!  

Yesterday the Zone Leaders had a baptism for someone that Elder M taught all the lessons to so we went to that after church and spent the day with them. They're the best and way fun to work with! Elder B and I have become really good friends and we're both sad I'm leaving Centralia zone.

Other than that not too much going on. I'm excited to get into a new area (again) usually I wouldn't move around this much but who knows what's going on haha. 

I love you guys! 

First E-Mail of 2018

2018, the only full calendar year I will dedicate completely to the Lord. I'm going to make the most out of it! Our mission goal for 2018 is 700 baptisms, 2017 it was 617 and we didn't quite reach it so I'm really happy it went up. Some may think we should've lowered it but with a higher goal we show our faith, and as exercise our faith I know we can do it!

Sorry I didn't email on Christmas, I hope you all enjoyed it! I know I did! We had breakfast as a zone, then we had our skype call and spent the rest of the day at Brother C's (the gunsmith). It was a great and relaxing day!

Last night for New Years we had to come in an hour earlier than usual so Elder M. and I had a fire in the wood burning stove in our apartment and made smores! That was very fun! 

We spent some time with our zone leaders, Elders Burton and Menezes, and split knocked with them and they spent the night at our house. They really great missionaries and Elder Burton and I get along really well. He is very knowledgeable in the gospel and he has a book called "The Plates of Bash" that he constructed. It essentially has information on everything that people "bash" us on. It's really cool and big. 

I love you all and make 2018 an amazing year!!!

Holding a baby pig

Close up of the baby pig

Making smores indoors