Week 74

Hey, I love to hear about your weeks! 
I'm glad everything is going well and that you have all committed to doing family scripture study! Some of my goals for the mission before I come home are to learn to love more fully, to improve my memory and then improve my
organization skills! So that is what I have been working on! I miss the temple so much! I'm so happy for Adam! I can't believe that he is already heading out for the mission!  He will really love the mission a lot!It's a time of pure service and love. 
I have learned a lot about not murmuring as well because it just ruins a lot of things!   It has been getting harder to stay focused, but its all part of the plan. The Lord is testing to see how much space I have for Him in my life and how much he can trust me! Its been a blessing to struggle in the mission because it means the Lord already knows I can handle difficulty. I'm really grateful to have been placed on the straight and narrow path and to have my family and friends to help guide me. The mission has been a
great experience! Nothing can eternally go wrong when you are on the Lord's side! 
This week was cool because we had two baptisms in our district
and it was really exciting to hear about the success of the missionaries I'm working with.  I was able to feel the pure love of Christ as I watched my companion baptize one of the sisters investigators. The water in the font was freezing, so when my comp dunked her under, she kicked her leg in the air and they had to do it again! She looked like she was going to cry! I felt so bad. After the baptism, we helped perform the confirmation of the Holy Ghost! It was so great! Later, we ate dinner with this awesome non member family that was so cool. On our way home we helped jump start this woman's car by pushing it! We had so much fun just hanging out and talking about Christ, it was one of the best days of my mission by far! Anyway, that was my week! 
Nathan will need a strong testimony of the Lord and he will need to know how to share it.  He will have a huge impact on the lives of the people he serves! Thanks for everything you do! I'm grateful to be your son! Have fun in school, learn lots! Have a great week! 

Love, Anziano Goode

Week 73

Hey, how are you? 
This week went good! We had a scambio with the Zone Leaders from Rome and it went really well. We were able to find a family that was really cool and we are trying to meet up and teach them the lessons. The hard part is that they live an hour away on train. It's so fun to prepare things that will affect others for the good! 
There also has been an opposition of all things in my week as well! Its best when there is opposition so we can grow and learn about all things! This week a good thing that happened was that we got a couple of new students in English course that want us to meet their families! So we are really excited to teach them and to help them learn the gospel! Also, I thought it was really cool that
Jared Smith emailed me and told me about his mission call to Denmark and about everything he has been doing! Anyway I hope you have a great week, I love you guys lots!

Anziano Goode

Week 72

This week was great!  We were able to meet this really nice lady named Cinzia
who speaks a little bit of english and has seen our missionaries
before! We saw her again today walk past the church so we stopped her
and asked if she wanted to have a tour of the church and she gladly
accepted, she even got to meet the sorelle, which was cool! We have been
seeing many small miracles and we hope they continue.   

This New Years was crazy because there were people who were screaming and throwing so many fireworks right at midnight, it woke up everyone who was sleeping (so basically just us). We had sparklers that we lit for New Years but that was all we had as fireworks. We almost got blown up by some massive ones, though, it was kinda scary! A couple people had already died from fireworks before New Years even happened. Anyway have a great week, Happy Birthday and Happy New Year!

Love Anz Goode

Week 71

Thanks you for the email!(: 
I love reading your emails because they are always really informing and it's exciting to know what you guys do and to be able to share with everybody what you guys are doing! That's so cool that you guys are going to see the Tijuana temple! I want to go see that when I get home! This week was truly great being able to share it with the missionaries in my district and yesterday especially to be able to talk with and listen to Elder Oaks! The responsibility of an apostle
is so great! He and his wife spoke together most of the time just asking each other questions and responding with the spirit to answer our own personal questions as missionaries! We were also given the opportunity to personally shake his hand and talk with him for a second.  To me he just said "Hello Elder Cook, I mean Elder Goode.  These glasses are getting old!" Then he looked me in the eyes and said  "Nice to meet you, Elder Goode".   I pretty much didn't say anything, I was too busy fumbling over my tongue, but I did say, "It's nice to see you."
He spoke about some really cool topics, the ones that stood out the most were the ones about actually being a missionary and not just doing missionary things, like going through the motions.  Then he also said we have to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord. Like a pen, we need to be filled with ink or knowledge. We also need to be clicked out and ready to go and third we can't write or
share our own message, we need to share the gospel of Jesus Christ the
message that He needs to write and share. So overall it went great. I'm so
grateful to be able to serve in this place at this time, even if it is hard and I don't see immediate results.
Love you a lot!  Hope you have a great week!
Love, Anziano Goode

Zone Conference with Elder Oaks

Week 70

Hey! 

I just wanted to say you are the best! Every ward needs a Relief Society president like you. It's gonna be really cool to Skype you guys to see how everything is going! I'm most excited for that and for spending time with the members and our district! So this week we are doing a white elephant gift exchange and I bought some nunchucks from a Chinese store! Hopefully one of the sisters ends up with those! If not someone will get hurt hahahaha(:

I'm really grateful for this period of the year where everyone is trying to think about others! Today I had the chance to help this biker pick up something that fell from his stuff and he was really grateful! It's good to see people appreciate small things that we do!
By small and simple things are great things come to pass, so it's been good to remember that throughout my mission!  I'm excited to see you guys this week! Have a great week!

Love, Anziano Goode

We went caroling with some people in the ward. 

Week 69

Hi,
Everything is going really well, my last comp was Anz Berger and my current comp is Anziano Anderson. 
Well this week was really good. We have been working a lot through our members.  We have been trying to grow our English course and to get
to know people in the city! I'm enjoying my time here. It's really flying by compared to my first half in missione. We have been working extremely hard with a family here who is part active and its been really interesting because some don't want to go to church and the other half is just pushing so hard to get them to come to church. It's kind of tough because we want peace in their house and we also want everyone to come to church and participate in the gospel. I feel so blessed to be in a family where everything seems to just be working out well and there is stability.  When we were younger I imagine it was a lot harder and maybe seemed like we would wander but i just don't understand how everything worked out! I suggested to this family to say family prayers to increase their unity and I think they have started committing themselves much more!
The Christmas pictures we took were really fun, we were just making fun of ourselves! I watched a bit of the Christmas Conference, it was great.  Are you guys doing a Christmas card!? I'm definitely going to take a lot of fotos with the families I'm with.  To bring the Christmas spirit, we went caroling with some of our ward members and we sang and had the guitar in front of the city streets that are real busy! It was great, the little kids loved it a lot!

Love,
Anziano Goode