Week 97: Last full week in Italy!

Hey mom, I love you so much! This will be my last email from the mission!

I just wanted to tell you guys everything we have going on this week! We have two baptisms scheduled for this Friday and it will be soo awesome!   

Saturday morning I will be taking the train up to Rome in the morning! Then Sunday I will attend a ward where I served in Ladispoli! I'm super excited! Then Monday I will be in Rome for my last Prep-day and will try to see all the cool stuff there is to see before I head home Tuesday morning.  I will see you all Tuesday night!

For my last Monday in Catania, we will have a BBQ with the bishop's family for lunch, then we will go to the best family's house ever, for dinner and family

home evening! It will be so awesome! I'm super excited for this week! And
for coming home! It's finally starting to hit me that my mission is
over!

I love you guys so much! I just want to share my testimony that the Book of
Mormon has changed my life and that the mission was an inspired calling
from a Prophet of God! I have loved serving in the Rome, Italy mission. Even more, I love the Lord that I have been a servant of! I leave you with this final missionary testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, amen!

Anziano Goode

Letter from Elder Edgel

Dear Brother & Sister Goode,

We are a senior missionary couple serving with your son.  I am a retired Army Major and my wife is a retired supervisory nurse.  I am a lifelong member and my wife is a convert.  I served a mission, and was associated with the missionary work for many years as a Seventy.  I have worked with dozens of missionaries and supervised 170 of them at the conclusion of my mission.  During those years I have seen few missionaries that have impressed me like your son has.  Your son is an example to all of the missionaries.  He is dedicated and humble.  He has what we call in the military, great bearing.  One can see that he is confident but never cocky.  He is polite and congenial.  He will go far in life!  Thank you for sending a lad like him to join the great missionary fraternity.

We have grown to love and admire your son.  Now, as we will shortly send him home, know that he returns with honor.  We shall miss him but we certainly will keep track of him.  The boy that you sent out to serve, two years ago, comes home a man.  Great job, Mom & Dad.

Faithfully your companions,   

Elder & Sister Edgel

Sigonella Naval Air Station, Italy

Week 96

Heyy mom! How are you?

The Lord is blessing me and you guys so much!
We are seeing absolute miracles! We will have 2 baptisms the day
before I leave! It will be so awesome! I am so excited for our
investigators who are preparing to get baptized! It will be so
rewarding!
I'm not super good at doing nothing! I'm most productive when I have a project or something that I like doing! I'm really hoping my enthusiasm will carry over after the mission! I think it will!

I love you guys! Have a great week!

Love, Anziano Goode

Week 95

Hey,

I'm doing okay. I'm feeling a little strange, I've never felt the way I do
now! I feel like Satan is trying so hard just to make me feel like I have
wasted my time and that I should've done my mission in a different way,
but I'm just glad I know where those thoughts come from and how to
protect myself from them! I have gained such a strong testimony of the
scriptures, having to rely on them and study them everyday! I know God
speaks to us individually through the Holy Ghost but they are the
words of Heavenly Father! I'm happy I know all this stuff! 

I am super excited for these coming weeks, they will be filled with miracles! Yesterday was Anziano Berger's birthday so we had a big celebration with a cake and everything, it was great! We also had to say goodbye to President and Sorella Waddoups and it was super sad to see the president and his
wife leave! I hope you have a great week.  Only a couple more weeks of
emailing ya! I'm soo bad at emailing! Sending lots of love!
Anziano Goode

Week 94

Hey, 

I love you! This week was great and next week will be even better! 

The church is true!
I love you(:

Anziano Goode

Week 93

Hey mom! How are you? 
This week was way busy with transfers and stuff.
I am assigned to work with Anziano Berger again, which is awesome! We are already killing it! I'm really excited to see what will happen this transfer with
everything going on and the new mission president coming on the 28 of June! I'm reading the Book of Mormon everyday for studies and i'm in
Alma 15 which talks about the mission of  Alma and Amulek and it is
really inspiring! We will have a training for our Zone on the 15th, we
will give a thirty minute lesson to everyone! Its gonna be great!
I love you, have a great week!
Anziano Goode

Week 92

Hey mom! This week continues to be one of the most exciting weeks
of my mission! We had zone conference and it went super well! Then right after zone conference we had two baptisms, it was soo cool! It was in the church this time! Ill send pics of everything, no worries! I didnt baptize either of the kids, I
let the Assistant to the President perform the ordinances because he had served here in Catania! Anyway, we had a couple of cool things go on this week. On
Saturday, we got transfer calls and I am staying here and Elder Stanley
is going to a place called Cosenza! My new companion will be Anziano Berger! He is a missionary I already served with when I was in Ladispoli! So
he will be my comp again and I'm way excited! 
Anyway, at zone conference, the Mission President told us that we will be doing an exchange in the country of Malta on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week, so we took a flight this morning and are here in the country of Malta for right now! It's owned by Britain so the people speak a mix of languages and the people also drive on the wrong side of the road, which is super weird! Its a beautiful place and we are really excited to help out these elders here! I'll sent more pics next week of the beautiful island and stuff! 
Today we saw a lady get run over by a bus and it was probably the worst thing I've ever seen, it is hard to believe that tragic stuff happens like this everyday around the world. But on the bright side, it's good to know that there are also great things happening everyday as well! Well at least it's a comforting thought! Well I am planning to work hard to finish out the mission over these last six weeks. I'm really excited to see what the Lord has in store for us this next transfer!

I love you!

Anziano Goode

Week 91

Hey!  This past week was great and this next one will be even better! We will
have two baptisms on Tuesday! Its going to be way awesome! The Lord is
blessing us with many fruits! So this week we will have Zone
Conference here in Catania, then we will conduct a baptismal interview in
Messina and the next day we will be in Palermo for Stake Conference!
What a busy week we will have! Also we receive transfer calls on
Saturday and I am super excited to know how I will be spending my last
transfer! 
Last week after the baptism, the body surfing was soo memorable, i'll never forget that! Last week we had to go to Reggio Calabria where Kobe Bryant was raised as a kid! The city isn't my favorite place but it was cool anyway! Here's a picture! I love you guys and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Anziano Goode

Week 90

Hi, this week was way awesome!  We had the baptism on Thursday in Gela, Sicily.  The baptism took place in the Mediterranean Sea.  It was totally cool! And I couldn't help but body surf this wave in!!!  I've sent some pictures.  We as a zone have been combining our strengths and everyone is being blessed! We have lots of really great missionaries here! 
I love you guys so much! Talk next week! Gotta run!

Anziano Goode

Baptism in the Mediterranean Sea

Week 89

Hey mom, so yesterday was awesome! I was like stressing about it, but it went really well (the Skype). These last few months are going to fly by! I'm super excited though! I am trying to soak it all in! Also, the baptism was postponed to this week and it is going to be awesome! I'm super excited to participate in this ordinance!
I'm excited for school, I feel like I have the right attitude going into it so it should be really awesome! I have realized that I want to be able to help people throughout my life whether that be physically or mentally. I would like to help people through their struggles! 

I love to talk to new people every day whether it be on the street or on the bus or anywhere! I talked to a lady that spoke English from Catania in a fruit store today that was pretty cool, her name was Licia. 

I hope you have a great week! 

Love, Anziano Goode

P.S. Expect some cool pics next week!  I am baptizing Carmello in the ocean!  I hope the waves are good!  Haha!

Week 88

Hey mom! 
It was soo good to see you guys yesterday! The family I was with gave you all some good compliments! The package you sent hasn't come in
yet but I think that's because there were some holidays this week!
Anyway I wanted to write an email that you could post, so here it goes!
This week has been awesome! Actually the past few weeks have been
awesome! I am enjoying so much my time here in Sicily! I have come to
love the members I serve so much! In the last couple of weeks we as a
mission have been getting really excited about the month of May! We are
striving as a mission to have 40 baptisms this month! We all
strongly feel that we can reach this goal! To help out, our Zone will
need about 6 baptisms this month. Just in our city we have 3
planned for this month! We are soo grateful for the help the Lord
gives us in accomplishing these small and simple things! This week
we have found many people who are ready to hear about the restored
gospel! We have been working with the youth especially, because they
have friends that are willing to listen and they aren't afraid! This
week we should be having at least one baptism in the Zone! His name is
Carmello, he is from a different city but he felt like he needed to
have me baptize him, so he asked if I would do that this Saturday! This
week will be great! I'm excited for Mother's Day and I hope everything
will go well for you guys this week!
Love, Anziano Goode

                  Here is a video my Comp took of me driving around Sicily!

Week 87

Hey,
Well this week was great! To top it off, a missionary that returned
already from the mission came back with his family for a vacation and
to see us so it was awesome!  My goals before I come home are just
missionary related things like baptizing a family and stuff like that! A man asked me to baptize him on the 7th next month so I will get to do that as long as he prepares himself well enough!  I love you guys, thanks for everything!  
Love, Anziano Goode

P.S. Me and my comp are staying together here in Catania!

This is a missionary that is headed home to Sacramento!

Week 86

Hey mom, 
This week we gave a few blessings which was totally cool. I love giving blessings; especially because I feel like I see the results from them immediately.
Faith really does influence the results of those who receive blessings. Faith is the principle by which all miracles are wrought! I'm grateful for my testimony of priesthood blessings!
My trip to Messina was great, we didn't really see much of the city but
the church is beautiful and we were able to get some good work done!
There are only 2 zones in Sicily, so our zone covers over half of
Sicily! 
Is there anything I can do for you guys? 
I love you and hope you have a great week!
Love, Anziano Goode

Week 85

Hey mom, love you! 
Sorry I cant cant write you this week!

Week 84

Hey mom!,
How are you guys! I'm so glad your week went well! My week
didn't go very well, until General Conference! After General Conference, I
was calmed down a lot and I feel much more in tune with the Spirit!
I'm really just fighting Satan and trying to do my best to finish the
mission strong and find as many people to teach before I head out and leave mission life and Italy behind! 
I'm glad that Nathan was able to go with some friends to snowboard that was always the highlight of conference week! Hahaha
Anyway, I loved Conference; well the parts that I have seen so far, which
are the morning sessions and priesthood session. I still need to watch
the afternoon sessions!
I'm happy to know that the Spirit has touched all of our lives this
week! 
I love you so much! Have a great week!
Love, Anziano Goode

Week 83

Hey mom its so good to hear from you! 
Thanks for sending my International Driving Permit, I got it in the mail this week so I will start driving shortly! I'm pretty excited, but I'm also a bit scared because traffic is nuts here, but that's alright! For Easter, we went to a family's house in the ward that is super awesome!
I have never taught so many lessons throughout my mission than in my
last few months here! Leah told me she thinks she would like to serve
a mission! I think that would be great! It really is a great
experience and I think she would love it! 
For Zone conference we talked about reaching new heights and about not becoming content with where we are and always moving ahead, it was really good! The whole conference was really good except that I had to take $200 dollars out of my account to buy pizza for all 60 of us! Don't worry, the money will be reimbursed! Hahaha! Love you so much!

Anziano Goode

Week 82

Hi,

Here in Italy for Palm Sunday the Catholics sell palm leaves for people to carry around and wear and stuff it's interesting how much they love their traditions! They have so many that it is hard to keep track of them all! 

The city I'm in, Catania, is the second largest in Sicily. It's pretty famous and it's super pretty because we are right next to the ocean. There is also a volcano, called Etna, that has snow on it right now. 

I love you so much! I'll let you know how my first training goes tomorrow! 

Anziano Goode

Week 81

Hey mom,
It's great to hear anout your weeks and to know how much you
are doing in your own free time! Anxiously engaged in a good cause! I
have a strong testimony that there is always something good to be
doing.  There isn't enough time to fill it with bad things! Give Nathan
some good ideas for how to fill his time. I know that internet use can
be abused way too easily so its good to spend time doing good things
instead of unproductive things or harmful things! Also, I have learned
to clean here in the mission! The people that I'm living with aren't
really the cleanest people so its been a learning process knowing how
to help messy people understand what to do with all the filth
constantly around us in the physical and spiritual sense! I am
learning so much in these short weeks and years that it's nice to
realize every once in a while about how much progress is actually
happening! I hope you have a great week with school and everything!  I
love you guys so much!
Anziano Goode

Week 80

Hey momma, I love you, you are awesome! Thanks for everything! 
     It's good to hear about your week and to know you are okay! I'm ecstatic for this upcoming week because we will have a lot of appointments and stuff all planned out! So this past week kinda sucked honestly, we had a lot of appointments drop and we definitely learned the importance of humility and putting the Lords will first!  The farther I go in the mission the more I learn what I need to do! I heard this really great comparison this week.  A kid asks his father how big an airplane is when it is flying far away, the father said it was really small because it was far away. Later, the dad showed the kid an airplane when it was up close and the kid was shocked to see how enormous it really was! The dad told him that God is the same way! When we are far away, He looks small, when we are close He is giant! I love this comparison!
I love you guys and want you to know that you guys are important to me,
because you are close to me! Have a splendid week!
Love, Anziano Goode

Week 79

Hey mom! How are you? 
     Sorry I didn't email, I think the servers were down for my ldsmail in Europe so no one sent emails home I guess! We did have to lead zone conference and it was a bit stressful, not going to lie, but it all worked out okay! Anyway, we have been working nonstop! In fact I had to buy new white shirts because mine were all starting to get a grungy from walking around all of the time! We do have a bit of flexibility in traveling and what not but still pretty normal missionary stuff! There was a baptism in our ward that went really well. There are 6 missionaries in this ward which is awesome! 4 Anziani and 2 Sorelle! We are rooming with another set of Elders, so 4 of us in the apartment, but for zone conference we had 16 in our apartment which was insane because we only have one shower and not enough hot water. Hahah! 
     Anyway this week was also a little crazy because we got accused by someone in the bishopric for having some sort of relationship with one our investigator that we weren't supposed to but in reality we have just been working so well and she has been making so much progress that she needed the help. So instead of asking us about the situation he asked the sisters in our ward and they had to call the assistants and president. Later in the week the
assistants, including one of the elders who just got done serving here
in Catania, called us and asked why this report had come in to them
that we had some relationship with our investigator. He knew the
situation and totally understands why we have been teaching her and
stuff so he was completely on our side. Now we just have to clarify
tomorrow with this ward member the situation.  There are soo many issues that we are constantly dealing with!  There is always something to worry about! 
I love you guys so much you're awesome! 
Love, Anziano Goode

District Lunch at the apartment

The gentleman on the left is the one who filmed the church's Bible Videos.