Alyssa's Baptism

April 29, 2013

I have been transferred!   I'm now serving in the West Des Moines ward on the east side.  We have the smallest area in the mission.  I'm in a tri-companionship with a trainer and visa waiter who is waiting to serve in the Sao Paulo Brazil mission.  They are both great missionaries and we all get along really well.  The mission home is within my area so we see President Jergensen driving around occasionally, (which is really weird, but cool.)  We have 2 baptismal dates right now a mother and her daughter.  We had a great experience on Sunday.  A guy showed up at church who had been going to church with his girlfriend in Panama and wants to meet with us and get baptized.  Super sweet!   I don't feel like I'll be in the area for very long because of what president said to me at transfer meeting but I guess we'll see what happens.  It's so great to be in a new area and with new companions. I miss Elder Claridge but I'm sure he's doing just fine.  This Saturday we get a super special mission wide conference.  Elder Anderson from the 12 is coming to talk with us along with a member of the presidency of the 70 and our area 70.  It's going to be an AWESOME meeting!   I'm SO excited to be able to meet an apostle and hear him speak directly to my mission.  The blessings are rolling in, now to take advantage of them and get the work to explode.

Love Elder Jach-Goates

April 22 2013

Things are getting crazy here,  transfers are this week and it turns out I'm getting transferred. It was expected but not in the way I was expecting it.   I'm going into a tri-companionship and I'm suppose to supervise a missionary who has only been out for a few months and is going to be training a visa waiter.  So pretty much I'm a trainers trainer! ha it sounds like it will be a pretty good gig.  I'll pretty much just get to sit back and let them do everything, ha ha ha. So we'll see what happens.  It's been so great to be able to serve here in Ames and get to know some awesome people.   I'll for sure miss them!   So Austin wasn't able to muster up the courage to talk to his mom about wanting to get baptized and decided that this just wasn't the time for him to do it so he doesn't want to meet with the missionaries anymore.  Luckily we have created a good relationship and he wants to say bye before I leave so  I'll get one last chance to talk with him about it all and see if I can help him understand why he should keep meeting with the missionaries.  The area is picking up we went to a members for dinner last night who invited a non-member friend over that we got to teach and we are doing the same thing tomorrow night and there are a few more families in the ward who say they have friends that they want to introduce to us to hopefully this new missionary that comes in will be a good one that can help these great members out.  Oh how I love this work!

Love Elder Jach-Goates

April 15 2013

It was a slow week as far as lessons go, but we got a ton of stuff set up for this week.  I'll be gone on exchanges in different areas Wednesday through Friday so I helped Elder Claridge set some stuff up for the time he will be here with the other missionaries.  Austin is doing great! He said he is going to talk to his mom about the church this week and work from there so I think we'll start seeing some really good progress from him soon.  Dave is still struggling but is so receptive to the spirit and really wants to do better so we're helping in any way that we can.   With transfers coming up in another week we will be busy saying my goodbyes to a lot of the families here! its been a great area to serve in and great to get to know so many wonderful people.  I hope I helped this area progress and left it in better condition than when I came in.  Today is zone Pday so we're all getting together to play some games and have some fun.  I love you all!  Remember to share this wonderful blessing with our brothers and sisters who don't know what they're missing!!

Love Elder Jach-Goates

April 8 2013

Things are of coarse great right after conference!   We picked up a new investigator and got both him and Austin to come watch some of conference.  They both really enjoyed it!  Austin asked me to give him a blessing so that he could better feel the spirit.  It's crazy how much he understands about the gospel.  He's just scared about what his family will think at this point. Just hope he can get the courage he needs soon.  We had a zone meeting on Friday to start off the conference weekend and it was an amazing meeting! FILLED with the spirit!  I've definitely been "born again" like Alma the younger!   Not as drastic but similar.  Such a great feeling! Now I just need to figure out how to do that every few weeks or sometimes every few days.

I pray you will all find those missionary opportunities the Lord puts in your path.

Love Elder Jach-Goates

March 31 2013

It was a pretty slow week!   We were in Marshalltown Wednesday and Thursday on exchanges and then Friday and Saturday all of our appointments fell through.  Frustrating, but humbling at the same time.  Just means we have to work even harder this week to get things rolling again.  Elizabeth cancelled on us and won't text back.  Austin wasn't able to meet with us and the referrals we got both weren't home.  Ha Ha, nothing seemed to go our way last week. Funny experience we went to a lecture at ISU there was a catholic lady that was giving a lecture on Mormonism and the gold plates,  Ha Ha so we went with the institute instructor who is also a bishop to check it out and see if people needed any questions answered.  Turns out it was completely boring.  She didn't say anything false, just went off of "What if Joseph Smith was Delirious" pretty lame!   There was a lot of people there but had to be for a U.S. history class.  We left some BoMs and mormon.org cards so hopefully we'll see some come of those.  When the going gets tough ask for help! ha!

Love Elder Jach-Goates

March 25, 2013

It was a good week!  We were super busy going to Story City for exchanges, having district meeting and then having interviews with President  Jergensen.  Sadly that will be our last interview with him before the new mission president gets here in June.    It will be sad to see him go and the new one will have some massive shoes to fill!  Austin is doing well we weren't able to see him last week because he was in Missouri for spring break but we talked to the Greenes who are going to set up another appointment for us hopefully this week.  We picked up another investigator on Tuesday her name is Elisabeth she's a student at ISU and is very religious.  She enjoyed our meeting and wants to meet again this week.  We'll have a better idea of how she is going to progress and things after this next meeting so hopefully she read and prayed.  Things are starting to pick back up again we got 2 member referrals which this area never sees so that is great.  Hopefully we'll get some more in the next few weeks as well.  We are working a lot with some less actives trying to help them come back to church and we've seen some good progress so far. (yes brother fuller I'm talking about you!) =) The time seems to go faster every week which is scary because I still have SO much to learn! I love you and miss you all!

Love Elder Jach-Goates