November 26, 2012

As for the mission it was a pretty crazy week filled with not many appointment because of Thanksgiving.  It was definitely a good week though!   Monday we had Elder Don R Clarke of the 70 come and talk to us for the day that was awe inspiring and very motivating!   Elder and Sister Clarke sat at our table for lunch and talked with us.   Sister Clarke talked to me a lot about school and asked where I wanted to go. I mentioned that BYU was always my childhood dream!   She than proceeded to tell me that I need to start taking the ACT and get a good score on it and start filling our an application.  Then she talked to Sister Jergensen about it and told her to help me with whatever I needed! Ha ha what a nice lady! =)  Looks like my charm comes in handy! Ha ha ha! ;)!   We were able to meet with the ref from Iowa games sadly he is very argumentative and all he did was try and tell us how we are wrong and that we are a pagan religion because we celebrate Christmas! Apparently because of a scripture talking about worshiping idols in Jeremiah 10.  I think verses 1-5 ha ha but he said he wanted to meet again and that he would actually let us talk this time so that is good! =) We went to a members house for thanksgiving and had a great time!   A really awesome young family. The husband has served in the army for a while so we talked a lot about that and it really got me thinking about joining again!  So we'll see if that's still what I want when I get home! =)

Love Elder Jach Goates.

November 20, 2012

As for the mission things are going relatively well.   My new area is Ames.  It's a college town with Iowa state right in the middle of it.  Sadly I'm a Hawkeyes fan,  Ha ha.  Fun for me to rub it in people faces! =)   My new comp is Elder Swindler.   He actually grew up in Cedar Falls Iowa then moved to Provo when he was 14.  Ha pretty funny!  He is an interesting kid... =) but I'm sure we will get along just fine.  We had the Iowa games on Saturday, which is like a little kid olympics.  The missionaries get to help out with it.  We were there all day Saturday doing scoreboards for basketball.  It was really fun and we actually got a potential out of it.  One of the refs gave us his number and took ours and has already called us.  Pretty exciting! Yesterday we had Elder Don R Clarke of the 70 come on a mission tour and talked to us all day!  It was a very inspiring devotional!   Hopefully motivated a lot of the other missionaries like it did me!   We have a few pretty good investigators, but I haven't been able to meet any of them yet because we have been so busy.  This ward is full of a lot more younger people because of the college which is really fun.  I like the ward already.  I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and can remember all that they are thankful for!

Love Elder Jach-Goates

November 11, 2012

It's been a pretty up and down week!  Lexi didn't get baptized and has been dropped because she wanted to get baptized because she had friends in the ward.   Her mom still wants us to come over and read with her and teach lessons so that's good.  Hopefully it will spark an interest with her too!   Nita is doing great she had an awesome Sunday and a great time in Relief society and made some new friends in the ward so that was really good.  Amari is doing good we got to meet her mom for a second but wasn't really a formal greeting so we still need to go by there and hopefully will be able to talk with her mom and set a date soon.  It's transfers this week and I am getting transferred to a new area.  It will be hard to leave with all the success the area is having but I'm sure my new area will be great!  It was nice weather last week and got into the 70s on Saturday.   We were on exchanges and played some football with some members in  Keokuk.  That was fun!   Well that's about all for this week.  Hope everyone is doing good!

Love Elder Jach-Goates

November 5, 2012

Lexis baptism was rescheduled till this Saturday because her mom felt like she hadn't been reading enough out of the BoM and really wants her to learn about the Church.  The whole family is still excited for her to be baptized!   We are starting to teach Amari again this week and will hopefully be able to meet her parents before I leave so we can set a date with her.  She has still been reading out of the BoM and still really wants to learn.  Nita is doing good she struggles some days with wanting to drink and feeling inadequate but she is still working towards being baptized on December 1st.  The work is moving along here!   It will be hard to say bye as I now have confirmation that I am leaving Burlington on the 15th! Ha Ha President Jergensen text us this morning because I text him about Nita still working towards the 1st of Dec and he said "Great work out there, see you at transfers!" Ha Ha! Well just gotta keep pushing forward!

Love Elder Jach-Goates