Progress

July 28, 2014

Well this week has been a dandy one. Honestly love my mission and the

change I am seeing. We had some awesome lessons this week, and overall just a wonderful week.

We are finally seeing progression with *Jane.  We sat down and

read the BOM with her. We help her with a lot of service.

We started where she left off, in 1 Nephi 5. She is the type of

person who analyzes every word. And then asks questions about

everything. Which is actually awesome because it stretched my

knowledge and made me work things out in my head before I could

explain them to her. Which was wonderful because it strengthened my

testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. And then she

finally started asking some really good questions pertaining to the

restoration of the church and the priesthood. In which we got to

explain, in good detail, the prophet Joseph Smith and the many angels

that appeared to him. She could feel of our excitement for the Book of

Mormon and now we read every time we go over there. I love it !

Next person we had good progress with is a man named *JON. He is a

recent convert, but the second he was baptized he became less active.

We have been trying to meet with him forever and finally he gave in

and agreed to meet with us on Thursday night. After much thought of

what to teach him we decided we would get to the roots of his problems

and go from there. He explained to us that he loved all of his

Christian brothers and felt obligated to help others in their

religions that they were in. He thought that church was whenever you

gather with others and discuss doctrines or principles of the church.

He didn't see a need for Sunday church attendance. With much faith and

prayer we relied on the spirit to best see his needs and create a good

way to help him on that right path. Needless to say after an hour of

explaining the blessings of this wonderful gospel within the church of

Jesus Christ and telling him all he has to do is reach up and pull

these blessings down, and it all starts with church attendance, he

came to church yesterday.. Yes this was a victory. Now I hope he can

continue to progress, by renewing his covenant every week.

*Mary... slightly reminds me of my grandma Betty. So it's a little

more personal relationship with her. She's in her 70's and lives in a

beautiful section of forest off the beach front. Very beautiful home.

And what makes it better is all the cool little critters that share it

with her. She has 5 dogs. One of which is my favorite breed Australian

shepherds, border collie. Beautiful dog. And her dogs love us too. She

is almost a perfect investigator. Who progresses every time we meet.

Now if she could just decide to be baptized that would be awesome! We

have asked her 3 times. And the last time we met with her we read 2

Nephi 32 with her. We always have good conversations. And I think she

believes our message, but she has just got to pray about it. She is

fun to teach because I miss my grandmas. It's actually a funny deal

because 8/10 of our investigators are all elderly woman and widows.

It's actually kinda fun because they take care of us like we were

there grandchildren.

And finally to the last person I write about is my brother Elder

Goode. He honestly just feels like my younger brother. We are already

best buddies and plan to do great things together in the future. I

love this kid. Super awesome man. Ry and Con you would Totally agree

he's exactly like me. It's crazy haha. I am very happy with his

progression and diligence to this gospel. He is very smart and knows

the gospel well. I am proud to call him my “son” haha ! I hope his mommy

knows she raised a good kid.  He makes me appreciate Elder Mecham all 

the more. I see now how stressful training is. 

This week has been wonderful. As y'all can see by this tiny glimpse of

how everyone is progressing. We had 143 people at sacrament yesterday,

almost 4x the normal amount, thanks to a family reunion. I didn't even

know people went to church while vacationing. Also, just realized at church yesterday that we passed up the 24^th of July! (Glad y’all BBQ’d with grandparents!) We got to do a session at the Medford Temple… it’s really small but, the new movie for the endowment session is amazing.   I also got to teach my first District meeting, and went on exchanges. We be eatin wild berries and kickin rocks while we tract. It's a lot of fun. Being a missionary is great! :)

ELDER WORKMAN

Family, I am so glad that you got to go to President and Sister Young’s homecoming. I love them. Good people they are!

Congrats to Ditty and Jarin! Man our wards legit. I miss it. I am so proud of all the boys in our ward that are going out.