29 August 2018

So life is pretty good. I just got transferred to a new area. It's called La Grandeza, San Marcos, in case you'd like to look it up. It is pretty cold. This morning I think I was the coldest I've been in my whole mission. My last area was one of the hottest in the mission and now I'm in you of the coldest! Haha, I'm going to freeze to death!!!!!!! Nah just kidding, but I seriously need to buy a jacket.

My new companion is Elder Garcia from El Salvador. He is pretty cool and he is my first companion from El Salvador. Supposedly this area is one of the more difficult ones because the people here are less receptive that where I have been but I´m excited for the challenge. It's going to be fun.

love you all

PS, my last companion wanted to spoil Star Wars The Last Jedi for me, I just about had to duct tape his mouth shut.

22 August 2018

Life is good. In the last interview that I had with the mission president, he told me that I am a lot happier now than I was before. But the funny thing is, is that I don't remember ever being that sad. Sure there are always bad days, but not that much.

I guess that is what "being in the service of God" does to you: you become more like Him. God has an interesting way of molding us, little by little, so that we become more like Him. Sister Goodman said that this is a prosses that we pass through all throughout life, and as a missionary, the process is accelerated. I believe it is the refining fire. But I can honestly say that I am happier now and more at peace than I have ever been in my life.

I know that I have a long way to go, we all do. But I highly recommend serving a mission to everyone who can and has the desire. And for those that can't, the Lord has other callings in mind for you. Serve him with all your heart might mind and strength. It's the best thing you could possibly do.

I love you'all, keep being awesome.

15 August 2018

But, anyway yeah. There are so many miracles that we get to see, it's incredible. I need to be better at writing them down cause it is soo easy to forget! Sorry, Mom! haha. I'm going to make a goal of writing in my journal every day, cause I want to remember things.

Today my companion was really sick. Normally we would go to an activity as a mission on preparation day, but today he needed to rest in the morning. So while he was sleeping I read a bit of the Liahona. There was a really awesome talk by Elder Zaballos, a Seventy, that talked about the Spirit, and how we have to develop the skill to feel the Spirit. If we can, we will always have the guidance of Heavenly Father.

I think I mentioned to you that lately we have been learning more about how to follow the Spirit, but it is so true. The spirit is always trying to guide us, but sometimes we are like Laman and Lemuel who hardend their hearts, and were deafened to the Spirit. I think we all need to be more like Nephi, and less like his brothers so that we can hear the spirit.

love you guys, keep being awesome.

8 August 2018

So I'm pretty happy because we had a miracle. I love seeing people repent and truly become converted to the gospel.

Recently we had an investigator named Alvaro who was baptized. Actually, he was baptized when he was 8 years old, and as he grew up went inactive. Somewhere along the road, he married, and his wife, Beatriz, is a convert of like 3 years, but the whole family has been inactive. But one day my companion and I were checking the ward membership list, (I don´t know what this list is called in English) and we saw that Alvaro wasn´t baptized. So we did some investigating and it turned out that his baptismal record was incomplete and he would have to get baptized over again to fix the records.
But baptism is a covenant, right? So what good would it do if he got baptized without repenting? So we decided to treat him like any investigator, teaching him lessons, having him read the Book of Mormon, pray about it, and repent. And it was a miracle, how much he repented. He still has a lot to learn, because he has basically forgotten everything he learned about the gospel as a kid, so he is basically a new convert.

But we are even happier because he and his wife want to be sealed in the temple (that in and of itself is a miracle because when we started to teach them they were thinking of getting divorced) and so we are going to do everything we can so that they can achieve their goal of getting sealed in the temple.

¡QUE GOZO!

Anyway I love you guys, keep being awesome

1 August 2018

Yesterday we had a muli-zone conference in the mission, and the mission president talked a lot about following the guidance of the Holy Ghost, He shared a quote from President Nelson in this most recent general conference, I heard it in Spanish but I believe in English it says something to the effect of we will not be able to survive spiritually if we don´t increase our ability to recognize the impressions of the Holy Ghost. Which sounds pretty foreboding, but I think it is true. All of us, as members of the church, need to be more diligent in nurturing our testimonies through scripture study, prayer, and attending church, and being receptive to the spirit. We have as a promise in the sacrament blessing that we can always have His Spirit to be with us.

I love you guys, keep being awesome.

From President Goodman's Facebook Page