05.28.12



Giants Causeway

Hero shot in Port Stewart

Me and Elder Vollheim (current companion)



It is sooo warm outside right now. Close to 90 farenheit. People are saying it's the best weather they have seen here their whole lives. There aren't even any clouds or anything. I even had to put on sunblock. Elder Vollheim is the first person I've ever met that burns quicker than me, hah I guess it's cause he's from Norway and they never see the sun.

 

Well, a highlight of last week was doing some service. We got to go over to Matt Black's house, out in the countryside and do some work for him. We helped dig out some weeds, then we tossed some logs for him. It was pretty exciting to actually get to do some tough manual labor. His house/property are beautiful. He's got a river running through the backyard and it's all so green. He is a nice guy too. They bought us some chinese food when we got done. This week we are going out to a less active family to help them knock down a fence and fix their driveway. That should be pretty exciting. I think the people are starting to like us a lot since we are always helping them. We are also going to help a lady clean out her rain gutters.

 

I just barely got back from Giants Causeway. That place is crazy. It's amazing that all the formations there are completely natural. It looks like someone went there and just placed thousands of bricks. I will upload all the pictures I took. In June we will probably go golfing in Port Rush for one of our P-Days. That place is legendary, and I think it would be awesome to go there. I bought a golf club for 6 pounds and today I went out back and hit some rocks in the river hah. I also bought a pretty nice Ireland Football jersey for 5 pounds. It was like 80 percent off so they must have sucked this year haha but I don't care about soccer anyway. Oh and don't mind the weird indian shirt I'm wearing in some the pictures, my companion gave me it and demanded that I wear it today hah.

 

I got a package from Shen last Monday. It is an epic package full of delicious things. I was so happy when I got it. That's way nice of her, cause shipping is WAY expensive to get stuff over here. I can finally make some proper PB and J sandwiches now.

 

How is little William Benson? I'm gonna need some more pictures of him ASAP. He looks pretty cute from the one I've seen though.

 

We also got to go out to Port Stewart to teach a less active lady, but she ended up not keeping the appointment. Norman (our mission leader) just took the scenic route back to Coleraine and we took some pretty good pictures. I will upload those as well. He is just an epic black guy haha he is always telling us how he is gonna go outside and work on his tan.  

 

Our branch is doing a 40 day fast for missionary work. I think it's a way good idea. We made a list and everyone signs up for a day where they will fast, so everyday for 40 days, someone in the branch will be fasting. It has been going on for about 3 weeks now so it is almost over. On Sunday, me and Elder Vollheim were supposed to give talks, but the lady who went before us talked for 40 minutes, so we just did our testimonies hah.

 

Well, keep up the good work family. You are all in my prayers everyday. I love you all.

 

Elder Goodwin

 

05.21.12

If you don't say American Football, they think you are talking about soccer.

Rainbow outside of our flat.

Random tunnel & paddy cap.

Well, it's a beautiful day here in Coleraine. It's sunny and everything. I could get used to this. I'm getting pretty good at cooking frozen pizzas and making sandwiches haha. I found some Golden grahams in the store and I am pretty excited. We mostly eat chicken, sandwiches or frozen pizza. We have a deep fryer so we cook fries sometimes. Fries are called chips here and chips are called crisps. Cookies are called biscuits. I don't always say stuff right, but they know what I mean. hah everyone always says aye. They say aye like we would say ya, and when we greet people on the street we say, "hi-uh" really quick. haha.

 

Happy Birthday to Grandma Rene! That is so neat that she will be turning 88. I loved going to her parties, they were always pretty fun. She is such a good example to all of us. Tell her I love her and and I hope she has a wonderful birthday.

 

This week we mostly taught member lessons. Everyone was gone because there was a motorcycle racing event. They just blocked off streets and made a race track. Some of them go nearly 200 mph during the race. A member told us that one of the riders wrecked and died yesterday, so that is pretty crazy.

 

 We taught a guy named Steven and finally got him to say a prayer out loud. I think that will help him to try other stuff too. There is a guy in our ward.  He is from the Netherlands and he acts very similar to Hal. His house smells weird, and he makes us sit on stools because there is too much cat hair on the furniture and on the floors. haha He always tells us that he just got back from the library where he was writing some dissertations and solving formulas that nobody else can figure out. Whenever we try to teach him a lesson, he starts going off about soo many theories that don't make any sense. haha I'm not even sure why he is so active.

 

Our branch mission leader is so awesome. His name is Norman. He is black, and he used to be a raging alcoholic, but like 5 years ago the missionaries taught him, and now you would never know that. He is so humble and friendly. He is in his 70's but he looks like he is 40. He always wears flashy nikes and stuff haha. His son is the one that will be getting out of prison for murder in a few weeks. We met him as well. His name is Johnny and I don't know much about him, other than he has a gold tooth.

 

Another lady we visit is named Anne Reid. She HATES hunting and killing animals, so during a visit I shared D&C 49 I tried to commit her to kill an animal and eat it by next week. hahah she was so mad. She is way nice to us. She loves the missionaries. Irish ladies are hilarious, they get all fired up about everything. Some day I might show her the picture of me pounding it with the buck we got.

 

I went on another exchange last week, with a missionary name Elder Jenkins, in a place called Omagh. He was way chill and we got along good. He is from Utah so we had a lot in common. Everyone here just makes us drink hot chocolate when we go to their houses ha. While I was there, we almost had to go chase a bunch of sheep off the church lawn, but they took care of it. I also got to eat at Burger King. I got a whopper meal and it was delicious. They have a drink here called Iron Bru. It is delicious and unhealthy. It's pretty much the mountain dew here.  

 

We had stake Conference in Belfast on Sunday. It was way good, but I had to sit behind the curtains in back because there were soo many people. It's amazing to see how much faith they all have here. Some of them had to get up at 6 in the morning just to get to Belfast on time. They all want a temple SO BAD. They pray for it during every prayer. They also had to pay for the gas, which is WAY EXPENSIVE here. We got a ride from a guy named Adrian. I don't know his last name because nobody here goes by last names. They get bugged if we call them by their last names haha.

 

Well, I sure love all of you. Everyday, when I get up, I say my prayers and then look at the pictures of my family on the wall. It always makes me happy. I'm thankful to have the support and prayers from all of you. Love you.

 

Elder Goodwin

05.14.12

Elder Goodwin in his first area, Coleraine.

It was sooo nice to hear all your voices yesterday! I have been looking forward to that for a long time. It sounds like you are all doing good. It was way encouraging to get to hear from you all.

 

I decided that my favorite scripture is now Alma 56:47. It changes a lot, but right now that is my favorite one. So you can put that on my plaque. Also, I realized that I never answered the question about the address. I looked at the letters and none of them say Ireland, so I'm pretty sure you just put UK.

 

Well, I pretty much already told you everything. haha. so I will try to think of some other stuff thats been going on. I recently learned that Elder Vollheim snores really loud, it's almost not natural. hah I am really glad that I brought some ear plugs because I had to use them the last few nights. We are starting to get a lot more comfortable around each other. It was funny because he was scared to talk to his family, because he couldn't remember how to speak Norwegian. hah.

 

The weather here is rainy yet again. It looked nice a couple of hours ago, but now it's pretty stormy. That is the price you have to pay to get soo much green and pretty things though. It never really rains way hard for a long time. Just random showers throughout the day. They said it doesn't usually get way cold in the winter either so that is good. I'm sure it will feel colder because of the humidity though.

 

Driving here was intense. There are no intersections, just round abouts. The streets are all way small and none of them are straight. People just park randomly in the road so you have to weave around a lot. The cars come within inches of each other all the time. It was different, but I thought it was pretty fun. They only have small cars here. I haven't seen any trucks at all. I saw a jeep once, but that is a rare sighting.

 

The guy who wrote the hymn "There is a Green Hill Far Away" was supposedly looking at a hill in our area when he wrote it. One of the leaders is going to take us to the house where he wrote it and show us the hill this week, so that should be prettty neat.

 

Well, I hope you all have a good week. I think about you all and pray for you everyday. I can feel all of your prayers as well. I love you all so much.

Elder Goodwin

05.08.12



Elder Goodwin arriving safely in Ireland.

What up my family!? We had to email today because yesterday was zone conference. But I should be emailing every monday from now on.

 

I was so stressed that I couldn't talk to you that much! But it took us a lot longer than expected to get to our terminals at the airport. At least we get to talk on sunday though.

 

First things first. I am in a place called Coleraine in Ireland. It's way pretty just exactly like in all the pictures you see online. Everything is green. Our flat is right on the riverside and is supposedly one of the nicest flats in the mission. It's pretty nice I won't lie. I will send you a picture of the view from our back window. I will also try to upload a ton more pictures to walgreens.com.

 

My companions name is Elder Morten Vollheim. He is from Norway, but he speaks really good english. He has been out 20 months so he thinks about going home a lot. He says that time really flies. He does have an accent, but he says it was a lot worse when he started. We are not that close yet cause we've only been together a few days. For the most part, people in Ireland are a lot easier to understand than people in Scotland. I don't have much trouble understanding most people. Of course, they have different phrases and names for certain stuff, but I am learning.

 

Though it is pretty, everything here is completely different. They drive on the wrong side of the road and don't have any of the same stores or houses or anything that we do. All the food has different names and all the food is healthier. We eat at members houses maybe twice a week. For sure on Sundays though. So not that often. My companion just makes bacon and eggs for us all the time and it annoys me so we are going to the store today. Most of the houses here are pretty small. It has been extremely overwhelming for me the first few days, but I think I am starting to get used to it. The weather isn't as bad as everyone says. It's definitely not as warm as Utah, but it hasn't been cold enough to need anything more than my suit jacket yet. It rained pretty hard all day yesterday and we got soaked on our way back to the flat. I'ts cloudy a lot, but I think the weather is actually pretty nice.

 

Traveling here sucked, I'm not gonna lie. The plane ride from texas to london was like 9 or 10 hours. There was a baby crying on every flight off and on, so it was hard to sleep that good. I had jet lag really bad for awhile, but I'm settling in now. When we got to Edinburgh, the mission president and APs gave everyone hugs. Then we went to the mission home. The mission home is soo nice. Everything in Edinburgh looks like it came straight out of a book or a movie or somethings. It's very pretty. When we got there we ate and then we walked over to the castle. It was amazing to see and I took a lot of pictures. The next day we woke up and ate and then we hiked up pratz hill. We had the oppurtunity to pray at the top and tell God our expectations for our missions and to help us achieve them. It was pretty neat. Later that night we were all in the same room with our future trainers and they pulled out pieces of paper that told us who our trainers would be and where we would be serving. When they call your name you go up and hug your trainer. Then he gave me the mission tie. After that we took pictures and the missionaries serving in Scotland left and got to work. The Ireland missionaries had to stay an extra night. We got up in the morning and took a bus for about three and half hours to the ferry. Then we rode the ferry for about 3 hours to Ireland. We took one last hour and a half bus ride to Belfast and then took the train for about and hour to Coleraine. So I did a lot of traveling the last week. I was REALLY stressed believe it or not. It is just stressfull to be in such a new environment with so much change happening all the time. I am really starting to like it here though. It is nice to know that I can relax becaue this is where I will be staying for awhile.

 

It was pretty sad when we left the MTC. We had all gotten pretty close those 3 weeks. We sang God Be With You Til We Meet Again and then we just got on the bus. It wasn't as sad because all the elders are going to the same mission. The sisters were pretty sad though. You should go visit them in St George at the visitors center. They should be arriving there tomorrow. They really want to meet my parents haha.

 

Nobody has been baptized in Coleraine for like 3 years. The ward has about 30 people and they are all very strong in the Gospel. Tracting is hard because everyone is VERY polite, but they already have their mind set on religion. The best conversation we had was with the Baptist Minister. haha. We work a lot with the member and especially less active member. We just go over there and talk with them and give them a lesson. I challenged a random guy on his doorstep to be baptized because that was a goal for all the new missionaries haha. He didn't accept it. I really feel the spirit when we are tracting and working hard though. Hard work is awesome. Oh ya, we walk ALOT. Everywhere. But I kind of like getting the fresh air.

 

On Saturday I learned how to fly fish. I got good I won't lie. Someday I am gonna take up fly fishing because it's really fun when you get the hang of it. Anyway, we went because an investigator and some less actives went that we don't get to talk to that often. So, I can now say I've been fly fishing in Ireland. Be jealous.

 

Ok, so you will have to call me because our phone won't call that far away. But it can still recieve calls. Call me at 9 Ireland time. Which would be 2 in Cedar? You will also need the direction number for the uk. So find that our because I have no idea haha.

 

Here is my mailing address. I could use some packages of junk food. (Doritos, hostess, swiss rolls, etc.) I had to throw a lot away when I left the MTC. Also some creamy peanut butter because peanut butter here tastes like crap. haha. I hope I answered all your questions because I can't remember them all.

 

18 Sandelford Court

3 Mt. Sandel Road

Coleraine BT52 1NZ

UK

 

Well, I love you all and hope you are doing well. The gospel is definitely true and should be shared with everyone. I love my family so much.

Love

Elder Goodwin

 

I don't have any more time or I would upload more pictures.