04.08.13

Well, I finally got a baptism on my mission!!!! And it was epic.

 

We baptized the David family last Friday in the river Corrib. The river that runs straight through Galway. We told them to do it in Limerick, but they wanted to do the river. It was so awesome. But, it was sooooo cold. Freezing! I baptized the Mom and the daugher. Anna and Hannah. Elder Nordfors baptised the 17 year old boy. Henri. I was the first out there and we could only go out a few feet before a massive drop off, but it wasn't even waist deep where we had to stand. Anna was so shocked by how cold the water was when I was helping her in. haha she just kept saying really loudly how cold it was. Anyway, I said the prayer and went to baptize her, but she didn't lean back, instead she just like squated down, and kept her hand out of the water on accident. ha So we had to do it again, but got it good the second time. Then Hannah (the daughter) got in the river, but she felt the cold and instantly started crying. She is only 8 so that is what we expected. She was saying she didn't want to go, and I was trying to comfort her and tell her nice stuff, but her Mom was like, "HANNAH! GO OUT THERE!" "DON'T LET HER COME BACK TO SHORE!" ha I was so confused. Eventually we decided to let the older brother go before her. Then she went in and was still crying a bit, but we did it fast. They said they all felt awesome after it, even though it was cold. When I finally got out of the river, my feet and legs were completely numb. hah I tried to put on a flip flop, but I couldn't feel my toes to put it on. I was wearing white socks, but everyone could see straight through the socks how red my feet had gone from the cold. It was awesome. They will be getting confirmed this Sunday in Sacrament. We even had a couple of investigators come to the baptism. Winner and Jude.

 

So, I am pretty dang excited for the Temple In Cedar City! It was so neat to hear the name of my home during General Conference. Straight from President Monson. When does the construction begin? That will be so exciting for everyone to have a temple and it will be a good motivator to make good choices. Ha We will always have a temple to stare at when we are making a choice. I loved conference. Elder Holland gave a powerhouse talk as usual. And one of the Sisters mentioned are mission motto. That stone she was talking about is still in our mission home. All the new missionaries and their trainers get a picture by it. I have 3 pictures by it now.

 

Well, those are pretty much the big things happening here. Not much else has happened. We are planning on going to see some country with the Wilsons on Thursday. It should be fun. We will probably see a bunch of castles and we are planning on going to Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney stone soon. Then I will have the gift of gab. ha!

 

I better share a spiritual thought since it was conference. I found this in my studies today. The only time we can be on neutral ground is before we join the church. Once we join, we can never be neutral again. If we are keeping the baptismal covenant by following Christ then we are living righteously and doing good. If we are not living righteously or doing good, then we are following Satan. There is no neutral ground, there is no in between. Hence, there is no such thing as a fence sitter. We have to choose a side.

 

I love you all! Have a good week.

 

Elder Goodwin

04.02.13

Well ladies, here goes the week.

 

We have 6 African people scheduled to be baptised in April, which is pretty dang amazing. This area is being blessed a ton. One family is named the David's. The son is Henri - he is 17 and is a rapper. He wrote us a rap about the plan of salvation and I always recommend rap to him. He says he is going to write me a rap for one of my favorite scriptures. I still haven't decided what scripture to give him yet, but it's gonna be awesome. He is way good and way spiritual. The Mom's name is Anna. She is amazing because she works all night and goes to school during the day time. AND she takes care of her 3 kids. Sometimes, she doesn't get off work until 6am on Sunday morning, but she still gets the kids ready and comes to church at 11. That is some real commitment. The daughters name is Hannah and she is 9. She has such a genuine and sincere testimony and is always so excited when we go there. They all understand so much. There is also a little boy named David, but he is only 18 months. He mostly just disrupts lessons and what not but he is way cute. They are soo excited to go to the temple someday to be sealed together. They will be getting baptised this Friday in the river Corrib that runs through Galway and out into the Atlantic Ocean. It's going to be so cool. We don't know who they want to baptise them yet, but I bet it will probably be Elder Wilson. I will get some good pictures with them.

 

The other man who is scheduled to be baptised this Saturday is named Ade. He is also an African man, probably about 40 and he is pretty solid. He struggled with smoking in the past, but he says he has overcome that, so that is really good. He is always asking really deep questions, and seems to have a really good understanding of the Gospel. He will be getting baptised this Saturday in Limerick because they have a font.

 

The other 2 who are scheduled for the 27 are named Winner and Jude. They are married- Winner is the woman and Jude is the man. They are so awesome and genuine. They loved it when we taught them about priesthood authority and Jude told us that he wants to be baptised by that correct authority. He is way excited. He has been to church twice now, but she has only been once. It's harder for her, because she can't seem to get away from her pentacostal church ways. Hopefully she will continue to pray and read from the Book of Mormon. They always tell us they can feel the Spirit there, so hopefully they will act on it.

 

So I've had some interesting dining experiences lately. I will tell you why. Last week, when we were teaching some African's they gave us fish stew. (that's what I call it.) They literally just chop the fish (a mackrel) into like 5 chunks (including the head and tail)-without even removing any bones and just throw it into this sauce. Then they make rice and put it on top. As you all know, I hate fish with a passion, so I was dying. The chunks are massive and they have scales all over them and bones all over too. And African people make a TON of food. Seriously, they eat so dang much. It's pretty impressive. I made it through, and then when we came back a few days later, they had made the exact same thing. I nearly broke down in tears, but I kept myself calm and collected and ate it again. 

 

So in other news, Elder Wilson has been called to be the branch president here. I have been teasing him telling him it was gonna be him for awhile now, and it's pretty funny that he really did get called. He and Sister Wilson have been here about the same amount of time as me. He will be an awesome Branch President though. And it will be powerhouse because we already have a really close relationship with him and our Branch mission leader. It will be a very missionary oriented branch.

 

So ya, Galway is tearing it up. We are rapping and baptising and everything in between. It's been really cold, but it's starting to get a bit warmer. The wind is what makes it feel freezing. The weather is completely unpredictable every single day. Besides, the weather changes about every 7 minutes. It's crazy.

 

I love you all!

 

Elder Goodwin

04.01.13

So, here's the deal. I don't have time to email today, but I will be emailing you all tomorrow. I just wanted to send a quick email to Mom and Dad to tell them HAPPY  30th ANNIVERSARY!! Hope you have a good day.

03.25.13

So, it's been am eventful week, and as usual, I will tell you why.

 

The David's baptism for this weekend has been canceled because they didn't come to church and there are just some other things we need to go over with them. We just don't feel like they are ready yet, and we aren't going to baptise anyonen unless we feel that they are truly ready. They are still solid and progressing, we just need to give it a few weeks.

 

We have some really good news though. There is an African man named Ade who has been going to church for months now, and has been taught everything. We tried to meet with him in the past, but he would never answer his phone and he always said he was too busy. We kept trying and we finally had a really good talk with him during church. He told us he had some concerns and had been offended by some past missionaries, but we were able to repair it. He invited us over to continue teaching him last night, which was a miracle in and of itself. Then we had a good lesson with him and it turns out, he already knows that these things are true and he told us he wants to be baptised. He is pretty golden right now. Since he has been taught everything multiple times, he wanted the soonest date possible. Which at this point, will be March 6. So, goes to show, the Lord always provides a way for us. He now wants to meet with us at least every Monday and Wednesday.

 

Last Monday, the branch put together a really good Lu'au at  President Flygares mansion house. It was amazing, especially because we had 9 non-members show up to it. Definitely not what we were expecting. The David's came and Winnder and Jude came and some people brought along their friends. Winner and Jude loved the experience so much that they even came to church yesterday. We will be teaching them again on Wednesday.

 

Being Young Mens President is awesome. I get to do a lot of non missionary type things because of it. And with permission! haha. Our youth are working on a music video that they are going to be showing at a regional youth conference. Regional here, means all of Ireland. North and South. So one of the young women, Ciarrai (Irish name, pronounced Keery) made a pretty cool rap that goes along with the song good feeling. So ya, we got to sit there and listen to the real song a bunch and help them do some rapping. It was awesome.

 

We had an all Ireland Conference last week. That's where all the missionary in Ireland gather in Dublin and someone speaks to us. Elder Kerr, of the area 70 spoke to us and he did a great job. He is really enthusiastic and is pretty crazy. He was funny, but motivational. I will share with you a hilarious quote that he said. "Some our ward mission leaders are on fire, and others need to be set on fire." Ha!

 

So that's what's going on down here in the motherland of redheads. Actually, I think Scotland has more people with red hair. Anyway, I love you all and hope you are all loving life.

 

Elder Goodwin

03.18.13

Ok everyone, check out this announcement from the First Presidency.

 

 “Missionaries are to write to their families each week and are also authorized to communicate by email with friends, priesthood leaders, and new converts. Mission presidents should allow sufficient time on preparation day for missionaries to write emails and letters. While in the mission field, missionaries should receive authorization from the mission president before entering into communication, including via email, with converts and others of the opposite gender within the mission boundaries”

 

So ya, that is pretty dang awesome. I can now email or receive emails from ANY family or friends. That really is pretty groundbreaking. So let it be known! Start getting email addresses for me! Oh ya, and we are also allowed to email for 2 hours now, instead of 1. So, I will probably send a lot more emails to everyone instead of hand written stuff to save time and money. Unless you want a hand written one, then just telll me.

 

The David family's official date is March 30th. At least it better be. They are planning on being baptised in the ocean, but we don't know if that will work because we aren't sure when high tide is yet. I went down to the ocean and stuck my hand in the water to see how cold it was, and it was definitely really cold. I'm sure the Atlantic ocean is always cold though. We taught them the Law of Tithing last week, and it was pretty much the easiest tithing lesson I will ever teach. She already knew about it and says was way excited to live it before we even shared the lesson. They are all so solid.

 

We found a couple more investigators as well, so things are really picking up here. We had the David family and a man named Ade at church and we also had a less active man named CK there. All Africans. African people are so spiritual.

 

So, St Patricks Day was cool except we had to be in our flats by 6pm. And we weren't allowed to go in the City Centres to proselyte at all. We drove through the city centre a couple times and it was pretty crazy. Everyone was drunk and wearing funny green stuff. I bought a leprechaun hat and a St Patricks day shirt. We wore our stuff to see Elder and Sister Wilson and they thought it was prettty funny. I got an epic leprachaun picture in front of Galway Bay that I will attach. But ya, it was pretty much like I imagined it. Drunk people everywhere. haha We had this drunk teenager following us around while we were trying to street contact telling us that he loved us and trying to hug us. Then he was telling us about how he loves Obama because he is trying to legalize weed. He was sooo wasted and he was talking way loud. It was pretty funny, but it ruined our attempt to do street contacting.

 

We are going out to help a less active guy way out in the country this week. His name is Dennis Walker and it's like an hour and a half drive to get there. I volunteered to help him on his farm and he was pretty happy to accept. I have always dreamed about working on someones farm in Ireland. It sounds soo sick! I'm not sure what we will be doing yet, but it should be pretty epic.

 

We have been teaching tons of intellectual college kids lately. They all think they are soo brilliant. haha They are always nice though and open to talk. We have had some really spiritual discussions with them. The main thing that we need to remember is that people just need to feel the Spirit. It really doesn't matter what we teach or how smart we are if they aren't feeling the Spirit. If they feel the Spirit, they won't be argumentative anymore and we can actually find out what they really need to hear. If we can get people to feel the Spirit, then we are successful.

 

I love you all!

 

Elder Goodwin

03.11.13

Elder Nordfors & Elder Goodwin

The family of champions!

Here's the deal. . .I am going to tell you what has been going on in Galway lately. But really, there has been some good miracles here the past week. 

Last week, President Brown was in town to do some temple interviews for our branch and he decided to take us out to dinner. I was pretty scared because I had to drive when we picked him up. He paid for us all to eat at a place called Eddie Rockers and it was dang good. It is supposed to be like an old school American diner or something. Anyway, President Brown was singing along to our Disney music in the car the whole way there. It was hilarious. He is such a spiritual giant. 

I have been succeeding in becoming a master chef. I have cooked stuff like every night this past week and it's delicious. My favourite thing was some chicken korma. ha All I really did was make some rice and chicken and pour sauce on it. But it was good! I also poured an excellent bowl of cereal the other day. 

The biggest miracle of the week was probably when we were doing service for an African family. The Atairu family. We helped them move a bunch of storage and there were a few other non member friends there. After we got done moving stuff, they fed us a classic African dinner. It's so hilarious when they give us dinner, because they just guilt us into taking a TON of food. It's usually different types of chicken and spicy rice. They like really spicy food. Anyway, Elder Nordfors got guilted into taking too much and I just enjoyed myself while I watched him eat a mountain of African food for the first time. Haha he was chewing soooo slow by the end and I could tell he didn't want anymore, but you can't just stop eating or they will be offended. Then, we taught them all a lesson. We just decided to read 2 Nephi 31:10-12 and go through the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson. One of the nonmembers there was named Winner, and she loved the whole lesson. She is really well versed in the bible and while we were teaching, we found out that she used to be a missionary for another church. She told us that she is waiting for God to show her the right path to take now and that she is very open. We read Moroni 10:3-5 with her and promised her that the Book of Mormon is what she is looking for and that the teachings in it can change her life. She LOVED the lesson and invited us to come to her house and teach her more at the end. We didn't even have to ask. ha and then she gave us her address and everything. It was really powerful. I think she is very prepared, especially since she already has friends that are members. 

We are going to try and start up an English class here. There are so many foreign people and they all want to learn English really bad. We already have lots of people who said they would come if we did it and I think it will be a really good opportunity for missionary work. I'm actually pretty excited about it. 

Yesterdays sacrament meeting was probably my favourite one of my whole mission so far. It was Mothers Day over here, so that's what everyone was talking about. They turned the time over to the congregation to go up and say why they appreciate their Moms. (they say Mums here) I got up right after the Branch Presidency because I was soo excited to tell everyone about how wonderful my Mom is. It was a really neat and spiritual experience. I'm soooo thankful for the good family that I have. Almost everyone who got up cried when they tried to talk about their Mom's. Even all the big guys who act tough all the time. They cried the most. 

Elder Nordfors is tearing it up. He is going to be a really good missionary. It's so classic to have a trainee. When we go tracting, I just stare at him until he says something because he gets too nervous unless I do that. It's pretty funny and we always have a good laugh about it. He got approached by his first drunk man a couple days ago. The man was completely plastered and he was walking around all angry holding his Ireland rugby jersey. His team must have lost or something. Anyway, I was like, "Oh no, don't look at him." And then Elder Nordfors stared straight at him so he came over and chested me up, but we just gave him a card with Jesus on it and he was happy. He only had one tooth. haha. 

I love you all! Family is what it's all about! Keep being the awesome people you all are!

Elder Goodwin

03.05.13

Well, it's official, there has been another son birthed into Galway. His name is Elder Nordfors. Pronounced like Nord force. He is from Bountiful, Utah and I am pretty excited to be with him. He is 19 and he is pretty excited to be here. I knew I would be training him even before they told me. When they told me, I walked straight up to him and punched him in the face as his initiation. haha. Not really, but I think that we will get along really well and that we will have fun and have success. His group was the first wave of younger missionaries. All the Elders that came here were 19, but there were like six new 19 year old sisters. Pretty exciting stuff. Being a trainer is pretty weird because the trainee relies on me so much. It's fun though. 

On Saturday, I got to fly a plane over to Edinburgh to pick up my new son. We had to wake up at 4 because the flight was at 6:30. I flew with a couple other trainers from Ireland and it was epic. It actually felt pretty  weird to be on a plane again though. Then we got there and hiked Arthur's Seat again and we all prayed again. It was good to account to the Lord on how I am doing with my goals. All the trainers there were awesome. Such a blast. I'm getting to the point on my mission where I know most of the missionaries and I'm friends with them, so everything is way fun. Anyway, after we hiked Arthur's Seat again, we had some meeting and then we found out who we will be training. We were both happy to be assigned to each other. Then we had to do a bunch of street contacting in the assistants area for the rest of the night. We had to stay there on Sunday as well, because we aren't allowed to travel on Sunday. So on Monday, we made the long journey back. We had to use the ferry and the buses, because the airlines can't handle all of our baggage here. Then we had our car waiting for us in Dublin and we drove to Limerick and stayed the night there. So today, we are finally in Galway. So ya, that's why I didn't get to email yesterday. 

Things have been going good in Galway. Elder Holbrook left last Wednesday, so I spent Wednesday - Saturday with a missionary named Elder Brandeburg. He is from the Netherlands and it was quite fun. 

We have still been running in the morning, but I have a cold right now, so we won't be able to do it for a few days. It actually feels pretty good to run in the morning even though it sucks while I'm doing it. hah. I have running, but I like being in shape. 

We weren't at church in Galway, but we heard that it went really well. I was way excited to hear that we had 4 investigators and 5 less active members at church. So happy. And the Davids were one of them. They will for sure be deciding if they want to be baptised in the river or the ocean this week. We had to change their date to the 23 because Anna (the mom) has been doing exams for college and she is way busy. That family is awesome though. 

Shennie sent me a package last week, and it had a big reeses in it. Reeses is delicious and it's way expensive and pretty rare over here. I decided to go and give it to this young Brazilian family that is in the ward, because they are so nice to us, and they probably don't ever get Reeses. It was a fun experience and they were sooo happy. This family is so nice though. One time he was telling us that we are welcome in his house anytime because missionaries are like angels in the sky. 

That's about all that happened last week. Just lots of traveling and my new son. I love you all and I'm so happy to here about miracles happening to you all. Thanks for your support and love. Trust in God!

Elder Goodwin