Week 15 Daytona Beach

Christmas is always one of the best times of the year. We saw a lot of Christmas miracles this week. It was just a good all around week.

Of course the highlight of the week was getting to talk to my family. The more I look around the more I am reminded of how blessed I am to have a family who cares so much for each other. 

We had a super sweet miracle happen this week. We were doing some finding on Friday and just didn't feel like we were seeing any success. Everyone was shutting the doors in our face. After saying a prayer, we went to a former investigators house to see if they still lived there. It was an apartment. As we were walking over to find the door we saw this lady standing outside so we started talking to her. She said she was Buddhist and wasn't interested but that her son right around the corner was a member of our church. So of course we went over and talked to him. Right as he saw us his face lit up! Apparently he had just moved here from Washington State for the winter, and he said he had been investigating the church for 6 months now! He thought the missionaries in Washington had talked to us and sent us over to see him but we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. It was a complete miracle! He came to church with us yesterday and we are meeting with him again tomorrow. His name is Jed if you want to keep him in your prayers.

Christmas was super fun! We got up and played Santa clause for someone! It was super cool. There was a member from out of state that donated a suit and some other stuff to him. It was super fun! The rest of the day we went to church and ate. And ate. And ate. We had 3 1/2 meals between 1:00 and 7:00. I felt so Sick! We had some phillipian food, then regular southern food, then a little more southern food from another family, then some Spanish food. I felt so fat!

Elder Goff

Richard - A Member in the Ward

 

Week 14 Daytona Beach

This week was a pretty good one.  Nothing super exciting or new happened. Well I take that back, everything about a mission is new and exciting but it's just the same new and exciting stuff as normal haha. The weather here has been like paradise. It stays between 65-75 degrees all the time.

I guess that one exciting thing that happened this week was that we had A Zone meeting. I gave a training on how to find people to teach. It's pretty cool because a lot of that is simply just faith. There is an eternal law about faith: Desire -> Action/obedience -> blessings/ miracles. The way to change your desire to receive blessings to receiving blessings is through hard work and obedience just as it says in Ether 12:6 as well as D&C 130:20-21.

I had an exchange with an elder on Saturday that was super cool. We went to a place called Bunnell which is about the same size as Beaver and the people act a lot the same so I felt right at home. They are teaching a guy who loves to hunt (especially alligators). I got to meet him. His house is literally filled with animal mounts. The best part about it all is that he is getting baptized on Jan 7th. 

Our investigators are all in a decision stage I guess you could say. They are all on the verge of either progressing towards baptism or being dropped. It's super frustrating. We do however have one investigator who is super solid. His name is Brett. He hopefully gets off probation this month so he will be able to be baptized the first of next month! Darren Mitchell is doing well also. He says he wants to become a Mormon but he is just super busy this time of year. He works at the racetrack here in Daytona so it's hard to meet with him. He was trying to set something up for us to go teach him during his lunch break at the Speedway so that would be cool. He also said that anytime I want to go to a race, he will get me free tickets for the fancy booth up at the top where they serve you food and all. If you could keep him in your prayers that would be great!

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas! I can't believe it's already that time of year again. Love you all!

Elder Goff

This is the Murray Family! They are super cool and are going to get baptized. Unfortunately they just moved up to North Carolina so it's not going to be us baptizing them.

Exchanges with Elder Haderlie

 

Week 13 Daytona Beach

I love this time of year. The weather is perfect. It has been about 75 degrees here as the high for the past 2 weeks. I would consider moving here after my mission if it would stay like this all year round! I also love it because Christmas is coming up. Everyone seems to be so much happier this time of year.

We had a pretty busy week this week. We had MLC (mission Leadership Conference) almost all day Thursday, Friday we had a meeting with all the District Leaders in the zone, Saturday we took a couple hours to discuss our plans for our Zone meeting which is coming up this week. So to say the least. Oh also we had transfers on Tuesday which is always a busy day. Besides all the business stuff p, we have been seeing a lot of miracles!

We are teaching an investigator named Darren Mitchell. We meet with him this coming week to set a baptism date. It was a miracle that we found him! He said he was scrolling through his phone one day when a Book of Mormon add popped up. He had met with missionaries in the past and loved the Book of Mormon so he ordered it. Of course when you order a Book of Mormon you get a free set of missionaries along with it. So we showed up a few weeks back but he was too busy to talk. Well, we returned this week and we're able to sit down and meet with him. He testified of how this book is the only book he trusts and that he knows it is from God. We asked him how he knew that and his answer was this, "Because no Book that can change a person so much and make such an impact in one's life if it is not from God." What a spiritual experience. That is so true too! Never before have I seen a Book make such a difference in a persons life as this. He committed to baptism and now is praying about a date. A cool fact about Darren, he works at the speedway and said he could get us free tickets to any race we wanted. Also he said we would get some of the best seats in the speedway where they serve us free food. We would also get to meet the drivers. So I guess that is a benefit of baptizing this guy. Haha

We had our ward Christmas party this week. 7 of our investigators came to it and got to meet a lot of people from the ward! It was great! Unfortunately none of her came to church though :/

I spoke in sacrament yesterday. What I spoke on was the birth of Jesus Christ from the perspective of Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, the people in America, and us at the time of his birth. Can you imagine what it would have been like the day before Jesus Christ came to the earth? I wonder how the Savior felt? Or how Heavenly Father felt sending His son? Or even how we felt up there in the premortal life watching him prepare to save the world? 

I hope you all have a great week!  Elder Goff

Quote of the week: (talking about long distance swimming)
Phil: I would swim 5 miles as a warm up.
Elder Dummer: I couldn't swim 5 miles if my life depended on it.
Me: I can't even run 5 miles!
Paul: I can't even swim!

Week 12 Daytona Beach

There was a lot that happened this week. Transfers happened! Elder Reeves goes home Wednesday and Elder Dummer is coming back to Daytona!!! It's going to be good to reunite with my old comp. It's going to make things a lot easier too because now I'll finally have a zone leader as a companion again rather than trying to both be Zone leaders from 2 different areas. Haha it was a complicated situation.

This week was race week for Ferrari's here in Daytona. You can here all the cars racing at the speedway from our apartment so during personal studies you can hear them in the background. In total this week we counted 34 Ferrari's. It was pretty sweet!  I'll send some pictures.

Today was a pretty sweet Pday. We got the zone together for the day and went ice skating with the approval of President Clark. It was so cool! I haven't ever done it before but I caught on pretty week. I'll send a bunch of pictures.

So I'm super short on time today so sorry if I don't get anyone emailed back that emailed me. We have just been running all day. Our investigators are doing good. We started to teach the Murray family which is a part member family. The wife just got out of a coma and is in recovery. Something must have happened because they are all super down for baptism and everything!

Love you all!!!

Week 11 Daytona Beach

This week was another good one here in the Promised Land of Florida!  Especially because it was Thanksgiving week! Oh man I have been dieting ever since Thanksgiving. I gained about 5 lbs so I've been working hard to get back to normal haha. We get fed pretty well here.

So Thanksgiving. First we went over to Elder and Sister Corders (Senior couple missionaries) house for lunch at 12:00. It was a blast! Then at 3:00 we had lunch with an investigator and our good friend Grandpa. I was feeling pretty sick by that time! Well that wasn't the end of it. We went to another member in the Ward, Brother Ahrens, for a couple more pieces of pie and icecream. We had a competition in the zone to see who could gain the most weight. I thought I was doing pretty well until I found out that another Elder gained 17lbs! Not sure if that is 100% true or not but either way, that's a lot of food!

Our investigator Tekeam is doing really well! He unfortunately was not able to come to church yesterday so we are now going to have to push his date back until Dec. 11. If you could all pray for him to make that date it would be great! He is still a boss though. Because he is only 17 we had to get permission from his parents. Well that all worked out well so we are good to go! Unfortunately Elder Reeves will not be here for it. He goes home the week of the baptism! Oh well I guess.

I also had the opportunity to do a service project in the International Speedway this week! We were helping out with a fundraiser by selling hot dogs. The event that was going on there is called the Turkey Rod Run. It's the biggest car show in the US with over 7,000 cars! They are mostly antiques. It was a good time!

I was studying some scriptures this week and found a cool verse in Jacob 4:10. "Seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand." We must submit our will to the Lord and take his counsel rather than counseling the Lord. I have found that on my mission it is impossible to get anything done and accomplish any goals if you don't take counsel from the Lord first.

Well I love you all and hope you have a great week! There is a cool Christmas video that came out just barely called Light the World. If you go to Mormon.org you can't miss it. Share it also! #Lighttheworld

Elder Goff

Week 10 Daytona Beach

This week was crazy! So much happened. I'll try to keep it brief though.

So first thing, I got a new companion! Surprise! We still have 2 weeks left in the transfer too. It's a really long story but to keep it short, there was a situation that went down with another companionship so Elder Dummer and I are on exchanges until the end of the transfer. My new companion is Elder Reeves! He is a stud. We really get along great too.

We had a big change with all the investigators we are teaching also. Our most solid investigator at the moment is named Tekeam. He is a referral we got from a recent convert a couple weeks ago. Well Tuesday
night we set a baptism date with him for December 4th which is actually the Sunday right before Elder Reeves goes home. He is progressing well towards it too.

On Tuesday, when Elder Dummer was still here, we had an amazing lesson with one of our investigators named Shirley. We actually had the lesson at the church. She was sooo excited too. Man the spirit was
powerful too. We explained the sacrament to her and them opened the doors to the chapel. When she walked in she just broke down in tears because the spirit was testifying to her so powerfully. What a
miracle. Honestly times like these are the life changing moments.

It was just a powerful week because we also had Elder Schwitzer of the 70 come give a tour of our mission. We went to a leadership meeting on Thursday for most of the day. Then when we got back to Daytona Elder
Dummer and I got back together and had to give a training to some of the auxiliary leaders in the stake about referrals. Then first thing Friday, we headed back toward Orlando for another conference with
Elder Schwitzer. This time it was with all the missionaries. I learned so much! He said, "We are just here to serve a mission, we are here to become missionaries."

Well I hope you all have a good week!

Elder Goff



Elder Reeves, Deaunate, Tekea, and Me

Week 9 Daytona Beach

This week was an awesome week teaching wise! We were able to see a lot of miracles. The main way we have been doing finding is actually because of the hurricane that His about a month ago. Members of the ward have been referring us to people they helped clean up from. It's been a goldmine!

We had a pretty funny experience Saturday night. We had stopped to teach a recent convert of ours named Paul. We had a great lesson with him for about 30 minutes and walked back out to get in our car and it was gone!!! We had some run ins with a few kids in that complex the previous times we stopped by so immediately I assumed they had stolen our car. We called 911 and explained. Well, it turns out the car actually wasn't stolen. It had been towed! Apparently we are not aloud to back into parking places in that specific complex. We called a few members and finally got someone to help us out and go get our car. We didn't get back until super late that night.

Our investigators are all super flakey here in Daytona. They all are willing to set a baptism date but none are willing to follow through with it! It's super frustrating! We're working on finding some ways to fix this problem. We had a lesson with a lady this week named Shirley. It was super cool. We knocked and she came outside already almost in tears because we had stopped by. She said she already knows this is true even though we had barely taught her anything. We shared the story of Joseph Smith and then testified of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is so true! She broke down in tears as we explained it. She was so excited! I don't feel like I even did anything that lesson. It just goes to show how this truly is the Lord's work. We are just his tools he uses to work with. 

I hope you guys all have a great week!

Elder Goff

The Indonesian crew (investigators) and Elder Dummer

Exchanges with Elder Amiott

Week 8 Daytona Beach

We had a lot of ups and downs this week. We had to drop a lot of people who were on date for baptism. However we also picked up a lot of new people who are solid. We were able to find 15 new investigators
this week which is more than I have ever found on my whole mission! It was awesome!

Tuesday marked the day that I have been alive for 2 decades! Man I feel old haha. For my birthday I went to lunch with Grandpa and his favorite place in Daytona called Steves famous diner. He literally takes us to eat there about 3 times a week! Anyways I at a ton of food there and was full clear until the next morning.

Thursday we had a meeting where I gave a training. I talked about how we can become a Sacred missionary. It was a lot of fun! I am getting to the point where I love to talk in front of people which I never thought would happen.

We had a ton of referrals that we contacted. A couple of which are Elly and Joshua who are from Indonesia. We went over to teach them and they just smiled the whole entire lesson! I don't think they could  understand much but they sure were happy to have us there. They are awesome! We also have an investigator named Warren that came to church. We also set a baptism date with him. It was pretty cool! This coming week is looking like it will be a good week!

Sorry for the boring email this week! I love you all.

Elder Goff

Happy Birthday!!!

Spending my Bday with Grandpa at Steves

Week 7 Daytona Beach

Just another week in Paradise! What a great week. A lot has changed this week. First, Elder Dummer arrived! He is such a stud! We get along great too. Elder Dummer is from Layton Utah and has been out the same amount of time as so we'll go home the same time. Pretty crazy right? It's going to be a great transfer.
Monday night was my last night with Elder Acevedo. I'm going to miss that guy. We went to Texas Roadhouse with Grandpa (a cool member of the ward). Then Tuesday he left for Melbourne and Elder Dummer came in.

We had a lot of interesting things happen this week. We found out that our top investigator, Henery, is on probation and won't be able to be baptized for 2 years :( we had a couple lessons with him. The last one we had we walked in and he wheeled his wheelchair over to us. After sitting down, he started to choke up a little bit. He said, "It's true! Mormon is the truth!" The spirit filled the room. I thought for a bit as he was talking about my mission experiences. This instance was one of the highlights of the mission! I also don't think I have ever had a more bitter sweet lesson in my life. Right after this he began to explain about his probation. My heart sunk! We explained about repentance then gave him the news about how he would have to wait 2 years to be baptized. He had no problem with it at all. He almost seemed happy about it because he was so confident that this church is true. Anyways, that was an interesting lesson.

We also set a baptism date with this guy named Errol. We were teaching him about a month ago then out of the blue he called us and dropped us. Well after a few weeks he called us back and said he has felt terrible since he dropped us and wants to start meeting again. We were pretty bold with him. The lesson we had was incredible! He had changed his attitude toward the church completely. He is now back on baptism date for December 18th!

Random thing that happened this week: in church yesterday, we had a less active come who is deaf. He reads lips. For some reason he decided to have me translate for him. I sat facing him with my back to
the speaker the whole sacrament meeting. I felt like I was playing charades! He was super happy though ha.

Elder Carter of the 70 spoke to us in a meeting this week. It was super powerful! He talked about how their are 3 different types of missionaries: mediocre missionaries, good missionaries, and sacred
missionaries. He talked about how a sacred missionary is a disciple of Christ who gives up his life to serving the lord. It was incredible!

Hope you all have a great week and a happy Halloween!!!

Elder Goff

Last night of the transfer spent with Grandpa and Sandi

Week 6 Daytona Beach

Our Invstigator Antero (we call him Papi)

Hey everyone! Well not a whole lot happened this week. Daytona is just about recovered from he hurricane. They do fast work here! There's still a few stop lights down and trees fallen over here and there but nothing real serious.

We got transfer news this week. Elder Acevedo is getting transferred :/ he will be going to Melbourne which is about an hour and a half down the coast line from here. The past 6 weeks went by so fast! I feel like we were only companions for like a week. I learned a ton from him! It's sad to see him go.

My new companion will be Elder Dummer. (Doomer) I don't know him real well but I have talked to him at a few meetings here and there. He seems like a super cool Elder. Also he speaks Spanish so that's going
to be way nice!

I came across a really cool scripture this week. It's Genesis 31:16. It says, "now then, whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do." When God gives you a commandment, do it period! There is no, "maybe in the future" or "someday." We do it immediately and God blesses us.

Well I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Goff

Week 5 Daytona Beach

Not a whole lot happened this week. It was mostly just recovering from the hurricane. Surprisingly we haven't done a whole lot of service. Our mission president asked us to do more teaching than service so that's what we've done. 

Daytona has 2 weeks out of the year they dedicate to "Bike week." One was this passed week and one is in February. There were literally thousands of motor bikes here over the weekend. All day from Thursday to Sunday it was nonstop revving their engines. We counted about 500 bikes on 2 hours then we finally gave up. 

The work here is going great! Our top investigators right now are Henry, Marlo, and Lamish, Brother Valesquez "Papi", and Hannah. We found Henry after he requested a bible. He is an awesome man who is in a wheel chair. He lives with Marlo and Lamisha who are awesome too! We've been meeting with them just about every day this passed week. They're  all super pumped for their baptism which is November 13th! 

Brother Velasquez is getting baptized on November 20th! He an old fellow from puerta rico which is why he got he name Papi. He loves it too! We showed up to his house the other day and were like, "Papi! Let's go check out the church and we'll give you a tour." So we hopped in our cars and gave him a tour of the church. The spirit was so powerful! We set the baptism date with him. He also came to church Sunday as well. 

Brett is waiting to get off probation which was suppose to be last week but was delayed by the hurricane so hopefully he gets off this week. He plans on getting baptized right after he gets off. 

The last investigator who is progressing really well this week is Hannah. She is a single mom and about 20 years old. She knows the Book of Mormon is true but her family is completely against the church. She is in the middle of making her decision whether or not to basically be against her family and join the church. We met at the church for a lesson with her this week and she told us how she carries her Book of Mormon everywhere she goes. She said anytime she is angry, scared, or not happy she just pulls the Book of Mormon out of her bag and holds onto it and it makes her happy and peaceful!

The gospel is so true! I have never been happier in my life as I am now because I get to see the eternal blessings this gospel brings to people right before my eyes. There was a talk in conference that was about how we too often take the gospel for granted rather than counting our blessings that it brings.

Well I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Goff

We took some trips to see one of our investigators in the hospital. Brother Carlson is the member with us.





Exchanges with Elder Reyes and a member of our ward in the back seat.



An awesome member of the ward has a pet tagew (Huge lizard) and alligator 

Week 4 Daytona Beach

This week was the craziest week of my mission! Not a who lot happened other than a category 4 hurricane hit us. Not a big deal. To be serious though the hurricane was wild!

We found out the hurricane was headed for us on Monday but didn't make it too big of a deal. We made some preparations just in case. We knew for sure it was going to hit us dead on Tuesday. Wednesday we had a Zone meeting which was actually my first one as a zone leader. It was super good! I gave a training on how we can strengthen our relationship with Heavenly Father through our study and prayer. If there is anything I've learned this transfer, it is that we need to have a daily accounting session with God by setting daily goals in the morning, then accounting with God at night. 

During the meeting our phone was being blown up by our mission president. I finally left the meeting and answered. He asked us to evacuate all of the missionaries in our zone from the coast inland. We went to Deland which is about 30 miles off the coast and stayed with some elders there for 2 days.

We got back to Daytona Saturday morning and it was a disaster! Trees were down everywhere! Not a whole lot of homes were damaged though. Saturday night we helped unload 2 20 foot trucks and a semi. They were all packed with supplies for service. The church is so organized! They shipped a ton of stuff to us Saturday. On Sunday, over 1300 people met up at our chapel. They all came in service clothes. I had to park them all too. That was a pain but it was a lot of fun. They did 4 quick sacrament meetings for everyone then they all separated into teams and started putting Daytona back together. It was so cool to see! I got to see a lot of my good friends from my past areas. It was almost like a family reunion! We worked our butts off all day Saturday. I was exhausted by about 10:00 am but kept working until 6:00. We finally got home and ate for the first time that day. I'm still feeling it haha. Also about half of Daytona is still out of power. It's pretty crazy over here! 

On a good note, the night before we evacuated we were able to set a date with 4 of our investigators. They are all super solid too. The people we have on date right now are Brett, Henery, Marlo, Misha, Antero, and Shawn. Shawns a little flakey but the rest are solid.

Well I hope you all had as good of a week as me!

Love ya!  Elder Goff

Our A. Is the one left of the 2 smashed ones. #lucky



Cool pic of Daytona



Tree in background used to be where the road was



one of the trucks we loaded