Week 18 Clermont

Not too much has changed this week. This week was transfers but me and the rest of our district are all staying. Good thing too because we have a lot coming up this transfer! It's looking to be a pretty good transfer here in Clermont with Elder White.

We saw a lot of miracles this week! On Tuesday I was on exchanges with Elder Goddard from another area in our district. We were working in my area. We had planned to stop by a less active member but when she wasn't home we decided to knock a few doors around her. After knocking on this one door, a man came around the side of the house and asked if he could help us. I wanted to say, yeah you could be baptized in our church! But I didn't haha. We told him we were going around saying prayers with people. He seemed a little surprised. It turns out he had just been diagnosed with cancer a few days before and was a little depressed. It's amazing how we can be an answer to someone's prayers when we listen to the spirit. The only issue he has about meeting with us is his wife may not want to so I guess we will see this week.

That same day we stopped by someone named Efrain. We found his cousin last week and then while on exchanges, Elder White met Efrain so I had never met him. Efrain moved here from New York a couple weeks ago. He quit drinking and smoking about a month ago (hallelujah) and is looking to start a new life. After hearing this I felt prompted to ask him if he had ever been baptized. I loved his responses! "A long time ago but I'm looking to get baptized again."  That's the best thing you can ever hear as a missionary. Long story short, we set a date to get baptized in September 10th.

We also met with the Wiltons again. They are doing awesome as normal. Sister Wilton has quit smoking and is working on quitting coffee. There are 3 of them but there are also a few other people living with them. One of which is named Ray. When we first met Ray, he thought he was going to bible bash with us but couldn't respond to our testimonies. This was the 3rd time we met with him. The Wiltons are being baptized August 27th and we felt like Ray would be able to make that date as well so we asked and he accepted! We have 4 baptisms planned for the 27th! It was so cool too because they all have a super hard time with coffee, but they all committed that they will do whatever they have to to get baptized.

A family that I came to know really well from exchanges and stuff got baptized this week. The Penedo's live in the Minneola ward which shares the same building as Clermont. It was so cool to see them get baptized! Brother Penedo asked me to confirm him so I did yesterday. It was such a powerful experience!

This week was also Elder White's Birthday. I've literally been telling every member we see that it was his birthday so now we have a crap ton of cake! His birthday was Thursday so we all got together early in the morning and I cooked up a bunch of crepes for everybody. It's kind of become a tradition to do it. It was a pretty fun day.

So I dont know if this happens a whole lot in any other missions but people always try to bible bash (prove our religion wrong) with us here in Florida. I usually just leave it alone because nothing good comes from it but Saturday I had had enough. A guy we ran into was telling us that his church was the only true church and that ours was false. He said that his church had been going on since Christ left the earth. It was hilarious because I put him in his place a little bit. He said that Peter had become the next prophet after Jesus Christ and referenced Matt. 16:18-19 which basically says that the authority was passed to Peter from Jesus Christ to be the prophet. Well we all know that Peter and the rest of the 12 disciples we rejected and killed. So I brought that up to him and he agreed. I then asked him, "if everyone rejected the prophets and killed them, who did Peter pass the authority to be the next prophet to?" After he couldn't answer that, I testified of the restoration. It was hilarious! Probably not good though because the spirit is never there when you bible bash.

In church yesterday they talked about how we need to not judge others. The story was told of a man who was walking down the sidewalk and saw a dandelion in someone's yard and was just disgusted by it. He couldn't believe that man would let a dandelion grow in his yard. When he got home he walked right passed his own yard which was filled with dandelions. I find myself doing this more than I would like. We must first correct our own problems before we try to correct others.

Anyways, I love you all and hope you have a good week!

Elder Goff



My Desk

(L-R) Elder's Satchwell, Goddard, me, White, Lawson, and Isaacson