Week 30 Daytona Beach

This week was a bitter sweet one. I've got a lot of good news and bad news.  I guess first I will give the bitter part of the week. I am being transferred. I've been here in Daytona Beach do about 7 1/2 months and have met some lifetime friends. Can't wait to come back and visit! 

The sweet part is that I am going to Sebring! That is in the same district as Lake Placid which was one of my past areas. I'll be able to go on exchanges and visit some sweet members and also my recent converts there!!! Man I miss that place so much so I'm super stoked that I get to finish my mission there! My new companion will be Elder McKee. I actually have been in a few exchanges with him so I'm excited about that too. Mission life is great!

The other good news is that Nick passed his interview for baptism. He will be baptized Saturday at 5:00. Unfortunately Sebring is over 3 hours away from their so I won't get to be there for it :/ I'm going to ask the President Clark if I can Skype in for it. We also went a date with a family last week. Their names are Latoya, Nikita, and Archero and will be baptized on May 28th. Also Johnny is doing really well. We are going to reset his date for baptism tonight, then I leave tomorrow morning. Its such a good feeling to see so much happening here and I'm pretty sad I have to leave it all. But the Lord is calling me to another Promised Land. 

I was doing some pondering this week on miracles. Just as Mormon teaches us in Moroni 7, "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased because Christ hath ascended into heaven?... And because he hath done this, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men." Miracles have not ceased and I know without a doubt that as we live the Gospel of Jesus Christ by excercising our faith and repenting daily, we will see miracles and angels will minister to us. I have witnessed way too many miracles for this church to not be true. 

I hope all of you have a great week and take the time to recognize the miracles in your life each day.

Elder Goff

Nick

Johnny

Huertas Family

Hunter

Jed

Fishing behind our apartment

Week 29 Daytona Beace

This week has been crazy! I'm super short on time so I will just quickly sum it up. Nick is doing great! He is dead set for his baptism in the 15th. He texted us during Conference explaining how excited he is for it. Elder Curl and I found a family of 13 and 10 of them are baptism age. It's going to be hard to teach them all but they show some interest so that would be sweet. Finally, Conference was amazing!!! One of my favorite talks was from the priesthood session with President Eyring. I loved how he challenged each of us to "walk with Christ." As we change our perspectives to the Savior's, we will see others with charity. I love this work and I am truly humbled to be a servant of the Lord!

Sorry I was so busy today so I won't be able to respond to any emails but know that I love You!

Elder Goff

Week 28 Daytona Beach

Hey everyone! It was another great week here in the sunshine state. We did a lot of exchanges this week. Monday night I went to Deltona where we biked and just worked our butts off all day. Pretty sure we knocked over 100 doors that day! It was hot but it was super nice to be able to buckle down and do some work. 

Thursday we went and blitz an area so Elder Hawkins and I both went and served in the other Elders area. We had some pretty cool miracles. They are teaching an awesome guy who is being baptized soon! It was a ton of fun. Then I went on another exchange Saturday with one of my former companions Elder Dummer! He served with me here in Daytona about 3 months ago! I sure miss that guy and I learned so much from him. It was good to go back to the good old days. We had a sweet miracle in the morning. A random member from Tampa called us and said that a couple of her friends were in the hospital in Daytona from a motorcycle accident and they needed a blessing. We met up there with the member and gave the blessing and taught them about the gospel. They were humbled and were in tears throughout the blessings. They want missionaries to come over as soon as they get back home! The Lord truly does know his sheep and has a purpose for everything. 

So some interesting news. Elder Hawkins will be leaving me this week. Elder Curl will be my new companion just for a few weeks. Elder Curl hurt his ankle so he needs to be in an area where there is a car (Daytona). I'm pretty excited for Elder Curl to come but I am sad hat Elder Hawkins will be leaving me.

Our investigators are doing super well. The one who is progressing the most is a kid named Nick. He is being baptized on April 15th! I'm so pumped! We found him about a month ago because he was sitting out on his porch and we decided to talk to him. He has a member friend in Utah who reads with him and always gives him advice. We asked why he wanted to meet with us and he said he just wanted to start a new life! I would never give up these few short years for anything. I was thinking about the thing that has changed the most of the past couple years and I would have to say that it has been my perspective. Life is not about me. I see things in a completely different way now than I used to. I try to see things the way God sees things! 

3 Nephi 5:13 "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life." 

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Goff

Elder Dummer and Jed

Elder Curl

Week 27 Daytona Beach

Bike week is over finally! It was crazy because here were tons of bikes here which slowed down the traffic and hey are all crazy drivers. We saw a lot of miracles this week that I'll update you on. Also I'll update you on a few of our investigators.

Wednesday I had an exchange with Elder Hardman in New Smyrna Beach. Going into the exchange I had been praying diligently that while on this exchange we could set a baptism date. We talked to each other about our goals and he said his was to find 3 new people to teach and mine was to set a baptism date even though they didn't have anyone they were teaching. Well the Lord sure blessed us because we knocked doors all day long and found 7 new investigators. One was named Shawn who we had just met and were finishing up a lesson when the spirit prompted us to challenge him to a baptism date. We did then boldly testified and he accepted! He will be baptized on April 29th in New Smyrna. It was so cool to see how willing the Lord is to bless us if we simply have a goal and work diligently to achieve it.

The other Miracle is that we set a baptism date with Nick. He is a YSA that we have been working with for a few weeks. We found him tracting and it turns out that he used to go to church with one of his friends from California. He and his friend now study together over the phone so he texts us almost every day asking us questions. Anyways, he committed to being baptized in April 15th. Keep him in your prayers. The other investigator that we are putting a lot of focus in right now is Johnny. He has been suuuppper sick the past 2 weeks so we haven't been able to see him. Really other than those 2 we have a few people who are in idling mode then are doing some finding.

Jed, one of our investigators, taught me a cool lesson this week. We had him study about conversion to prepare for our lesson. He said conversion is simply just changing. To convert means to change in form or character. The way we're become converted is through repentance aka changing and "putting off the natural man and becoming a saint." 

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Goff

Fishing with Gaige and Brian

Elder Gubler was on my 6th grade Bball team

Week 26 Daytona Beach

It was such a great week! I guess that is every week huh? The weather has been just like paradise as always. However it is starting to warm up a bit. You only get about 3 months of amazing weather but then for the rest of the 9 months is like a sauna.

The best thing ever happened this week. Hunter who is our recent convert of about 3 weeks baptized his younger brother Gavin on Saturday! It was so cool! The spirit was so strong and it was such a blessing to watch. About half way through the week Hunter called us asking for a Book of Mormon. He said he had a friend who wanted one. I've been blessed to be a part of his conversion from the start. I remember a couple months ago when Elder Dummer and I first found him. And now he has the priesthood and baptized his little brother. The gospel blesses families!

Other than that it was a normal week. Our investigators are doing good. Johnny was sick so we weren't able to visit him but he is still set for his date in April!

Time is flying by way too fast. I'm trying to hit the brakes to slow it down but it isn't working! I never want this time to end. What a privilege it is to be a servant of the Lord. 3 Nephi 5:13  "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life."

"Mom note here!  Time is not flying by for me, he still as 114 days until he comes home, not that I am counting 😄"

Hope you all have a great week! This week is bike week here in Daytona so thousands of motorbikes are going to be cruising around. Wish me luck!

Elder Goff

Zone Meeting

Zone Beach PDay

Elder Hawkins and Elder Goff

Gavin's Baptism

Week 25 Daytona Beach

What a week. It was packed with the spirit! We didn't have a whole lot of time to do stuff because we had a ton of meetings but it's all good.Tuesday was transfers which is always a busy day. Thankfully neither of us got transferred! Wednesday we went to a district meeting,Thursday we had a meeting in Orlando, Friday we got to go to the temple and also we had another meeting with some other missionaries to plan out a Zone meeting next week. Saturday we had another meeting with the District Leaders in our zone. It was crazy! It's pretty cool though because although we only had a short time to work, the Lord helped us out and we were able to set 3 more baptism dates. I would say that is one of my favorite parts of my mission: being able to recognize that I am just an instrument for the Lord to carry out His work. 

The temple on Friday was amazing!!! It was as if I was re-calibrating myself. Ever since then I have been more focused and more determined. I also asked a lot of questions about life and missionary work. What a Sacred place. Unfortunately we only get to go twice a year :/ I can't wait until I can go once a week!

Our investigators are doing well. We set a baptism date with a cool guy named Johnny. He is such a stud! Every time we go over there he cooks us up some fried chicken. We had a lesson with him on Tuesday where we went in knowing we were going to set a date with him. We taught him about faith, repentance, and baptism. The spirit led the lesson because Elder Hawkins and I were asking the perfect questions at the perfect time. We asked, "Do you have faith in Jesus Christ?" -Yes "Do you know what it means to repent?" - Yes "Then will you follow the example of your Savior and be baptized?" The Spirit reeled the room as he pondered on he question. He then looked at us and said, "I guess that would make sense if I were so yes I will. What do I need to do to be ready?" My favorite thing to hear! He is getting baptized on April 2nd. The mission is the best thing that has ever happened to me! I wish I could do this for the rest of my life.

I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Goff

Week 24 Daytona Beach

Hope everyone had a good week. We had a pretty good one here in the Promised Land. The weather has been perfect as always. I guess it's why they call it the sunshine state. 

 

The highlight of the week is once again Hunter. He was confirmed Sunday and he received the priesthood right after. He is going to baptize his younger brother in a couple weeks. It's super cool to see his testimony grow so much. Here in Daytona we cover a family Ward but we also cover a Young Single Adult branch here. In the YSA there isn't very many people so sacrament meeting is always a struggle. Usually they have to call a few people up to bare their testimonies. Well they called Hunter up. He told us in the past that he would never do it because he hates talking in front of people. He bore such a powerful testimony. I know this church is true!

 

So transfers are tomorrow. We got the transfer document Saturday afternoon and it said that Elder Hawkins and I were both being transferred to Deland 1st Ward but were going to stay companions. Probably one of my favorite parts about transfers is making the transfer calls to the rest of the zone. We get some pretty funny responses. Sunday afternoon right after we said goodbye to everyone here what do you know, we get a call from President Clark saying to unpack our bags because we are staying once again here in Daytona! I guess he changed his mind. Elder Hawkins is such a good guy and I'm super excited to stay here with him. This is going to be 7 1/2 months of Daytona Beach for me.

 

Well that's about it for the week. I hope you all have a great week!

 

Elder Goff

 

Exchanges with Elder Roper

Drove by Speedway during Daytona 500





Hunter

Unexpected Visitors, Burgess Family from Clermont!



Ice Skating with one of the Districts - PDay





Week 23 Daytona Beach

This week was a pretty solid week. I got to tour our zone a little bit. In Tuesday and went on exchanges with my former companion. We had a sweet experience. Elder White and I had about 30 minutes before our next appointment and decided to do some finding. We both had an impression to knock on a specific house. We did so and they let us right in! Turns out this Lady's brother and Father are members. Her Father had actually just passed away. Her heart was softened and we were able to deliver a Book of Mormon with some powerful testimonies. What an amazing experience! The spirit is the best. 

Tuesday night I then went on exchanges to a different area with Elder Garcia. We exchanged back Thursday morning then Friday night I went on another exchange. We had another super spiritual experience. It was Elder Hardman and I. We were trying to find a Less Active member. All we had was a building number to an apartment complex. There was about 12 apartments to choose from. We decided we would just knock the whole thing. Well what do you know, the very first door we knock a little boy comes to the door and his face lights up. He yelled, "Mom it's the missionaries!" It was the Less Active family we were looking for. Again we were led by he Spirit. 

Unfortunately Hunter wasn't able to make it to church yesterday so he will be confirmed in church next week. We plan to take him teaching with us right after that.

I have been studying a lot is week about sanctification. Sanctification is the process of becoming pure in heart. "8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." - Matthew 5:8 I feel like one of the main purposes of serving a mission is this, to Sanctify our hearts through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the reception of the Holy Ghost, and our faith and repentance. 

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Goff

Elder Garcia

Elder Hardman

Week 22 Daytona Beach

It was a pretty good week this week as always. Florida has been living up to its name as the sunshine state. It's been sunny and 75 all week. So I've got some good news and some bad news from this week.

Last Monday I lost one of my best friends out here. Grandpa Vic passed away. He had been sick for quite a while and now has moved on. I spoke at his memorial service on Thursday about the Plan of Salvation. We are so lucky to have a knowledge of what will happen to us after this life! Alma40:12 "And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow." So that's the bad news.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Good news, Hunter was baptized!! He is such a stud! I have seen him change so much from the time we found him to now. He was struggling a bit with life when we found him. Now he says he gets good grades and is a whole lot happier. We had the coolest lesson with him Thursday night. We were going to teach him about missionary work. We met at Wendy's to have dinner with him and we're planning to teach him there but there was a creepy guy watching us so we left. As we were walking out this guy followed us and asked us about our beliefs. Hunter jumped right up and bore his testimony of the Book of Mormon and the church. We got to a park after that and sat down for a lesson and about half way through the lesson, a random lady walked up to us and started asking us questions. I reeled out a card with our phone number on it and was going to give it to her when hunter reached out and asked if he could give it to her. I was like, "Of Course!" He walked up and gave it to her then taught and testified of the Book of Mormon. He is a stud! We've been talking to him about serving a mission even.

That's about the highlights of the week. We set a baptism date with a lady named Kim this week. We also have Hannah and Brandie on date so keep them in your prayers. Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Goff

Week 21 Daytona Beach

This week is going to be short because I don't have a lot of time today. It's been a read good week with ups and downs. The biggest miracle of the week is that Hunter passed his interview! He's going to be baptized next Sunday after church. He was already talking a bit this week about serving a mission.

I had a super cool experience this week. So we had someone call and ask us to go to the hospital to give an old lady a blessing. We got there and she was in NICU. The nurses told us that she didn't know what was going on at all and that she might say some crazy stuff to us. We put a gown, gloves and a face mask on so there was no way she could tell who we were. The nurse was right...at first at least. As we laid our hands on her head she smiled and closed her eyes. After he blessing she kept smiling and with a tear rolling down her face she said, "You guys are the missionaries. Thank you."  There was no way she could tell that we were missionaries but she just knew. The power of the priesthood is real.

I hope you all have a great week! The gospel is true and if you are debating in whether or not you should serve a mission, do it. The experiences you have and the person you become is priceless.

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Goff

Week 20 Daytona Beach

Wow it's hard to even remember what happened this week. Time just cruises on by. I guess I can't complain because I am pretty blest. 

So this week we had some pretty big changes. I'm sure a lot of you already know but there was a change in the missionary schedule and he way we track our lessons. We now do not have nightly planning because it was moved to part of our morning schedule. We also had companionship study get moved to later in the day. The whole reason this happened is so that we can get more sleep I'm sure looking forward to that! The other thing, we do not track the number of lessons we teach any more. Really he only thing we keep track of is how many New Investigators, the number of people who came to church, people on date to be baptized, and people baptized. It's pretty crazy! I feel like my whole attitude changed. Now it's seems like it's down to the basics: find, teach, then baptize.

Speaking of baptism, we had an unexpected surprise. We got a call from Hunter (an investigator who originally said he wanted to get baptized in March) call us and tell us that his little brother is getting baptized March 4th... and Hunters brother wants Hunter to baptize him. Hunter then said he will do whatever it takes which means he will be getting baptized real soon. We called the Branch President of the YSA branch we cover because Hunter will be in his stewardship once he is baptized and asked for his permission to go through with this. He said yes! Hunter is now going to get baptized on February 12th, get confirmed February 19th, receive the priesthood February 26th, then baptize his little brother on February 4th. His little brother Gavin will be getting baptized in another ward though. Keep Hunter in your prayers so that he can make his date!

Other than that not a whole lot has happened. Brandie and Diente are not looking like they will make their date for February 19th. We have had a hard time meeting with both of them. We picked up a new investigator who I used to teach a few months ago. Her name is Hannah. She was on baptism date but then her family gave her a lot of problems for it. As we were driving around, we got the prompting to stop by her house so we did. She says she wants to try again for baptism!

We continue to see miracles each day here. I was doing some pondering his week on the many tender mercies the Lord gives to us. I take them for granted too often. It's amazing to see his love for us because he is in every inch of our lives helping us along the way. 

Joshua 1:9

"9 ​Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the ​​​​​Lord​​​ thy God ​is​ with thee whithersoever thou goest."

Have a great week!  Elder Goff

Elder Hawkins and Grandpa (holding my basketball I have everyone sign)

Week 19 Daytona Beach

 

I know I say it a lot but I still cannot believe how fast time is flying by. I still feel like I just got out of the MTC! I guess it's true when people say time flies when your having fun. Especially here in the Promised land of Florida.

My new companion, Elder Hawkins is a stud! We are a lot alike. He came out on a mission 6 weeks after I did. He's from Orem Utah and comes from a family of 8. He also loves basketball so of course you know what that means. Since he just came from my last area we have had plenty to talk about. Good old Clermont seems to be holding up pretty well. I sure miss that place. 

Unfortunately Jimbo dropped us this week. We talked to him about some requirements  for baptism namely the word of wisdom and I guess he couldn't handle it. Agency is so hard to deal with sometimes. It breaks my heart. However, Brandie is still doing well. We haven't been able to get her to come to church yet. So if you guys would like to pray for that, it would sure help. Diente is doing well also. Unfortunately he didn't come to church either. It's a struggle! We did have a super cool with Diente though. We taught him about how to repent and then at the end he said a kneeling prayer pleading for God to help him change so that he could get baptized. The spirit was so strong. At the end he said he feels like he is already a member of our church and he hasn't even been to church yet! His date to be baptized is the 19th of February.

The other investigator who we have been teaching a lot is a kid named Hunter. He is a lot like me. His mom is a member and his cousin was just baptized in another ward. He is a lot like me so it's super cool. He said he wants to get baptized in march.

Alma 13:21-23

"21...Now is the time to repent, for the day of salvation draweth nigh;

22 Yea, and the voice of the Lord, by the mouth of angels, doth declare it unto all nations; yea, doth declare it, that they may have glad tidings of great joy...

23 ...and this because of our being wanderers in a strange land; therefore, we are thus highly favored, for we have these glad tidings declared unto us in all parts of our vineyard."

What a privilege it is to be declaring repentance to these people being a wanderer in this strange land of Daytona. And what a privilege it is to have had these glad tidings declared unto me! I hope you all have a great week.

Elder Goff

 

 

 

Week 18 Daytona Beach

 

This week was pretty normal. We picked up a lot of cool people to teach also. All of our investigators are doing well. Jim was a little sick so we didn't meet with him much but we ha had a lot of great lessons with everyone else. 

Some big news is that transfers are this week. Elder Dummer is leaving to go whitewash a Spanish area. :/ I'm pretty bummed that he is leaving. We got along pretty well. However I'm excited for ,y new companion. My new companion will be Elder Hawkins. He is actually coming from my last area so we will have a lot to talk about. I hear he is a great missionary.

Our days have been packed recently. We went on splits twice this week where Elder Dummer went with a member and I went with another because we had too many scheduled lessons. The work here is great! I hope I never leave! I would say the biggest miracle this week came Wednesday. We have been teaching a kid who is the only member in his family. He has been praying real hard that his family would listen to us. Well we finally got it worked out so we could do so. It was the coolest experience because we got to witness this kid teach his parents about the restored gospel. He bore his testimony to them and they couldn't deny it! As we explained how he Book of Mormon came from ancient American prophets the fathers eyes lit up. He said he has been searching for hat his whole life. The fathers wife only speaks Spanish so as soon as he learned this he started speaking to her in Spanish with a sense of urgency! Walking out of that house and seeing the excitement on this kids face because his family has started to accept the restored gospel witnessed to me again that there is no other place I would be than here in Daytona Beach serving our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Well I love you all. Hope you have a great week this week!

Elder Goff

GRANDPA - Vic