Everlasting Zone Conferences

November 30, 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

We had such a busy week! With balancing laboring diligently in our area, MLCM, Thanksgiving, District Meeting, and Zone Conference planning, the week goes by really fast! We have Zone Conference this next week so we will be going around the whole mission to all 5 Zones doing teaching and training, Elder Whetzel and I will give the same instruction about 25 times in all this week, we should be pros by the end.

We are teaching a Recent Convert named Nze's daughter, her name is Neto. She is on date for the 26th of December. When we saw her this week Nze's wife came home in the middle of the lesson and she said that she had a request to make... that SHE WANTED TO BE BAPTIZED WITH NETO!!! :))) That was a great surprise, we will be working hard to prepare them both for Baptism later this month :) We had the great opportunity to exercise the Priesthood this week: This Less Active member of our ward called us and asked us to go to the hospital and give his mother-in-law, who is not a member of the Church, a blessing. She must've been in a car wreck or something, she was in pretty bad shape, really fragile. As I laid my hands upon her head I knew in my heart and mind without a doubt that I was acting for God right at that moment for this precious daughter. She had a couple of family members there with her who felt the Spirit during the blessing, it was a good experience.

A miracle we saw this week was when we felt inspired to knock on this one door. The drunk Irishman (bald but big red beard) said he didn't believe in God or Jesus Christ (although he had a cross tattooed on his chest... i thought that was really funny) but he referred us to his friend Dustin just down the street who just lost his job and was going through a hard time! He turned out to be very willing to listen to the gospel! Another one: After a few hours of tracting, we were walking back to our car and this woman went flying into her driveway. Decided to talk to her and she was open to the restoration! Believed our words and was excited about the truth.

The Lord has "Hastened His Work in His time," and a HUGE part of that is sharing the Gospel on the web. He has inspired the leaders of His Church to do another Christmas initiative this year, much like "He is the Gift" from last year! This year it is called, "A Savior Is Born." The message to share along with the video is "Discover Why." I invite you to watch it once for yourself, then say a prayer and ask Heavenly Father who YOU should share it with. A name or face will come to mind as you watch it again with faith. Then go and do what the Lord inspired you too, and help someone in your sphere of responsibility discover why a Savior is Born.

I love you all, I know that we all have the power to help others come to a knowledge of the truth. All we must do is Ask, Receive Inspiration, then Go and Do what God tells you to. Imagine what a great gift to Jesus Christ this would be this Christmas season if each person that sees this video would do that. Let us all participate in missionary work this Christmas season, our efforts will be a sign unto God of how we feel towards Him and His Son, and His atoning sacrifice He made for us.

Elder Goff

December 7, 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was super busy!! We went all over the mission with the Gerbers for Zone Conferences. We had one on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and the last one is tomorrow. They're each about 8 hours long, plus the travel time to get to them all. It was draining to instruct for that long and that consistently but it was good! We feel it was a great success. We trained on Teaching Skills, how we can be more effective in our teaching. We gave practical ways to do that and all of the missionaries thought they were great ideas and said they would start applying them immediately!

On December 4th, President and Sister Gerber took us to this live nativity called "One Night in Bethlehem" that the Grand Blanc Stake in our mission puts on every year. It was a great spiritual experience, I felt the Holy Ghost strongly when the shepherds in the field were testifying that they had seen the sign of the Savior's birth. I know that He was born more than two-millennia ago, and that at that very moment, the history of mankind changed forever. After the great nativity they took us out for dinner to Chinese! It was an early birthday present. Then on my birthday the 5th, Elder Whetzel took me to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. I got spoiled! Sister Gerber called my Mom and got the recipe to my favorite dessert and then she made it for me, I was super surprised! It was great.

We contacted a referral on Sunday, it was a pretty neat experience. We met this guy at the library named Zach. The referral said that he wanted a Book of Mormon! We were excited to give it to him. We met him there and got to know him a little bit. He came in contact with the Church in a very unique way, he plays an online game called "League of Legends" I don't know anything about it, but apparently this girl that he was playing online with told him about prayer and how much peace and comfort it has brought her in her own life. She taught him about The Holy Ghost, and how to listen to the promptings He gives us. Before all of this, this guy was basically agnostic, not believing anything, but he tried praying! And he felt The Holy Ghost! She then told him that he needed to read the Book of Mormon and talk with the missionaries. So we are teaching him now and he is super open!! That is my miracle for the week. What a great testimony that WE CAN SHARE THE GOSPEL ANYTIME AND IN ANYPLACE. That's what God would have us do! We promise to be a witness at all times and in all things and in all places right?? EVEN online! What a great story, I love it!

I LOVE all of the resources our Heavenly Father has provided for us to use to share His Gospel. The internet is one of the easiest ways to do that. If you haven't watched "A Savior Is Born" yet, you should! Do it before you forget! It'll only be a lift in your day :) In addition to watching that, if you scroll down after the video is done you'll come across another video entitled, "Imagine a World Without a Savior." As you watch both of those videos together you'll see that the latter helps you fulfill the invitation the first one poses: 'Discover why we need a Savior.' I know that without our Savior Jesus Christ, all would be lost. As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said,

"What a plight! The entire human race in free fall—every man, woman, and child in it physically tumbling toward permanent death, spiritually plunging toward eternal anguish. Is that what life was meant to be? Is this the grand finale of the human experience? Are we all just hanging in a cold canyon somewhere in an indifferent universe, each of us searching for a toehold, each of us seeking for something to grip—with nothing but the feeling of sand sliding under our fingers, nothing to save us, nothing to hold on to, much less anything to hold on to us? Is our only purpose in life an empty existential exercise—simply to leap as high as we can, hang on for our prescribed three score years and ten, then fail and fall, and keep falling forever? The answer to those questions is an unequivocal and eternal no!"

But WITHOUT The Savior, the answer to all of those questions would be an unequivocal and eternal YES! That's why He is our Savior, in every sense of the word. From death, from pain, from eternal and never-ending goodbyes. He is the reason for the season, and I feel so grateful to be able to proclaim this good news this Christmas to these great Michiganders.

I hope you all have a great week and remember why we celebrate! I love you!

Elder Goff