Short and Sweet

Dear Family and Friends,

I have like no time to email this week, I will try and make it up to
you next week! But things have been pretty crazy! One insight I'll
share: I have realized and learned that we as humans a lot of times
look to other people as points of reference too much. Like oh, someday
I'll be like Elder _______. Or someday I'd like to be as good as
________. But We shouldn't do this! Our only points of reference
should be Christ, and where we are at ourselves. My goal in my mission
isn't to be the next "Elder Iverson" or someone else who is real
great! It is to be me, myself, Elder Goff. To develop and magnify the
talents and abilities that Heavenly Father has given me. In the end,
that is all that matters. Who we become.
   I know the Gospel is true, and will enable us to change our lives
for the better! If you want your life to be better, DO SOMETHING about
it. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is that enabling power that is
available to all of us. I love you all, have a great week!

-Elder Goff

Missionary work still going strong in Ypsalanti, MI

Dear Family and Friends,

Shoutout to my good friend Nic Vane who received his mission call to
the Philippines and leaves August 19th!! He will be an awesome missionary!!
This week was pretty good.  I am growing a lot and am learning every single
day. Here is my letter to President Gerber this week:
   "Hey President! This week was good. Our area is doing very well, we
continue to find new investigators almost every day, a miracle from
The Lord I am sure! I liked my first Stake Accountability meeting,
that was great. It's different when you don't get to see the "behind
the scenes" stuff, it appears like the organization, goals, etc. are
just there automatically! But there is a lot of time and effort behind
all of it that is a lot more apparent to me now. My family is doing
well, and a lot of my friends from back home are receiving their
mission calls so it is an exciting time of year! An insight this week:
I am learning more about The Atonement. How we don't need to be
perfect to take advantage of it. I'm going to try to apply the
principle and lifestyle of "being perfected in Christ" to my life so
that I can have more Godly Confidence. A miracle: Last week we went on
exchanges and Elder Colson and I found a potential, a teenage girl who
said we could come back in a few days. So Elder Iverson and I came
back and it turns out that this girl and her family are really good
friends with a less active member in our ward!! So we hope that as we
work with this girl and her family, the LA family they know will be
strengthened as well. Love you President!"

I figured that was easier than typing it all out again! Something that
has kept coming into my mind is that I'm just not good enough. And
that I need to get to some certain level of worthiness or
understanding before The Atonement of Jesus Christ can start having
any affect on me. But I read "His Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox,
and have studied the scriptural phrase "being perfected in Christ" a
little bit and I've gained a greater understanding of what the
Atonement is, and how it can help me. I know that Jesus Christ Atoned
for my sins, my infirmities, my pains, my struggles, and all other
things I go through. Because of that, I can turn to Him, and be made
whole. He said while talking with Paul: "My strength is made perfect
in weakness."

I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior, and it is an honor to be able
to serve a mission, representing Him for 2 years of my life! I know
that by entering into Covenants, or promises with God, we can have
access to the full power of His Atonement, and be completely cleansed
of our sins.

I love this work and I love all of you! Have a wonderful week :)

-Elder Goff

Mother's Day

3rd week in Ypsalanti

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was wonderful! And to top it off, I got to see my family
over Skype on Mother's Day. I love my Mom and all she's done for me! I
know I've been a punk sometimes but she has been patient with me! I
love her so much.
   We did lots of finding this week, and we saw miracles! We found 8
new investigators and were able to teach 12 lessons. On Friday we had
Specialized training and President & Sister Gerber came to instruct us
on a few things. One being The Prayer of Faith. A few examples of The
Prayer of Faith in the Book of Mormon are Ether 3 with the Brother of
Jared, Enos 1, and Alma 8. Faith------->Righteous
Action------->Spiritual Capacity & Spiritual Power
As we pray with faith that God will help us accomplish what we want to
and then we go out and do all we can to make it happen, The Lord does
provide. Then we receive greater Spiritual Capacity and Power. Here is
an excerpt from my Email to President Gerber:
   "On Friday after Specialized Training we went out and used the
Prayer of Faith and it works! We prayed that we would be able to teach
at least 1 person about the Restored Gospel as we went out tracting
for the last 3 hours of the evening and we ended up finding a woman
named Qiana and her family who are really interested in learning more!
We shared The Family: A Proclamation to the Word with them and they
loved it, we set up a return appointment. It was about 8:45 when we
finally found this family, it wasn't right away after we said our
prayer, but The Lord does provide!"
   I know that this is The Lord's work and I am so grateful to be a
part of it here in the MDM! I am learning a lot from Elder Iverson, we
are working well together. I want to commit all of you who get this
email to use the Prayer of Faith in your lives. Explain to God exactly
what you want to happen, tell Him how you are going to do it, and
humbly explain that you NEED His help. Then go out and work. Report
back to Heavenly Father what you have accomplished and acknowledge His
hand in your life. As we continue in this pattern in our lives we will
grow in Spiritual Capacity and Power and will be able to teach the
Gospel effectively. We will also develop a pattern for receiving
answers to our prayers!
   I love you all so much, thank you for your prayers and support! I
know that this Gospel is True, and that God has restored His Church on
the Earth today through a Prophet, as he has always done. And we can
all enjoy the blessings that He has in store for us! We must choose it
ourselves though. He will not start forcing blessings on us even
though I'm sure he would love to give them to us. We must choose for
ourselves to learn more about the Gospel and apply it in our lives.
THEN, we will receive those blessings, and find true happiness and
purpose in this life. Have a great week!

-Elder Goff

2nd week in Ypsalanti

Hello Everyone,

  I feel like so much happened this week but it's so hard to remember
all of the details! On P-Day we went to a member's home named the
Sylvesters and they are so dang awesome! Almost as awesome as the
Sylvester's back home in Vienna Woods ;) Anyways they had a ping pong
table in their basement and a super nice trampoline in their
backyard... Let me just say we had fun! It is always good to be able
to relieve some stress on P-Day.
   On Tuesday we had a Mission Leadership Council Meeting, which takes
place at the Mission Home about once a month. All of the Zone Leaders
and Sister Training Leaders come together with President & Sister
Gerber and their Assistants and we discuss the Mission, what future
meetings will be about, and lots of other stuff. It is always a
blessing to be able to be instructed by President Gerber, I love him
so much! That meeting was a big spiritual boost for me.
   On Wednesday we went on exchange with the Ypsilanti North Elders
(Tuapola & Allen, Elder Tuapola is from Australia and his accent is
AWESOME). I went to their area with Elder Tuapola and we had a great
exchange! We had a pretty neat experience while we were tracting:
Elder Tuapola and I were tracting and after we knocked on the first
door these people pull up in a car and yell, "Hey are you the CIA??"
Then they parked on the side of the road and started talking to us and
sincerely asking us questions about what we believe. We got their
phone numbers so hopefully Elder Tuapola and Allen can set up an
appointment with them!
   The rest of our week was pretty good as well. I just hope I can
continue improving and becoming the best missionary that I can! I am
excited to skype home next Sunday! I know my Mom is too haha :) I love
you all so much, have a great week.

-Elder Goff

First week in Ypsalanti, Michigan

Dear Family and Friends,

I got transferred to the Ypsilanti South area which is in the
Ypsilanti Ward here in Michigan. My new companion is Elder Iverson.
He's from Las Vegas! He's a great guy, teaching me the ropes of Zone
Leadership and everything else! I have been adjusting to the area
pretty well, I like it a lot! Our apartment is NOT very
clean/organized though but we also don't really have time to make it
the way I want it sooo we'll just have to live with it haha.
   So we had transfers on Tuesday and I got settled in a little bit
and we went out to see a few people and tracted a lot! Elder Iverson
is so good at talking with people, it's made me realize how bad I am
at it! Hahaha sometimes as missionaries you can fall into the trap of
just talking TO people but really our purpose is to talk WITH people,
and understand them so that we can teach them The Gospel according to
their needs. So I have been learning a lot from him. It is weird being
with a companion who knows what he's doing and is a super solid Elder
because now the focus for me is to keep up with him, to be on the same
page as we teach. Whereas when I was training the transfers before
this it was more showing my companion how everything works and
shouldering most of the companionship I guess. So I assume I will
continue to adjust and hopefully be able to keep up with Elder Iverson
sometime soon!
   We just did a lot of tracting this week and had quite a few
appointments too. Most people we are helping have some pretty big
problems in their lives such as their girlfriend is on crack, they are
dealing with alcohol and tobacco addictions, bad financial situations,
and lots more. The thought that keeps coming to me is this: The Gospel
will NOT fix all of your problems. But it will give you the tools
necessary to overcome them. Sometimes we can all get into that mindset
where we're living the Gospel, doing alright, but then a problem comes
up and we get all mad about it. But The Gospel will enable us to
improve the quality of our lives and overcome the problems and
challenges we all face. So when something does come up, we should turn
to the Savior, and go to work in the Gospel! Not just assume that the
problem will fix itself because we are living right. That is what has
been on my mind!
   I hope you all have a great week. Know that Our Savior Jesus Christ
loves you and will help you through all that we face in this life.
   My new address is 46121 Village Green Ln. Apt #131A Belleville, MI
48111 if you want to write me or send me anything!

-Elder Goff

My last week in the North Shores Ward!!

Dear Family and Friends,

Shoutout to my good friend Tristan Strickland back in Idaho who just
got his mission call to the Japan Fukuoka mission, he will do great
things there!
  Well we got transfer calls on Saturday night and I'm leaving!! I was
surprised! I thought I was staying for sure. So all week I had this
reoccurring thought coming to my mind that I would be a Zone Leader
next transfer... But I was like nah Elder Goff you've gotta strip
yourself of your pride! But then I got a call from President Gerber
early Sunday morning and he asked me to serve as a Zone Leader! So
that was kinda cool. That should be fun, more responsibility for sure.
I'm excited but I'm sad to leave this ward so fast too, there are so
many great people that I have come to love here!
   We had interviews with President Gerber this week and they were
great! I learned so much. President said something that stood out to
me. He said, concerning Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life: "You cannot
beckon others to come and partake of the fruit if you are not already
at the tree yourselves." We can't go down to the banks of the dirty
river and play around in a little sin to try and help the people who
are down there out, because they will pull us in with them! We can
call out to them as we are at the tree, and they will see how happy we
are, just as most of Lehi's family did. I have felt our district grow
a lot closer together especially after interviews, I love it! It makes
it harder because I am leaving though.
   We had exchanges this week with our Zone Leaders Elder Slack and
Elder Whitney, they are both great guys! I went to the Sterling
Heights area with Elder Whitney and we killed it! He's from St.
George, Utah. It was super fun, Elder Slack is getting transferred and
Elder Whitney is staying so it's possible that I'll be companions with
Elder Whitney next transfer! :)
   We had an AWESOME Restoration lesson with a lady named Angela this
week, she had lots of great questions and it was just a great lesson.
At the end we asked her to pray and she was really apprehensive but we
assured her that she would get an answer if she was sincere and asked
a specific question. She asked, "Was Joseph Smith really a prophet?"
And after the prayer she said she felt it as she asked the question,
she knew the answer was yes! So that was a wonderful experience, I'm
happy for Elder Stubblefield and his next companion who will be able
to keep teaching her.
   Anyways, I had a great week! We were able to teach lots of lessons
and talk with lots of people. I'm loving the mission life. If you are
debating whether or not to go on a mission, take it from me and just
go. As you forget yourself in the work, you find yourself. I love my
Savior Jesus Christ. I know that He redeems us from all of the effects
of the Fall of Adam and Eve, and as we have faith in Him and repent of
our sins continually, we will have Eternal Life.
   Have a great week everyone! It is a great time to be alive in these
last days when we have the fulness of the Gospel on the Earth :)
   If you want to send me anything send it to the mission office!
33505 State St. #101 Farmington, MI 48335.

-Elder Goff

Basketball with the District

Elder Goff with the Blanchard Family

Elder Goff with the Applonie's, Sister Applonie's parents live

 in our neighborhood in Meridian Idaho!!

Elder Goff with the Kulka family.

Elder Goff and Elder Ross