2nd Week in Livonia

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was pretty good, we had a lot of exchanges and that made it go by really quickly. Elder Fluckiger and I get along really well! He's a great guy, we're tearing it up here in the Livonia Ward. 

   A miracle we saw this week: We asked this lady we met who wasn't very interested for a referral and she referred her neighbor who has a drinking problem to us. We didn't think it was a very solid referral but we contacted it in the next couple of days and when we did we met this man's wife, who then told us that her son was a member of our Church in Westland! And that she would like to learn more. We set up another appointment and we went to see her and we met her son, he was there for a halloween party at his Mom's house. Turns out he's NOT a member, but he investigated for a LONG TIME in Canton and he loves The Church!! Him and his wife are super interested! If we had never asked the first lady who wasn't interested for referrals we never would've met these people! Crazy how The Lord works sometimes. 

   We are really focusing on member missionary work, and I found in Preach My Gospel a lot of quotes concerning that, I'd like to share a few with you:

“We are here to assist our Father in His work and His glory, ‘to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man’ (Moses 1:39). Your obligation is as serious in your sphere of responsibility as is my obligation in my sphere. Let there be cultivated an awareness in every member’s heart of his own potential for bringing others to a knowledge of the truth. Let him work at it. Let him pray with great earnestness about it” -Gordon B. Hinckley

“We have heard that we are all missionaries. Every member … is or ought to be a missionary; … as members of the Church, having pledged ourselves to the advancement of the gospel of Jesus Christ we become missionaries. That is part of the responsibility of every member of the Church”

-Joseph Fielding Smith

There are many more quotes from the modern Prophets The Lord has called in these Latter Days. I add my testimony to theirs that if the members of Christ's Church will labor side by side, hand in hand with the missionary force, this Gospel truly will be taken to all the world, and it will be taken with convincing power unto the children of God. Have a great week ya'll!

-Elder Goff

First week in Livonia!!

Hello Everyone,

   My new area is Livonia North, I've loved it so far! Part of our area is in Detroit so I can officially say I have served in Detroit now :) We drive a minivan so that's pretty fun, it's a Dodge Caravan. Whenever we pull up to an appointment I feel kinda weird getting out of a van, I wonder what our investigators think? I'm sure I'll get used to it.

   As Assistants we have to do a lot of administrative stuff that is pretty menial sometimes, it is a privilege to be able to have my own personal studies now and have time to proselyte in my own area! I like it though, I'm looking forward to working closely with President Gerber, he is a great man!! I love him so much. I'm trying to be the best example I can to the mission by working hard and being exactly obedient.

   My new companion is Elder Fluckiger! He's from Highland, Utah and he's a stud! Played the trumpet back home, he can sing pretty well, we get along. I know we'll be able to move the work forward here in the Michigan Detroit Mission as we seek Heavens help together.

   I'll start off talking about the day of transfers! We ended up driving all over the mission to deliver bikes and other things to missionaries that they needed  nearly the entire day, I felt super unproductive because of that! We were able to go out and work that night though so that helped out a lot. 

   We are teaching a lot of people here! We are working with 4 individuals who are planning on being baptized within the next month. I talked to Elder Chandler today and he said the Helena, our Chinese Investigator back in Ypsi North, came to Church on Sunday!! That was great to hear. He said that she borrowed his Gospel Principles book and said she would read it. 

   I want to close by talking about thise experience we had last night while tracting at about 8:45pm.

We talked with this guy who had lost all of his faith that God even existed, and he kept asking us to prove to him that there is a God. You could tell by conversing with him the hole that was in his life. So much negativity lingered off of each word he said. The light in his eyes was dim, and we tried our best to help him gain a correct understanding of faith but he ended up just closing the door on us. I likened it to Lehi's dream of the Tree of Life. The mists of darkness obviously dominated this man's vision. He was blinded and deceived so he could not see clearly, even when truth was presented to him. Satan can't just desensitize us like that very quickly, but over time as we give into temptation, we allow the darkness more and more into our lives until we can't even see what really matters in life. So what is the prevention and solution to this problem?? The iron rod Nephi described. If we hold fast to the word of God, we never will fall away because our sights will be clear and we will exercise prudence in our decisions. I know that if we study our scriptures consistently, the adversary will have a much harder time entering our lives.

   Have a good week everyone!

-Elder Goff

New Companions-Elder Fluckiger and Elder Goff

Elder Hidie and Elder Goff, dropping off at the airport.

Elder Goff will sure miss Elder Hidie

Elder Price and Elder Goff

Conference Weekend

Dear Family and Friends,

  I was able to go to the temple this week for my year mark! It was
awesome, I hadn't been in over 7 months so it was very refreshing. At
the end of my year mark trip President Gerber pulled me aside and
asked me if I would be his next Assistant! That was pretty unexpected,
but I accepted so I will be getting transferred tomorrow to Livonia.
 Well this week was great, and it was topped off with the voice of
Jesus Christ speaking through his Apostles and Prophet. I had a few
complex questions and concerns that I was seeking answers to and I
received all of them! Now all that is left to do as Elder David A.
Bednar implored is not only to "hear" the words of the Prophets, but
to "heed" them as well.
   General Conference gives us our revelation from God for the next
6-Months. Each of these 6-Month periods is the time to apply what
we've learned and been invited to do. It is a time of Spiritual Growth
and Maturation, and as we unify ourselves with the Prophets and
therefore the Lord's heart and mind, we will be blessed more than any
other way. Christ said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." If we
love Him, we will do what He asks. He has declared, "Whether by mine
own voice, or by the voice of my servants, it is the same."
   The world's values are ever-changing. As we hold fast to Ancient
and Modern Scripture we will find that we are not swayed by the winds
of doctrine blown by the world. As we center our lives in the restored
Gospel of Jesus Christ, we will discover true purpose, peace, and
direction in life. How grateful I am for the gift of living
mouthpieces of our Savior Jesus Christ.
   How are you going to follow the counsel of the living Prophets in
the next few weeks? I'm making a plan for myself to follow to adapt to
what I have learned. I'm going to be doing a ton of ponderizing with
my new companion! I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I love His
Church, and all the truth found therein. I hope you all have a
wonderful week of change!

-Elder Goff

A great ropin' week in Ypsilanti

Hello Everyone,

Shoutout to Elder Mason Rankin in the Mississippi Jackson Mission! He
hit his year mark this last week. Love ya Elder Rankin!

   Elder Chandler and I are doing great! Bossing it up in Ypsilanti.
He taught me how to rope steers, so that has been pretty fun, watch
the video if you want to see that in action.
The sisters in our district had a baptism last weekend so that was
great, they are working hard! Elder Cooper and Elder Ferguson have an
investigator who they brought to the Baptism and he felt the Spirit
super strongly, he's on date now for October 18th, Clarissa's
Birthday! He is an old biker dude, he's super cool, it'll be awesome
to see him enter the waters of baptism.
   We have been finding and teaching a lot of people, the struggle now
is finding someone who will work towards baptism and actually get
there! We have found a few pretty solid individuals this last week, we
hope we can help them be baptized.
   We found a Chinese couple this week, the wife was super interested
and the husband was pretty neutral, with a lot of doubts. We brought
some members of the ward who served their missions in China over so
they could communicate, turns out the members learned Cantanese on
their missions though, and these people speak Mandarin. Sooo we may be
out of luck for the time being, we may have to snag Elder Song up from
Ann Arbor on exchange for our lessons with them!
   We had 2 experiences this week where on the first door of the day
we knocked we were able to teach the people and make appointments for
later! Those were big blessings we saw this week. We also found 2
really solid people who actually live in different areas of the
mission so we sent their info as a referral to those missionaries.
   I love my mission and the MDM!! We'll keep working in faith and I
know we will receive. I appreciate all of your prayers and concern for
me and my work, I love you all so much! Have a great week.

-Elder Goff

Can't Be a Great Week Without Challenges!

Hello Everyone,

This week was great, it wasn't perfect though! We aren't seeing Pierre
anymore because his wife wants to take a break... It's frustrating
because he is so ready to be baptized!!! We are going out to find
others who are ready though. We had a wonderful Zone Conference with
Elder Lawrence and his wife on Wednesday. I was inspired by their
words and insights! I don't have much time to email today but I will
share a few things that I liked. Sister Lawrence shared insights on
The House of Israel and The Gathering of Israel and the reality of it
today in missionary work. Elder Lawrence spoke about being more
Baptism Oriented. We are changing a lot of things in our work to adopt
the principles taught there and we know blessings will come as we do
so. I love you all so much and hope you have a great week :) There's a
picture of us with Elder Lawrence.

-Elder Goff

Dear Family and Frinds,

 What a week we've had! I hit my year mark last Thursday and that
was surreal. It's hard to believe I've been in Michigan for a year!
Thanks Mom and family for the package, it was super cool! And the
Rankin family as well, that was a sweet package. I appreciate all of
you who support me and other full-time servants of The Lord! Hearing
from you through mail and packages is always a highlight of our week.
   We had a member of the Seventy come to our mission yesterday and he
did an MLCM with all of us. We decided as a council to set higher
standards for our mission so from now on, we will only be able to
listen to one kind of music: The Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing
Hymns!! It won't be too bad of a change, I just worry about some of
the other missionaries here who will resist. He talked with us about
exact obedience and what it truly means to be exactly obedient, it was
good!! He told us that he is speaking in General Conference in the
Saturday Morning session about Practical Application in using The
Atonement in our Lives. His name is Elder Larry Lawrence, be on the
lookout for him!
   Our investigator Pierre is not on date for baptism anymore because
he believes he needs to wait to be baptized until his wife Dee can be
baptized as well, but he does still want to meet with us. I agree with
him, it is best to be unified as a couple instead of doing it
individually.
So we are continuing to work with him, he's a great man! He is coming
to know and feel The Gospel is true as he is doing and becoming
through the gospel principles we have taught him. Pierre is the only
one progressing right now and all of the other investigators we have
are either about to be dropped or about to start progressing. We're
focusing on finding a lot now, we need to find some families who are
ready for baptism here in the Ypsi Ward!
   Yesterday after MLCM we had a pretty sweet miracle: We prayed to
know where we should go and then we went there. Got to this street and
had about 15 minutes to find. We found a man who was Christian, told
us we could come back on another day when he wasn't so busy with his
kids and stuff. Then we had an appointment fall through so we had
another 30 minutes to go finding and we found 2 more potentials down
that same street, pretty solid ones too. One of them had met with
missionaries previously and she had decided that The Church wasn't for
her but we helped her realize that she didn't even come to Church to
see for herself if it was right for her! So she's planning on meeting
with us again and coming to Church. Then right before our appointment
at 8:00pm we had 10 minutes to go finding. We found this really
sincere Catholic guy who was just finishing mowing his lawn. Talked to
him for a while about the Family Proclamation and how the family is so
essential to society today yet it is so neglected. He wanted to learn
more about the Restoration. Boom, 4 potentials in about an hour of
finding spread out through the evening before appointments. God does
provide when we have faith in Him and labor with all diligence!
   I know the importance of obedience in the mission and in our lives
as members. We have a great opportunity to sustain 2 Apostles next
month in General Conference. We "Sustain" them as we come to know that
they indeed have been called by God, and we hearken to their counsel
they give us by listening and applying. Have a great week ya'll!

-Elder Goff  

                        

                                        Package from my family!!

                                        Package from the Rankin Family!!!

Hello Family and Friends,

First of all, thank you Mom, Dad, Courtney, Clarissa, and Isabel
for the package, that was great!! I love you so much :)

 Elder Chandler and I had a pretty good week! Had some ups and downs

but we felt like we came out on top.

   We had 2 exchanges this week, one with the District Leader in
Brighton and one with the Assistants. We also had Zone Conference on
Thursday, so all of those things made the week fly by! On our exchange
with the Assistants I went with Elder Andersen and we had a great
time, he is a stud. We saw miracles as we labored together! We said a
Prayer of Faith and went out and worked, it was about 8:30pm. We found
this awesome kid a few minutes in, 19 years old, named Jermaine. We
taught about families and The Restoration. Invited him to pray and ask
if he should learn more about our message and he had a powerful
spiritual experience there with us, it was great! He said: "The answer
is yes, I feel God's presence here." That was a really great
experience, a testimony builder that as we have faith that the Lord
will provide and as we work diligently to achieve that purpose, we are
able to find people who have been prepared to receive The Gospel.
   At Zone Conference Elder Chandler and I gave an instruction on
Diligence, and the importance of serving with all our Heart, Might,
Mind, and Strength. I thought it went well, I had some good insights
while preparing and delivering it. Diligence is a sign between us and
God of our Love for Him and our Faith and Trust in Him. I know that as
we have faith in God and then labor diligently in our lives, He will
provide for us.
   Pierre is still planning on being baptized this Sunday, his wife
Dee may have to wait a week or so because she hasn't really put in the
work necessary to gain a testimony of The Book of Mormon and other
things, but she still wants to be baptized! I can't wait for their
whole family to be baptized, that will be an incredible experience.
   This week I have gained a stronger testimony of The Book of Mormon.
It is "the keystone of our religion." Everything falls or stands with
the truthfulness of The Book of Mormon. It has SO much weight upon it.
Do we treat it as such? Do we have a sincere study of it every single
day? When we study do we receive guidance from God in how to deal with
the problems and challenges that we face in life? I know the answers
to those questions for me has not always been yes!! But I know now how
important a serious study of that Sacred book is to sustain our
Testimonies. If we are not built upon a rock, we will fall when the
winds and waves come. The Book of Mormon is a rock, testifying
strongly and purely of The Divinity of Jesus Christ. If we build our
lives upon the principles found therein, ourselves and our families
will be able to stand strong through the roughest storms. It is
becoming a tool that I use when I need help and guidance in my life,
instead of just a "good thing to read." It truly will bless your life
if you embark on a serious study of it, I know that is true!
    I hope you all had a great week, it's crazy to think I've been
here in Michigan for a year! Only better times to come in the
next 365 :)

-Elder Goff

We were at Steak & Shake for lunch and Elder Ferguson pulled out his
camera, this is Elder Ferguson, Elder Cooper, Elder Chandler and Elder Goff

Sister Martin and Elder Goff - sang two weeks ago together at the "I'm a Mormon" Devotional