Transfer 10 Weeks 3, 4 and 5

So sorry that I didn't have time to write last week, it was pretty busy but just know that I have been good and we're having lots of fun. Let me give you a recap on what we've been up to these last three weeks. 

Week 3 
So last week some craziness was going on. We had zone conference on Tuesday which was a lot of fun. Elder Hanosek and I changed the topic of our training the night before because we were #inspired.  Our training was pretty simple but I thought that it was really cool and pretty powerful. I felt the spirit while we were doing the training and a few people told us "good job" afterwards, so we must've done a good job. Then they gave us these tiny little Jimmy John sandwiches for lunch... so we ate those then went and ate more afterwards. Some Elders who we gave a ride to have a cow at their house. Yes that's right, a cow. Their landlord is raising a cow and his name is Big Mac. So I took some pictures with him and he's really sweet. 

Thursday we had to say goodbye to Elder Arce :( he left to go home to Texas so that he could start school. But he's such a great guy and we will miss him LOTS. 

Then on Friday we get an email from our mission President telling us we have a mandatory whole mission meeting the very next day. So everyone was freaking out and trying to guess what it was going to be about. I was pretty relaxed about it for the most part, I knew whatever it was it was going to be good and that it would be inspired. 

Friday nights our ward puts together an indoor soccer night. So we go to the church gym and play 4 on 4 or 5 on 5 soccer. It's crazy how good they are at soccer. Those darn latinos cross me up and make me look un-athletic. But it's a lot of fun and there's a lot of fun people there to talk to. And we get to practice our Spanish as well. 

Saturday morning we arrive nice and early. We were some of the first ones there and we take our seats right at the very front. The meeting finally starts after everyone trickles into the chapel, and we get right into it. All we were told beforehand was that it would be about hastening the work here in our mission. Well they had some really good things to say and then they finally told us what it was all about. We were told we would be starting a new schedule for our planning and studies. Previously we would plan at 8:30 in the morning. Now we will plan at night as soon as we get home, which should be at 9:00 p.m. We previously would start our personal study at 9:00 a.m. and it's been pushed forward to 8:00 a.m. and so forth with our companion study and language study. The new schedule will now give us more time for our missionary efforts throughout the day. I was pretty excited to hear about the new changes and to implement them in the upcoming days.  After the meeting we went to Cracker Barrel and ate lunch. It was really good. I ate a lot.

Sunday we had a really good time at church. Their were some fun speakers and we talked to some of our fun people there. Then that night we went to a baptism that some of the sisters in our zone had.  It went really well and a lot of people from their ward showed up to support. There were even some sisters from the Temple Square mission because they originally met and passed off the guy, Diego. So that was kinda crazy. It was cool chatting with them. 

Week 4
So I can’t remember which morning, but Elder Hanosek my companion and I went to the hospital. A couple weeks ago he got his finger kicked while we played soccer hahaha. Well it was pretty decently swollen and it hurt for a little while. So we went and got it x-rayed and it was broken. So they put him in a finger splint and he has to wear it for a whole month. He still plays Basketball pretty well with it on though, he's a true baller. 

Wednesday we had our Gospel Scholarship meeting with one of our Former Mission Presidents Counselors. His name is President Hill and I love him so much. He talked about our Missionary Purpose as found in Preach My Gospel. 

Thursday a couple of missionaries that we know here in the Spanish Zone left for their original assignments in Argentina. It was sad to see them go but we're really happy they got to go. 

Week 5
Kind of a long story but Elder Hanosek and I are trying to get a new word to catch on. The word is "wope". Yiu use it when something is good or cool, for example, "hey there Elder Hanosek, that new tie is lookin wope!" It's gonna be a big thing soon, I promise. 

We had some real fun stuff happen this last week. Last Monday we had new cameras put in our cars, they're like dash cameras and are to keep us safe. They keep track of our speed and stuff. We aren't exactly excited for it but we will survive. 

Tuesday we went on exchanges with the AP's Elder Gray and Elder Bramble. It was actually the 1 year anniversary of the day Elder Gray and I became companions last year. So that was fun. I was with Elder Gray for the day and we were in his area. We visited some cool people and walked around from house to house. One guy gave us chocolate, and another older couple got us brownies and hot chocolate, so sweet, the people and the treats. 

 

Wednesday we had a really powerful evening. One of our members called us up and said he wanted to go visit some people with us. He had someone in mind but it didn't work out. So he said okay let's go visit this other member we know. So we go over to his house and they are the two best member missionaries that we know. They start bouncing all these ideas off of each other, and now pretty much were gonna set up a weekly class where we will do a training with our members on how to naturally share the gospel with their friends, and how they could invite them to come to church, or to talk with us, the missionaries. We got really excited and now we have so much energy and motivation. 

Ok well I really don't have too much energy left to write haha sorry. So let me give you a quick run down of the last few days. We went on exchanges with some of our District Leaders, first we went with Elder Jorgensen and his Companion Elder Morse. I was with Elder Jorgensen and we had a good day. He's a really energetic and go get 'em type of guy. A real full sender. He's served as a Zone Leader before and has a lot of good experience. We met some cool people and ate some fire Carne Asada Fries at my new favorite restaurant Señor Pollo's (which translates to Mr Chickens). Then the next day we got permission for Elder Payne and Elder Hammer to sleep over for our exchanges since they live kinda far away. It was a lot of fun. I was with Elder Payne, who I’m just getting to know as we are both pretty new to the Spanish North Zone. He was originally assigned to serve in Madagascar, Malagasy speaking but got temporarily reassigned here and President decided to put him Spanish Speaking and he's killing it. We had a good day and had some really nice visits with some people. Then we got home a little after 9:00 and we saw Elder Hanosek giving Elder Hammer a haircut because apparently President Johnson told him he needed one hahaha. 

Ok so today for p-day we got to gather as a whole zone and play some fun games and stuff together. Elder Hanosek and I came up with the idea of making an Escape Room for everyone to do. We spent HOURS, like legitimately hours planning, preparing and setting up two identical escape rooms in this church building. And then we finally announced it, split them into teams and gave them the backstory and everything they needed. Well, they finished it in like 10-15 minutes and one of the teams didn't even do it in the right order. Oh well. It was really funny and elder Hanosek and I had a lot of fun setting it up. A lot of people thanked us for being creative and putting in that extra effort to help them enjoy this time. 

Well I love you all so much. I would love to leave you with some powerful scriptures I came across recently. I have read them many times but they hit me differently recently. 

In Moroni 10:32-33 it says:
32 "Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.”
33 “And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot." 

As I sat there and read it I was blown away by the power that those two verses held. I knew without a doubt that this was the word of God, that through Prophets I am able to study these things today. I know I'll never be perfect in this life, but with Christ, and through His power and the Grace of God I can be cleansed of all my imperfections. 

I love you all, stay wope

-Elder Golden 
 

Transfer 10 Weeks 1 and 2

Well hello Everyone! I hope you've been doing very well. I want to update you on what's been going on these last few weeks and how much fun life is when you're serving the Lord. 

WEEK 1

So the first few days of the transfer we were so excited. Both Elder Hanosek and I were new to the area, we were in a new house, we were just ready to go. We went to MLC, a big old meeting with some of the leaders in the mission. We talked about how we would all help the missionaries, how to inspire and motivate them and to really get the best out of everyone. Which reminds me, President and Sister Johnson have named this tranfer "The Best Transfer”. 

At the meeting we talked about numbers, we talked about how some missionaries focus on numbers and that's not good. Then there're other missionaries who don't care about numbers at all, and who hate them and don't want anything to do with them and that's not good either. We read some scriptures together; my favorite may have been 3 Nephi 18:31 "But if he repent not he shall not be numbered among my people, that he may not destroy my people, for behold I know my sheep, and they are numbered". Here we can see that the Lord numbers his people, he doesn't focus on the numbers though, he focuses on the people. So as missionaries we need to be aware of and welcoming towards the numbers but we shouldn't get carried away into it, and that's a balance that I am trying to find myself. 

They gave us some really good lunch at this meeting too. I think it was like taco soup, or tortilla soup... whatever it was called it was delicious. We ate that, and talked some more with the other missionaries and the Leaders. 

Then we planned for another meeting called ZLC which is where we meet with our Sister Training Leaders and our District Leaders. We held it at a local library in a conference room and it was very fancy and official feeling. We discussed similar things with our District Leaders as we did at MLC. We came up with some fun, fun ways to excite the Zone. Someone suggested "if we meet our goals in the zone then the Zone Leaders have to eat a Ghost Pepper" which did not excite Elder Hanosek or myself much, but we did think it was funny and a lot of people would probably be on board. We also came up with the fun idea of making necklaces, or big chains (like bling), to give to the winners of weekly challenges that we come up with. Fantastic Idea.

That night we went out and did some awesome missionary work. We met this one guy who sat us down and talked our ears off for like an hour and a half. We finally got out of there and had to hurry up and drive from Roy down to Layton because we were going to spend the night with the AP's and go on exchanges with Elder Arce because he's now one of the AP's but served in our area last transfer so he was going to show us around and help us get to know people in our area better. We happened to kind of get stuck in a snow storm however, the storm interfered with our GPS big time and it took us an hour and a half to make a 20ish minute drive (with a quick stop at McDonald's). We bought 20 McChickens and the three AP'S (Yes they are in a trio), their two roommates, and us two ate all 20 of them in like 10 minutes. We went to bed late because we got there late from the storm, and then woke up early the next day to get a good start on the day. We worked out, drove back up to Roy, got ready, and then we had a few meetings. One in the morning about drivers stuff, cause they're gonna be putting new fun technology in our cars woohoo. And then we had a few district councils to go to, but then out of nowhere a mandatory zoom meeting was called by our mission President and it was all about Covid Safety, there's been quite a few outbreaks and some spikes especially near us. We were told to be aware and ready for any quick changes. We got done with that, went to our district council and halfway through the other two AP's said they were on their way to pick up Elder Arce because they had to quarantine Then President texted us and said that MLC (which meant us and the STL's) all had to go quarantine too. So we left partway through the district council. We got home, chilled there, and then President called me and my companion personally. He said, tell your whole zone to go to their own homes, and to quarantine there until Monday (this took place on a Friday) and to text him once everyone was home. 

So the whole mission was quarantined. The next day we had 4 or so meetings. And the AP's issued a challenge to see who could teach the most lessons that day over the phone or through zoom. That was a lot of fun. There were over 1300 lessons taught in the whole mission that day.

Also I was woken up in the middle of the night by a firework that went off. I could've sworn it was like 3 inches from our window it scared the Heaven out of me. 

The next day was a Sunday, and my companion had the fun idea to challenge everyone in the zone to build a fort and see who's was the coolest. So we built a pretty wicked cool fort in our living room. We put our mattresses I it and even slept in it for 3 or 4 nights. It was fun and it was a cool way to keep everyone from going crazy and to enjoy quarantine a little bit. 

WEEK 2

We finally got released from quarantine on Monday, except those who were sick and had symptoms. We went grocery shopping, and I might mention we live with 4 other Elders, so six of us in 1 house and no fridge space. Like literally my companion and I each had a mini fridge for all of our food. So we finally got a new regular sized fridge for him and I after a few days. But before that, I stored some stuff outside to stay cold and accidentally froze my milk a little bit. 

We also went and bought some chain from Lowes; like real thick chain that is not used for jewelry but we thought it would be funny. Then we went to a craft store and got some stuff to make fake bling with like foam and gold spray paint. Then we made the chains over the span of a couple days. It's really cool not lying. I'll add some pictures. I also bought a hard hat cause I thought it was really funny. Sometimes I'll wear it in the car cause #safety. 

 

We went to the Temple on Wednesday morning and we were running late and almost missed our session. Then when we got out we took a bunch of pictures but it was raining and it was getting us so wet hahah. 

Also this week we had a couple of really great lessons with both members in our ward and non-members in our area. We've really been praying a lot recently and seeking guidance on who to talk to and where we are needed. So we've been feeling the spirit a lot. It's been great. 

I also gave a haircut to my companion last night. He's looking pretty good. And my companion is gonna give me a haircut tonight if we have time. Plus we have zone conference tomorrow and my Mom said my hair’s looking bushy so I guess I need it hahah. 

Well we have to go now but I miss you all and I hope you are doing well. I pray for you often and would love to hear from you. Remember that God loves you. Have a great week. 

-Elder Golden