Chez moi (home)

Monday, March 23, 2020 3:51 MST

This past week we got a call from the assistants on Thursday telling us that all the missionaries in our mission were going to go back to their country.  That call completely flipped our week around, suddenly instead of doing missionary work, we were packing our bags and getting ready to go home.

I'm actually writing this email from home.  I left Sunday morning, and I just made it back here a few hours ago.  But I just want to express my gratitude to my Heavenly Father for all that he did for me in helping me to get here.  There were a lot of moments this past week when we cut it pretty close, and almost got stuck in Togo.  When we were driving down from Kpalime, we had to take a back road to avoid a police barricade, and then another police barricade down in Lome let us through, but told us that if we would have come a day later, they wouldn't have let us through.  And then Sunday when we went lots of flights were getting rejected or cancelled, ours went through and we were able to come back home.

I know God has been involved in this process every step of the way.  There were too many little things that had to happen just right for me to be able to be here safe at home right now.  It wasn't just coincidence, but I know that God was right there along side me.  He loves and cares for each and every one of us, and if we pay attention, we'll be able to see his hand in our lives every day.

It's sad to say goodbye to Togo and Benin, and the hope is that one day this whole thing will die down enough for me to be able to return back there.  But as for now, I'll be quarantined at home for 2 weeks, after which I should be assigned to a new mission here in the States, and continue my mission here for a while.  But nothings for sure yet, I should have more to say about it next week, but as for now, I'm happy to say that I'm safe back here in the States with my family.

I love you all!  Stay safe and have a good week!

Elder Goddard

The week the world lit on fire

Tuesday, March 17, 2020 9:15 AM MST

This past week was transfers, and everyone in my apartment left me.  Suddenly after one transfer, I'm the oldest missionary in kpalime after just one transfer.  It's pretty sad because last transfer was so fun, probably my favorite one on the mission so far.  It went way too fast!  But I'm excited to be working with Elder Konan now, who's from Cote d'Ivoire.  The 2 others in the apartment are also African, which means I'm the lone white boy here.  Which means I might go days at a time without seeing another white person.  I'm probably the farthest I could possibly be from home right now, and I'm honestly pretty excited about it.  In other news, my son Elder Mputu is training now, which means I'm a grandpa!  Pretty crazy!

Well the whole world kinda lit on fire this past week.  It's crazy to hear about everything that's been happening at home because here, it doesn't feel like anything has changed.  At least outside of the church.  Which is why it feels a little frustrating to have to cancel church here, but we've got to respect the words of the prophets and apostles.  The work was a little slow this week with all the confusion and with transfers.  Our baptisms got cancelled because we didn't think we could do them, but now we've gotten word that it's okay, so we should get them baptized soon.  We have things better figured out now so we should get back to working like normal this week.

Yesterday when the new guys first got here in the apartment,  I was feeling a little sad and lonely, because I loved the guys that I was just with, and I was just a little anxious to have to completely change everything so quick.  I was worried I wouldn't get along with these new guys.  I was pretty sad.  But when I was thinking like that, I just had this feeling that no matter how I'm feeling, no matter how little the people around me might understand who I am and where I come from, I have my Savior who knows me perfectly.  I could never possibly be alone.  And that feeling gave me so much peace and comfort during a rough time.  It was such a cool experience that I won't forget.  I know that we have a Savior who knows us perfectly, and wants us to be happy.  I know that if we do what we need to do to have the Spirit in our lives, he will bring us peace and comfort through the Holy Ghost.

Well it sounds like the world is a little crazy at home, but just know I'm safe out here!  And I'll be praying for all of you.  Stay safe!  I love you all.

Elder Goddard

Le ligne de sujet (The subject line)

Monday, March 9, 2020 12:01 PM MST

This past week it rained for the first time in about 4 months, and then rained like 3 more times during the week.  It's a blessing because it's really hot if it's not raining.  But during the worst rain this week, me and Elder Culotta went out and played in the rain, and I was cold for the first time in 8 months.  It was amazing, I actually had goosebumps.  It's too bad it was 95 degrees the next day, but we'll take what we can get.

This week was pretty successful!  We found quite a few new amis who we think can progress well.  It felt like I taught like 50 first lessons.  But it was nice, because it seemed like every time, they were engaged in the lesson and interested.  That doesn't always happen so it was nice.  Then we had 7 amis at church, and 4 for the first time, so we really do have people who are interested, now it's just up to us to get them to the point where they can make covenants with their Heavenly Father.  And we should be doing that this Saturday because we should have 2 baptisms for our amis, Clementine and Pelagi.  We're helping a lot of people out here and we're excited about it!

Despite having a successful week, it was a rougher week for me.  I'm doing well, just the ups and downs of the mission.  But being down a little kind of made me reflect on something important.  I hit my 8 month mark tomorrow, but I remember thinking at the beginning of my mission when I was struggling that I just needed to get to 6 months or 8 months or whatever and then I'd be happy.  But here I am 8 months later still having rough weeks.  Why is this important?  Because we need to not push our happiness off until a future date.  It's real easy to say things like "I'll be happy when I finish high school" or "I'll be happy when I have a girlfriend" or things like that.  But if we do that, we're just going to get to that point in the future and realize we'll still have rough days and not everything will be perfect.  So we need to not push off our happiness, and just realize that we can be happy now.  We need to choose to be happy and find the good in each day.  And we can, especially if we focus on what is important.  Because as President Nelson said, "The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.  When the focus of our lives is on God's plan of salvation and Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening-or not happening-in our lives."

I love you all, hope you are all doing well.  Have a great week!

Elder Goddard

Suivez l'esprit (Follow the Spirit)

Monday, March 2, 2020 9:57 AM MST

We just finished week 4 up here in Kpalime, and it was good.  It wasn't really an exciting week, I can't really think of much of what happened, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm having a blast up here.  I don't know what it is about being up here, but I love it!  I'm so happy to be up here, I love the guys that I'm with right now and just love the atmosphere.  I'm really hoping that I'll stick around this sector for a while.

This week was probably the best week we've had in terms of our amis progressing.  We just had good lessons where we feel like they were really interested and really understood what we were trying to say.  And I feel like we've just been following the spirit well, doing different things because we feel like the spirit is pushing us to.  The spirit's really been pushing me to just testify a bunch this week, which I love.  When I testify, I know I'm doing my job.  At that point I've presented my message and they know what I believe.  And then it's up to them to decide to follow us or not.  But I know that I've done my job and what God wants me to do.

This week I was reading in Romans and I found a scripture I really liked.  It's Romans 12:21, "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."  It's a really simple scripture.  We need to overcome evil.  But it's not just avoid evil or don't take part in evil, it's overcome evil.  And how can we do that?  We have to do good.  It can seem kind of obvious, but it's actually a problem today.  There's too much that we can do today that's not good, it's just neutral.  Playing on our phone, watching tv and stuff like that.  So we need to make sure that we make time for things that are actually good in our life, because if we don't, we're letting evil stay.  But if we do good in our life, we'll be overcoming evil at the same time.

I love you all have a good week!

Elder Goddard