Elder Goss---W:60 Transfers Again!!! (Oct 27, 2020)

 

Wow! I was in the Valley for just 2 transfers. That's kinda sad. But now I'm in a Trio in Chula Vista (in the south, but on the coast). My new companions: Sorenson and Hubbard. They're quiet, but great so far.

It was sad so say goodbye to the various friends I made in Calexico. Also, I got to enjoy being with Elder Lopez. But with hope, we'll make friends here too. Sigh.

Well, this week, I did a bunch of studies about trials and temptations. And to begin, I'd start by saying, I have always been taught and known that "trials are good for you," but I don't know if there was ever a trial I enjoyed. Why are painful things good for you? Why are healthy things often the least appetizing? Wait! Oof. I actually have to go. Here, why don't you study these questions this week, and next week I'll write about MY research. A little homework.

Until later!

Love, Elder Goss

Sister Goss---W62: Finding in many ways :) (Oct 26, 2020)

WOW what an incredible week!! I saw so many miracles and had so much fun, you wouldn't believe it! ;)

This week started off with a bang at zone conference on Tuesday! We still can't meet in large groups for meetings, so zone conference was still just two zones: Murrieta and Temecula. However, we had lunch right before with the Hemet and Ramona zones so I got to see a lot of familiar faces. :) I got to meet Sister Malm and Sister Kelly, my granddaughter and great granddaughter in the mission! That was super fun. :) Zone conference was amazing as always; I feel the Spirit so strongly everytime in those meetings. President taught us about how to "answer the question they should've asked," and how to really bring the Spirit into any conversation through testimony. <3

As I'm sure you're experiencing in your various locations, fall is coming on nicely here (as nicely as it can in SoCal) and I have stuck my head out of the car window like a dog more times than I can count now. ;) The weather has been so so so so so nice!! You really can't get much better than a sunny, slightly windy, 75 degree (dry heat haha) kind of a day... Ahhhh... It even rained a little bit during outside church yesterday! Speaking of which, Riverside County has moved back into the purple tier of COVID restrictions, so our church meetings can't be held indoors anymore. I'm grateful we can still meet outside though! Nothing else has changed COVID-wise. We're still allowed to do pretty much everything except go to homes uninvited (knock on doors), meet in large groups, and take our masks off in visits. We are definitely blessed.

Saturday was an especially miracle-filled day. :D Sister Weston and I started off by giving a mission training about social media (we rotate with the social media council every couple weeks) via Zoom, and it was a little awkward. At one point, one elder forgot to mute himself and in the middle of Sister Weston's comments he said "yeah you have to massage the lower back..." We invited everyone to mute their mics and failed at holding back laughter. Whoops... Right after our training we went boothing/tabling for the first time! We went to a park with a few other missionaries and tabled about family history! I haven't park-contacted people since February, so BOY was I rusty. Haha! No one we talked to was interested, so that was a bummer. However, we saw this one man looking over frequently at our table and the elders went to go talk to him. A couple minutes later he was at our table learning more about family history and gaining interest in filling out his chart. The elders swapped numbers with him and you could tell that he, James, was the reason we went there that day. It was definitely a miracle to watch. Right after tabling, we helped a woman move in from Corona! She was being taught by the missionaries there and we were able to unload her two trucks, build a connection, and will continue to teach her the restored gospel. Yay!! We worked hard that night and had lots of online contacts and lessons. Finally the day ended with Sister Watson sharing a miracle from an elder from Lake Elsinore that said he was super inspired by our training. After weeks of no Facebook miracles, he finally started teaching someone who wanted to learn and was super excited to keep working on Facebook. That was a huge miracle for me; even though things go wrong, and it often seems like the little things we do/trainings we give don't matter, they are making a difference. Despite the awkward. ;)

God is good, y'all! Thanks for reading my longer-than-normal email. No hard feelings if you didn't. :) The short and sweet message of it is that missionary work is awesome and there is so much joy to be found in doing the work of the Lord. Make a little time for that this week! Reach out and share your testimony, your service, your witness, your favorite scripture/quote/talk, etc. I, along with ancient and modern prophets, promise you will be happier! Love you all lots; keep on keepin' on!

Love, Sister Goss

 

1) giant cookies

2) outside church

3) tablingggggg

4) moving service

5) exchanges with Hermana Allen

6) spooky Halloween (sitting in our trunk for trunk or treat) ;)

Elder Goss---W:59 El Cumpleaños del Mi Compañero! (Oct 20, 2020)

 This week was Elder López's Birthday. Woo Hoo! Of course, it was hard to do anything particularly special, but we had a fantastic meal at a member's house. They even had a Birthday cake. It was super nice. And today, we ate burgers with the other Elders, and that was fun. 

There was also a fire across our apartment near the train tracks. After we left our apartment to go to visit a member, but before we got back, it was put out, but it made a huge smoke column. It's all all safe. I'm not sure even a building caught fire. Just some extra Railroad ties laying to the side. 

Well, for some odd reason, once again all our appointments fell through. Actually, this last Friday, we had Raspados (snowcones) again, and additionally, the Bishop and a few others set up a projector and screen outside and watched the Testaments, in hopes that those that came would be able to visit and watch a movie. It was kinda a test-run for later this month, for a bigger celebration later near to Halloween. 

I love you all!

Sister Goss---W61: Amulek literally lives above us (Oct 19, 2020)

 This was a BUSY week!!! I had three exchanges and ten meetings, two of which I trained at. This upcoming week will be super busy too. Woohoo! I love missionary life!!

I've been doing a BUNCH of family history work and helping others become involved and learn about their family history, too. In fact, I was working on a random document and found a family that lived in Fauquier county, VA in the 1830s! WOW! (That's my county, for those of you who don't know.) ;) It was literally so awesome. Also my great-great-great-grandfather's photo won photo of the week for a family history group with thousands of followers. Go grandpa John Abraham Kitchen!! Woowoo! :)

GUESS WHAT. For those of you who have seen the Book of Mormon videos, you know the actor who plays Amulek?? Well we ran into him in our apartment complex and he said "sisters!!!!" Turns out he just moved in DIRECTLY UPSTAIRS. So literally the coolest missionary companion in the world lives above us now. :D :D :D #you'renotjealous Extra blessings from above, if you ask me. ;) Literally. <3 

We had a lesson with Sarah again! YAY! It's been a little while because she had a major test to take. But it turns out that she's been coming to activities with her fellowship friend Dolores, and said she'd love it if we sent her a scripture everyday. So we're hopeful, even if lessons are becoming scarce. We also had dinner with a family in our ward called the Reddish's and they have a german shorthaired pointer! They let me play with their dog and I've never missed my own german shorthaired pointer so much. ;) It was the best. 

I just got off a Zoom meeting with my friend Scott Heine, my acting director for HOPE Christian Fellowship drama camp! He's teaching a religion-focused class for students studying counseling and in their final year of practice. It was almost a full hour of just open-ended questions from the students about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and boy was it a little nerve-racking haha!! But Scott is super awesome and I felt so privileged to be able to represent the church in a different way and answer a lot of misconceptions/questions about the church, church doctrine, church history, and church practices. Sister Weston said it went well and I believe her. ;) I felt very honored to be there. It was awesome!!

Seriously I'm so grateful to be a part of this church and know what I know. I'm so grateful to be here on a mission and see the change Christ can create in people's lives. If you have any questions, PLEASE ask!! Give the Book of Mormon a read and pray about your questions - they MATTER. They really do. :) Love you all lots!! Have a great week!

Love, Sister Goss

Elder Goss---W:58 Zone Conference Bamboozlement (Oct 13, 2020)

 

Hm. What happened this past week? Hmmm... Exchanges? Yeah. I got to spend the day with Elder Diether! You guys remember him? It was pretty fun. We served this one family by helping them clean up their boxing gymnasium, and although it was a bit slow, it was great work. 

Oh, yeah, Zone Conference last Saturday. Ha ha. That was pretty... well... I'll let you decide.

A week beforehand, we were told that all the information was going to be on a document. I read over it, and was all "okay, yeah." Meet at the Valley building. Typically, that means the stake center "El Centro Building." But when we show up, nobody is there. What?? Then we look a little deeper. Mission Valley Building. Contrary to what you might think, it isn't in The Valley. That's over in the middle of San Diego! (... what?) So we call the other Elders, and they tell us to come, even though we're going to be 1 1/2 hours late (yuck). So we drive all the way out of The Valley to go to the Mission Valley Building, and all the way back. That was our day. Zone Conference was great, though. 

Alright, I gotta go. I'll catch you up later!

Sister Goss---W60: Church inside, bone outside (Oct 12)

 

Heyo everybody!! 

We drove back to Corona this week to give a training! Hip hip hooray!! It was so great to go back and say hi again. I absolutely love visiting zones I've served in the mission, if you can't tell. ;) We also had interviews with our mission president and those went well! President Watson is the BEST and I love visiting with him and his family. They are so cool. :))

Guess who I met this week?? This new YSA ward move-in named Joshua Goss! :O Woah!! As soon as I saw his records we called and planned a time to visit haha! I've met some Gosses here and there, but they're pretty rare. I was the first Goss he's ever met outside of his family. It was way cool! ;) We're not immediately related as far as we can tell, but we'll have to check FamilySearch.org to be sure. 

We served at the bishop's storehouse again this week, attended institute in-person, filmed our quality post, had our social media meeting with Salt Lake City HQ, trained for our zone training meeting in Temecula, and ran our Murrieta stake youth social media devotional! It's been a great week! The stake devotional was really fun to be a part of because it was the first time I was there for the entire process: from the idea, creating the agenda, assigning speakers, creating the training slideshow, coordinating with the stake MCM, etc. It was a successful meeting and lots of youth participated, even though it was over Zoom! Woohoo!

AND WE HAD IN-PERSON CHURCH INSIDE THE CHURCH this week!!! Y'all - the last time I went to a ward sacrament meeting inside a church building was March 8th. March 8th to October 11th. That is absolutely insane. But it was SO GOOD! Sister Weston gave one of the talks and I said the closing prayer. We had to keep our masks on and we couldn't sing, so we just listened to music for the hymns. Despite the few differences, the Spirit was so strong! What a blessing!!!

Last story: we played this game called dynamite this morning as a zone which involved diving on the floor and throwing a kickball to get people out! We played it a couple pdays ago and it was super fun. :) When we finished the game today and got back in the car, I noticed my elbow was strangely bent and swollen. I asked my companion if she noticed anything different, and she said no. The other sisters that lived with us asked to see so I lifted it up at a different angle and they gasped; "oh my gosh your bone!!" I showed everyone and they all said "oh yeah that does not look good. I think it's dislocated." My elbow didn't hurt, with the exception of a major bruise, but I got pretty worried. My bone was not where it should've been and that's not usually a good thing. ;) So we spent the next two hours waiting at an urgent care after texting the zone chat, calling the nurse, calling my mom, and having the mission president's wife call us. After waiting in the waiting room for forever, they finally took me back and I was ready for the doctor to twist it painfully back in place. He looked at it, moved it around, and said, "are you in the mood to exercise? Can you do a pushup for me?" I said, "sure!" After actually successfully doing a pushup, the doctor said "your elbow is totally fine. It's just swollen. If it were dislocated, you wouldn't be able to do anything we just did. But thanks for getting it checked!" *smacks face in embarrassment 5 billion times* Oh my gosh. You're kidding. So now I have to go tell everyone that we just don't know what a dislocated elbow looks like and it was totally fine after all. Hahaha... Oh SO awkward.

Well there you have it! Another typical, wonderful week with an awkward story included. You're welcome. ;) Love you all lots! Have a great week!! 

Love, Sister Goss

1) Institute!! Check out our new institue FB video we'll post on Tuesday on the FB page called Disciples of Jesus Christ in Murrieta

2) Pday on the way to dynamite

3) An *apparently* very normal picture of my very normal elbow. I now have many pictures of an elbow with no problems on my phone. 🤦🏼‍♀️ #elbowpicsforthewin #ifeelsoeducated #soproud 

 

Elder Goss---W:57 General Conference Week (Oct 6, 2020)

 Once again, we did a lot of service this week. We moved boxes and blankets covered in urine. It was gross. But it was helpful, and so it was worth it. 

Half of our Investigators and friends just got back from vacations, so hopefully we can actually talk with them this week. 

Also, Bum bum bum bum! General Conference. That was some good stuff. The last session was amazing to me. I plan to go back and review what was said, and I hope a lot of you do too! 

This was a short email, but just remember, we only have 1 life! Let's be sure we do it right the first time. You will never live this current hour again. And if we've already botched it up, then let's finish strong. Let's not forget that life is about becoming something. If we are not constantly seeking to improve our character, we will never experience what life is really about.There is joy in progression. Joy doesn't come from working hard, but from becoming a hard worker. Fulfillment does not come from feeling happy, but being happy. This is what life is about. It is about becoming the best you. Confidence, optimism, charisma, love, patience, laughter, peace, forgiveness, discipline, respect, and truth should be our objective.  Let's not be complacent with how far we've gotten. And while the final joy of achievement may not be found until the afterlife, we can enjoy our current progress we've achieved so far. This is "joy of the journey."

I love you all! take care! 

Sister Goss---W59: Greatest meetings EVER!! (Oct 5, 2020)

 WOW what a wonderful week!!! :D I'm seriously so blessed to be here. This is the best!! :)) <3

GUESS WHAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK? We had our Mission Leadership Council meeting IN-PERSON!! Yaaay!!! <3 Y'all, this is a huge deal because the last time we had in-person MLC was March 4th! That was way back before COVID and right after I left my first area in Riverside. I missed MLC in-person so much. :) I'm the only sister still here that was there the last time we met and it was so good to be back!! Oh my goodness it was seriously the best. :) We got to drive back up to Riverside (my home away from home), see my friends I haven't seen in months, etc. It was a huge miracle for me!! <3

And how did you like General Conference this weekend? Wasn't it the best?? I felt so uplifted and so excited about the gathering of Israel! #letGodprevail :) This conference was unique to me because my questions were answered almost word-for-word verbatim! They are always answered, but never so clearly as this past weekend. :) I'm so grateful for President Nelson and all the other apostles; they are just absolutely AMAZING! They make my heart so happy. ;) If you haven't had the chance to watch Conference, go to ChurchofJesusChrist.org and watch a talk or two! I promise they say what you need to hear! That's what prophets do. ;)

We also had two exchanges this week which was awesome. On exchanges with Sister Horton in Temecula, we went to a service activity with another 6 missionaries or so and out of the blue one of the elders said "woah that's crazy; Sister Goss and I are the only ones originally assigned to this mission here!" As I looked around, it was true! It's crazy how many missions are represented here now and how much of a melting pot our mission has become. I love it!! I've gotten to meet the coolest people because of it. :)

I'm SO EXCITED for this upcoming month of October!! I know it will be both stretching and miracle-filled. Buckle your seatbelts and eat your vitamins. :) I know, like the prophet and apostles said yesterday, that we only have exciting things to look forward to! Speaking of which, take this upcoming week and make it great! Love you all lots!! :)

Love, Sister Goss

1) Sister Weston and I at MLC!

2) Happy birthday Sister Huffaker

3) Sister party time

4) FB works y'all! Look at this General Conference event I created! :O