Elder Bryant Goodman: A Roller Coaster of Sorrow and Awesomeness...

Hey there home skillets! Greetings from sunny Southport. I am staying another transfer here! Oh yeah, happy father's day dad. I love you. Well, just pretend I sent that yesterday. Cool beans.

The weather has been absolutely awesome and sunny lately, and it actually feels like summer. Its just funny to see a bunch of pasty English people celebrate this rare occasion, when to me it just feels like a taste of home. I now have a major missionary/farmers tan. Party on.

So this week has been a rollercoaster of sorrow and awesomeness...

Ok lets start off with last P-day. We had just finished shopping and emailing and we met up at the chapel with the sisters to hang out and have an awesome day, but then we got a text from Gary.....basically saying "hey, I changed my mind, this isn't for me, I have a girlfriend now"....and Elder Frandsen and I were totally devastated. Especially Elder Frandsen, who had a major breakdown. I tried calling Gary several times, but no response. It was seriously one of the hardest heartbreaks on my mission, and I felt destroyed. Gary was such a good friend, and he was so close and had a new light in him and everything...but then a skanky girl ruined it all. Sister Thomson and I had a good Mumford jam session to help cool my head, but even after P-day we felt destroyed. So we started a fast for Gary, that we would be able to contact him by the 11th of June. To be continued...

In the meantime, we were about to call it a day and head back to our flat, but we got a call from the sisters. Sister Thomson got spontaneously and insanely ill and was vomiting everywhere and looked and felt like death, and they asked us to come over and give her a blessing. So we ran all the way there, and I gave her a blessing. It was a very sacred experience, but basically the words came out "by tomorrow morning, you will be completely healed". We ran all the way back to the flat to make it home in time, and we were shattered, both mentally and physically. To make things worse, we got another call from the sisters and Sister Thomson had to go to the hospital. For the rest of the night, we were all kept awake making sure she was alright. Turns out, she got crazy food poisoning. Haha it was a night of hell. She now has earned the nickname Chicken Chunks. But then...in the morning we had a zone meeting, and the sisters surprisingly showed up to the train station with us, only having about 30 minutes of sleep from the night before. It was actually pretty hilarious, they were both kinda high. And guess what, even though she was shattered, Sister Thomson was completely healed. Simply put, I have full faith in the power of the priesthood and the power of healing.

The rest of the day included all of us hanging out at zone meeting. For an activity, we played a zone wide game of ninja with over 30 people, and I won it! Southport represent! So that was the end of the bad and a start to the good times this week.

So two days after our fast, on the 11th of June, we randomly stopped by Gary's house after not being able to contact him at all. And guess what...he let us in! It was incredible, and even though he has had some major setbacks, he still has held onto his faith and wants to be baptized. It will just take some more time. We were very bold with him, and basically let him knew that Satan was trying every trick in the book to stop his baptism from happening, especially sending a skanky girl his way. So, the power of fasting is real as well, but we still have a lot of work to do.

The rest of the week was full of adventures with the sisters. They are both getting white-washed out, and sadly no one is taking their place, leaving Southport all to me and Elder Frandsen. Since we are all really good friends now, we just decided to make the best out of this last week. I will send some pics, but we walked all the way to Tarleton, went out to Nandos to eat, played volleyball with the ward and all wore custom Southport t-shirts with all of our faces on them, did a lot of garden service, but my favourite was definitely our adventure on Saturday. We all got Subway and met at the beach in Ainsdale. The weather was perfect, and the water was warm. After we ate, we had a spontaneous adventure all the way to the Southport pier. We all looked like dirty beach pirates after everything was done, and it easily earned its spot as one of my favourite memories on the mission so far. Life is good.

Aside from that, we have just been trekking on with missionary work. Working hard, playing hard, and not spending too much time in between (props to you dad).

I love you all, and I am so happy how tight knit we all are. Let's keep it that way, like macaroni and cheese.

Take care, and peace out.

Elder BA

Klingonsmith, Thomson, Frandsen, BA