It seriously feels like so long that I´ve talked to you guys. I´m sorry I forgot to remind you about the transfers. Like before, every six weeks, our P-day moves to Tuesday because that´s when we do transfers. Sorry!
So I have un montón de cuentos to tell you all. (That´s literally what just popped into my head to tell you. My freaking Spanglish is getting worse.) But first of all, I think transfers came around several weeks too early. These past six weeks with Elder Critchlow flew by. But being the stud he is, he left as a Zone Leader for the nearby zone in Chacabuco, and Elder Molina as a Zone Leader in Liniers. Elder Zollinger took over for Elder Molina being District Leader, so he´s staying in our tiny little pension/cucaracha (cockroach) battleground with me. His new comp is Elder Costa from Brazil, and my new companion is Elder Adamson (Elder Critchlow´s companion in the MTC) from Idaho. We´d already done splits together twice before in Matheu, so we´re good buds, and I know that there´s a lot of good that´s going to come from this transfer.
Okay, let´s get going. First of all, last night when President Ayre called to let Elder Critchlow know that he was moving up, he asked him to give me the phone. Then he started to tell me, ¨Elder Goff, I have a special assignment for you. We´re looking at opening a new area where there is a high percentage of Chinese people...¨ At this point I just busted up laughing, and asked him if I had told him about that story. He laughed and told me that his wife found it on the internet. I guess that sometimes more people read my letters than just you guys after all. Hola, Hermana Ayre! :)
On Sunday, we had lunch with the Bradley family in our ward. There are a lot of people in the inner city that speak English, and this family is actually from Provo. They´re awesome and told us all about their traveling, living in places like Buenos Aires, New York, and India. Their little son, Jackson, reminds me so much of Uncle Greg and Aunt Alison´s kids, Henry and William, and he kept pleading us, ¨come play with me!¨ So after giving a spiritual thought and prayer, we played a little with Jackson, who was so excited to play basketball with the missionaries. It was the coolest thing to play games with a little kid that speaks English again.
While talking with a member one day, she mentioned to us that two new neighbors had just moved into the rooms above hers, and the mom had commented to her how she couldn´t understand why God didn´t love her anymore. This hermana served a mission about a decade ago, so she asked if we could come share a message with her. Talking with her later that same night, and after expressing some deep sorrow for her past, she accepted a Priesthood blessing. She told us that when I annointed her with oil, she felt at more peace than she ever had before, and was carried into a beautiful place. After Hermano Gimenez ended sealing the annointing, she asked through tears why we had taken her back to this miserable world. We testified that God really did love her, and wanted her to know it. The following day, her son, let us know that he already believed the Book of Mormon to be the word of God just after hearing the two verses we read the day before. He told us about a dream he had after praying for forgiveness that night, where he went to a paradise and heard a Voice telling him that his sins were forgiven, and that Whoever´s voice it was loved him. We testified that all good things come from God, and the two were incredibly happy. They both accepted baptismal dates right away, and we´re excited to keep working with them. Elder Critchlow and I agree that they´re going to have a lot of struggles in the coming weeks, but we are amazed by the faith that they have.
I´ve been amazed by the amount of love that our Father in Heaven has shown to His humble and blessed children in the Villa 31. Although that we had a relatively suprising small amount of numerical success during our transfer together, I´m so grateful for the time I had as Elder Critchlow´s companion. The miracles we´ve seen together will never leave my memory. If nothing more on my mission, I´ve learned what divine love from God feels like, and how to have such love for others. As Christ told us, the greatest commandment of all, is to ¨love thy God with all thine heart.¨ I´ve really found that to be the easiest commandment to keep, and makes all of the rest easier. I´m so grateful for the time I have to serve Him in His most noble of works. Thank you and may God bless you for your support you show me despite your own hard times. I love every one of you.
Hasta la próxima semana.
¡Hurrah por Israel!
-Élder Goff
P. S. I have a million more pictures for you:
1. Elder Adamson, my new companion.
2. I don´t know if I ever told you about Elder Critchlow´s fake tooth, but it fell out recently. We got it fixed, and he has an appointment this Saturday nearby to get a more real looking one, so we´ll get to see each other again.
3. President Ayre is putting together a mission website of pictures of us, and asked our zone to meet him at the River Soccer Club stadium.
4. I got really brave one Sunday morning when no one is out in the streets, and took this picture from inside the Villa at a member´s house. It´s not extremely exciting, but it´s much better than the one I sent last week.
5. La familia Gimenez. They´re absolutely incredible. I wish I could tell you more about their story, but that´s for another day. Basically they´re all recent converts, and every day have another friend that they want us to talk to. Heavenly Father is going to bless them so much for what they´ve done for Missionary Work in the Villa.
6. This stud´s name is Fernando. He´s a recent convert that is so awesome, and has become my good friend.
7. La familia Girrett. This family is indescribibly incredible. Their son is the one that yelled ¨Que valiente que sos!¨ when Elder Critchlow rescued his toy from the dog in the street. I can´t begin to describe how much faith they´ve shown since we´ve met them. I love these people!
8. The last day with the Juncal Elders in the last transfer.
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