Week 6 Beeville, Texas (ONE LAST TIME)

Mom,

Here it is, my last email as a missionary. Man, these 2 years have flown by. It has been super fun and I have learned a lot. 

We got transfer calls last night and the surprise was that Elder Morera is leaving as well. So they are moving 2 new missionaries into our area. Morera is going to Corpus Christi and me, well obviously I'm going home. 

We had Stake Conference so it was good. I got to see some members from Flour Bluff which was super cool. 

Becuase of Stake Conference we didn't watch the broadcast during church but we decided to watch it later in the day. It was really good. It will be interesting to see how the new program goes. 

Aside from that I have been packing. I shipped my bike off this morning and got that taken care of. Pretty much all my stuff is packed so today I just get to chill.

I have really enjoyed these past 2 years, I have learned a lot and grown a lot. I am excited to start the next chapter in my life. 

The sisters talked us into doing facemasks last night so we did. The other picture is our district at Stake Conference. 

I'll see you on Wednesday, and I'll fill you in on these past 2 years.

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

Facemasks courtesy of the Sisters in Beeville!

Elder Goodbaudy with his companion and the Sisters in his District.

Week 5 Beeville, Texas

Mom,

Things are good here. It is still hot but oh well. We had a confirmation for Margarita, the lady we baptized last Sunday. It was pretty close because she had to go to the ER for her foot Saturday night but the confirmation happened so we are good.

Church was really small which was kind of surprising because we had the primary program but a lot of people were out of town.

Honestly that is about it. I will be home in 9 days so not much to talk about.

I hope you have a great week.

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy 

Week 4 Beeville, Texas

Mom,

So I know we only talked for about 10 minutes on the phone and I said I would write a long email to make up for it, however... We had an activity today in a town about an hour away with some other missionaries to play basketball and stuff and I ended up driving back. So I couldn't email because I was driving. So needless to say this one will be short. Oops.

This week Margarita got baptized which was super cool becuase there were honestly times where we didn't think she would fully commit all the way, but she did. So that was cool. 

Other than that we did the usual. Just missionary work and staying busy. The biking is keeping me in shape, kind of sort of. We watched the YSA devotional last night and that was pretty good. 

I can't think of anything else that happened. Church was the usual, I got to see Brother and Sister Robins (they were in my ward in Flour Bluff) they spoke since Brother Robins is on the high council so I got to see them again which was really nice. 

Time is up so I got to go. 

Have a great week.

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

                                       Margarita's Baptism

Week 3 Beeville, Texas

Mom,

The week was good, however this will be another short one since we have been out and about all day looking at stores. 

The week was good. Yesterday a guy the sisters are teaching invited us and them over for dinner, it was smoked ribs and deer sausage. Delicious. 

Also this week we biked in the heat as usual. We talked to a lot of people and stayed busy. 

Church was good, the stake President joined us and we had a lot of people we were teaching show up which was good. Also after church we had a linger longer with some really good food. We had some good conversation and all in all it was a good time. 

I can't really think of anything else that happened. Sister Parker got her Visa so she went to Peru on sunday. Now we have a new sister named Sister Dray who is with us in Beeville. 

I'm just enjoying my time here before I wrap up in 3 weeks. 

Have a great week.

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

Week 2 Beeville, Texas

Mom,

It is crazy. Time has gone by super fast. 

Church was good, it was pretty empty. Testimony meeting was just a lot of stories. This branch is a little interesting but it is full of nice people who always keep you on your toes. We didn't end up helping out, we just got to enjoy the ride. 

Not a lot of people live super close to the actual city of Beeville so we don't get fed a lot because most people live an hour away from Beeville. There is one lady that feeds us every Wednesday which is nice. 

Things are good here. Today we had to drive to Corpus to fix Elder Morera's bike so we spent the day looking around and shopping. We got his bike fixed, had lunch at Jack in the Box and then we went to a bunch of stores to do some shopping. I got all the new clothes I need so that makes me happy. 

This email will be quite a bit longer than the previous ones because we are just driving back to Beeville (which is about an hour drive) so I have nothing to do but write emails. 

This week was good. I'm trying to think of some highlights. 

We had zone conference on Thursday which was good. We talked about being consecrated and sacrifice. I also bore my testimony in front of everyone since it will be my last zone conference. So that was crazy. I also just have to say that I love President and Sister Ocampo, they are amazing. 

Fun little story for the week was that on Saturday evening we were walking around a little neighborhood 5 miles out of Beeville called Blueberry hill. We walked around and a small dog started following us around for about 2 miles. Then we got on our bikes and started heading home because it was late. The dog still followed us. (Elder Morera named him Milo) He then followed us for the whole 5 mile bike ride back to our apartment. We can't have pets and so we left him outside with some water and a piece of meat. We said a prayer and in the prayer we asked God to help Milo either go home or get somewhere safe. Minutes later a lady knocked on our door and asked whose dog Milo was. We told her the story and she said she would take him in for the night and ask around at the animal shelter if anyone knew who the dog belonged to. She also said that if no owner was found she would keep him because she was thinking about adopting a dog that was the same breed as Milo. So that was pretty cool.

Also on Sunday a guy came to church and asked us to visit his friend who is a less active member who lives an hour away. We went by and he ended up inviting us to dinner at an Italian place in Beeville. So we went to dinner, and it was super good. 

I can't think of any other highlights. That was pretty much it. 

Hope all is well. Have a great week!

Love, 

Elder Goodbaudy

Week 1 Beeville, Texas

Mom,

The week was good. The branch is pretty small but it is fun.  I gave a talk about the atonement so that was cool. 

Beeville has about 12,000 people so it is very small. So that is pretty interesting. Also it is just us and a set of sisters here and the nearest missionaries are an hour away.

Sorry I saved this till' the end of the day so this will be a short one. 

We did some service this week which was cool, it is always nice to get out of a white shirt and tie. 

Glad to hear all is well at home. 

Here is a picture of our district by a cotton field because that's all there is out here. 

Hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

Week 24 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

It has been a long day. We played lots of basketball so we are worn out. 

We got transfer calls and I am leaving off to Beeville. That's 3 hours up North so that should be a fun adventure. 

Nothing crazy happened at church. Just the usual church stuff. 

We didn't do a whole lot this week, normal missionary work. 

This one will be short since it has been a busy day. 

Hope you have a great week.

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

Week 23 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

My birthday was good. Sorry we have been busy today playing soccer and basketball so this one will be short again because I don't have tons of time. 

Yeah so on Saturday Elder Roper and I went with Elder Theel and his companion to Costa Messa for dinner. It is a super nice Mexican restaurant and the food was so amazing. (Elder Theel and Elder Goodbaudy share an August 10th birthday.)

This week was pretty normal. In church yesterday we helped out in the primary with singing time. When the Primary kids sang well they got to put stickers on us and give us 'measles' so that was fun. The kids enjoyed it a lot. Whatever helps them sing I guess. 

Things have been pretty normal here. We have transfers next week so we will see where i end up for my final transfer, 2 years has flown by too fast. 

Also I just want to state for the record that I type these emails on my phone and since the screen is not as wide as a computer screen I feel like I write a lot and then when you see it on a computer the paragraphs aren't as long. So I feel like I write quite a bit but that's just me. 

Anyway, that's all. Just had to add something to feel like I wrote a big email. 

Hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

Week 22 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

Sorry we got a late start today so this will be very short. Basically Roper tripped and broke a wall so we had to spend the morning fixing it. 

So yeah. The week was good. We learned how to make authentic flour tortillas, they are delicious.

So yeah. That's that. 

Anyway, here are some pictures of us fixing the wall. 

Hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

                                         The damage.

                                         The repair.

                                          The finishing touches.

Week 21 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

Glad to hear all is well there. It is still hot so we are just trying to survive. 

This day has flown by so I don't have a ton of time. Long story short this week was good. We had a baptism on Saturday for Mikayla, so that was good. Other than that we have been trying to talk to people and stay busy. 

Time is flying by, I'm just staying busy and sprinting to the finish. 

Hope you have a great week and we will talk next week.

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

Week 20 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

Sorry this will be another short one. Things have been busy. 

It hasn't been too terribly hot so we are surviving.

McAllen is good. Church was pretty empty again but it was still good. 

We are just chilling out here. Things have been good.

We are staying busy and working hard. 

Hope you have a great week.

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

Week 19 McAllen, Texas

Mom,


Sorry, once again. Zero time.


All is well here.


Glad to hear things are good at home.


Hope you have a great week


Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

Week 18 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

This week was pretty normal. We got transfer calls and I am staying in McAllen with Elder Roper for another 6 weeks. So that is super cool. We are really excited.


Not much is happening here. Church was good. Test was good. We didn't end up helping out anywhere. We just got to sit back and enjoy the ride.


No chats with President Ocampo yet but he is super cool. We have seen him around every once in a while and he is a super cool guy.


Nothing super crazy happened this week. Things are as usual.


Not much is going on. Just the usual.


Hope you have a great week.


Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

Week 17 McAllen, Texas

Mom,


Sorry 0 time again. Week was good.


I'll talk next week.


Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

                                      A Baptism!

 President and Sister Ocampo, Elder Goodbaudy's new mission President and President and Sister Torres who completed their service in June 30, 2019.

Week 16 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

So I have 0 time this week. It's been a busy day. Things are going well. Big news is we had a baptism on Saturday for Victoria and Destiny. Other than that all is well. Hope you have a great week!

Love
Elder Goodbaudy

Week 15 McAllen, Texas

Mom,


This week was good. It has been super hot. The weather has been in the 110's pretty much all week. So it has been very hot.


I'm glad to hear that all is well. It sounds like things have been going well there.


Honestly not much is new. I'm still just doing the usual. We found a lot of people this week and a lot came to church so that was super nice.


Church was good. We didn't really help a lot at church. We just enjoyed the meetings.


But yeah, we have a mission-wide conference tomorrow since President Torres is leaving soon. So that should be super cool. It sounds like it will be super fun.


So that's pretty much it. All is as usual here.


I hope you have a great week.


Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

Weeks 13 &14 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

Sorry for not emailing last week. We were super busy and we didn't have a lot of time.


The past 2 weeks have been good. My new companion is Elder Roper. We have been having a good time so far.  I'm still here in McAllen so all has been good.


Things are going well here and honestly not much is new. Things are as usual here, it is super hot.


The Temple 2 weeks ago was amazing. It was so cool and such an awesome experience.

(Elder Goodbaudy at the San Antonio Temple)

At church we went into one of the primary classes for the last 10 minutes and we talked about missionary work.


Food is good as usual, we had really good beef ribs the other day with a member.

We cover the whole ward now since they took other missionaries out to go somewhere else so that has kept us busy.


That's pretty much it.

Hope you have a great week.


Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

Week 12 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

This one will be pretty short, sorry, it's been a fast paced day.


The big news for this week is that my old companion Elder Frey went home on Wednesday. He was feeling homesick so he went home to recover.


So Wednesday I got a new companion, Elder McDonald, he finishes up his mission in a week when the transfer ends. So yeah. It's been a crazy few days.


Anyway, other than that. We're just chilling. We have transfers next week and so we will see what happens.


Yeah, the other fun news is that for the first part of Wednesday I didn't have a companion so I went with one of the AP's to Brownsville, to pick up a missionary. So that was fun, it was weird being back in Brownsville after a year.


However Wednesday afternoon I went with another one of the AP's to go pick up McDonald and he was in La Joya so we got to go back there. (Jaden's first area was LaJoya) That was another crazy experience, seeing that place again.


All in all crazy week. But it's been good.


Also we are going to the Temple on Friday! So that should be cool. I will probably email on the way up to the Temple and on the way back. If not, I'll talk as usual on Monday. They haven't exactly told us how that all works.


Anyway, hope you have a great week.


Love,
Elder Goodbaudy

Week 11 McAllen, Texas

Mom,


Well, nothing has changed since our talk yesterday. Everything is the same here. This one will be short because nothing really happened this week. Just lots of meetings and other things like that.


Other than that I am still chilling here in McAllen.


I'm glad the Blazers won. I guess blessings really do come from serving a mission. Hahaha


But that's all folks.


Hope you have a great week.


Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

Week 10 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

Week was good. I don't have a lot of time but I've got plenty of pictures and that can explain how this week was.

We had the baptism of Rachel and Viviana Lopez on Saturday, then their confirmation on Sunday. It was super good.

We also had a party at their house Saturday night and we had a really good BBQ. I also got colored eggs filled with confetti (Cascarones in Spanish) broken on my head. I was also morditad (A cake was slammed in my face. Literally slammed)

So that was good. Other than that, we are chilling. 

Sorry not much this week. But the pictures should make up for it. 

Hope you all have a great week.

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy 

                                                Rachel and Viviana

Lopez family

 Me after I was morditad

Week 9 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

This week was good. Not a whole lot is new.

This weekend on Saturday morning we helped the Red Cross to put smoke alarms in people's houses. So that was pretty fun. It was basically just missionary work minus the whole restored gospel part. But it was good. They fed us breakfast and lunch and gave us a bunch of Red Cross gear, so I can't complain. 

Other highlights are that we have 2 girls who are getting baptized on Saturday. Their parents are less active but we are helping them come back and they want their daughters to be baptized. So that should be good. 

We also talked with David (the chef guy) and hopefully he will be baptized in the next 2 weeks or so. He has just been super busy. 

Umm, I'm trying to think of what else is new. On Friday evening we had a ward activity, it was like a cultural night potluck. Basically everyone brought dishes from different countries and backgrounds and we just got together and ate food. (We kind of related it to Family History)

Other than that. Not much is new. It is getting hot so we are just trying to stay cool. 

Anyway. Not much else. Hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

(My mom said to send pictures home so here is a picture of my companion and I at the culture night. Also there is another one of a sign we found outside of a church parking lot. We thought it was pretty applicable to us)

Week 8 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

The week was good. Not much is new as usual. Easter Sunday was good, the 1st counselor in the bishopbric spoke about the resurrection and atonement of Jesus Christ and then our bishop spoke about how we can see our loved ones again because of what Christ did for us. 

Other than that, everything is the same. We are still working with the chef, David, he has gone through a lot of struggles recently but he is doing awesome. We are also working with some families who have kids that aren't members. We will see where that goes. 

My new companion Elder Frey is pretty cool. He has been out just about 4 months shorter than I have so we have some good experience.

Things have been good. This past week has gone by pretty fast but it seemed to take forever. The days just would never end sometimes. It is starting to get hot so that has been a bummer. I'm glad we have a car. 

Our ward is having a family history social this Friday (just an excuse to get together and eat food) so that should be fun. We will see how it goes. 

I think that is pretty much it. 

Hope you enjoy the longer email. 

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy  

Week 7 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

The week has been good. Transfer calls came last night and Elder Davis is leaving to Sinton (near Corpus Christi) So that's cool. I'm staying here and my new companion will be Elder Frey. I don't know a whole lot about him but I'm excited. 

That is pretty much it. Life is still good here in McAllen.

Hope all is well at home. 

My mom asked for me to send a picture so here is our district eating lunch today. 

Have a great week. 

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy 

I do love that Elder Goodbaudy is repping our boys in Red and Black! 😊

Week 6 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

Sorry 0 time. Conference was good. 

Have a great week.

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy 

Week 5 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

This week was pretty good. Not much is new. We are just talking to people and trying to find people. 

Different stuff this week was that on Wednesday our mission President asked us to help move stuff from his house to a storage unit. Some missionaries were driving a truck and trailer and the trailer fell off. (When I was talking to Jaden he said the Elder's had not actually hitched the trailer on completely just sat the hitch on the ball.) Luckily nobody and nothing was injured or damaged. So that was fun. 

Other than that not much is new. The week has been good. We've just been out and about. 

Sunday was super good. President Torres' siblings were at church and it was fast Sunday so we had a super great Sacrament meeting because basically his whole family bore their testimonies and it was super good. 

I'm looking forward to General Conference. It should be good. 

That is honestly pretty much it. 

Hope all is well. Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy 

Week 4 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

Wow. That's why you shouldn't watch When Calls the Heart, just saying. ( I  had mentioned to Jaden the show had gone on hiatus to do some creative re-tooling after the charges against Lori Loughlin and because he knows how much I like this show he couldn't resist giving me a hard time. Love the banter with my boy! ❤😊)

All is good. We had a cold front the past few days which has been nice. It has been in the low 60's. 

Ward is good. A lot of people are gone for spring break so that makes it a little small at church but other than that, it's all good. 

Glad you are all staying busy there. 

That's all from me.

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy 

Week 3 McAllen, Texas

I talked with Elder Goodbaudy today and he said no email. He spent his time this morning emailing his Grandma and Grandpa and his Aunt. The highlights of the week for him were playing basketball this morning and serving the people of McAllen, Texas. He and his companion and the Sister Missionaries serving in the ward enjoyed lunch with President Torres and his wife today.
Elder Goodbaudy is looking forward to a baptism hopefully on Wednesday.
I enjoyed a spiritual discussion with Elder Goodbaudy about our Savior. I appreciate his insights. It was a fabulous way to spend my lunch!
I can't believe how quickly the time has gone, just over 6 months and Elder Goodbaudy will be heading home!

Week 2 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

All is good. We had a cold front the past few days which has been nice. It has been in the low 60's. 

 The ward (McAllen 1st Ward) is good. A lot of people are gone for spring break so that makes it a little small at church but other than that, it's all good. 

Glad you are all staying busy there. 

That's all from me.

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy 

Week 1 McAllen, Texas

Mom,

Well. The week was good. I'm now in McAllen. My companion is Elder Davis and he is pretty cool. He is on his 3rd transfer so it's enjoyable.

Speaking Spanish is nice, I missed it a lot. 

We are teaching this guy who is a 5 star chef. So he sometimes makes us really good food. 

That's about it. 

Have a great week.

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy 

Week 24 Corpus Christi, Texas - One last time

Mom,

Happy Transfers! I'm going down to McAllen to cover our mission presidents ward. It is English which is kind of weird but I'm excited. 

Other than that, not much is new. I'm just chilling. Corpus has been really fun and I'm sad to go but I'm needed elsewhere.

Have a great week.

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy 

Week 23 Corpus Christi, Texas

Mom,

Not really much in news for this week. Things have been going as usual. We get transfer calls next week so the next time we talk we will know where I go.

Hope you have a great week.

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy 

(We received an email from Jaden's mission President asking that when we speak to our missionaries each week we ask if their apartment and car are clean. I ask Jaden each week and he assures me all is clean.)

Week 22 Corpus Christi, Texas

ELDER GOODBAUDY PHONE HOME!!
(On February 15, 2019 the Church announced that Missionaries are allowed to call home each week, and are encouraged to keep that connection with their families weekly. Jaden calls each week and it is beyond wonderful to hear from him. He does still write a few sentences so I  will continue to post his emails.)

Mom,

Nothing much is new since we can call home now. So that's pretty cool. The call home was pretty cool. That's a blessing. 

Highlights for the week:

Huff went to Ecuador on Wednesday morning. So Tuesday night we had to drive down to McAllen. Then the next morning we drove back up to Corpus Christi. 

That means I have a new companion. His name is Elder Desjardins, he's from Canada so that's pretty cool.

That's pretty much the big news for the week.

Love you and talk to you next week.

Elder Goodbaudy 

Week 21 Corpus Christi, Texas

Mom,

This week was good. Not much happened.

That sucks to hear that the snow ruined your shopping trip, and Aunt Brenda's visit to an extent. I guess it's good that you guys can shop again in the summer.

Sounds like the new job should be pretty fun, to see what you end up doing on a daily basis.

Yeah we attend ward council, I have attended ward council in every ward I have been in. I enjoy the meetings, I have really come to enjoy seeing all the behind the scenes work of the church and how everything comes together.

We didn't have any crazy snow but we did have a cold front that came in and dropped the temperature to 37 degrees, so we got to break out our sweaters.

We had a super good zone conference on Thursday. They replaced the Tiwi's in our cars. (Tiwi is basically a little box that yells at you if you drive too fast) So they got us new ones because the ones that we had been using were pretty old. Now they are all futuristic looking and hi-tech. The zone conference itself was super good too. President Torres said something really insightful. He talked a lot about failing and learning from our mistakes and he talked about how God knows that the purpose of mortality is to learn and to grow, sometimes through failure and then getting back up from that failure. He then said that sometimes we as humans don't understand mortality because we are so caught up in having to be perfect that we don't allow ourselves to fail so that we can learn.

 Braden comes home in 5 months?!?!?! That's crazy, I sometimes keep forgetting that I am almost down to 6 months left. It's crazy how fast time flies.

Anyway, that is pretty much it. Super short interesting thought, in testimony meeting yesterday (testimony meeting was this week because we had stake conference last week) someone said that they had been thinking about the phrase bearing your testimony, and he talked about he thought he heard someone say they were burying their testimony. So he then asked a rhetorical question: 

Are we bearing our testimony or are we burying our testimony?

 So there is some food for thought for the week

Anyway, that is it for this week.

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Goodbaudy

Week 20 Corpus Christi, Texas

Mom, 

The week was good. I'm glad all has been going as usual at home. No crazy teaching appointments this week, we had a lot of meetings and stuff like that so not a whole lot of time to go out and see the people. 

Don't have any scriptural insights this week, sorry. I've still been studying the New Testament with the institute manual, it's always good. 

This was a long, yet short week at the same time. It was kind of weird. The beginning of the week was pretty normal. Elder Huff signed his Visa paperwork on Wednesday, so he is now on the clock and could leave for Ecuador at any time. On Tuesday we found out that we would be having a mission leadership conference in McAllen. Normally it doesn't really mean anything but since they were inviting the district leaders to go it meant I got to go down to McAllen for Thursday and Friday with all the leaders in the mission. So Thursday morning we left for McAllen at 6 in the morning so we could be there at 9:30 when it started. I really enjoyed the conference, I got to see a lot of missionaries there that I know so it was pretty cool. It was a little weird though, because there were a lot of missionaries that I didn't know because they are all so new. 

Anyway, the conference was really good. President Torres talked a lot about being better ministers as leaders, so that we can better help those that we serve. It was awesome and I learned a lot. All I have to say is that President Torres is amazing. He is such an inspired guy.

Friday evening we got back to Corpus and just finished off the day. 

We didn't have fast and testimony meeting this week because we had stake conference. Saturday was pretty cool though because it was the adult session of stake conference. We had an area seventy speak, it was Elder Willis. Saturday session was good Elder Willis spoke about making it back to our heavenly home. Then Sunday morning we had the general session that was super good. Elder Willis gave another super good talk about enduring to the end. Honestly this week was really good. 

That was pretty much it for me. We will see when Huff ends up leaving and what happens with that. Until then though, here we are. 

Anyway, hope you guys have a great week. 

Love, 
Elder Goodbaudy