Matthew W. Goodrich

I was born in Chillicothe, Missouri, on May 28, 1958, to Lee Roy and Karen Kay Goodrich. When I was one year old, my parents moved to downtown Kansas City and lived on the second floor of the Western Auto building. When I was two years old, we moved to the Los Angeles, California, area so my dad could get work. I grew up in that area and did all of my schooling there. In my senior year of High School, my parents moved back to the Independence, Missouri, area during Christmas Vacation. I stayed in California with some church friends to finish high school. The day after my graduation in 1977, I moved back to Missouri with my parents.

While in Missouri, I attended the Sugar Creek Congregation where I taught the Senior High Class. I then transferred to Enoch Hill Congregation, where, for a short while, I assisted in teaching the Junior Class.

In 1985, after the apostasy of the church, I joined the Restoration groups. In that same year, I met and married my wife, Ester. My wife and I have three daughters, which are all now married, and we have nine grandchildren.

In my years within the Restoration groups, I ended up at Blue Springs Branch. I was attending there when the Proclamation and Invitation to the Faithful came forth. In that process, I joined the Remnant Church from its inception.

I attended the Blue Springs Congregation until the end of 2003, at which time I transferred to Center Congregation, where I still attend.

I was ordained to the office of deacon on November 17, 1976; to the office of priest on October 5, 1980; to the office of Elder on October 19, 2003; to the office of seventy on April 4, 2015; and lastly, to the office of apostle on August 1, 2020.

I have always, as long as I can remember, been a member of the church, although my parents tell me they did not start taking me to church until I was around three or four years old. I was always active in my Sunday School classes and youth camps and reunions, in which I feel that I did gain a decent understanding of the gospel.

In my senior year of high school, I ended up having a conversation with a classmate that was a member of the Mormon church. During our back and forth, I came to the understanding that, even though I strongly believed in the Reorganized Church and its tenets, I did not have a testimony of its truthfulness. I began from that time forth to make it a matter of prayer to gain that testimony of God’s work. A few years later, while reading and studying the book, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder by Daniel McGregor, I had an experience where I was thinking about the prophecies that were given that were being fulfilled with the coming forth of the restoration of the gospel. And, I was made to think of the Bibles that I had seen in museums that were centuries old, and I suddenly knew that they were not prophecies that were being produced to match what was taking place but existed well before they were fulfilled. With this realization, I was then flooded by the Spirit that seared into my heart and mind that this church truly came forth by the hand of God.

Since that time, I have always prayed to the Lord that He would guide me to understand which organized group was sanctioned by Him and for more understanding on those things which I did not fully understand.

He has always, within time, answered these things for me in different ways. I have had dreams, actual back and forth conversations with Him, and once, I literally heard the voice of God the Father. During the last incident in the church, when we had another split, the Lord answered the question that I had about what was going on and gave me a testimony that Brother Terry Patience was the successor that was chosen by the Lord himself.

My faith, and desire to serve him, has grown greatly over the years. It is with this burning Spirit that I put my hand to the plow and continue to serve my Lord in the office of apostle.