6 Months!

Hello everyone!

So everyone keeps asking me about New Years Eve, so I'll clear up that confusion. We're having a party til midnight!! :) Just kidding, it's actually a lot sadder than that. We have to be in by 6:30 to do weekly planning. I can't really complain about having to do things on New Years though cuz we did nothing on Christmas. Well I guess I did stuff. I spent an hour opening presents because for some reason Sister Gali and I got a ridiculously large amount of gifts and packages. And I watched Mulan. And Lion King (which, by the way, is a quite sketchy movie. What the heck Disney?! It does relate somehow to missionary work though. Some of the elders made commentary the entire movie relating it to missionary work). Anyway I watched Meet the Robinsons too. And most of Santa Clause 3 (we had to turn it off at 10:30). I also got to Skype which was pretty awesome! Especially doing Elf Christmas grams with Becca :) I did do a real Christmas gram this week too which was excellent with my superb tone deaf singing skills. Oh and if you picture a medium sized UPS box completely overflowing with candy, that's how much candy I got this last week -_- if any of you send me any more candy y'all better be paying for my dental work for the next 10 years. Lovin' the treats though!

Really not much else happened besides Christmas. It was a really slow week. Like insanely slow. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that we spent a whole day in the rich part of our area that we hardly ever go to.

Well this week we have interviews with president Chesnut so I find out this week what my release date is for my mission. We also found out that we have the mission tour with Elder Robbin in a couple weeks! I'm excited for that! Personally I think they should just keep the trend going and have a general authority come speak to us every month or every other month at least. 

I'm attaching a picture from our zone white elephant gift exchange! Those are all the missionaries in my zone! :) I got A TON of candy. Christmas was so fun! The second picture is me with all the sisters in my zone and the Wanlasses. We all had breakfast together!

Sorry there's not a lot in this letter but I literally just spoke to some of you 3 days ago. More adventures next week!

Love and miss you all :)

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

P.S. Yes Nevada had earthquakes this last week. Yes I sleep on the top bunk and it rocked back and forth like crazy. Yes I have now slept through 3 earthquakes and an anti-Mormon mob (no worries, people in Nevada aren't that crazy, it was just on trek). It did manage to freak out Sister Gali quite a bit though, mainly because she thought I was going to fall out of bed.

P.P.S I will forever have the hugest scar ever on my leg from shaving. Yay me!

Yay Christmas Parties!!

This week was a great week! It started off kinda slow but got better as it went on.
On Wednesday we had a lesson with our Mandarin speaking investigator. This was the first time that I've been here to teach him since the church tour because we've been on exchanges and such. This lesson we discussed the Plan of Salvation and we gave him a Mandarin Plan of Salvation pamphlet. So that lesson essentially consisted of him reading an entire page of the pamphlet in Mandarin and then Sister Gali and I making comments that Hayley, our amazing return missionary from Taiwan, would translate for him. They would then talk back and forth in Mandarin and she would tell us what all he said. It was definitely the most interesting lesson I've taught! And I'm basically quadrilingual now that I've been to lessons in English, Spanish, Samoan, and Mandarin.

On Thursday we had the mission Christmas party for the west side of the mission. It was so much fun! This is the most missionaries I've seen together since the MTC. For the first hour or so we just all hung out and played games and caught up with all of the missionaries that we haven't seen in a while. I got to see my district leader from my first transfer and Sister Paul and a bunch of other missionaries I served with on the east side. Then we all walked over and went to the institute and had pizza and cake and hung out some more. I also watched Ephraim's Rescue, which I had never seen before. We also got Christmas cards from the First Presidency and a $10 Walmart gift card from the mission for Christmas presents :) I'm attaching a picture of my zone at the party.

That night we met with one of our investigators and he's awesome! He's preparing to be baptized on January 9th so we're super excited for that! His wife is a member so they've been studying the Gospel Principles book and a bunch of other stuff between visits.

The next day we had the ward Christmas party! It was so good! We had 4 investigators that we're teaching that came and a couple of them brought their families. We also had a few other members that we're teaching that we haven't seen at church in a long time that came to the party. It was great to see everyone there and it was amazing to see the ward reach out and fellowship all the new people. We would just walk up to members and point to someone and say they were new and they'd go over and talk to them. I couldn't have asked for a better ward that night!

Yesterday in sacrament meeting we had no speakers and we sang Christmas songs the entire time. Well, I guess Bishop got up at the end and spoke for a minute but other than that no one spoke. Our primary is a little smaller than the one in Plainfield. We had about 15 or so kids that went up. We're trying to find more boys because out of the 15 there were only 4 boys. It was still great to hear the kids sing though!

Talk to a lot of you on Friday! Love you all! Merry Christmas!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

P.S. There's a lot of crazy stuff happening in the world and I guess Plainfield especially. Things are crazy. But Helaman 5:12 resolves essentially resolves every life problem...so Merry Christmas :D

4 transfers down!

Hello everyone! I am getting transferred..in the future! I'll be in Mt. Rose ward for the next 7 weeks. I love this ward, so I'm pretty excited about that :) It's weird though..this transfer and next transfer will be 7 weeks each. It'll feel really long after having a 5 week transfer.

This week we got a text from a girl in our ward (she's probably in her 20s or so?). She told us she and her boyfriend had some news and asked if we could come see them that night. So we went, unsure of what the news would be but excited. We got there and she and her boyfriend announced that they were married! They also told us that he wanted to be baptized. So we've met with him about 4 times since Monday when they told us the news. He's planning to be baptized on December 26th!

We had exchanges again this week so I was companions with Sister Hingano again for a day! And I went to In n Out for the first time so that was pretty good! Her new companion this next transfer is Sister Anderson, who was one of my roommates in the MTC, so that's pretty cool!

Last night we went to a Christmas Singalong with the stake and it was so fun! It lasted about an hour and a half and it alternated between different ward choirs singing and all of us singing. We sang in Spanish too with the Spanish branch so that was awesome! The Spirit was so strong throughout the evening and it was a really fun way to end the transfer!

Sorry my emails pretty short this week but not a lot happened! I'll try to get some pictures to yall soon!

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Hola!

So this is gonna be a little short...In my defense it has been 5 days since I emailed all of you and your emails to me were super short as well.

I've gotten pretty good at Slaughterball. It's basically every man for yourself dodgeball with one ball. I just kinda stay in the background and not very many people throw it at me. When they do I somehow magically catch it almost every time. It's pretty fun! Anyway now that I got the important news out of the way...haha

We got 6 new investigators this week...? That never happens. So that was pretty cool! One of them is super solid and we taught him the restoration and we'll be seeing him again this week!

Miracle pf the week! This girl from the Mt. Rose ward (the ward I serve in) came home from her mission this week. In Taiwan. So she knows Mandarin. She's definitely going to help us a ton with Li, our new Mandarin speaking investigator! 

It happened. I overdosed on pizza this week. You all probably never thought that I would say that. I had pizza for lunch on Wednesday, dinner on Thursday, leftovers for breakfast on Friday, lunch on Friday, and dinner on Saturday. I think I may have gotten tired mostly due to the fact that only one of those times was Papa John's and one of those times was cold pizza. Update: cold pizza is still gross. Anyway, I took a break from pizza on Sunday so I may have pizza for lunch today.

In other news, Sister Gali accidentally introduced herself as me the other day. It was super funny. I introduced myself and then she says "Hi, I'm Sister Goot- Gali." And then she looked at me and I had to try so hard not to start laughing.

I'm not sure what time I Skype on Christmas. All I know is that I'm Skyping and that I get an hour. And that we can watch a G rated movie. And I learned that Elf is not rated G so my life is sad. So send me some suggestions for good G rated Christmas movies!

I don't really have any pictures to send this week...but if you look at nevadarenomission.com you can find some pictures that you may not have seen! If you just look at the pictures that the Reno zone are in, you'll find pictures of me with the missionaries I serve with.

I love and miss you all! I hope you all are as excited for Christmas as I am!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

December!

Hello! This is a really weird week and it's all because my P-day is not on Monday. It really does throw off the whole week. What's going to be really weird is having P-day 5 days from now. Sorry, that's going to be a short letter!

Well I should start off with the most important. They've switched my mission language and I am now a Mandarin speaking missionary. Just kidding but we did find a Mandarin speaking investigator last week that seems interested. We got him some Mandarin pamphlets and everything. Now our job is to find someone that understands Mandarin because he knows a little English but it's still a struggle. We think we found someone to help us though :)

Thanksgiving was great! After our studies we had breakfast at our house with all of the missionaries! Sister Wanlass fed all of us pancakes and bacon and cinnamon rolls and fruit and it was delicious! Then we all went to the park next to our stake center and played football. Outside. In the snow. And I'm basically the Colts' next wide receiver cuz I scored a touchdown. Just kidding, I'm not good enough for the Colts. Maybe the Patriots. Just kidding. No worries guys, I still hate the Patriots

Welp it happened. I had to give a talk this Sunday. We were out walking and contacting people on Saturday when we got a call asking me to give a 5 minute talk the next day. I talked about the faith to be healed and the faith to heal. Being a missionary and all I flipped it so that it was a lot about having the faith to be healed spiritually. Ironically, that night and the next couple days I was sick. Yay colds! Luckily I'm a lot better now. The other good news is that I didn't have to give a talk at the mission tour because that was in front of a general authority!

The mission tour was pretty great! We had some really good trainings from the assistants to the president and the Chesnuts and the Snows. I learned a lot about working with ward members, the importance of companionship unity, and how to have more meaningful prayers. My favorite quotes from the mission tour are:

1. You're a lot better than you think you are but you're not as good as you could be - Pres. Hinckley

2. For every door you knock on, someone's baptized in Mexico.

They're basically both doctrine haha. There was also a big emphasis on writing in your journal...maybe I should do that more  I really wish we could do mission tours more often! most people maybe get one on their mission though :( oh wait...we got some amazing news in our district meeting the other day. Another general authority is doing a mission tour here! He's coming in January! I can't remember which general authority it was though. I think it was Lynn G. Robbins but I'm not entirely sure.

There's this recent convert named Kristina that is amazing! She has really turned her life around since she learned about the church and there are some pretty obvious results! A year ago she only had custody of one of her five kids. This week she got another two of her kids and they are adorable! It's really amazing to see how the gospel and especially the Atonement can really bless families.

Also, Sister Wanlass is amazing. She's doing this countdown to Christmas thing where every day she gives us a scripture and it leads us to a present that she's hidden throughout the house. She gave us super cute "from the sister missionaries" note cards and other cool stuff.

Hope you all have a great week! Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

5 Months!

Hello! This week was a pretty great week. First I wanted to say congrats to Elder Roberto Gootee for being called as AP! You will do great!

Really not a ton happened this week. You will all be interested to know that I ate duck. Yes, that is the weirdest thing I've eaten that I've actually liked. Now that is not an invitation to cook duck for me when I come home.

This week we had Zone Conference! I love Zone Conference because we have trainings from the zone leaders and the assistants to the president and President and Sister Chesnut. This training was all focused on how to become the fourth missionary, which is really the best missionary there is. They are completely dedicated to the work and put aside everything from home so they can focus. It was a great conference and helped me think a lot more about how I can be better and how to be the most successful missionary I can be.

Sister Gali and I went to dinner with the STL's (sister training leaders), Sisters Hingano and Lawson. We went to Chili's and it was soo good! We each got a 2 for $20 and then we got this cookie cake thing with a scoop of ice cream on it. It was so good! We were waiting for the check when the waiter came and told us that someone had taken care of our bill and wished to remain anonymous. So that was a pretty amazing miracle that happened! Well I think it's a miracle at least because I'm poor.

Then we left Chili's and went to go to the church so I could put my leftovers in the fridge. What we didn't realize is that there was a Spanish ward party going on. So they all insisted on us coming and joining them so we stayed for a little bit and they fed us even more desserts and I about died. One of the miracles is that I'm not a Spanish sister because if I was I would have to eat sooo much food.

Sidenote: I just wanna say that if someone comes to your door and you don't want to talk to them, tell them politely that you're not interested. Treat those that come to your door the way that you would want Mormon missionaries to be treated (well as long as the people coming to your door are not sketchy). Now if they keep coming back then feel free to not answer the door. I know as missionaries we would much rather have someone tell us they are not interested than pretend to be interested and all of a sudden start being rude or not answering the door. Anyway...
Sister Gali got a package from her family this week with lava lavas and Samoan stuffs in it so I'm essentially Samoan now. Just kidding, she told me I looked like a tourist so I guess that illusion's over.

ALSO DON'T FORGET: my p-day next week is on Wednesday! If I do not email you on Monday, I have not died. It is no longer my fault if y'all stress for nothing.

Thanksgiving will be weird for me because we don't proselyte but we hang out with our zone for a majority of it. So I essentially have 2 p-days this week. So that should be fun! But I hope y'all have a great week and have a great Thanksgiving :)

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

P.S. Christmas ideas cuz y'all keep nagging me for those:

-Walmart gift cards
-Music...it has to be churchy music but Nashville Tribute (I think that's what it's called) is allowed and that's pretty great.

-Walmart gift cards

I'm going to wait off on telling you any other places for gift cards because transfer calls aren't until December 13th and who knows what will happen!

Hello!

This week was pretty great! Thanks for all of your prayers for Sister Johnson! We got to our transfer meeting and found out that they had decided to give her a car after all. Miracles do happen :)

I don't know if I mentioned this before or not, but Sister Gali is my new companion and she is from Western Samoa! This last week I've been helping her learn more English. Some of the words I taught her are: Thanksgiving, food baby, go with the flow, Black Friday, food coma, and sketchy. I'm super pumped because we'll be together for her first Thanksgiving!

Some of Sister Gali's likes: Mountain Dew, chocolate milk (that's kinda a problem because I drink a lot of chocolate milk on my own), fried chicken (I took her to KFC for her first time the other day. I may have gotten her addicted)

Some of Sister Gali's dislikes: ranch dressing, pasta

We had some crazy miracles happen this week! For the last month we've been trying to contact one of the people that we were teaching. This week we were leaving a message for him and he called us back! We've met with him twice and haven't exactly set a baptismal date because it's complicated, but we have set a baptismal interview goal date! We're pretty excited! We also met with another one of the people that we're teaching and had an amazing lesson with him. He's decided that he's going to come to church and we set a baptismal date for him!

Update...I still hate dogs. Ok you're caught up on that.

We have been talking with everyone that we see and teaching everyone! A lot of the problem is that we don't get a ton of new investigators because we have to give them to the Spanish hermanas. We had 3 lessons in Spanish on Saturday. I can definitely tell that the Spirit was helping me out because I definitely don't know enough Spanish to be able to carry on a conversation about the gospel with that many people.

Yesterday was the longest day ever. Dustin was right. The longest days are when your companion is sick and you have to stay home. I do have to say it was nice to take a nap and catch up on some sleep, but then you get to the point where you're not tired anymore. And then you just have a ton of time with not much to do. Yay for organizing the area book! I did get to read the Book of Mormon for a little while. I love reading the Book of Mormon! I read Helaman 5 and that is a pretty amazing chapter! If you've not read it recently, it's one you should read. There's so much that happens in it! And of course, it has my favorite scripture in it.

Before I forget, I should tell yall that my P-day is going to change FOR ONLY ONE WEEK in a couple weeks. A general authority is coming to speak to us on the 30th so we won't have P-day till December 2.

I can't really think of anything else that happened this week. I hope you all have a great week!

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Another Transfer

Lots of stuff happened this week! I'll start with the most important.

Sister Johnson is leaving :( she is going to be training though! She's going to do awesome. I am so pumped for her because she is going to do amazing! She's also going to Elko and is going to be in one of the wards that I was in for a couple weeks so she will love it! Sister Gali is going to be my new companion! It's crazy because we're already in the same zone and we went on exchanges together and such.

We went to a hobbit house this weekend. It was THE coolest thing EVER. There's a family in the Lakeside ward that is a huge fan of Lord of the Rings so they decided to build a hobbit house into the hill in their backyard. I'm definitely attaching pictures of that.

We also went to Chili's this week. This member in our ward takes us out to dinner about once a month or so and he took us there. I may have overdosed on chips and salsa.

I also heard the best explanation ever for prayer this week. A 7 year old was helping us teach this guy how to pray and she said that you start by saying Dear Heavenly Father. Then you go wee wee wee and then you say in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. We're going to have to start using that when we teach.

In other news we had mini missions this week! We got a mini missionary for Saturday and it was so much fun! We got to be with Athena, a 17 year old from Carson City, and she is awesome! She treked through the bad smells of Reno and weird things that happened that day that usually don't happen...We'll just leave it at I still hate dogs, and this week I kicked a dog.
Satan is working hard. We keep having this Satanic spiders come and disrupt our personal studies and ruin the whole Spirit. Satan really knows how to get to us. I'm also pretty sure he sends dogs to me and has them come gross me out while I'm trying to bear my testimony.
On Sunday we had stake conference and part of it was a broadcast from Salt Lake City. It was so good! We were all encouraged by Elder Lynn G Robins to simplify our lives. He talked about how Satan may not have a ton of success in making you too wicked but he is pretty successful at making you too busy. He asked us all to consider what we could do to simplify our lives and reminded us that the antidote to complexity is contentment. I also liked Elder Dallin H Oaks' talk. He encouraged us to commit ourselves to put the Lord first in our lives. He also posed the important question to ask ourselves: Are we active in the gospel or active in the Church? While we should at least be attending our meetings and being considered active in the Church, it is so much more important to be active in the gospel. We can do this when we are being a 7 day member and being a member when no one is looking. I thought of the importance of daily prayer and scripture study and taking the sacrament with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Lots of interesting things to think about!

I can't really think of a ton of other stuff that happened this week. Just helping Sister Johnson get ready to move today :( pray for her, she's going to an all biking area in the winter! 😓

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Almost 3 transfers!

Hello! This week was pretty fantastic!

We had exchanges again this week! I got to go with Sister Lawson to the Lakeside area and we had so much fun street contacting in the rain! For those of you who don't know, no one is outside when it's raining, so it's kinda hard to street contact...Anyway, we talked to quite a few people still and we went to Arby's, so what more can you ask for in life?

Halloween was so much fun! We got so much candy :) just kidding, we were on lock down starting at 6. We did our weekly planning session and had a party planning and eating the pizza that a member ordered us :) Heck, I'll take pizza over pretty much anything, so no complaints here.
We also had a specialized sisters' training on Friday! This mission has never done it before, but all 38 sisters from across the mission came to Sparks and we had an amazing training! We were at the Sparks building from about 10:30 until 9. So we were there a little while. It was great! I got to see Sister Hingano (my comp in Elko) and Sister Paul (my MTC comp) and Sister Anderson (my MTC roomie) and a ton of other sisters! We also had a clothes swap where everyone brought clothes that they didn't want and we had a free-for-all. So of course I got a ton of new clothes :) It was so much fun and so spiritual at the same time. It was based off the talk "Finish with your Torch Still Lit" by President Uchtdorf. We talked about putting everything that could distract us from our missions in a box and sending it home. So we wrote down a bunch of stuff and put it in a box and those boxes are now at the mission home. It was a great training! We also talked about how we are here to bring about a marvelous work among the people in our areas and within ourselves. I learned so much about how I can be a better missionary and how to let my mission be the best years FOR my life!

Here's an update on things sobre mi:
1. I drank an entire gallon of chocolate milk this week. I may be addicted...
2. I ate a ton of broccoli this week. I'm definitely not addicted...
3. A dog licked my mouth this week. Dogs are still the worst
4. An old man addressed me as "Precious" this week. All I could do was picture him as Smeagul
5. A dinner cancelled but they still ordered Papa John's for us. Yay for my new favorite member :)

Sorry this week's letter was short. I love being a missionary! It's so much fun :) We have met so many great people and are still looking for those that are ready for us! Prepare for a billion pictures!

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

4 months?!

Hello everyone! I hope that you've had a spectacular week!

This week was a little crazy but it was awesome!

Y'all should be extremely proud. On Monday for dinner I ate (well not all, but a lot) of a stuffed pepper. It's called chili relleno. I thought that I was going to die. Then on Thursday we filled in for the Spanish hermanas and went to their Spanish dinner. It was pretty fun! As an initiation type thing for new missionaries, they always make them eat this special pepper. It's about the size of my pinky nail and it's this hard, shriveled up red pepper. They told us to eat it and move it around our mouth. I was fine at first and then it got progressively hotter and hotter. With every breath it got hotter. Sister Johnson was crying. They couldn't believe how well I was handling it because I just acted all nonchalant and wasn't even crying. Some of them didn't even believe that I had eaten it because everyone cries when they eat it. #victory

On Thursday I went on an exchange that I will probably never again get the opportunity to do. Hermana Gatten was sick and the hermanas had a lesson that they were going to have to cancel. So we came up with this plan. Sister Johnson would stay with Hermana Gatten and I would go with Hermana Christensen to the lesson. So we watched Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration in Spanish. I've legit never prayed so hard for the Spirit in my life. I was praying so hard that I would know of how to help in this lesson. So after we watched part of the video we talked about it. Hermana Christensen was talking and then she stopped and looked at me. For those of you that don't know, that's missionary code for "I did my job, your turn!" So I bore my testimony in my broken Spanish to her about everything that Hermana was just talking about. Then Hermana talked some more and did it again. It was definitely an experience trying to depend on the Spirit so much so that I would be able to convey what I was thinking in Spanish!

Then we went on a more normal exchange on Friday. I went with Sister Gali who is awesome! She's from Western Samoa so Reno's a little different for her. We had some... interesting... experiences. 

So we were sitting at Taco Bell eating our lunch when this lady walked over and asked us what congregation we served in. I said Mt Rose and Lakeside and then she saw our name tags and realized that we weren't Jehovah Witnesses. She told us that she thought we were JW at first and then she told us that she's a preacher or whatever their leader is. She started asking us what we teach. Mwahahaha don't ask a missionary what they teach if you don't want a mini lesson in the middle of Taco Bell. So I told her that we teach about how Christ can bring us peace and happiness through all of the hard times that we go through in life. I then showed her a Restoration pamphlet and talked a little bit about that. She wasn't super interested but we had a good little chat about what we believe.

Then we went and saw this person that the sisters had met last week. He was a tad drunk. Like drunk enough that even I noticed (that's pretty drunk). He was going on and on with all this stuff, making weird faces, and he didn't break eye contact with me the entire time. So I'm struggle-busing trying not to laugh (because it's hard). Then he told Sister Gali not to change her eyebrows and that he liked her eyebrows. It turns out that apparently I look angry at him the way that my eyebrows are. It was probably my look of deep concentration as I struggled so hard to keep a straight face. So I guess that was his way of telling me that he wants me to change my eyebrows. Sorry guys, not changing.

That night we went to Lakeside's Chili Cookoff/Trunk or Treat. For those of you that missed last week, I just went to ours the week before. This time was great because I got candy and I ate a lot of snacks. Y'all would be proud because I recognized this guy's outfit. He was dressed up as the neighbor from Home Improvement. He was wearing a hat and was holding a little fence made of popsicle sticks in front of his face whenever he talked to anyone. #success

I just wanna say that blessings really do come after the trial of your faith. I was quite discouraged after about the 5th night in a row of pasta but then the miracle came...Pizza Hut! God answers prayers!

Heavenly Father really does protect His missionaries too. The other day we were walking through this heavily wooded area when suddenly out of nowhere acorns were falling from the sky! It was quite terrifying but neither one of us was hit by a single acorn. #blessings

The Church is true. The gospel is THE way to true happiness!

I hope you all have an excellent week! I'm going to call Rebecca Gootee out in front of everyone for not emailing me. So get on that.

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Hola :)

Hello :) This week was pretty great! It went by super fast and I can't believe it's already been a whole week since I emailed last.

I'll start off with some quotes from this week:

We were out contacting and we both felt like we should go knock on this door. The lady came to the door and the conversation was something like this:

Sister Johnson: Hi, we're missionaries and we were wondering if there was anyone that you knew that might need some service.
Lady: Oh I knew it was Wednesday. No thank you. **walks away**

We spent the rest of the day confused and trying to figure out what the heck is so special about Wednesday. The only thing that we can think of is that she thought we were Jehovah Witnesses and that maybe they only come around once a week. We considered going back on Friday and trying again just to confuse her 

Later that day, we were in a lesson. The person we were teaching had gone in the other room for a minute and Sister Johnson saw a Mr. Potato Head hat sitting there next to us.

Sister Johnson: Every time I see this, I think of baptism.....Did I really just say that?
Me: It's a sign.
Sister Johnson: I meant Toy Story...

To make a longish story short, we committed her to baptism. #fiesta

We had a super fun Chili Cook-off/Trunk or Treat activity on Friday! There were close to 200 people that came to it. I love how much this ward gets involved in the ward activities and how friendly everyone is! We even got to hand out candy from the trunk of our car and we ended up running out of candy (partly because there were a ton more kids than we were expecting but mainly because we're poor missionaries but I digress). I'm so glad that we got to go and that I've been able to meet more people in the ward! 

On Sunday we got to go to the Air Force National Guard base. We held a sacrament meeting with them and it was super cool! There were only 4 people from the base that came but we had a great service! And it was awesome because the member of the stake presidency came forgot to bring bread. So we improvised and took the sacrament with donuts. I'm not complaining! :)

A lot of people speak Spanish here, so that's kinda a struggle because a) we have to give them to the Spanish hermanas to teach and 2) literally every time I speak in Spanish to people I forget how to say the name of the church. I can carry a conversation with them and get their basic info but apparently remembering the church's name is too much to ask. Anyway, we've been teaching A LOT lately. Like I've never had numbers this high before on my mission. In the last two weeks we have taught over 50 lessons. It's definitely a lot different being in Reno than in Spring Creek. If we would've taught 50 lessons in Spring Creek, we would've taught half the town (ok, not quite, but it'd be a lot). It's amazing how many people we have to teach here. It's also been great to get to work with the different members of the ward and see who they know. It definitely helps the missionaries out when you know people that they're trying to contact :) don't forget to help the missionaries however you can!

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

P.S. New things sobre mi:

I hardly ever straighten my hair anymore...weird...
I drink more Coke than Mountain Dew now (be proud, you know you are :) )

I ate broccoli and cheese soup (twice) this week (again, be proud)

By the time 9:30 rolls around, I am so ready for bed!

I drank a whole half liter of chocolate milk this week...sad to call that a great improvement

I'm almost finished with Alma!!! #fiesta

#fiesta

Hello everyone! This week has been amazing! I'm going to split everything up by days cuz I'm OCD like that...

Monday

So it's pretty awesome because a lot of people in Reno speak Spanish. So we were out contacting less active members and we came to this apartment and asked if this one lady lived there. The lady told us she didn't speak English so I just started up a conversation in Spanish with her. She could definitely tell I was a gringo but whatever. I got her information and everything and asked her if Spanish missionaries could come by and see her and she said yes. So yay referrals for them!

Tuesday

First off, we had bacon cheeseburgers for dinner. It was delicious but sadly I didn't eat all of it. While that's enough of a miracle for one day, other cool stuff did happen. We were just walking through as missionaries do and this guy walked by us and we asked how he was. He said he was sad and we asked if we could pray with him. He asked us to come with him to his apartment, and then we had a lesson with him. He told us that he was pretty sure God sent us to him and that he thinks he's ready to learn more about what we believe. He knew enough English to have a conversation but we gave him to the Spanish sisters. So yay more referrals for them!

I also figured out that I like teaching math teachers. We got to the end of the lesson with this lady and I asked her to say the closing prayer. She said she's not good at praying. I said that if there was one thing I learned in math class it was that if you wanted to get good at math you do math. The words were barely out of my mouth before she started saying a prayer.

Wednesday

We went to the temple! It was amazing! The temple in Reno has a beautiful view. It's up in the mountains and it's so pretty! I loved being able to go in and feel so much peace and love :)

Later on that day we had some problems. This lady ended up having to give us a ride home from our dinner appointment. The problem was that she gave us so many leftovers and extra food that we couldn't possibly carry them home. So I guess that's a good problem to have :) Reno's really trying to make me fat...I mean, she gave us a ton of cheesecake. I'm gonna get sooo fat.

The good thing is that we started doing morning program as a zone on Wednesday. We have 12-14 of us that come every morning and play sports for about half an hour or so. It's super fun!

Thursday

We taught some awesome investigators on Thursday! But this letter is getting lengthy so I'll spare you on details.

Friday

We met a drunk guy on Friday! I need to get better at recognizing when people are drunk cuz I may or may not have had no idea...we had a pretty good lesson with him but I don't think he remembers it at this point.

We also taught English twice on Friday! #fiesta. We taught this lady from the Philippines and then this hispanic guy that's trying to learn English. The second time was more fun because I got to practice some Spanish at the same time :)

Saturday

WE ATE APPLEBEE'S!! Sorry, anyone that knows me knows I love Applebee's. A member took us out and it was quite tasty :)

Sunday

We had fast Sunday! Guess who accidentally ate a bagel Sunday morning :( Anyway, I got to meet my ward for the first time and well umm my ward is pretty much all elderly people. Anyway, we were nearing the end of fast and testimony meeting and Bishop got up and said that he forgot to announce that there was a new sister in the ward and that he'd like me to come up and introduce myself and bear my testimony. So for those of you wondering, that's the first time I've ever born my testimony in sacrament meeting before.

My ward is pretty awesome! I love Reno so much and Sister Johnson is amazing! Missions are so much fun and I'm enjoying it more and more each day! Also, thank you Sarah Egendoerfer for the package that I got! :) I realized last week that it was Rachel Weiss and Sarah that had sent that to me, so thanks a ton girls :) Have a fantastic week everybody!

Love and miss y'all! :)

Sister Ashley Gootee :) 

On to Reno

Hello! This week was a lot different than the last few weeks were! I should probably just go in chronological order so this all makes a little more sense!

Monday night and Tuesday was a little weird. I had all of my stuff packed up by Tuesday night and had to go and say goodbye to a bunch of people. So that was kinda sad. Monday night I got to have dinner with an awesome family though, so I'll try to attach a picture of that :)

Transfer day was a little interesting. Usually we have a transfer meeting at noon and it's pretty much a testimony meeting. So we went to Arby's (which was delicious, of course) before the meeting and as we were driving to the church we got a text that the meeting wouldn't be until 1:30. Turns out that the transfer van got a flat tire somewhere on the long trek from Reno to Elko. So we rearranged some things and Sister Hingano's lunch with a member got moved to before the meeting. So I ended up having lunch again, which was kinda depressing because she bought us Costa Vida and I wasn't nearly hungry enough for how good it is.

Then the transfer van came and we ended up not having a meeting and just starting the drive. It was strange because I was the only sister there...it was just the 2 drivers, me, and an elder. So I was unofficial companions with an elder which was a little strange. I did get a pretty solid nap in for a couple hours on the way to Winnemucca though!

Anyway, apparently it rains every time I go to a new area. So it was raining quite a bit when we got to the mission office in Sparks. Then I got to meet Sister Johnson! She's so awesome! She's a great missionary and it's been fun trying to figure out the whole missionary thing as we're both still pretty new.

Thursday morning we got to do service at a food bank! Despite the fact that we were outside in the cold rain, it was such a great experience. It was humbling to see so many people come through and be able to help them out in such a small yet impactful way. And it was pretty awesome because a lot of them spoke Spanish, so I got to practice my Spanish :)

Thursday night I got to meet a family that we've been teaching. As we were talking, their son, Eric (who is around my age), asked me where I was from. I said Indianapolis area and he asked me if I was a Colts fan. Then he got so excited! Apparently he's a huge Colts fan! I got to make him jealous by telling him that I've met Reggie Wayne.

So clearly I'm pretty tired. Here's how a message I left on someone's voicemail went: "Hi this is the sister missionaries! We were just wondering if there was a time that we could come by and get to know you guys! We hope you guys are doing great and that we'll be able to see you soon! In the name of Jesus Christ....................................**did I really just say that?**............*whispers* Sister Johnson, how do I change it?............................**hangs up." So clearly I'm still working on the whole communication thing. Who knows, maybe they'll actually call us back, even if it is to laugh at me :)

Anyway, Reno's pretty great. I was going to tell you about the incredible sketchiness of the area and the high crime rate where I live, but that would be a bit of a lie. The members here are great! And no worries, people are feeding us. My taste buds will hopefully adapt soon :) I'm not in downtown Reno so there are a lot of people but minus the downtown sketchiness. I do have to admit it was a bit of a culture shock moving from a tiny town to a bigger city but I love it! I'd probably compare this area to a little busier, a little less sketchy Terre Haute (?) without the absolutely disgusting smell. It's good to know that Five Guys is still in existence and that there is more than just Subway and Dominos here! They have good pizza places and tons of different restaurants! So those of you asking about gift cards, pretty much anything but Chick fil-a is here! :) Which is kinda depressing, but I'll survive.
Conference was so great! There were so many amazing talks! I don't have the talks with me but my favorites at the time were Elders James B. Martino, Larry R. Lawrence, Von G. Keetch, Kim B. Clark, and David A. Bednar. There were other good ones but those are the ones that stuck out to me as I looked over my notes :)
Unfortunately our P-day is getting cut a little short today :( but for a good reason...WE GET TO GO TO THE TEMPLE :) I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get to go to the temple a single time on my mission but I get to go on Wednesday! I'm so excited!!! :)

ALSO! Thank you so much Rachel Weiss and Halle Mackey! You two are the best :) I got a package from my little buddies this week and it made my day :)

Have a great week! Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

3rd transfer?!

Hello everyone! Can you all believe that I just finished my second transfer?! Craziness!

This week was not nearly as crazy as last week. My week started with a super fun Zone Activity last Monday! We all went to the park and hung out and played sports and talked. It was so much fun to see everyone! I've been in Elko for the last couple weeks in a trio and it was great to see my district in Spring Creek and get to talk to them!

Tuesday and Wednesday were a lot of driving. And I mean a lot. My trio is me, Sister Hingano, and Sister Doyle, and Sister Hingano is the Sister Training Leader for this area. That means that they do exchanges pretty much every week with the different sisters in the area. So we drove halfway to Ely, which was about an hour and a half to 2 hour drive or so, to meet the sisters serving there. I got a good nap in both days and I also got a lot of planning and organizing done for my area!

It was super great because the sister that came to Elko on exchanges was Sister Paul :) She was my companion in the MTC, so it was great to see her and talk to her and catch up on things! She's so awesome. And she's going to be training this transfer!

Thursday was a lot of splits. I went out with a few sisters from the ward and we got so much done! We did a church tour with a couple of investigators we had and it was the first church tour that I'd ever done! It was a little weird because I didn't have a companion with me, but the Hadleys (who I went on splits with) helped out a ton :)

We got so much done on Friday too thanks to all of the sisters that offered to come on splits with me! It was crazy because pretty much everyone we tried was home. Definitely a blessing! And that night we went to the ward's Pie and Ice Cream Social, and I am totally good with free pie and ice cream :)

Sunday was great! The Elko sisters are in charge of 2 wards, so I got to take the sacrament twice! We also went to late night sacrament, which is sacrament meeting for those who can't come because they work in the mines. Not many people came, but it was great to feel the Spirit so strongly in such a small group as I took the sacrament for the third time that day.

Thursday was a little crazy too. We got a call from President Chesnut in the middle of the day, which is kinda weird. It turned out that Sister Doyle's visa had come in so she could go to Brazil! The super crazy thing is that she had to fly out at 6:30 this morning, so she had to be packed and heading to Reno on Sunday night. It was so sad to see her go :( she'll do great though!

Speaking of Reno, I'm being transferred there! Surprise! My new companion will be Sister Johnson, who came out with me :) I don't really know her but she seems super nice! Also, I've heard that the temple is either in or really close to my area. So I'm pretty pumped about that! That'll definitely make up for the culture shock from leaving Spring Creek, which is about 1/40 the size of Reno :D

My new address is 4350 Acadia Way, Reno, NV 89502. The crazy thing is that even though it's farther from home, I'll get mail faster than when you sent it to Spring Creek :) Also, thanks so much Grandma for the gift cards! :) We were super excited that we got to order some pizza on Saturday and have a mini fiesta for Sister Doyle :)

Our district leader will be taking over 2nd ward in addition to 4th ward. As of Wednesday, Spring Creek 2nd ward will have elders. It'll be a change but hopefully it'll be a good change!

I'll definitely miss Spring Creek. It's been a huge change from what I'm used to, but I survived living in a small town with not even a Walmart for 3 months :) The ward here is super amazing and I am going to miss all of the people so much. I'm so grateful for the Baileys for letting us live in their beautiful home and for the Hadleys for being the best ward mission leaders ever. I'll definitely miss my district and zone, who are some of the coolest missionaries ever :) I'll especially miss Sister Hingano, who's been a great companion for these last two weeks :)

Wish me luck in Reno! :)

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Almost another transfer

Wow this was a pretty crazy week! Lots of things happened!

I'll just start with the biggest thing. I ate spaghetti this week. No worries, I still hate spaghetti. Oh wait, I guess that's not really important...

Well I'm in Elko now! Lots of crazy stuff happened last week and Sister Torres got sent home for health problems. That was really hard. I found out on Tuesday that she was going home and then she left shortly after and I didn't really get the chance to talk to her a ton. I miss her so much because we got along so well and we had a lot of fun but I know she's getting the help she needs.

Anyway, it has been an adventure being in Elko! Sister Doyle and Hingano are awesome and it's definitely an experience being in a trio! There are some interesting people here in Elko...But the really cool thing is that I've gotten to use Spanish 3 or 4 times and before this week I had never used Spanish on my mission! So that's been awesome!

Members bought us pizza this week too and that was an amazing miracle. Another member bought us Dairy Queen and got each of us a dilly bar and a blizzard. It was so delicious!

The members in Spring Creek are awesome. The three of us have to cover 3 different wards now and it's been a little bit of a struggle. I sent out a mass text asking for sisters to come out with me and go to lessons or go tracting and almost 20 sisters responded saying that they could! The sisters in Spring Creek 2nd are really the ones that are going to keep the work moving!

Well not much else is going on here. Sorry my letter is so short! I hope you all had a great week!

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Hello!

Hello all!

This week was a pretty great week. We've been out knocking on lots of doors and have been finding quite a few people to teach! Well, not every time we knock on the door is a great experience. I've learned a lot about what different drugs smell like so that's been an interesting experience! 

I've clearly been teaching Sister Torres a lot. When people ask us what we want for dinners and such she's been requesting burgers! It's been a great change :) Considering she was vegan before her mission, I'm going to consider this the biggest accomplishment of my life. We've had steak a couple times in the last couple weeks and I've learned that steak is really good! Also, our ward mission leader, Brother Hadley, is pretty awesome. He got our dinner calendar filled for the whole month! We're pretty excited about that :)

The other day we were teaching a lesson on an awesome member's porch. Sister Torres was talking when suddenly she started freaking out. She then pointed out to us this spider web. Apparently she had flicked a fly right into a spider web and she was watching the spider jump on the bug and wrap it in a web. We're both a little ADD when it comes to seeing things like that...

The other day I realized again how every lesson in Relief Society can lead back to a discussion on marriage. Our lesson on helping the elderly was really just a lesson on marriage in disguise...Can I go back to nursery yet?

Spring Creek has been growing on me more and more. I'm not saying that I could ever live in such a small town, but the people here are definitely awesome! Members come with us to most of the lessons we have and it's been great seeing people begin to feel the excitement of missionary work. The people that aren't interested 99% of the time are still nice and will have a conversation with us. As we've been working hard all day long we have seen so many miracles throughout the week. Here are some that I wrote down in my planner (we write them down every night):

Miracle from last Monday: We finally got to meet with a less active family that we've been trying to contact!

Miracle from Tuesday: We had a delicious lunch at Costa Vida and then we got to meet with an investigator that we haven't gotten to meet with in a while!

Miracle from Wednesday: We had dinner with this amazing member! She's pretty awesome, she's like my 4th or 5th grandma or something :) She has an amazing testimony he is getting ready to go on her mission to the Family History Center

Miracle from Thursday: We got a text out of nowhere from someone that we didn't know asking us if they could give us information so that their daughter could start going to Young Women

Miracle from Friday: We've been teaching this awesome 7 year old named Daisy. Her family is super active in the church and they came to us and asked if we could teach her in preparation for baptism. It's been helping us a ton because we're teaching an 8 year old whose family is less active and we've really been learning how to teach simply. We had dinner with Daisy's family last week and it was great! Afterward Daisy tried to repay us each for teaching her by giving us each a dollar. She was adamant that we should take the money but we finally convinced her to keep it and just color us a picture or something instead. Daisy is super awesome!

Miracle from Saturday: We had some delicious burgers for dinner and we also got a new investigator (kind of).

Miracle from Sunday: We had investigators and less actives that came to church! In case you were wondering, not much can make a missionary happier. We also had an amazing lesson that night with an awesome family! They're interested in learning more and they're feeding us next Sunday!

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)