Already a month?

Hello everyone! I've been out a month now, which is super crazy because it doesn't feel like I've been in Nevada for 3 weeks already! It really is true that the days are weeks and the weeks are days :) Every time I get to Saturday I'm like "oh wait, I guess it's not Tuesday."

Anyway, I'll try to update you guys on things from this week and things I've forgotten to mention. So, Sister Torres is awesome. We're laughing pretty much all the time. The other night we went to a relief society activity and there was so much cake and sugar so I may have been a tad sugar high for a few minutes. But we laughed pretty much the whole activity because we're both pretty much the funniest people ever (I mean, you all already knew that about me :) ), and I think the relief society may think we're crazy now. But oh well.

We've also learned to laugh at people who reject us. Some people are terrible liars. I mean terrible. Especially considering for some reason many people in Spring Creek have their last name somewhere on their porch, we can tell if you're lying about who you are. Also, if you change your story 3 times in our 2 minute conversation, you may need to work on your lying. Or meet with the missionaries so you can give up your habit of lying. The latter is preferred :)

Sister Torres is awesome though. I didn't mention this before, but she's a convert and joined the church when she was 15. She decided while she was taking the discussions that she wanted to go on a mission.

My district is pretty cool too. We do morning program everyday, which is us exercising at 6:30 in the morning. There are 8 people in our district and usually we have 6 of us there at morning program.

Something cool I learned this week is about (you guessed it) visiting and home teaching!!! Aren't y'all so glad I'm teaching you so much about it? :) So anyway, visiting and home teaching isn't a calling it's a commission. So not to be blunt or anything, but we've kinda all covenanted with God that we'd do it so ya know, we should do it. It's kinda a big deal...

Anyways, there may be more dogs than people in Spring Creek. This last week we had 5 dogs in our house. The Baileys have 2 chihuahuas that are the most pampered things in the universe. No but really, they don't get fed dog food, they probably get fed better than I do, which is saying something. The Baileys were also watching their kids' two dogs last week. They're a lot bigger than chihuahuas and they stayed outside cuz for some reason chihuahuas and big dogs don't get along. They also had this dog that was the most adorable dog I've ever seen (no, but really, I would pet her and stuff! I drew the line when she licked me. I haven't pet her since then...). Her name's Ruby and she's adorable but I've never heard anyone or any dog snore as loud as she does.

Last week we were doing our nightly planning and Ruby came up and Sister Torres was petting her. When she left we realized she was sitting on Sister Torres's planner and there was a little drippage left over after....We laughed a lot, mainly because it wasn't my planner. No one would have been laughing then.

Anyway, here's some things I will not be doing after my mission:

-Waking up at 6 in the morning. Or anytime before 8:30 unless my life depends on it.

-Exercising at 6:30 in the morning. You'll be lucky to get me to exercise any time before noon after my mission.

-Owning a dog. Those things are annoying. Sorry guys, haven't gotten over that on my mission.

-Washing a car in a dress. We'll see if I wash cars by hand after my mission, but I'll definitely not be wearing proselyting clothes to do it after my mission.

-Eating salad. Or noodles. Like, ever. That stuff's gross.

Anyway I'm having a great time! It's been going by pretty fast and we've been busy all the time! And no worries, I'm being fed every day for dinner and I've been cooking on my George Foreman grill for lunch :) No complaints here!

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Another week down!

Ok so I forgot to say some stuffs about Spring Creek last week when I emailed. So I'll try to review...

So the first week it rained a ton. And rain here isn't like Indiana rain. Here the rain drops are humungous and they hurt when they hit you. Also, when you look out the window, it looks like monsoon season. The rain smells like mint here which is very strange...

The days it hasn't rained it's been pretty nice. The weather has been pretty good with a lot of days in the high of 80s and lows of 50s. The first night it didn't rain I got to watch the sunset over the mountains, which is awesome with the Ruby Mountains! It's so cool! The mountains kinda change colors. You'll have to look at some pictures on Google. Also, you can see the stars really well here! That's the benefit of living in the middle of nowhere.

Speaking of the middle of nowhere, I said I was from Indiana and lived close to Indianapolis and someone was like "oh so that's a lot like Nevada, with not a ton of people." I had to correct them...there's a little bit of a difference as Indianapolis has a greater population than the state of Nevada.

By the way, you all should do your visiting and home teaching.

Also, along with everyone and their mother owning a dog, everyone here works in the mines. It's crazy! They all have super crazy schedules!

Oh, I forgot to mention, home and visiting teaching are super important.

I've taught over 20 lessons since I got here! It's crazy. We've been teaching a lot of less active members and a few investigators :) We have some solid investigators! We've also had dinner appointments every night and aside from getting fed salad almost every night it's been great :)

Oh wow, can't believe I almost forgot, but visiting teaching and home teaching are really really really important.  Most wards have about 300 people in the ward. We have 300 households. It's kinda impossible for me and Sister Torres to go and visit everyone, so we're trying to motivate the ward to visit and home teach more. The awesome thing is, if you can't get ahold of someone you're home and visiting teaching, ask the missionaries to go with you! They'd love to help :)

Anyway, that's all that I can really think of for this week. It is with great pain that I ask you all to send me Dominos and Subway gift cards if you are wanting to send me stuff. I feel disgusted saying that, but that's all they have here.

Life in Nevada

Hello! So this letter is going to be a little shorter but anyway...

I am serving in Spring Creek, Nevada. It's about 25 minutes or so from Elko. It took about 5 hours to get here from Reno so that was a crazy long drive! Also, side note...everyone here measures distance in miles...? It's super weird cuz I'll say I live about 20 minutes from Indianapolis and everyone looks at me like I'm crazy for measuring distance in minutes. It's also weird because people will tell me that somewhere is 30 miles away and I have to ask them how long they're driving or how fast they're going so I can translate to Indiana talk. That was a random side not, but anyway...
So Sister Torres is my trainer and she's awesome! She's from Florida and we're a lot alike. We both love fast food, despite Subway and Dominos being the only fast food places within a 25 minute drive. She also drinks Dr Pepper a lot so she doesn't judge me for my Mountain Dew intake. We get along super well though so it's been pretty fun!

Man our apartment is a dump. Jk that's cuz it doesn't exist. We live in a member's home. They're the Baileys and they're pretty cool. Brother Bailey owns a business where he designs homes and then the people that work for him build the homes. Their house is awesome! Also, we have a house cleaner that comes in so that's great because I don't have to clean bathrooms or anything. The pictures I have attached of the landscape is our view from the front lawn, which we can also see from our desk that we study at.

Everyone and their mother here owns a dog. No kidding. Every house we go to there is at least one.

Everyone here also knows a Mormon. It's pretty much a mini-Utah out here and everyone is super nice. We've done a ton of work with less actives. The only unfortunate thing is the ward slacks on signing up for dinners on our calendar. Oh wait...We have one night in the next 3 or 4 weeks that we don't have a dinner appointment for. So glad I'm a sister cuz that means people feed us :)

The ward mission leader is Brother Hadley. I was talking to him and found out that both of his parents grew up in Brazil, Indiana. So that's awesome! He and his wife are super cool. We actually used to be in charge of our dinner calendar and had half of our nights filled for dinner appointments, but since she took charge of it this week she got all of our nights filled. So that's awesome!

I'm going to send a ton of pictures now because they won't attach

Love you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee

So much to tell everyone but so little time.... This letter may be a little random :)

So teaching is awesome! Sister Paul and I taught so many lessons this week! There was this one we had prepared a ton for and were ready to teach him the Plan of Salvation. We had our game plan ready and we went in and started talking to our investigator, Joseph. As we talked and said an opening prayer, Sister Paul and I felt prompted to go a completely different direction. After the prayer, I read a conference quote about God's love for us and we talked for 20 minutes about God and how much he wants to hear from us in prayer. My mouth was seriously filled with what to say as I spoke. The spirit is amazing!

Another day this week my district had a testimony meeting. As many people know, I have anxiety problems so doing anything in front of a group of people terrifies me and I get so nervous. I felt like I should bear my testimony to the 15 other people in my district meeting, and I've never felt so calm. It was seriously as if I was having a casual conversation with a good friend instead of bearing my testimony to a group of people I hardly know.

I'm talking a lot about lessons but that's seriously my life here. So we taught another investigator named Ny (who is actually not one of our teachers and could be a legit nonmember) and we taught about the Book of Mormon. We asked her to read 1 Nephi 1 and when she came back for the next lesson she had so many questions. We spent the entire 25 minutes answering questions about the first 5 or 6 verses of 1 Nephi 1. I had no idea I knew so much about the Book of Mormon! And every question we didn't know we found out soon after the lesson! I even found a scripture that talked about prophets warning the people of the destruction of Jerusalem in the Bible, so ya the Church is pretty much completely true :)

So the Fourth of July is kinda lame here. Our teachers got us excited for this fun activity thing and then we all got there and it was a devotional. The speaker was a professor from BYU and he went on for close to an hour and a half. If I was ever considering taking a history of religion class, I know without a doubt now that I never will. He also spoke for so long that it went until 10 and we missed some of the fireworks. Not that we could really see them from the MTC parking lot anyway....

On Sunday we met Stephanie Nielson from the Mormon Message "My New Life." We just ran into her during our temple walk and we all got to take a picture with her. Unfortunately, we didn't get to talk to her very much.

Speaking of Mormon Messages, y'all need to see "Lift." It's seriously the most amazing video ever! Also, Sister Anderson's Texas pride may be wearing off on me. She's hung a Texas flag in our room and I've started saying y'all sometimes (which I had to ask her how to spell and all :) ).

Last night we had a great devotional with Jenny Oaks Baker. For those of you that don't know, her dad's kinda a big deal. I mean, he's Elder Oaks, ya know the apostle. Jenny is also a professional violinist and played some for us. She even performed with her kids and it was amazing! I believe her kids are 13, 12, 10, and 8 and they played the violin, piano, cello, and guitar. The music was amazing and I learned so much from what she said.

I didn't tell you guys last week about the amazing devotional we watched from Elder Bednar called "Character of Christ." The talk for some reason can only be found at the MTC and it's amazing! He talked a lot about the difference between having a testimony and being truly converted. He also talked about turning outward and selflessly serving in order to work toward having the character of Christ. He also compared the natural man to Cookie Monster, and seriously who doesn't want to see Elder Bednar impersonate Cookie Monster? But in all seriousness, that talk is seriously life changing!

Also, as a random side note, I slept in til 7:30 yesterday and it was glorious! We had stayed up until almost midnight the night before because of fireworks and talking and such so that was much needed!

I also forgot to tell y'all that I will be for sure riding a bike on my mission...I prepared a little bit by riding about 4 miles on a stationary bike in 20 minutes on Friday, and I didn't die during or after, so I think I may be fine...Pray for me :)

From the depth of my soul, I must request that you all see Legacy. Never in my life have I seen such superb acting and I strive daily to emulate such quality. I learned so much, including some pick up lines of the century (well, maybe the 19th century). Becca, take note because I expect you to use this line. I really should've given it to you before you left EFY but whatever..."I'll miss you! After tribulation cometh the blessing." Man those actors were some smooth talkers and let me tell ya about the extreme amount of hand holding and hugging in the movie. I also learned how to turn down an ox nicely after having a deep heart to heart with it. "I know you've given your best but it isn't enough." Next time I have a deep heart to heart with my ox or even some random person (it could probably work for anyone!) I'll be sure to use that line. If all of this has not convinced you, the men's amazing hair will. Just wow. New favorite movie.

As a reward for getting this far, here are some things that are only said at the MTC. I'll be leaving tomorrow for Reno so enjoy :)
--If you see your companion falling asleep, punch them in the face.

--You have my permission to mug each other. Spiritually mug each other.

--You know a speaker's from Utah when he's talking about his trip to the Northeast, and then you realize he is talking about Ohio and somehow considers that to be the Northeast.

--Speaker at last Sunday's devotional: How many of you have gotten a Dear John/Dear Jane already? **He has them all stand.** Let's observe you and your battle scars. **pauses** Now for the rest of you, there's always mail tomorrow!

Love and miss you all!
Sister Ashley Gootee :)

The First Week

Hey everyone! I can't believe it's only my fifth day. I have to have been here at least a month already right? Wednesday and Thursday were so long. I could not get my mind off of all of you and it was difficult staying focused and being able to learn by the spirit. Thursday night I really prayed that I would be able to focus on what I was learning and not be so homesick. That made Friday so much better! Seriously, it was a night and day difference.

Sister Paul is my companion and she is super awesome! We get along so well and she has a pretty solid testimony. We've both been working really hard and have learned a ton in our classes and companionship studies together. We have similar ways of preparing for lessons and we bounce off each other really well during lessons. It is interesting to hear about different experiences she's had as she is from Arizona and grew up around tons of members.

My roommates are pretty great too. Sister Anderson is from Texas and Sister Tua is Polynesian and is from Utah. Her sister is actually serving in Indianapolis and is Sister Clegg's companion! Out of the four of us, all of us are going to Nevada Reno except for Sister Tua who is going to Ohio Columbus.

This whole week has been mission president training for new mission presidents. That means this whole week we've had the prophet and most of the apostles in the cafeteria where we usually eat and training the new presidents. This also means that there are many times where only a couple walls separate me from prophets of God, which is super awesome to think about!

As all of these general authorities are here, there have been changes on campus. We all have to be dressed with the highest standards of dress and maintain the highest cleaning standards as a mission president or apostle could decide to come in and teach our class. It's definitely been an amazing thing to look forward to!

On a very related note, on Thursday a voice came over the loud speaker and told all of the sisters to report to 19M, or the new cafeteria/meeting place for this week. Allowing our minds to run wild, we all excitedly prepared to listen to an apostle speak to the sisters! Then the MTC president got up and told us he was going to change our lives for the near future. And then the announcement of a lifetime...Sisters, there was a bat found in 17M (our residence) so we are relocating all of the sisters across campus to a new residence. So instead of meeting the prophet, I carried two 50 pound suitcases up a couple flights of stairs. So that was fun....

So I met my mission president and his wife on Friday night. His wife walked in first and started crying as soon as she saw us. Then President Chesnut came in and we all got to shake his hand and got to know him a little bit. He and his wife are amazing. They have such strong testimonies and I feel so happy being with them. At the end of our meeting with just 16 new missionaries, our mission president, and his wife, President Chesnut offered the prayer. I felt the spirit so strongly as he prayed that there were tears in my eyes! This has definitely been one of the best spiritual experiences of my mission so far.

As the mission presidents are all here they kinda took over our cafeteria. Which is cool, I'm not going to stop an apostle from doing what he wants. So we've been eating in the gym. Our food has included Taco Bell, Subway, Chick fil a, Costa Vida, Papa John's, and steak. So it's been pretty great, I'm not gonna lie :)

Meme and Poppy took me to get snacks before I went to the MTC and we got some Mountain Dew. The crazy thing is, before my mission I got headaches pretty often. Since I've been here, I've had less than a third the amount of Mountain Dew I had before my mission and I haven't gotten a single headache. The MTC really does have such a strong spirit and brings so many blessings!

Teaching this week has been great! Sister Paul and I seem to be so in tune with the spirit that our lessons are able to go so well! We've taught two of our teachers that are acting as investigators that they taught on our mission. So we've taught Joseph a lesson and then Agatha a lesson, who's agnostic and we got to the point of committing to prayer :) We also taught our first member lesson the other day, which was great! Volunteers just come in to the MTC and we teach them. We taught him about prayer but really he taught us so much more than we taught him, which was so great. Tonight we teach a possible nonmember about the Restoration so that should be fun!

In class on Saturday we do a lot of role plays and try to figure out how to teach lessons effectively to investigators. As I taught my companion a 5 minute lesson on the Restoration with our testimonies, I had one of our teachers, Brother Godfrey, listening to me almost the entire time. That made me so nervous! Afterwards, he told me all good things about my teaching, which was awesome and encouraging :)

After these role plays, we went in to the computer lab to take a survey on our email. That was so distracting! We all had to log on to our emails and see all of the emails family and friends had sent us but we couldn't read them! It was so difficult to get back on track, which was depressing because I'd gotten to this point where I never thought of home and was able to really focus and feel the spirit so strongly. We did eventually figure it out, so that's good.

Sunday was pretty great! We took some pictures on our Sunday walk to the Provo temple, but I don't have time to figure out how to upload them right now. While we were waiting to go on the Sunday walk, we had to wait near the front gate of the MTC. While standing there, a group of girls next to us started freaking out because Elder Christofferson drove by! We watched him and his wife get out of their cars and it was so cool! We then decided to wave at every car that entered just in case. We waved at Elder Oaks and he waved back :) Those were the only 2 we saw and I think the security guard was annoyed with us. It turns out that the whole first presidency was at the MTC that morning though!! :)

The rest of Sunday was so long. We've just been going all day from 7am-10pm everyday and it was a struggle having nothing to do for a while. We watched a ton of Mormon Messages though! You guys seriously need to watch "Lift" because it's seriously the best!

So far I've seen Elder Jared Ribar a couple times and that's been cool! I've also met some elders and sisters going to the Cincinnati mission and I met 4 elders and a sister going to the Indianapolis mission! I got to talk to Elder Walton for a while, so if you see him he seems pretty solid!

Last night was great because we had some great devotionals! I'm running out of time or else I would tell you about them, but it's really motivated me to study more about Christ and how to be as selfless as him (which really isn't possible but I'm gonna try :)). The first devotional was Elder Allen and he is so cool! He is pretty much over all missionary work and oversaw the putting together of Preach My Gospel. He definitely helped all of us so much! Then we watched a devotional Elder Bednar gave that you can only watch in the MTC for some reason. It was great and was all about the character of Christ!

Well this week has been exhausting to say the least. Last night I was so tired that I had said my prayers and was asleep by lights out at 10:30. I've been really working on exact obedience so I've been getting up almost on time at 6:30 every morning! We've really been going and having a spiritual workout for the entire last week. Last night my eye was super bloodshot so I'm hoping that's just from being tired and won't turn into pink eye or something. We're going to the nurse later to check it out though.

Even though I'm so tired, I'm so happy! I know that Heavenly Father is blessing me so much! I've learned so much and am so comfortable teaching our investigators. I also know that God answers prayers. We get so many opportunities to pray throughout the day and it's wonderful! Especially when I get homesick or am not focused on the work, it's great to be able to pray and be put right back on track! I love bearing my testimony of this gospel to investigators because i know that this Church is true and that it changes lives!

I love you all and miss you guys! If you want to, you can send me mail on dearelder.com and I will get it the same day. It seems like mail may take a couple days to get out here, but I'm not sure because I haven't gotten any yet.

Love you all and miss you!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)