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 :)