Baptism and Hospital Dolls

Hello everyone!

This week was awesome because I got to go to a baptism!! :) One of the guys I taught in Mt Rose, Jon, got baptized on Saturday and President gave me permission to go! There was such a great turnout at the baptism and all 4 of us sisters that taught him got to be there :) We met Jon about 2 months ago after we got a call from one of his friends. Jon's friend is a member in Sparks and after talking to Jon one day asked him if he'd be interested in meeting with missionaries. A couple days after this call we started meeting with Jon and found out he is so prepared! We committed him to be baptized in our second lesson and he accepted, even after the confusion with his baptismal date. He thought we said June instead of July when we committed him to a baptismal date, so he thought we were inviting him to be baptized in a week instead of in 5 or 6 weeks. Good thing is he's super solid and we still laugh about it :) haha. It was also great to go back to Mt Rose and get to drive down Neil Rd and see a bunch of the members from my old ward :)

This week we went back to the Kiwanis place and helped make dolls again. It's not the most exciting job but partway through we met this girl named Emily. Emily is working on her girl scouts project of making dolls for children in foster care. She told us about how she's been to the hospital many different times and each time the hospital gave her a doll that was able to comfort her through her treatments. When things got hard she would hug her doll and it made her feel better knowing that someone was there for her. That definitely made me want to keep working on dolls :)

Anyways, sorry for the short email again! I will send some pictures though to make up for it :)

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

P.S. This week Sister Balbuena and I found some coupons on the mail room floor and used them. Haha things that happen when you're a poor missionary haha

New Companion :)

Hello everyone!
This week was a great week mostly because my companion is awesome!

Last week we had one of the laurels in the ward ask us if she could come out with us since she wants to go on a mission. We set up a few appointments so that she'd be able to have a great experience but most of them cancelled on us. We spent most of the day out in the 104 degree heat knocking on doors with no one answering. I was afraid that she wouldn't want to go on a mission after learning that that is what a lot of days are like but at the end of the day she told her family how much fun she had and how much she loved getting to spend the day being a missionary! She is so awesome! :)

This week we got a call from this guy that served his mission in the Philippines. Turns out he was the elder that taught most of the lessons to Sister Balbuena and her family before they got baptized a few years ago! So we got everything set up and he ended up coming to our ward yesterday for sacrament meeting. The really cool thing is that we gave talks in sacrament meeting and Sister Balbuena shared her conversion story!!

Love and miss you all!
Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Another Transfer

Hi everyone! :)

First off, I'll tell y'all the transfer news. So many things are changing! So we've been serving in the Sierra Highlands, Peavine, and Mogul wards for the last couple weeks. Now I'll be in the Sierra Highlands ward with a new companion, Sister Balbuena. Sister Muhlestein will be staying in the Peavine and Mogul wards with a new companion, Sister Wakefield. They served together in Elko so they're super excited to serve together again! Sister Monsivais is going to Sparks.

This week we had some awesome lessons! So last transfer Sister Muhlestein and Sister Paul were tracting and prayed to know of where to go. They decided to knock on this door because they had cool patio furniture and they ended up talking to this family's teenage son and he told them to come back and teach them. The next time they came by they ended up talking to only the dad and the next time only the mom, Kasey. A week or so ago we ran into this family and set up a time to teach them. We went by for our lesson and they were super open! Each of the times that the sisters had talked to them in the past, they had been given a pamphlet and they had read all 3 of the pamphlets! So we were super excited about that and we spent the lesson answering their questions and briefly teaching the restoration. At the end we were talking about the Book of Mormon and Kasey told us that a few weeks ago a guy had come by and was selling Books of Mormon. We were super confused and then they remembered that he was selling church magazines but left a Book of Mormon on their porch. So here's what happened!!! My first day in this area, we were walking to this investigator's house to give him a copy of the Book of Mormon with Sister Muhlestein and Sister Paul's testimonies in it. As we were walking up, this guy came up and tried to sell us church magazines. We told him we didn't have money but we had a book that he could have if he wanted it and he accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately, the only copy of the Book of Mormon we had on us to give away was the copy with their testimonies in the back. So we gave it to him, hoping that one day he would read it. Then he went back to knocking on doors and the first door he knocked on was Kasey's door! As he was leaving a note, he set the Book of Mormon down on their patio and forgot it as he left. To make a long story short, Kasey still had the copy of the Book of Mormon with the testimonies in it! It's crazy to see how God works!! :)

Saturday morning we texted a bunch of the people we've been teaching to see if they needed a ride for church the next day. As we headed out to some lessons, our 10:00 cancelled so we were trying to figure out which of the people we had written down to try first. Then, this less-active sister that recently moved in texted us and said she wouldn't be able to come and wasn't doing well. We asked if she needed a blessing and she said yes but wanted us there. We had a lesson at 11 so we had to find someone fast to come give the blessing! We ended up having 2 men in the ward respond and say they could give her a blessing in the next half hour or so. When we went by she was so grateful! The Spirit was so strong and she began feeling a little better almost immediately. It's great to have worthy priesthood holders ready to serve with such short notice on a Saturday morning! :)

Last night we had Why I Believe! I'm trying to set a record for the number of transfers in a row that you can go to Why I Believe at the Golconda stake center haha. Anyways, I got to see Sister Anderson and our amazing investigator Jon! He's getting baptized a week from Saturday! Another one of our investigators, Beverly, is getting baptized on the 20th! Jessica, one of our recent converts, is planning on getting her temple recommend soon and going to the temple! :) I love the Mt Rose ward!! :)

Anyways, sorry for this novel of a letter! Oh wait! Can't leave out my recent life accomplishment: We were at the Kiwanis bike shop fixing bikes and this spider crawled out of the chain of the bike I was working on. So I killed it with a screw driver. I was pretty proud of myself.

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Hi Everyone :)

Hi everyone! Hope y'all are having an amazing week! :)

This week was awesome! We are having so much fun being in a trio! There definitely is never a dull moment and there is always TONS of work to be done.

This week I met this awesome lady named Sister Tillotson from the Skyline ward. She was talking to us about her mission and told us she served in the Virginia Richmond mission. Turns out that her vehicle coordinator was Elder Gootee, so grandma and grandpa served in her mission at the same time that she did! :)

For those of you that were asking, we are still teaching Ashton and his family! :) They are great! Ashton and his brother still want to be baptized and the parents still want to start coming back to church. We had a lesson with them last week and we were excited because we felt like they were finally going to come to church this Sunday! Then on Saturday night his dad ran into all of these medical problems and they couldn't come to church on Sunday :( One of these days they will be able to come!

We had this amazing lesson at IHOP this week! Haha best place to have lessons! We taught this guy named Barry. Years ago he went to a Catholic seminary to become a priest. As he was studying there he felt like that wasn't what God wanted him to be doing and that the church didn't have the truth. He spent years working to build his relationship with God on his own and searching for truth. Then, he started coming to IHOP every Wednesday at 4:30 to eat dinner and read his books on religion. A couple weeks ago his waitress told him about a great book that he should look into and asked if he'd like to meet with the missionaries! This week we got to teach him and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. He wants to meet again this week but as we got to talking to him we found out he lives in Sparks :( So now the APs will be teaching him! :) We're excited he has good missionaries to teach him at least!

In other news Sister Monsivais and Muhlestein saw a raccoon for the first time in their lives. We ended up pulling over to the side of the road as they took pictures of it peaking in and out of the sewer. After all the times I've seen them when we're camping, I didn't take any pictures. Sorry! haha

This week the Chesnuts texted us and asked us if we wanted to go get ice cream! So they took us to Dairy Queen and we got to talk to them for a little while! :) They told us all about how they met and their crazy wedding day and told us stories about each other. It was so fun!

It's crazy to think that another transfer is almost over. Every transfer seems to go by faster and faster and I still feel like I just left the MTC a couple weeks ago! Being a missionary is the best! I love all of the great people I've been able to meet and to see the changes in other people as well as myself :)

I'll try to send some pictures from this week! :)

Love and miss you all :)

Sister Ashley Gootee

Trios for life!! :) haha

This week was crazy but awesome!

P-day was super fun! With is being the 4th of July, we didn't do any proselyting that day. After we emailed we went and hung out with members for a little while and then we went to the ward barbecue for most of the night. We pretty much just hung out with members and got to know them a little better and pigged out on a ton of food! Since I emailed last I have had at least 8 burgers. I'm kinda disgusted with myself. Anyways, we got permission to stay out past 9 for fireworks so we ended up going and hanging out on this hill with a bunch of the missionaries in our zone. Sadly we missed some of the fireworks but it was fun to hang out with everyone!

On Tuesday we had zone training so Sister Muhlestein and I had to give a training 😓 I'm still not a huge fan of doing trainings but it wasn't too bad. Our topic was on working with ward members and gaining their trust.

Tuesday night into Wednesday we had exchanges with the Peavine sisters! Unfortunately, Wednesday  morning we got a text from President and one of the Peavine sisters ended up going home. We are now in a trio with Sister Monsivais! She is awesome! She is from Provo, Utah and Sister Johnson trained her. We'll be companions for the next couple weeks til transfers! It's been pretty crazy lately though! She covers 2 wards and we cover 1. We ended up being at church yesterday for 7 hours (which was awesome!!), taking the sacrament 3 times, balancing 3 different wards' investigators, and trying to figure out our dinner calendar. The blessing is that we now have more people that want to feed us than we have time for! Maybe we'll start passing around a lunch calendar haha.

Anyways, going to church for 7 hours was super fun! It's probably as close to general conference as you can get without a general authority being involved. It was great to really spend the day thinking about the covenants that I've made. I also went into each of the meetings with a question in mind and all of my questions were answered through different speakers! The Church is true, guys.

Also! I learned something super awesome! So I serve in the Sierra Highlands ward and now we cover Peavine and Mogul wards as well. The ward mission leader for the Mogul ward has a son serving a mission right now and he's serving in the Indiana Indianapolis mission!!!! :) So his name is Elder Carroll and he's serving in Zionsville so y'all need to somehow find him and take him out to lunch or something :) What's super cool is that he also served in Lafayette for a while but I think it was after I left on my mission, so I never met him. I definitely had missionaries tell me about an elder serving from Nevada though so I'm pretty sure I've heard of him!!

Anyways, I'll send some pictures!

Love y'all!

Sister Ashley Gootee

P.S. Cool miracle: Mom sent me a package last week and it had a bunch of random stuff in it and one of the things was a water bottle. I looked at it and was like "what the heck?! What am I supposed to do with this water bottle" cuz I already had one that I used all the time. Then, later that day, my water bottle broke. Sometimes God gives us blessings that we don't even notice we need until down the road! :)

Happy 4th of July!

Hi everyone! Happy 4th of July :) this week was pretty great!

This week we got to go on exchanges with the YSA sisters. That meant that I got to be companions with Sister Johnson again for the day! She was my first companion in the Mt Rose ward! :) It was so much fun to be back together and to catch up on each other's lives. It was also fun because we got to go do some contacting on campus! I felt like I was back at Purdue again only this time I was the missionary :)

Then after exchanges we had to go to the eye doctor for Sister Muhlestein. She's getting glasses! So we spent a lot of the day at the eye doctor and then trying on glasses at Walmart. I was quite entertained. I even went to the little McDonalds at Walmart and bought fries and a Coke, so I just felt like this little kid following around their mom as their mom struggles to finish errands haha.

Friday we had MLC! I didn't have to give a training this time which was super exciting :) I got to see Sister Anderson and catch up on a lot of the people that we'd been teaching there! Sadly our 2 solid investigators aren't so solid anymore :( one of them is MIA and the other wants to move a lot slower. Other than that though it was fun to catch up with her! At the end of MLC we always have the missionaries that are going home bear their testimonies. 6 of the missionaries that were there had to go up! :( it's crazy to see all these missionaries that have been here since the beginning going home. This transfer there are supposed to be 20 missionaries going home, many of which I've served around :(

This morning we had a ward breakfast (for a different ward haha) and got some good food! We have 2 barbecues to go to today and then we get to watch fireworks! We basically have the entire day off so that should be fun :)

Love you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee

1 Year!

Hi everyone! This week was a great week :) it's so weird to tell people now that I've been out for over a year! 

We had exchanges again this week! I went with Sister MacNeil to the Stead area. SIster MacNeil is in the last transfer of her mission and I spent the night with her and her companion my first night in the mission field! It's so crazy to think how long ago that was. We had so much fun and I got to meet so many great people in that area :) and then, a miracle happened...I had Steak n Shake! Ok, maybe that's not really a miracle but I was pretty pumped about it. As far as I know there is only one Steak n Shake in Nevada and it's not super far from where I am. I was so excited! :) haha

This week I learned how to fix bikes! We do service at this Kiwanis place once or twice a week and usually we help make dolls for children in the hospital. This week they didn't have that much for us to do so they asked if we wanted to help with bikes. So we went out and changed the tire tubes on this bike and fixed the chain. I was pretty proud of myself considering I did all that in a skirt :) haha it was a great learning experience! Hopefully next time we go we can do the same thing so that I can learn how to fix my bike all on my own!

This week we taught this amazing family a few times! We have been teaching their 12 year old son, Ashton, and preparing him to be baptized. We teach him with his 6 or so brothers and sisters and his parents. We've been struggling to get them to church but other than that they have been accepting everything we've been teaching pretty well!

We also taught this family this week that has been working on returning to church. The mom hadn't come to church in forever and recently prayed that a stressful situation in her life would be resolved. She ended up receiving her answer and recognizing that God was answering her prayers. In gratitude she committed herself and her family to come to church every week from then on! It's been great to see them there and to have them feel of the Spirit that is there.

Another family that we've been teaching came to church yesterday as well! They are all members except for the daughter, Jess, who is 15. We have been teaching her and she recenlty has been praying more and more to know that God is there. Though she doesn't feel that she has received her answer yet, I know that as she continues to show God she's working for her answer by praying and going to church that she will receive answers.

Yesterday Sister Muhlestein and I had a pretty crazy experience with the Spirit. We have been struggling so much to find new investigators. Yesterday we were praying to be able to know who to go and visit and as Sister Muhlestein was praying I thought of this girl that we had tried a few days earlier. This girl was very nice but had told us she was atheist and not super interested in changing that. I thought it was weird that I had thought of her so I didn't say anything but then after we finished praying Sister Muhlestein said that she thought we should go see her. We both thought it was crazy that we both thought of her but knew that meant that it was the Spirit! Then as we were driving towards her house I realized we didn't really have a reason to explain to her why we were coming by again so soon. As I sat and thought I looked at my water bottle and thought to myself that we should dump out our water bottles and go and ask her to fill them up for us. I didn't say anything and then as we pulled up to the house Sister Muhlestein mentioned that we needed to think of a reason to come by and see her. Suddenly she looked down at her water bottle and voiced the same idea that I had thought a few moments earlier. As we parked along the side of the road we dumped our water bottles outside of the car (I should add that this was right after dinner and they had just filled our water bottles with mostly ice so our water was perfect for this boiling hot day. We weren't even sure that this girl was home but here we were pouring out our water, depending completely on faith that God would bless us.). When she opened the door she agreed to letting us in to fill up our water bottles and we ended up staying for half an hour and getting to know her and her boyfriend. She still isn't super interested but seems to be opening up to us more. Though no new investigators came out of it, God at least knows that we're willing to act on the promptings He gives us whether it be big or whether it be to dump out our water bottles :)

Here's a list of my recent life accomplishments:

-I ate a whole plate of spaghetti, green beans, and garlic bread.

-I fixed a bike

-I held a snake...and it was terrifying

-We went to a pizza buffet and I not only got pizza, but salad as well 😮

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Sierra Highlands

Good morning everyone! Lots of changes this week! This was my first week in Sierra Highlands with Sister Muhlestein :) it has been so much fun! It's been weird trying to learn a new area and not knowing where I'm going but it's also been super nice.

First off, I'll start with Monday night when I was still in Mt Rose. Justin's family had us over for dinner and they made us burgers because they knew that was my favorite. His dad is not a member and had bought a card for me from all of them, which was surprising because he isn't the kind of person to do that normally. Hopefully I can get together with his family sometime if they all come visit Reno North :)

Transfer day (Tuesday) was crazy! Trying to pack all of my things, which by the way, did not fit in 2 suitcases and a duffel bag haha don't really care though. Anyways on Tuesday we went to La Chiquita for the last time. It wasn't as good as I hoped but that was probably because I was a little stressed :( Then for the last part of lunch we went to the Cheesecake Factory and split a piece of cake. Such an extravagant going-away party.

Then after transfers Sister Muhlestein and I went to our area and did some work! I've been able to meet some amazing people so far! On Wednesday we had Sister Keil with us for a few hours while she waited for her companion. She served in this ward about a year ago so we went around and met a lot of the people she taught. I was grateful Sister Muhlestein had her there since I have no idea what's going on in this area :) haha

On Thursday we taught this awesome kid named Ashton. He's this super genius 12 year old and he just soaks up everything we teach him. He's preparing to get baptized and he's pretty excited about it and coming to church! It's really cool to see how God is preparing people all around us to be taught the gospel, but whether we're a member missionary or a full-time missionary all we have to do is look and God will guide us to His prepared.

Well I'm pretty much out of time. Just know everyone here is amazing, this ward is the best, I have loved living in an apartment, my companion is amazing, and we're serving in the best area :) I love being a missionary! :)

Next week I'll hopefully send pictures :) and I'll actually remember people's names hopefully so then my email will be a little more meaningful haha

The Church is true! Love you all! :)
Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Transfers!

Hello everyone! First thing first, biggest surprise: I'm being transferred! I thought President had just forgotten about me and I was gonna be in Mt Rose forever :) haha. I'm being transferred to the Sierra Highlands ward in Reno North zone. My new companion is Sister Muhlestein :) I'm sooo excited!! I'm really going to miss being with Sister Anderson though :( I'm super sad to be leaving Mt Rose after all this time but I am also very ready for a change!

This was a really good week. We taught some amazing people. Lately we've been teaching Alton. He has been doing great! He is preparing to be baptized on July 2nd and I'm definitely going to ask for permission to go to that! We taught him a couple times this week and then he came to a baptismal service Saturday night and to church on Sunday. He feels like he's been a little behind in his Book of Mormon reading, I mean he is only in Mosiah after a month after all haha. He is so great! I'm going to miss teaching him and seeing his enthusiasm for the gospel :(

We also taught this guy named Jon a couple times this week. He's the guy that was a referral from his coworker in Sparks. Anyways, we showed up a couple days later this week to teach him and not only had he read over the pamphlet that we had given them, but he had written out answers to all of the questions in the back of the pamphlet using the scriptures listed. So we were pretty pumped about that. Then we taught him the restoration and we committed him to be baptized :) We invited him to be baptized on July 16th and he suddenly became very overwhelmed. We talked a lot about baptism and how baptism is the beginning and not the end of everything and he felt a little better and ended up accepting. As we continued talking it came to light that he thought we had said June 16th, which was a week and a half away. We cleared that up and then we all laughed for a little while. I think I'd be a little overwhelmed if 2 girls I just met asked me to be baptized in a week and a half too! haha. Just goes to show how prepared he is considering he still said yes despite it only being a week away haha. Then on Saturday we had a church tour with Jon and it went so well and our Bishop came with us so they got to meet each other!

We also recently started teaching this amazing lady named Nicole! She stopped the elders a couple weeks ago and asked if they could come by and meet with her. Unfortunately for them she lives in our area so we get to teach her :) We taught her the plan of salvation and it was PERFECT for what she's been going through! At the end she said a prayer and it was amazing. Afterwards she looked up and explained how she just realized that all her life all of her prayers had been recited and how great it was to pray in this way. Guys, the Church is true. It's amazing getting to hear those we teach pray for the first time and truly see the Spirit speak to them.

The week all was topped off with the Why I Believe fireside last night. Justin (the 12 year old that was baptized recently) came and spoke! His mom (who recently became active) spoke as well. It was so amazing to hear their testimonies! Then near the end a member of the High Council got up to speak and asked Jon, our investigator we've been teaching for one week now, to bear his testimony. I'm not sure how Jon felt but we were definitely overwhelmed. It was amazing though. The Spirit was strong and it was great to see him share experiences with everyone.

Welp I'm most of the way packed. Today we're gonna have fun and enjoy our last P-day together! Then tonight we'll have dinner with Justin and his family. They asked if they could feed us tonight since I'm leaving :( It's gonna be so sad. It's so weird to think that after 9 months in this area I will be somewhere new tomorrow! I'm excited :) Here's a ton of pictures!

Love you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

11 months in field :)

Good morning everyone! Or afternoon where you are I guess...

This week was a little crazy. I guess the peak of the craziness was when we got a call from President Chesnut on Monday night. For those of you that don't know, that's never really a good sign unless it's your birthday. He asked us to train at the MLC we had last Friday. So Sister Anderson and I trained on how to become converted as a missionary to all the zone leaders, sister training leaders, assistants to the President, and President and Sister Chesnut. That is possibly the most terrifying thing I've done in my life. Good news is I didn't pass out so I can pretty much do anything now!

In other more terrifying news, spiders are everywhere. On Monday night we were teaching the restoration to this couple and all was going well until we got to the Great Apostasy. I was talking about it when suddenly the wife's eyes got super big and Sister Anderson screamed and jumped up and I followed. As I looked back, I saw this huge spider run across the couch that I was just sitting on. Apparently the spider was hiding behind me and was running toward Sister Anderson. So that was pretty terrifying.

Then a day or two later in companion study I saw this huge piece of fuzz on Sister Anderson's chair. Or at least I thought it was fuzz until it moved. Turns out it was this huge spider with yellow triangles on its butt and bright green fangs that turn blue when it's angry. After a minor freak out, we caught it in a jar and put some foil over the top of it to lock it in. I may or may not have shaken the jar a few times, and that may or may not have been how we found out its fangs change color.

Anyways, asides from the many spiders we saw this week, actual missionary work did happen! Here's some miracles of the week:

Monday we somehow recovered from terrifying spiders attacking us and had a pretty great lesson about the restoration :)

Tuesday we had burgers for dinner. Those of you that don't see that as a miracle can stop reading.

Wednesday we helped one of our investigators, Kimberly, organize her house. She was in labor as we helped her and we helped her get everything together to head to Sacramento that night to have her baby. The miracle would be that she didn't have the baby on the bus ride to Sacramento haha.

Thursday we somehow miraculously finished planning our training!

Friday we had MLC! We both didn't pass out giving our training and I got to see a bunch of my friends that I don't get to see much outside of MLC.

Saturday we had an amazing lesson with this new couple that we're teaching! :) they had tons of questions about the church but they were both very open minded. We ended up teaching them the restoration and the plan of salvation. They told us we cleared up so many of their questions and things and they invited us back to teach them more.

Sunday we had the best miracle yet! It actually starts earlier in the week. On Thursday or so we got a call from this lady living in Sparks and she told us about one of her coworkers that had been asking questions. She asked him if he wanted to meet with the missionaries and he said yes and called us and gave us all his info. We set up a time to meet with him and taught him the plan of salvation on Sunday. The Spirit was sooo strong in that lesson as he shared experiences with us and shared with us that the things we were teaching him were things he believed. We invited him to read the Book of Mormon and pray and set up a time to meet with him later this week. Then, a couple hours later we got a text from him thanking us for teaching him. He told us that he had been answering the questions at the back of the plan of salvation pamphlet with the scriptures listed and had been receiving answers to questions he'd had for years. So we're pretty pumped to be teaching him!

Welp this is probably my last week in this area. And I know I've said that every transfer for the last few transfers, but this transfer I'm basically guaranteed that I'll be transferred. It's really weird to think about considering I've been in this area for longer than I went to Purdue and to think that I have less time left on my mission than I've been in this area. But anyways this week we'll give another training on a different topic (thanks elders -_-), meet with some awesome investigators, and go to the temple! It'll be a pretty busy week! :)

Love y'all!
Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Hi :)

Hello everyone! This week went by so fast! It feels like it should only be Wednesday but it's somehow P-day again!

We went on exchanges twice this week. On Tuesday I stayed in my area with Sister Parks. It was kinda a slow day but Wednesday was better when we ended with a lunch with our companions :) then on Friday into Saturday I went on exchanges with Sister Keil! We had a SUPER busy day and we saw so many miracles! At one point we were walking through this apartment complex and we started talking to this lady. We asked her if she knew anyone that needed any service or anything and as I filled out a card we started talking and she called her son over. She looked at her son and asked "remember when we went to that beautiful temple and we talked to those 2 nice ladies?" I paused as I filled out the card because that doesn't usually happen to us. Turns out they had visited Temple Square about a year ago as a family and they spent a lot of the day in the Family History Center as well. She told us she's glad she met us because she's been wanting to follow up on that experience :)

We met with Alton a couple times this week! He's preparing to be baptized here in a couple weeks :) we asked him how his Book of Mormon reading has been going and he told us that it's not been the best. He said he didn't get to read a couple different nights so he's gotten a little behind. We asked him where he was at and he said "not that far, I'm just up to page 126." So he's doing pretty well!

On Sunday Sister Anderson and I gave talks and I was the last speaker. That was kinda terrifying to find out 5 minutes before sacrament meeting. The lady who spoke first was supposed to give a 20 minute talk and spoke for over half an hour so that only gave the rest of the program about 15 minutes. Sister Anderson spoke and Bishop ended up cancelling the rest hymn so that I would have at least 5 minutes to speak. I then had to on the spot alter a 15 minute talk into a 5 minute talk, which was kinda a struggle. I guess it somehow still made sense though.

Oh I'm sending a picture of a torta I ate this week! Sister Anderson and I went to La Chiquita and ordered food with the help of this customer that translated for us. They were sooo good!

Love y'all!
Sister Ashley Gootee :)

11 Months?

Hi everyone! This was a really good week! Unfortunately I forgot my planner (again...) so I don't really know what happened this week. That's what happens when you turn 20 I guess...

Monday night was sad :( one of my favorite families in the ward moved out of state this last week and we had dinner with them for the last time Monday night. This is the family with the adorable kids that we took a road trip with out to Jessie's confirmation last month. So sad!

Anyways we had to give another training this week...it was not as terrifying as last time and it wasn't as bad as last time either so that's good! 

Then on Wednesday we had Zone Conference which was soo much fun! We were combined with Reno North zone so I got to see a lot of my friends serving in that zone :) I got to see Sister Johnson for the first time since we were companions so long ago! We took a Mt Rose sister picture that I'll send y'all :) besides Sister Finch and Gali, those are all the sisters that have served in that ward that are still on their missions. But asides having tons of fun seeing all my friends and such, we had some great trainings! We learned a ton about how to be better missionaries and how to use the Book of Mormon more in our teaching.

Saturday was a great day! We had 8 set appointments for that day, and even though some of them cancelled we were still pretty busy! We had an amazing church tour with Alton, one of our investigators that we're preparing to be baptized. He had never been to the church before so we were super excited to get him some solid fellowshippers and show him around!

Yesterday was a miracle! Three of the people that we have been working with came to church yesterday! Two of them are members that haven't come in years and the third is Alton! :)

Update: No sign of Maria :)

Missions are the best! I've been learning lots and having tons of fun :)

This week we'll be going on exchanges twice! It should be tons of fun and it'll also make the week go way fast!

Anyways to make up for the lack of news from this week I'll send a bunch of pictures :)

Love you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Fun times . . .

This week was an interesting week. So I'll fill you in on the soap opera that is my life.

So Tuesday was like any other day, well besides the fact that it was Sister Anderson's birthday of course! We decided to walk around and talk to people on Neil Rd. We started talking to this lady and she started going off on how crazy Mormons are, somehow not realizing we are Mormon. That was awkward but we just continued talking to her and testifying of Christ, not bringing up the fact that we were Mormon. Then I asked if I could share a scripture with her. I read Helaman 5:12 but didn't tell her it was from the Book of Mormon. Here's how the conversation after went:

Maria: I love that scripture! Where is that from? I don't remember seeing that in my Bible.
Me: It's actually from the Book of Mormon.

**awkward pause**

Maria: Well..uh..God really does have a sense of humor. Can you bring me a Book of Mormon?

So the Spirit's pretty awesome at helping us handle awkward situations!
Anyways, we then went on our way and had an amazing night filled with fattening food! I may or may not have told the waitress at Texas Roadhouse that it was Sister Anderson's birthday haha. Then we went and got frozen yogurt after too. So I basically gained 50 pounds this week.
We felt weird two days later about bringing Maria a Book of Mormon and then we understood why. Now we better understand the importance of following the Spirit. Our visit was interesting to say the least. After an hour and a half of us standing outside her apartment as she went off on God, told us how Christ doesn't understand her because she's suffered more than he has, how we are uneducated, how she could see my devil's horns and tail lol...anyways it went on for an hour and a half. It ended with me telling her that we would get the prophet in contact with her to answer her questions. I know I'm not supposed to lie but I'm pretty sure the Spirit prompted me to say that so we could finally able to leave. Anyways, we finally escaped.

The next day (Friday) we had MLC and it was life changing! Not so life changing that we got iPads but almost as great I guess. We had a couple brothers from the mission department come and gave us some amazing trainings! We learned so much about how to change our approach to missionary work and how to better follow the Spirit in all that we do.

That night we had an amazing lesson with one of our investigators Ed. We sat at this picnic bench in his apartment complex with him and a member and taught him the restoration. He told us all about how he read the pamphlet and how much he loved the picture of the First Vision. We had such a powerful lesson with him. We shared the First Vision and the Spirit was at it's peak and then **cue horror film music** we saw Maria walking toward us. I legit felt like I was in some scary movie. Then she started yelling at us about how we didn't come see her and how we were uneducated and yada yada yada. Anyways the Spirit has never run away so quickly before. After the lesson we talked about it though and we're pretty sure that was meant to happen. The Spirit was so amazingly strong and so clearly not there within 30 seconds that we think that needed to happen so Ed would be able to recognize the Spirit.

The next morning we had another amazing Spirit-filled lesson! We taught this lady named Cynthia. I should back up to better explain this miracle...I met this lady back in February with Sister Wright. We taught her the restoration and the plan of salvation and didn't see her for forever. Then the other day we were walking and I saw her in her front yard and we set up a time to meet! I was sooo excited! Saturday morning we had an amazing lesson! The Spirit was super strong and the member that came with us was a perfect fellowshipper! We invited her to be baptized and she accepted. After she accepted she paused and asked us if we believed in the Holy Spirit. We said of course! She then told us that when we said baptism she was completely overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit. It was so amazing to see her recognize the Spirit that was so strong!

Wow sorry this is truly turning into a novel. Anyways...

Sunday morning we got to teach at the air base again! We go about once a month and I love it! It is seriously the coolest experience being able to see a small group of servicemen gathered together in uniform for a sacrament meeting. It's even cooler to watch them kneel down in uniform and bless the sacrament. The church is soo true.

Right after church that day we were out walking around and then decided to go back to use the bathroom. I then remembered that we forgot to grab our dinner calendar from the primary president and so we went to check in the primary room for it. As we walked we saw a member of the ward talking to some woman but we could only see part of her around this man. I took 2 steps and realized it was Maria and lemme tell ya, it may have been Sister Anderson and I have ever run into the primary room to hide from someone before. Turns out our Bishop had just met with Maria and had come to the same conclusion we had. When Maria finally left we were finally able to come out of hiding and drive to our dinner appointment. I should add, this was Bishop Ford's first day as Bishop. Talk about an interesting first day as Bishop haha.

Anyways, basically to sum up this week, the Spirit is amazing. If the Spirit didn't guide us as missionaries, we would have never taught Ed and Cynthia. We would've never been prompted to invite the member we would to come see Cynthia and we would've never and we would've never had the amazing lessons we had with each of them. If the Spirit wouldn't have prompted us to check for our dinner calendar, we would've run into Maria outside of the church instead of barely avoiding her inside the church. The Church is true.

Anyways that's the novel of my week. Hope y'all have an amazing week! Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Another Transfer and Hello Family!

From 5/9/16 (Yoohoo! Hello Family!):

Hello everyone! So I just talked to a lot of you yesterday but there were some pretty great things that happened this week that I didn't talk about.

On Monday night we were doing our daily planning and were trying to figure out what to teach Kimberly, one of our investigators, the next day. All of a sudden I felt that we should read Alma 32 with her and when I told Sister Anderson she started freaking out. That morning during personal study she had studied Alma 32 and felt really strongly as she read it that we should read that with Kimberly but then she forgot to tell me and forgot about the experience. So it was awesome to recognize that prompting!

On Tuesday we picked up a new sister and she spent the night with us. After we picked her up we learned that not only was she new to the mission field, she was new to the mission! Turns out, she didn't go to the MTC. Her call letter told her to report directly to the mission office. So it was fun getting to be with her on her very first day!

On Wednesday we had sopes again. Sopes are basically the best thing ever!

On Thursday we went to the food bank and got to volunteer there! When we got there I realized it was the same food bank that I went to the first day in this area and that I haven't been back since. So that was really fun! While we were there it suddenly started down pouring! It was raining so hard and the parking lot we were standing in started to flood a little bit. So it got to the point where 10 of us were crowded under this tent, standing on these crates that held peppers and cherries. Nevada weather is pretty crazy! Luckily our car wasn't too far away :)

Yesterday we had a family that we just started teaching come to church!!! We were so excited! They only could stay for the first hour, but hey, that's a miracle enough for me!

Also I've been in the field for 10 months now..? Super weird! And I've spent 7 months of that in this area haha.

Welp this week we have MLC and the mission department will be there to train us! It should be super cool but I'm also super nervous to be trained by a general authority!

Sister Anderson's birthday is tomorrow :) she's turning 20! She's so old.. haha. But I'm super excited because a member is taking us to dinner at Texas Roadhouse!! :) I haven't had that since before the mission so I'm very excited! (Also, from that comment you may think that's what I want the day I get home from my mission, but it's not. I really need some Chick fil A. Nevada is so sad :( anyways...)

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

P.S. Sorry I have pictures but I forgot my cord...so you'll have to wait for pictures til next week :)

From 5/2/16 (Another Transfer):

Hello! This week was pretty great! And it all topped off with some crazy transfer news...I'm staying!? It's super weird. We all expected this time that I'd be leaving. President even told me that he stood there with the transfer cards in his hands trying to decide where to send me and who to replace me with and he felt prompted that I needed to stay here another transfer. So Sister Anderson and I will be staying together again :D

So update on our crazy guy. We passed him off to the elders on Tuesday and they set up a lesson with him. Within 5 minutes though he called them back and said he didn't want to meet. Turns out he's not interested in the gospel. Who knew?!

So I'm going to be honest, we never bike. Biking is the worst. This week, however, we were incredibly desperate because of our lack of miles, and we ended up biking. For 20 miles. In one day. Needless to say, it was a little difficult to walk the next morning. The good thing is I only kinda ruined my skirt, I didn't get a tan line from my helmet, and it waited to rain until after we got back to our car.

On Saturday we spent the end of our dinner at the ward cake auction. While we were sitting there someone shared some cookies with us and then a member of the ward bought us a cake #victory...This is why sisters gain so much weight on the mission...

In other news, Sister Anderson told God to plug his nose this week. What happened is she had the tiniest burp ever while she was saying the prayer and said "ooh plug your nose," which led me to die laughing for a few minutes :)

On Sunday we had to make brownies for Why I Believe and while we were sitting in Relief Society we both got super excited about getting to lick the bowl as we made them. Wow y'all are going to think we're so fat. I promise I've not gained that much weight on the mission.

This lady in our ward recently went through the temple to receive her endowments. During testimony meeting she was talking about all of the work she's been able to do for her family recently. She said that she told her husband the other day that she's just waiting for him to kick the bucket so she can do his work too.

Welp sorry not a lot happened this week. Well, other than lots of changes to missionaries that none of you would really care about but change things up here a ton! Have a great week! :)

Love y'all! Talk to you Sunday :)

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

10 Months :)

Hello! This week was a great week! There were some crazy miracles! We were out walking around after a lesson and this lady pulled up next to us. Turns out it was a lady that Sister Anderson had taught in Lakeside ward that recently moved here. She asked us to come by and teach her son sometime, and he's not a member. The lady drove away and as Sister Anderson was explaining to me who that was we had another miracle! I saw this lady walk by a little ways ahead of us and she was one of our solid investigators that disappeared a few weeks ago. So I kinda chased her down and scared her to death but then we started talking and set up a time to go see her.

We had exchanges again this week! This was our last exchange. The last couple weeks have been so crazy since we decided to do all of our exchanges within basically a week. This week I stayed in our area with Sister Meyer. She was in the trio with me and Sister Anderson last transfer :) it was a pretty great day! We ended up helping people move out of their apartment for a couple hours and that was fun!

We also met with our solid investigator a couple times this week. He's so accepting of everything we teach and is set to be baptized here in a month or so :) or so we thought...so since we started teaching him we've noticed that he may like Sister Anderson. We prayed about it and felt like we should continue teaching him, which is weird because of Sunday. Sunday he came to church and sat by us (we made sure that I was between them) and then he stayed for the second hour as well. Partway through that class he asked us to come in the hall with him (well, he asked Sister Anderson and I followed) and he talked to us for a minute. He basically suggested that they go on a date, which was weird, but the weirdest part was when we got a text during Relief Society asking us if Sister Anderson is married. So we called the zone leaders cuz, ya know, we're not looking to date 35 year old men while we're on our missions (or ever for that matter).

Oh we also prayed over someone's dying sister this week. So that was basically one of the saddest moments of my life. I made Sister Anderson say the prayer since she made me say it last time.

Anyways, aside from the interesting things of this week, I thought I'd mention some of my recent life accomplishments:
1. I ate pasta 4 times last week. When we ate spaghetti I got seconds (so basically I ate everyone else's normal portion or spaghetti).

2. I really like tamales and sope. I'm just waiting for the day that I become an hermana.

3. One day last week 6 of our 7 appointments cancelled, we walked in the rain the entire day, our dinner fed us pasta and we still had fun.

4. I didn't drink any soda yesterday.

5. I pet at least 2 dogs last week and only kicked 1. If that's not an accomplishment, I don't know what is.

I hope y'all have a great week :) have fun picking up Elder Gootee :)

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Baptism :)

Hello everyone! Hope you are having a great week!

This week was amazing! Jessie, one of the ladies I've been teaching for a while, was baptized on Saturday! It was great to see her baptized and to be able to look back on how much she has progressed over these last few months. 

This week we went on exchanges twice! It made the week go by soo fast. On Tuesday Sister Monsivais came here while Sister Anderson went to Spanish Springs (which is her old ward). Sister Monsivais is so awesome! Sister Johnson trained her so I was super excited to be with her for the day. Then on Friday I went to the Sparks YSA ward with Sister Keil. She is so cool! It was really fun to be in a YSA ward as well! That was the first time in 5 transfers that I've left Reno for more than a few hours, which is kinda crazy to think about!

This week I got to be an hermana (kinda) for a few hours again! We were in a trio with Hermana Daniels and went street contacting and then went to dinner with her and the Spanish elders and one of the families in their ward. Every time we go to a Spanish dinner we get fed pizza, which I am totally ok with :)

On Sunday, Jessie was confirmed in a different ward (long story) so we ended up road tripping out to Washoe Valley ward for sacrament meeting. It was kinda far so we got a ride from a member and I got to squeeze in the back between her two kids. That was probably the best part of the road trip.

I'll send home lots of pictures to make up for my lack of other stuff that I talked about :) 

Love and miss you all!

April!

So I forgot my planner today. So I seriously have no idea what happened this week. Missions really turn you into old people with all the memory loss and all. Like sometimes I forget what I say or what my companion says in a lesson. Missions really turn you into old people with all the memory loss and all. Wait...

Anyways, this week was a pretty great week! It's always a party with me and Sister Anderson. She's trying to make me girly. We did face masks this week. This is now the second time in my life that I've done face masks. She also did my makeup twice this week (and it looked pretty good!) and did my hair a couple times. I guess she's just preparing me for BYU haha.

The end of the month is really a struggle. We run out of miles, we run out of MSF. Basically we're poor and don't have a car :( we walked a ton!! Wednesday we walked for at least 6 hours straight. A miracle did happen though! We stood outside this potential investigator's house and prayed that she would be home and would invite us in so we could talk to her and also so that we could rest our feet for a minute. She opened the door and invited us in and that was when I again realized God is a God of miracles. However, as we sat there she started talking about all the mice she's been having in her apartment recently and how her furniture has been infested with cockroaches. So that's kinda extremely disgusting. Y'all know I was tired though cuz I remained on that couch for a solid 10 minutes longer as we talked to her. Anyways, miracles can't all last forever I guess.

We had an amazing training this week! It's called Mission Leadership Council and it's basically the best thing ever. I was terrified for it but it wasn't really that bad. Basically all of the zone leaders and sister training leaders meet with President and his wife and the assistants and we receive trainings from 9-3. We learned so many good things, so many prayers were answered, and pizza was served. It pretty much can't get better than that. The only downside was I was called on right as I began to zone out so I didn't know what the question was and Sister Anderson was luckily there to point out what part of PMG they were talking about. Awkward. Sister Anderson and I also have to give a training tomorrow to the zone so that should be interesting. Ya, we could use your prayers.

Also, worst April Fools joke ever...MLC was on April Fools day so President led us to believe for a couple minutes that we were getting iPads :( sadly they are still not here.

Then of course General Conference was amazing!!! General Conference is pretty much the best thing ever. I've truly seen that as you go into Conference with a question you receive so many answers and so much insight! I think my favorite line from conference was what Elder Holland said about the ice cream that follows conference. Ok, I guess that was pretty great but probably not the most inspiring. My favorite was when President Monson talked about choosing the harder right rather than the easier wrong. That really goes with so many things in our lives and I really love how simple but powerful his talk was.

By the way, favorite talks: Eyring, Hales, Holland, Monson, Renlund, Waddell. Y'all know I'm OCD and had to put those in alphabetical order. Anyways...

There's really not a whole lot else I can think about from this week. I hope y'all have a great week! 

I love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Hump Day!

Hello everyone! Welp, I learned that Spring Break really isn't the best when you're not on Spring Break. I'm pretty sure everyone is out of town this week! It's been crazy trying to visit people and find people to come out with us. I did feel like I was on Spring Break though with how often I got burnt. I got burnt and then it turned to tan and then I got burnt and then it turned to tan and then I got burnt and it's slowly starting to tan. And now it's snowing. So ya, Nevada's crazy. Anyways, it was still a good week! To start with, Sister Anderson and I are companions now!! So it's basically a party everyday. We're so much alike it's crazy!

Anyways we'll start with Monday because that was a crazy day. When we got home to finish packing Sister Finch's stuff, I managed to somehow hit the curb just right at 5 miles an hour and ended up getting a flat tire. Honestly, I blame the mission. They're the ones that decided to give me a Chevy Malibu even after what happened to the last one. It was even the same tire and everything. Anyways, after the Lakeside sisters showed up to help us we got the donut on and went to the shop to get our tire replaced. When we got there, the mission decided that they wanted all 4 tires changed. So we were there for a solid 3-4 hours :(

The rest of the week was much better though! On Tuesday we had transfers and then I was in a trio with Sister Anderson and Sister Finch. Wednesday morning we dropped Sister Finch off at the mission office so she could take the long ride out to Elko. 

Wednesday night we had dinner with Sister Jones. She ended up taking us to In n Out (for the second time in my life) and it was pretty fun! It was crazy because on the car ride there it somehow came up that Sister Wanda Jones and I both know the Nolands and then I learned that they are really good friends. Turns out Sister Jones played a part in bringing the Nolands the gospel, so that's pretty awesome. She also went on a mission with Sister Anderson's grandma and sister, so she's basically connected to everyone.

Anyways, not much else I can think of this week. I hope yall have a great week!

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

It's Spring!

Hello everyone!

This week has been a little crazy! Yet again, I'll try to remember what all happened this week. My birthday was great! When we were at our district meeting on Tuesday, Sister Chesnut showed up at the church with a cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. Sister Chesnut is the best!! :) That afternoon I celebrated my birthday by scrubbing someone's floors. Party!! That night for dinner Sister Wanlass ordered Papa Johns and I opened my presents and such. Basically it was the best birthday dinner I could've asked for :) That night I went on exchanges with Sister Anderson and we had soo much fun!

On Friday we roadtripped out to Dayton to get all of Sister Finch's stuff. Just so yall know, they give us tiny pieces of the transfer puzzle at a time and it's very stressful. On Friday we just got a call from the APs telling us that we had to get all of Sister Finch's stuff in Dayton (which is an hour-hour and a half drive) and that she wouldn't be going back to Dayton. So we did that and then we spent the rest of the weekend stressing over transfers. Then during Sacrament meeting on Sunday, we checked the phone and realized that President was calling us. Not ever a good sign.

Which brings me to the big news. Sunday night we found out that Sister Anderson is my new companion!!!!! I'm so excited :) the even crazier news is that I'm staying in the Mt Rose ward (for my 5th transfer now) and the craziest news is that I'm going to be a Sister Training Leader (that's what President called me about). For those of you wondering, I don't even know how to be a missionary. So being a Sister Training Leader is going to be a struggle. And I am completely surprised that I am staying in this ward! It's going to be so hard leaving this ward! I love it so much :) But it'll be great because I'll get to be here for the baptism in a couple weeks. And I'll spend another General Conference in this ward :)

Also, more crazy news! Sister Finch is going to Spring Creek! She'll be with Sister Gali. I guess I'll just send all of my companions to Spring Creek :) haha

Anyways there's not a whole lot else that I can think of. Here's the quote of the week:

Sis Finch: Why do people say gingers have no soul?

Me: We do have souls, lots of souls. Every freckle is for a soul I've stolen.

And a more serious quote:

It's harder to live the gospel 99% of the time than it is to live the gospel 100% of the time because that 1% will drag you down.

Also, miracle of the week: one of the elders found my flashdrive! Somehow it ended up at his apartment...? Anyways, he found it and gave it to me and my life was basically just made. Miracles do happen!! :D
Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)