7 Months!

This week was pretty great! We went on exchanges with the Lakeside sisters, which would've been awesome either way it worked out. Sister Hingano and Sister Anderson are the sisters serving there so I would either have been with an old companion or an old roommate for the day. I ended up being with Sister Anderson and it was so much fun! We pretty much just talked about MTC memories the entire time...we also got ice cream, so that's always a win.

I loved the missionary broadcast that we had this week! I learned so much that I can do to be a better missionary. One of the main things I took away is to treat all of our less actives as investigators. A lot of times when we go to teach less actives, we'll read Ensign talks with them, which are really good, but are a little bit deeper than they are ready for. Just a couple weeks ago we had a lesson where we read "Stay by the Tree" with a less active and as we got a few paragraphs in we realized that she didn't even fully believe that there was a God. We then redirected our focus and focused on the basics of the restoration instead of finishing the talk. We realized it would've gone so much better if we would have gone into the situation treating her as an investigator. We always forget how little we actually know about them and the fact that they could know less than our investigators do about the gospel. Now Sister Gali and I are focusing more on teaching the restoration to all those that we teach, regardless of whether they are a member or not.
It was also amazing because the elders serving in a different ward told us that one of their families that they've been teaching is moving into our ward! So we're super excited to have a family to prepare for baptism.

On Thursday we had our monthly relief society activity! It was so much fun! Mainly because we got pulled pork sandwiches and I was starving. But it was also great to see everyone come out and have a good time together! The primary kids even played us some primary songs on bells! One of our investigators came and this ward really stepped up to make her feel welcome! This ward is so great at fellowshipping and I love it :)

On Friday we had a lesson with one of our investigators, Justin. He's come to mutual for the last 2 weeks and he came to church yesterday! We set him on Friday to be baptized on February 27th! He is so excited to be baptized! His stepmom is a less-active member and his stepmom's parents are very active in the church. On Sunday he came to church and was so excited as he sat with us. He told us that he had already done everything we had committed him to do 2 days earlier and all about how he told his grandparents that he was getting baptized. As we talked to him after church, he showed us his brand new copy of Preach My Gospel that he had gotten during Young Men. He even pointed out to us the section of the book they went over and the personal study activity that he was going to do as soon as he went home. We love his enthusiasm for the gospel and all of the things he does to help his own faith grow. Golden investigators are the best...

Welp it happened. We all knew it would with me having a Samoan companion and all but I hoped it never would. I ate fish. Never. Again.

Welp not much else that I can think about. Hope that you all have a fantastic week :)

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

P.S. The middle school here is getting ready to go back to school this week. Their pipes burst a few weeks ago and the whole basement flooded so they've been doing remodeling and everything. That's what happens when your mascot's the Patriots. They had to see hard times coming their way when they picked such a terrible mascot...