Hola!

Hello all!
Welp, here's a summary of my week: we moved boxes. a lot. Anyways I guess some other stuff did happen.
Justin and Reece both passed their baptismal interviews! They'll both be baptized this Saturday at noon :) I'll definitely send some pictures home next week :) I guess I should talk about them a little bit. Sorry if I talked about them before...So Justin is 12 and we started teaching him about a month and a half ago. His dad is not a member but his stepmom is and we started out visiting her for the last few months at least. One day we decided we'd invite Justin to go to mutual. He went to the activity where all the youth hung out and played volleyball and when he got home from the activity he asked his mom how he could get baptized. We started teaching him soon after and set him with a date. He's pretty awesome! He's so excited for the priesthood and to be able to pass the sacrament! His grandpa is going to baptize him on Saturday and the whole family couldn't be more excited!
The sisters have been teaching Reece since June or July and he's wanted to be baptized since. The only thing that has been holding him back is coming to church. His mom is a member but doesn't want to come and his stepdad isn't a member and as he's 9 it's been hard getting him there with someone his mom trusts (which is totally understandable). Then we started bringing a kid in his primary class and his mom and since then they have been best friends and Reece has been coming to church pretty much every week. Since I met him in October, all he's talked about is how he wants to be baptized and now it's finally happening! His uncle is going to be coming from out of town to baptize him :)
Basically this coming Saturday at noon is going to be the best hour ever! So excited for both of their baptisms and I've loved getting to know both of these boys over the last few months. The Lord is really hastening His work! I've seen so many amazing miracles come as we've been able to do our small part in this work. God really does notice the small things that we do. When we work hard in all that we do, God will pour out blessings for us. I'm so happy that I'm on my mission! At Zone Conference President talked about when we accepted our calls to serve a mission. As he talked about that I remembered that I almost didn't accept my mission call. At the time I was unsure of whether I really wanted to go on a mission. I finally accepted the call after at least 2 weeks but did so hesitantly and mainly because I didn't want others to judge me for not accepting my call. I can't believe that I almost didn't come on a mission. I can't even imagine how different my life would be right now if I did not come on a mission. Missions are hard but I am so grateful for the difficulty of it as it's helped me to grow so much. I have learned so many valuable life lessons and my testimony has grown more than I ever imagined it would. I'm so grateful for this time that I've had to serve a mission and I can't believe I've already been out for so many months.
Anyways I hope that you all have a great week :) I love and miss you all!
Sister Ashley Gootee :)

8 Months . . ?

Hello all! So yes, some of you have heard that this week was a little crazy. Sister Wright went home on Wednesday. Missions are definitely not for everyone. I've been in a trio with Sister Anderson and Sister Meyer since and it has been the best! We've had so much fun together these last few days and we've been getting so much work done in this area. Sister Anderson was my roommate in the MTC and we always talked about how one day we would be companions but we never really believed it would happen! Sister Meyer just came out with Sister Wright and she is from Utah. She is a very hard worker and we've all been having a really good time together! Basically we just have a party all day every day :)
My ward is amazing! I had around 15 sisters respond and say that they'd be willing to go on splits with me this week! Since Wednesday I've gone on splits with 6 sisters already! The work is still moving forward in this area! Two of my investigators will be baptized on March 5th! It's getting to be pretty close! Another one is preparing to be baptized on the 12th and she is amazing as well!

If y'all want to send some messages to Sister Wanlass, she's pretty sad :( I had to move out of her place and move in with the Zuckers, which is who the Lakeside sisters live with. They're a great family as well but now Sister Wanlass has no sisters living with her :( I should be back in a few weeks though.

Quotes of the week:

--The celestial kingdom.."it's like Thanksgiving without the stress."
--A 2 year old tried to recite the first article of faith..."We believe in God will be punished for his own sins..." Not quite, buddy.

Anyways, outta time so I gotta go. Sorry for the shortness of the email! I am doing great :) missionary work is amazing!

Love you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Hello!!

Hello! This week was a little crazy! Well it feels crazy..but I can't remember a lot of what happened this week. So maybe it's just me that's crazy. Or maybe all of the forgetfulness of the older members of my ward is just wearing off on me.

Anyways, this last week we had a shortened P-day which was sad but we got to go to the temple on Thursday, so I guess that makes up for it :) well, that temple trip started out interesting. We were pulling into the parking lot when Sister Wright pulled her temple recommend out and I realized that I didn't have mine on me. I had left it in our car and we were carpooling with the other sisters. So we went into the temple and there was one elder that had forgotten his too, so we had to wait for the temple president to come out. Luckily name tags and the trust of your mission president is enough to get you into the temple. Basically he looked at us and then looked at the mission president and said "I think they're good" and President said "I think so too" and we went in. I was glad that I didn't have to just sit in the temple lobby for 2 hours :) anyway, our temple trips are always planned right when I need them. It was great to be able to relax and feel the Spirit that is so strong there.

In other news, the Book of Mormon musical came into town last week. Not very many people have brought it up but it was sold out before many people even knew it was coming into town so we know a ton of people are going to see it. While we were sitting at Chili's the other day our server came up to us and was telling us that he saw the musical and that it put us in a really good light...doubtful...but anyways at least he didn't try to bash with us.

This week we met some guy from Morocco when we were out street contacting. We taught him a couple days later and he's preparing to be baptized on March 26. People are truly being prepared by God to receive our message. He read the restoration pamphlet in the couple days between us first meeting and his first lesson even though he had to translate a lot of it into French. We're working on getting him some French pamphlets and Book of Mormon. To keep you up to speed, we now are teaching a French investigator, Mandarin investigator, Samoan less-active family, and much of the area we serve in is Spanish speaking. I'm bilingual as long as I don't try to speak to people in Spanish, because that's the point when I forget all words in any language. So that's fun.

Justin's still amazing. And so is Reece. They're the ones that are being baptized on the 5th. Every time we go to a lesson, Justin reminds us about the 5th. Reece and Justin are both probably considered more active than the kids in their primary and young men classes. They both come almost every Sunday and they both go to Tuesday night activities as well. They both also have active family members that are coming in town to baptize them.

Also, Valentine's Day may just be the most difficult evening to proselyte on. Basically planning was us trying to figure out what single active sisters we could visit. So not a lot of missionary work done that night :(

Anyways, I know you miss my face so this is what I look like. Sorry guys I still look the same haha. But this is my zone and Sister Wright is the one in purple.

Sister Ashley Gootee :)

Training!

This week was pretty great! And the Broncos won, so that makes it even better :)

My new companion is Sister Wright! Let's see, so she's from southeast Ohio where she played the trombone in marching band throughout high school. She studied abroad in Scotland (so jealous) for a semester and she also studied at Ohio University. She's pretty awesome.
This week we committed 4 people to be baptized. I committed 2 and then she committed the next 2. Reece and Justin (the 9 year old and 12 year old) will both be baptized on March 5th. Jessica will be baptized on March 12th. One of the other 3 we invited this week accepted the invitation but has not set a date and the other 2 aren't sure yet. So pretty successful week in Mt. Rose!

Sister Wright's birthday was on Saturday! Sister Wanlass made us cinnamon rolls for breakfast and then she made us dinner as well. Then yesterday Sister Wright was sick (and it was not Sister Wanlass' cooking. One of our investigators that we had dinner with Friday night was sick as well so we think it's food poisoning from that restaurant we went to). Anyways I'm pretty sure there's a curse on this area that when a new sister comes in, she gets sick within the first week. When I came in I was sick the first P-day, when Sister Gali came in we missed church because she was sick, and when Sister Wright came in we missed church because she was sick. Somethin about this area. This is the 4th time that I've missed my ward on my mission, so basically I'm less active :( People probably just assumed we skipped out to watch the Superbowl since we have 1 o'clock church :) haha anyways, Sunday was basically a party day. I pretty much spent it working on the binder for a solid 4 or 5 hours at least and then reading the Book of Mormon for a couple hours and then working on the binder for a couple more hours. I did get about an hour nap in but then I wasn't tired anymore and was afraid that I wouldn't sleep that night. I did spend some time sitting out and talking to Sister Wanlass, which was pretty great! I just need to get President on board with me never having to leave her house.

This week we had someone in our ward come home from his mission and then we had one leave the same day. The elder that came home is a member of one of the families that we teach so we were there when he got home from being released. It's been great to meet him after all of the stories we've heard about his mission! It was also perfect timing because he got to come with us to help someone move the next morning :) That was the second time that I've helped someone move on my mission and both times have been the last 2 weekends.

Well there's really nothing else that I can think of for this week...We had some tasty taco salad the other day for dinner (bet y'all never thought I'd say that) and some really good stew Saturday (bet y'all never thought I'd say that too 😁 ).

Have a fantastic week! Love and miss you all :)

Sister Ashley Gootee

Transfers. . .

This was a crazy week! Welp, I guess we'll start with the craziest. I'm training 😓 I don't know who my new companion is yet but she will be fresh out of the MTC! I'm so nervous to train! We totally thought that we were safe because usually you get a call Saturday or early Sunday afternoon if you are assigned a leadership role. So we thought we were safe and then we got out of dinner and we had 2 missed calls from President. So Sister Gali answered when he called again and he asked for me. That was possibly the most terrifying moment of my life. So he asked me to train and I'm staying in this area for another 7 weeks with my greenie! Sister Gali is being transferred to Spring Creek! It's crazy that she's going to the same ward that I served in! It'll definitely be a change for her since she's stayed in Reno for the whole 9 months she's been on her mission. But anyways it was a little hard to fall asleep last night 😬 

In other news I gave a talk in sacrament meeting yesterday!..And I volunteered to give it..yup, you're probably a little shocked :) I just got really excited because in Ward Council a couple weeks ago, Bishop asked us to organize a sacrament meeting on missionary work. So Sister Gali spoke on the missionary's call to teach and I spoke on the members' covenant to do be member missionaries. It was pretty great. And I got to talk about the importance of home and visiting teaching and somewhat unintentionally guilt everyone in the room to remember their covenants. And it was crazy because I wasn't even that nervous! :)

Another crazy thing happened. I ate Red Lobster. That means that in the last 3 weeks I've eaten at a restaurant that primarily serves pasta and one that primarily serves fish. Y'all should be proud that I found something that was not pasta and not fish at each restaurant. I'm pretty much a pro at avoiding gross food.

In other news, one of our investigators is still amazing. He's getting baptized the first weekend in March (and I'm still going to be here for it!! :) ) and he's just awesome. He was telling us about how he had a birthday party to go to on Sunday at 3 and we were sad because church is at 1. We told him that sometimes things come up so it's ok if you can only come to the first hour. He then told us that he would just skip it and come to all 3 hours. Best 12 year old ever! He's also been studying Preach My Gospel and reading and praying daily, so he's pretty much the perfect person to teach! He and Mateo are pretty much tied for the best investigators.

Anyways this next week is going to be even crazier! The entire zone is changing. Out of 10 companionships, only 1 will be the same next transfer. Sister Hingano is going home tomorrow :( it's going to be crazy because she's pretty much been my STL since I came out on my mission. But it'll be crazy teaching someone how to be a missionary..I'll send some pictures next week :)

Love and miss you all!

Sister Ashley Gootee