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 :)