First Week In Arkansas!!!!!!

Where to start? I have like 10 minutes to write this so lets see how far I get. This week has felt SUPER long. I dont know why. But it has been really hard but fun too. I have had my struggles but thats what a mission is right? 

SO real quick. I was sent to North Little Rock and there are 8 missionaries in my district. 4 Elders who are awesome and 4 Hermanas including Hermana MITCHELL!!!!!!!!!!! (I love her SO much). My first day here we took my bags (3, 2 weighing 50 pounds and one 40) all the way up the stairs to the 3rd floor to where we live. That was fun. Also my bike and 2 boxes too. MY BIKE IS AWESOME! I love it so much. I havent had to ride it yet which is a good thing because it has been FREEZING here and has rained almost everyday. Despues we went straight to work. We went to this trailer park Shackleford Trailers and went knocking on doors known as Spiritual Harvesting where we pick a house and knock and tell them who we are and ask to leave them with a prayer of peace and a blessing upon their home and family (all in Spanish) and ask to come back. Its pretty cool. The people here are nice and let us in and let us schedule a return appt. but then when we go back they hardly ever answer their doors. Every door here has pics of Jesus. Its awesome. Its a good way to let them let us in because we say that we are reps. of Jesus and want to leave his peace and blessing and they let us because they love Jesus here. We were walking around there the other day and it started pouring rain and our car was on the other street down and while running to it we got SOAKED!!!!!!!!! It was the best ever.

Oh my comp is Hermana Smith. She is pretty cool. She has been here for 7 months and is waiting on her VISA to Argentina. OH I forgot to mention my first two days here I was the designated driver because she couldnt drive for some reason because her papers werent in. That was fun... But now she drives us everywhere. She is teaching me a lot. We have a nice apartment, phone, and lots of miles to use in our car. 

Food here is good. Hermana Smith and I dont like to cook much so we have had some interesting meals like cut up potatoes for dinner, tater tots, mac n cheese, grilled cheese, oatmeal, and yogurt. We did make hamburgers the other day and that was pretty good. 

The food at the mission home was awesome and we have eaten a few nights at members houses and that was DELICIOUS!!!!!!! And today I had my first catfish filet (breaded). We went out to eat and it was pretty good. It kinda just tasted like chicken.

So it is super hard to teach because I dont understand people very often. They just speak super fast. But my comp. does so thats good. But we have had some pretty great lessons these past few days. I handed out to Book of Mormons to a really cool family and asked them to read the intro and we came back and they had read it and it was super cool! We also have an investigator that has a pet squirell! Crazy huh? 

We had a Thanksgiving party at the church the other night and two of our investigators came!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was SO cool! And then we also had one of our investigators come to CHURCH!!!!!!!!!!!! I guess that is super hard to do but we did it! Church was good. I understood most of it. There is this cute little girl Tiffany (the family with the squirell) that wanted to come to church so bad and was begging her dad and he just kept saying we will see but they didnt end up coming :( Ah!!!!!!!! I already have to go. TIme goes so fast! I love you all! 

Love, 

Hermana Goudie

In the mission home. Isn't it beautiful?

Arkansas River! So pretty! :)

A blurry picture but look at the colors in the trees!

Hermana MITCHELL!!!!!! I love her. And she is beautiful.

My comp. Hma. Smith.

My bike. It is the red one. I LOVE IT!!!!!

My cute bed! :)

Part of my district and playing chairsketball. It is SUPER fun! We have rolly like
office chairs and we play basketball on them. I love it! Elder Ludwig is in there
too! My distant cousin. We played for for P-Day today.

Sister Goudie Has Arrived in Arkansas!

Got this sweet letter from the mission president and his wife! So glad Chantelle is safe and back in the states!

Dear Brother & Sister Goudie, 

Your daughter has safely arrived in Little Rock! We are grateful to you for raising your child such that she is worthy to serve as a full time missionary. 

We promise to watch over Sister Goudie while she is in our care. We will love her and do all within our power to keep her safe and happy. We want the next 18 months of her life to be a positive, life changing experience. 

Thank you for taking the time to share with us some insights into your daughter’s personality and life experiences; it is very helpful as we counsel with her and make companionship assignments. She was thrilled and touched to have your first letter awaiting her arrival at the mission home. 

Missionary work is difficult but is also extremely rewarding. Miracles happen on a daily basis. We will quickly get her to work so she can experience the joys of sharing the gospel and serving others. 

Thank you for sharing your daughter with us for a short time and entrusting her care to us. We will love her for eternity. We promise that great blessings will come to her and to you as she magnifies her call as a full time missionary. It is truly a great honor and blessing to share the gospel and serve the Lord every day in every way. 

With Love and Gratitude,
President and Sister Petersen 

P.S. Attached is a photo of your newly arrived missionary!

Arkansas, Here Comes Hermana Goudie!!!!!!!

ITS ALREADY HERE???????!!!!!!??????? What? How can this be? I really cannot believe my time here in the CCM is almost over... It feels like I just got here but at the same time if I think back of my time before the mission it seems like forever ago. Its weird. But I am super excited to head out into the field. And a little nervous (okay maybe a lot nervous) to be teaching real people instead of teachers. CRAZY!!!!!!!!! I really am stoked though. Its going to be the best. 

So this week went by really fast. Well I guess I only emailed on Wednesday but still. I dont know if I mentioned this last week but we got a new branch this week because our last branch dissolved (we were the last district left). So this Sunday we went to a new Sacrament meeting and we were apart of branch 11 district D instead of branch 9 district C. Not like the letters and numbers mean anything to those reading. But before Sacrament we all met with our new Branch Presidency, the Jewells who are a senior couple from Utah, and they just wanted to get to know us. So we started off this meeting with the usual song and prayer. We sang Nearer my God to Thee because my district loves that song and we sing it quite often. At the end of the song Hermana Jewell was amazed at our great musical ability and our beautiful harmonies. She then said that she wishes we could do the musical number for Sacrament but there was already one prepared from another district. As soon as Sacrament started Pres. Jewell came up to the district in front of us and told them that they will do their musical number next week and then proceeded to coming to us and saying that he wanted us to do the musical number. Cool huh? We didnt have any time to practice who was going to sing what so we decided to do what weve done in class before with this song. I think I might have mentioned that last week we started this thing where a few Elders sing a verse while the rest of us hum and then other Elders sing the second verse and the rest hum and then lastly Hermana Murri and I sing while the Elders hum. Its awesome. So thats what we did. And then the 4th verse we all sang together. So pretty much my district is the best. Thats all ;) And Im humble about it too ;)

Sunday afternoon we got to watch the Testaments. I had never seen it. But a lot of teachers and people in seminary from high school said that I look like the girl from it. The movie was awesome and I didnt really think that I looked like her but sure enough after the movie I had 7 people come up to me and tell me that I looked exactly like the girl from the movie. It was pretty funny. Sunday night Pres. and Hermana Jewell had us and the other district from the branch that is leaving this week over for ice cream and chocolate banana cake. It was delicious! They gave us some wise words of advice. 

Today the Elders gave us blessings. It was amazing. They priesthood is SO cool and blessings are THE BEST. It was a blessing of peace and comfort and it was just what I needed. Elder Hazard gave it to me (our district leader). 

Because this was our last week things were getting a bit crazy with the game what are the odds. There is a whole section of the Comodor where you can go and make peanut butter and Jelly or honey or nutella sandwiches and our table (hermana Murri, Pettit, Overy, Mama, and Lyman) did what are the odds that hermana lyman and mama go and take a whole jar of peanut butter and nutella and a whole loaf of bread for the sandwich making station and bring it back to our table. Our table was like the furthest away too from this station so they had to walk all the way through the other tables of missionaries with this and it was hilarious! Everyone was giving them the weirdest looks. 

So while I am sad to leave this place, I have learned so much here and am excited to use what I have learned in Arkansas to teach real people. So... goodbye Mexico! I really hope to come back here someday. It is beautiful! :) Love you all! Next email will be from Little ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Love, Hermana Goudie

Enjoying the last of my package! Loved these SO much. And yes. Elder Medling is
creeping in the back.

Our table that I described in my Email. Everyday we would do something
crazy. I am going to miss this!

Just some hermanas that are leaving this week. This was after singing hasta ver
(God Be With You Till We Meet Again) each week those leaving get in a big circle
in the comedor and sing this. It's awesome.

New branch presidency with Hermana Coleman as well.

Our favorite teacher! 

We are a little crazy. This was at our last devo last night.

The Hermanas in mi casa. We all leave this week. SO SAD! :( I will miss us.

Weird statue right outside the CCM.

Last distric pics with Hermana Coleman and Hermano Smith

Ultimó Semana en la CCM!!!!!!!!

Hola a todos!!!!!!!!!!!! Como estan? ¡Estoy muy feliz aqui y muy animado por la oportunidad a servir un mision en Arkansas! ¡Misiones son la mejor! ¡Este es me ultimó día de preparación!

Anyways back to English since most of you reading this dont speak spanish. Well some of you do ;) the cool ones at least ;) joking. es broma. So the mission life is just pretty great. I am loving every second of it. One thing I am really loving here is how much I am learning about the Book of Mormon.. It is the coolest book EVER. If you dont read it, READ IT! I love it so much and its so cool to read and really learn about all the stories and cool prophets and how I can apply todas las cosas en mi vida. Seriously though. Read it! I learn so many things about missionary work and recieve so  many answers in there cada dia. Its awesome. Reading the book of mormon just to read it and reading the book of mormon to really learn from it and study it is completely different and I wish I wouldve studied it more before I came because I seriously love it! especially in Spanish! But it takes me like 3 times as long to know what I am reading about ;) but it is a good way to study and really focus on what I am reading. 

So teaching is getting better. It is still really hard to say what I want to sometimes but I feel like my spanish is to the point where I can eventually get around to what I am wanting to say but it doesnt always come out exactly how I want it to be said ;) haha. its getting better though. I can understand it pretty well and when we are in class and teachers only speak spanish or I hear practice lessons in spanish or when i teach only in spanish I am able to understand the general gist of everything. but thats probably because they speak slow. If I start hearing a native tell a story they eventually lose me because they speak so fast. So I guess you could say that I know and can understand CCM spanish but as soon as I get out to Arkansas and talk to natives I am going to be completely lost ;)

I bought a cute watch from the tienda this week. I hate wearing watches. Its a good day if the watch lasts an hour or two but this watch is a lot smaller and I usually dont notice I am wearing it so thats good. I also bought my scripture cases today at the temple! They are awesome! One of them is a Mexico one and the other is like red with a bunch of other bright colors on it. I love them! The temple was awesome today and it is my last time :( We took lots of pictures though. I really am going to miss this place! :(

So guess who spoke in sacrament meeting this week? ME!!!!!!!!! I spoke about the book of mormon. It wasnt even that scary. Probably because there were only two districts in our branch. All of the others left and after this last week we were the last ones so we got moved and we are in a different branch for one week. pero esta bien. so when I spoke there were only like 20ish people. It was actually kinda fun :)

So you know the Scentsy lotion Kara Egan gave me before I left? I love it and its kinda strong but a really good strong. Whenever I put it on in the auditorium during devocionals everyone around me is like OH! What is that smell? It smells so good! haha ;) The Elders in my district always ask for it and they even put it on. After that like 4 or 5 rows back you can hear missionaries saying what is that yummy smell? Its the best. People now that dont even know my name call me the pumpkin lotion hermana! ;)

This Sunday we watched two movies. The stonecutter and a Christ video. I love SUNDAYS!!!!! We have so much time to study and we get to watch movies. Its just the best. Pretty sure I say that about almost everything here ;)

THANK YOU MADRE for the package!!!!!!!!!! It was perfect! Everyone in my district was jealous! I loved the chips and the cheese is awesome and I even heat it up in the microwave and then it is like real nachos. I LOVE NACHOS!!!!!! and with rootbeer they are even better. And then for dessert I eat one of the candy bars like Snickers which are my favorite and then by the end of the night ive gained like 5 pounds from eating so much of this yummy food that my awesome mother sends me!!!!!!!!!!! I have the best mom in the whole. wide. world. Sorry everyone. But Ive got you beat ;) 

The other day our sub teacher showed up like half an hour late. So what did we do? SANG HIMNOS!!!!!!!! my district loves to sing and I love that about us! We sing all the time and most of the time our harmonies are pretty awesome :) And then we did this thing where one missionary sings the verse while everyone else hums. Its great. We did that with like 3 songs switching off who sings the solo. LOVE IT!!!!!!!

For sirvicio this week guess what we did? Thats right. Folded sheets. otro vez. Its bound to happen. I am going to get famous when I get back because of my pro sheet folding skills. I love it though! Doing service is the best. While I am folding it reminds me of when I was in Annie and we would mess around in the laundry basket and then remember when I was Molly and they tossed me up in the air with that big huge blanket? I thought about having the big strong elders do that to me the other day but then I thought it probably wouldnt be missionary appropriate ;) Despues sirvicio we went out and played soccer in the rain. It was pretty great! It wasnt really rain though it was more like mist. 

Today it is freezing by the way. Winter coat and scarf in Mexico? Who knew?

Una mas cosa that was exciting that happened this week. Hermana Murri y yo commited our investigator Roberta to be...... BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!! She is a really hard investigator too so it was really exciting! We taught her about baptism and how we need to follow Christ. Towards the end of the lesson Roberta said she wanted to follow Christ and learn how to make people a priority in her life. I then asked her in my broken spanish and trying to hold back the tears (yes I often cry in lessons) if she was willing to make Christ a priority in her life. She nodded. Then I was prompted to ask if she would follow Christ by being baptized. She said YES!!!! or really Sí!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was awesome! After the lesson Hermana Coleman (Roberta) said that if we can teach Roberta we can teach anyone. And she also said that she felt prompted to tell us that she felt like Hermana Murri and I are ready to leave the CCM and teach real people and the she is really proud of us. It was awesome to hear and it was such a great experience. I just cant wait until I hear real people say those words! 

Well all is well here and I am excited to head out to Arkansas in cinco dias! AH!!!!!!!! its scary and exciting and sad at the same time. I have a mixed amount of emotions. LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!! 

Con amor, 

Hermana Goudie

Saying goodbye to our favorite hermanas in our branch!

Mi districto with our last week as 9 C. We are no 11 D for one more week.

My district with a map picture. Classic.

Our favorite nativos left his week! :( They were awesome! We learned so much from them!

Our favorite nativo (probably because she spoke ingles and could answer our questions about spanish)

Mi Pacquete!!!!! (I dont think that is how you spell that)
MY PACKAGE!!!!!!!!! :) From the best mom in the world!

One more gift from our branch presidency. Left overs from Dia de los Muertos.

Mi districto con nuestra maestra al templo hoy!

We are crazy!!

My scripture cases!

Hermana Pettit and I with matching cases. I love her! Shes from Iowa and there are 14 people in her
family. Random fact for the day. ;)

Hermana Overy and I and some Elders in my district on the way home from the temple. Our bus almost
broke down and was smoking really bad. It was scary.

Week Four! :)

This week was a party!!!!!!!!!! Outside of the walls that is. This week was Halloween in the U.S. as you all know (no we did not celebrate it here however our class had a little trick or treat party and Hermana Murri and I switched tags for our costumes) but in Mexico it was Dia de los muertos!!!!!!!!!! Which means lots of fancy authentic music playing nice and loud all night and lots of parties and yummy food! Our branch was so nice and they told us Sunday at 3 we had to meet all together where we have Sacrament to have interviews. Anyways we got there and the whole room was decorated colorfully and there was a table set up with lots of yummy food. They gave us pan de muertos which is yummy bread with sugar on top and they kinda had an orange flavor to me and on top of the bread they shaped it into bones. There was also their kind of hot chocolate and some jello stuff that had skull shapes in it. I will send pics. It was SO nice of them! Oh and this week was Fast Sunday. They do it different here. We fast dinner Saturday night and then we eat lunch Sunday afternoon after church. And because it was fast Sunday I didn't have to speak! ;) I bet I will next week though although I am playing piano so maybe not...

Anyways back to my week. This week was the start of teaching the Elders in my district as investigators and then they teach us as investigators as well. Its pretty cool. So when we are not teaching Roberta or Daniel (our teachers) we teach them and then we get taught. I like it. A lot. I don't feel as scared for those lessons. Oh and something else cool that happened this week. For almost all of my lessons (besides one) I taught without bringing any notes in! That's a big step for me. I didn't feel like I knew the doctrine well enough or language well enough to not look at notes every now and then but this week I just decided to see how it would go without notes and it went really well! Better than when I did have notes and I think that is because I allowed the Spirit to teach more than just what I had prepared. The feeling and conversations and lessons just went so much smoother and I loved it!

We got native hermanas in nuestra casa este semana (our house this week) I love them so much! They are only here for like two weeks but I love them to death. Its great practice to try and talk to them but its super hard because they speak SO fast. They are the best.  So my companion is pretty much the best. She played her violin to "I Know that my Redeemer Lives" in Devotional in front of all the missionaries here (about 700 or 800 I can't remember) with another hermana from another casa that also brought her violin and she is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love hearing and watching her play. It is beautiful! I wish I would have brought like a book of church songs that I could play for like preludes before Devos. I should have practiced some before because I don't have much time to learn songs here. But I do have time every now and then to practice some hymns and I love it!
 
This week Hermana Coleman did coaching with me and Hermana Murri. I was saying how in the night before practice (we taught each other in our district and a teacher assigned us a fake problem so the Elder I was teaching had a problem with going to school. He was 14 and was in a gang and didn't go to school. We had to find ways that the Book of Mormon could help them and for some reason I was stumped and couldn't think of a scripture that could help him) I realized I don't know many scriptures that can help specific problems. What she had me do then is she pretended that she was the Elder from the night before and before we started she asked me if I had the faith that wherever I opened the Book of Mormon I would find a scripture that would help her. So we started and she told me whenever I felt prompted to open the scriptures that I would share the verse that stood out to me. It was really scary for me because I didn't know exactly what the scriptures say because they were in Spanish but I can usually get the general idea. So I started talking to her and said lots of prayers in my heart and opened to a random scripture and read the one that stuck out to me and it really went along with what I was teaching. It was awesome! I cant even remember the scripture now but it was something along the lines of how God gives us commandments and laws to help us grow and when we keep those laws we will be blessed more than we know. And then I applied that to how he (she in this case) needed to go to school. It was awesome and made me realize that I don't have to put so much stress on myself with thinking about what I want to say or share with the investigator because the Spirit will help me out and tell me what to say.


So I had a dream the other night that Maddie went on a mission. So if she doesn't read this you should tell her. It was pretty cool.  MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much for the Krispy Kreme package you sent me! I loved them SO much! We even have a microwave right by our classroom (our class is connected to the teachers lounge so that's pretty nice) so I heated it up for 8 seconds and then I went and got a cold glass of milk from the comedor and it was the best thing ever! I've done that like 5 times I think... I figured I couldn't eat all the doughnuts though so I gave some to the elders in my district. But thank you so much! I loved it :)

So remember how I just recently (two weeks before I left) got surgery for the millionth (I don't know if that is a word) time on my toe to make sure I wouldn't have any ingrown toenails on the mission... well guess who has ANOTHER ONE??????????? Yeah. Me. That's right. Another one. On a different toe though. Its the same toe that I've had the most surgeries on but its on the opposite side. Haha ;) Its not bad though. Honestly like it doesn't hurt I just think it is so ironic how I ALWAYS GET THEM!!!!!!!!!! I'm not going to worry about it though. If it gets worse while in Arkansas I will let you know but really it is fine for now.

Well I better send some pics before I get booted off this computer... This hour goes by too fast! I usually end up staying on for about an hour and a half but still. I love you all and I hope my email wasn't too scattered and all over the place to read. I don't have much time to proofread...
 
LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Con Amor,
Hermana Goudie

Our own little trick or treat party in our classroom with our district. These are
the treats I got from everyone. Mmmmmmmm! :)

Classic. Switch of the name tags for our Halloween costume.

Yes we are rebels and we wear sandals around the house.
They look great with our dresses huh?

The beautiful table that our branch set up with the Dia De Los Muertos goodies!

My district with our Branch Presidency and his wife who prepared
all the goodies!

Pan de Muertos (yummy bread)!

The Dia De Los Muertos Jell-O!

KRISPY KREME PACKAGE!!!!!!!!! :)

So there is a guy here that sells soccer jerseys and they are pretty sweet
so I bought one. I love it!

The back! Favorite number of all time!

So today me and Elder Miskimmins were walking by some painters and
they just throught that we fit exactly what they wanted to paint so they
asked if we would pose for them so they could paint us. ;) Haha! No we planned this.
There is this mural and my companion said that we looked a lot like them so we decided
to take a picture by it today. No that is not my dress. It is a Hermanas dress in my
room but I love it and it looks just like the one in the painting.