Sunshine Sentiments: SISTER DeGOOYER

Sister DeGooyer and Sister Stichart

Hello Everyone!

Happy Independence Day! It's kind of cool that my FIRST p-day landed on Independence Day! Sister Stichart (my companion) and I were trying to decide which we were more excited for, laundry or the fireworks. Hahaha, I'm glad to get the laundry done, but I am definitely more excited for the day and all that it means.

As I said, Sister Stichart (Stick-ert) is my companion and she is the best. She is from Wisconsin, she studied exercise science at BYU before she came on her mission. I seriously could not have wished for a better companion. We both love to laugh, and apparently we both can't stop laughing once we get started. Every day it seems that we have at least one "episode," namely me snorting in the middle of "The Lord Is My Light" (LOUD) and Sister Stichart loosing it during a prayer with our district, which of course made the whole district dissolve including the teacher.

We have 14 people in our district, 4 sets of Elders and 3 sets of Sisters. We have two teachers; Sister Chapple teaches us for about 3 hours in the morning and Sister Kemp teaches us for 3 hours at night. They both have served missions and they are great teachers. Sister Chapple is a stickler for the rules and Sister Kemp is a little more lenient. Our district is kind of wild, but they are great and we are quickly becoming like family.

Sister Stichart and I room with two other sisters from our district (Merrell and Ferguson). They are both good people. Sister Merrell is a confirmed extrovert and Sister Ferguson is a determined introvert. We have 3 bunk-beds in our room, and so that meant one of us had to sleep on a top and I drew that lot. I don't know if the other Sisters are regretting it because I literally am the last one to finish writing in my journal and I fell off my bed this morning. ;)

TRC's are the best! TRC stands for Teaching Resource Center. There we get to teach people who are interested in learning about the church. It's really good practice for "the real world." We get two people to teach a week, our two are Trevor and Lauren.

Trevor was assigned to us. He is a nonmember, who goes to BYU. He has a track scholarship. He wants to learn more about Eternal Families, because his Grandpa just died of cancer. He is and was raised Baptist. So he has some interesting viewpoints.

Sister Stichart and I found Lauren during a finding activity. She's a non-member who goes to UVU and studies journalism (she wants to be a writer!). She moved to Utah in December, she is originally from Australia. She is a "try everything" type of person, and so we are teaching her more about the gospel and hoping that she will accept it. She is super cool, and I can tell she wants to believe in God and especially Christ. She's really interested in who Christ is and what he has done for us. We have had two lessons with her and they have been really great. The first lesson we had with her, we had a lesson planned that I didn't feel too confident about. Sister Stichart was confident and said simply that we would follow the Spirit. We got in there are Sister Stichart immediately went on a different subject and I knew that it was right. (See how awesome my companion is?!)

The MTC so far has been hard, but mostly an amazing experience! I have loved it! I have loved learning about my Savior and this gospel that I love so much. I am excited and humbled to wear Christ's name upon my shoulder. I have learned a lot since coming here about teaching and about the Spirit. I was having a little trouble earlier on in the week, but last Tuesday we went to Devotional and Elder Kim B. Clark said something that really struck me. He said that the Spirit is the teacher and that we should have confidence in our Savior. That made the difference and since then, I have felt on top of the world!

Love you all muchas,

Sister DeGooyer