Mesa Temple Visitors Center

Welcome Sis. Rodriguez, Seville Spain

Mission picture by Gilbert Temple

12/21/15 letter

So Wednesday around noon, we got a call from the assistants asking us to come to the mission office as soon as we could. They asked us to make room in our trunk and if our bike rack was attached. This was code for "you're getting a new companion." Two sisters are here visiting for 2 transfers from the temple square mission; Hermana Castillo from Columbia and Hermana Rodríguez from Seville, Spain. The departing group for this transfer was going to be leaving on Thursday, so the two temple square sisters took the spots of Hermana Jensen and the one other Hermana leaving this transfer. But this still meant that we had about 24 as a quad. Most of the time, the gospel is preached two by two, and in the circumstances of this last transfer, three by three. But we got to try it out four by four...it was quite interesting. They should change the scripture in Matthew 18 to "in the mouth of two or three or four witnesses every word may be established."

On Thursday we drove up to Tempe to drop off Hermana Jensen at the mission home at 8:30, and ended up having to stay in Tempe until about 2:00. There was an 8:30 meeting for the departing group, but then all the departing missionaries went back to their area until 2:00. Because Maricopa was too far away to drive there and back, they just had us do our studies in a nearby church building. After studies, we made a video lesson for an investigator of the four of us teaching, then headed to Los Reyes de la Torta for lunch. I'll attach a picture.

Anyway, so finally, we were back regular ol' to trio life. The three of us teach really well in unity and it's really nice to have Hermana Rodríguez to help us out with our Spanish. She's awesome. She learned English in the UK, so she has a total British accent when she speaks English and a total Spain accent when she speaks Spanish. (all C's and Z's are replaced with a "th" sound)

Wednesday night, while we were still a quad, we went to the Mesa Temple lights and visitors center with the Prentice family who got baptized about 2 months ago and their daughter's friend Ethan, who has been coming to church and meeting with us. I'll send a picture of that too. (We took lots of pictures while we were in a quad just because it was so different and random) Saturday night was awesome! We had our branch Christmas party with carne asada, chicken, rice, beans, guacamole, posole, tortillas, and everything else I've ever dreamed about. Eva, who's getting baptized January 2 came and enjoyed it a lot. Also, Aracely, who we've been teaching for a while, came and loved it. Our branch is really good at fellowshipping investigators and Aracely felt so welcomed. It was Aracely's first time to the church, so we gave her a church tour. We showed her some of the pictures of Christ in the halls, then went in the chapel and taught her a lesson about the sacrament and baptism. We invited her to be baptized and she said yes! She told us she wants a change in her life and a fresh start. She told us about the spirit she can feel every time we come over and how strongly she felt it around all the members. She's going to get baptized on January 16th. Her husband was working on Saturday night, but we're doing an FHE in a members home with them tonight and have a lesson planned for tomorrow, so hopefully, he accepts a baptismal invitation as well.

I'll be Facetiming on Christmas Day at 12:30. I won't be able to make multiple calls to different siblings, but you could pull them up on a different device and we could talk FaceTime to FaceTime. Do you want me to FaceTime dad's phone or iPad? If you want the iPad, can you send me his city email that his IPad is connected to.

I hope you have a good time in the days leading up til Christmas. I can't wait to talk to you on Christmas Day.

Love,

Hermana Gubler

Visit to Gilbert AZ temple

Zone conference meal

Visiting Santa in Arizona

Santa basketball players

12/15/15 letter

Hi,

Sorry I was't able to write on Monday. We were doing our mission Christmas conference all day, but we got permission to email today.

Christmas Conference was super fun! It officially started Sunday night in Tempe at the monthly Mission Presidents Devotional, where new converts share their testimonies and President Toone speaks. Usually, missionaries only can go if we have an investigator with us and a ride from a member, but all the missionaries got permission to go to this one, even the missionaries out in Yuma.

Monday morning, the whole mission met at a big park across the street from the Gilbert temple and we ran a 5k. It was super unofficial and no one was timing or anything because missionaries aren't supposed to get competitive...but if anyone was counting, I was the first sister to finish. After the 5k, we had a big pancake breakfast in the park with bacon, sausage, orange juice, etc. The only downer was that it was pouring rain, but there was a big pavilion that we ate under and it was lots of fun. After that, we went to a nearby stake center and had a 3 on 3 basketball competition between zones. It was sooooo fun!

I think I forgot how much I miss playing and watching competitive sports (the competition got pretty intense). My voice was about 3 octaves lower than usual on Tuesday because my throat was so sore from screaming and cheering so much during basketball. After that, we had a nice lunch/dinner and then headed out into the middle of nowhere between Maricopa and Gila Bend to a church history site where the Mormon Battalion camped one Christmas. It was about a 2-3 mile hike from the road to get out to the site. We built a big bonfire and the whole mission sat crowded around for a testimony meeting. It was super cold even though I was pretty bundled up, but it was a cool experience. The stars were so clear and pretty. After the testimony meeting, we all got big cinnamon rolls, then hiked back. I got back to Maricopa at about 10:20.

On Tuesday morning, our zone went to the Mesa temple for the 8:30 session, then we headed over to the Gilbert temple for the entire mission picture. After that, we had a fancy lunch at a nearby stake center with all the missionaries, stake presidents, and their wives.

There were lots of talents and different musical numbers shared and Santa Claus even showed up for a little bit.

But now, we're back to regular missionary life.

On Thursday, we had a Relief Society activity in our branch where we went and sang Christmas carols at a hospice home. Afterward, we went out to eat at a nice restaurant on the golf course here.

Last Wednesday, we had a special zone training from President Toone, the Assistants, and a couple other experienced missionaries on how to apply the Doctrine of Christ (faith in Jesus Christ, Repentance, Baptism, the reception of the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end) into everything we teach.

Before the training, I scheduled an interview with President Toone to recite "The Family, a Proclamation to the World" which I've been memorizing in Spanish for the last couple of months. At the mission conference, myself and a couple other missionaries who passed it off this transfer received a certificate and CTR pin.

Sorry, not a lot of time to write today, but thanks for the care packages and all the letters and notes from everybody. My companions are convinced that dad's persimmons were the fruit in the Garden of Eden because they taste so good.

I'll send some emails with all the pictures from Christmas conference.

Hermana Sedgwick is in most of them because we hung out pretty much the entire time.

How's the Christmas decorating coming? I want to see pictures of the house with Christmas lights and everything.

Love,

Hermana Gubler

Mesa Temple lights

December 7, 2015 letter

Dear Family,

This week, we had lots of fun. The small, quaint towns of Ajo and Gila Bend (literally in the middle of nowhere) which are part of our stake/zone each have a set of sisters serving there. The sisters stayed at our house a few nights this week and it was super fun. I'll explain why throughout the course of this email.

On Friday, we went to the Christmas lights on the Mesa Temple grounds with Eva (getting baptized January 2), a member, and her son. Eva loved it! Eva's been feeling a little bit down, but on Wednesday, we felt like we should teach her about family history work and temples.

It was exactly what she needed. She is so excited about everything now and relates everything we teach her to the celestial kingdom and family history. She is super excited to do baptisms for the dead for her mom, aunt, etc. She loved the temple grounds and lights and is so excited to go in the temple soon after her baptism. We're allowed to go to the Mesa temple lights as much as we want as long as we have an investigator with us and we can get a ride from a member and it's an effective use of time. We're going to try to go again this Thursday with some investigators. The Gila Bend Sisters also went to the lights on Friday night with their branch and some investigators, but weren't going to make it home to Gila bend in time, so they spent the night at our house in Maricopa and made the 45 minute drive to Gila Bend in the morning. One of the Gila Bend sisters, Sister Tew ran track at UVU before her mission, so the 2 of us woke up at 6:00 on Saturday morning and ran 4 1/2 miles which was awesome! I miss running that far and surprisingly, I wasn't super slow. I've been working my companions up to be able to run farther with me, but I've only built them up to a little less than 2 miles, so a long run was soooooo nice.

Saturday was the evening adult session of stake conference in Maricopa, so the Ajo and Gila Bend sisters drove up for that. (About a

85 minute drive from Ajo) Then they stayed the night for the general session on Sunday morning. So staying at our house, we had the 4 sisters from Ajo and Gila Bend, the 3 in my trio, plus the 2 English sisters who live with us...lets just say it was a party. After stake conference on Sunday, the gospel principles class in our branch did a potluck and they invited the Ajo and Gila Bend sisters as well. So we went to that, taught a couple lessons, then went to watch the first presidency Christmas Devotional at the Stake Center. The Ajo and Gila Bend sisters stayed the night again on Sunday night so they could be in Maricopa for pday and go grocery shopping because there isn't a grocery store in Gila Bend. Also, Sister Tew and I went running for 4

1/2 miles again this morning.

Noemi came to church on Sunday, but told us she needs to push her baptism back to December 22 because of some complications, but she's still super excited to be baptized.

Next Monday, I don't know how much email time I'll get or which day I'll be emailing on because we're doing Christmas conference that day with the mission. We're doing a 5k run, talent show, bonfire, and lots of other fun stuff. So don't be surprised if you don't get a letter this Monday.

Hope you have a great week and enjoy this Christmas season. Have you put up Christmas lights yet? There's lots of pretty lights on the houses here.

Love,

Hermana Gubler

Sister Voyles, District 2

Mirna's baptism

11/30/15 letter

Dear Family,

HappyThanksgiving!!!

For Thanksgiving, we got permission to play in a turkey bowl. We played flag football for a couple of hours with some other missionaries and some members from their wards. It was really fun and the members we played with were really nice. President Toone didn't want us proselyting on Thanksgiving day, so it was a pretty chill day.

We played the turkey bowl, went home and showered and relaxed for a couple of hours, had Thanksgiving dinner, went back home and relaxed, went to a members house, came back home, planned for the next day, then I went to bed at 8:30 which was awesome! A lady in our branch invited us for Thanksgiving dinner at the church building. She put on a nice dinner for people who didn't have family to eat dinner with.

There were about 16 people there including the 5 Maricopa sister missionaries, and lots of empty nesters. Pretty traditional food and cute decorations. After the turkey bowl, we were talking with a couple of the members we played with who were all related. We found out that one of them was visiting from California and was the husband of Sister Voyles from the District 2 [movie about missionaries]. I had a minor freak out because she's pretty much a celebrity in the missionary world. They invited us to come for Thanksgiving dinner and to meet her, but we told them we already had a dinner planned, so they invited us to come over that evening. We went and had an awesome 1 1/2 hour visit with them and their family. Sister Voyles was super nice and she taught us a lot about missionary work and learning the language and stuff.

Saturday, Mirna got baptized and I got permission to go to Casa Grande to watch the baptism. We got a ride from our branch mission leader, and Noemi (someone we're teaching in Maricopa preparing to be baptized on December 8th) and her husband and kids came to watch as well. She wanted to see what a baptism was like before she gets baptized and there aren't any planned in Maricopa before her baptism, so she came to Casa Grande. (About a 30 minute drive) The baptismal service was really nice. I gave the talk on baptism and Hermana Sedgwick gave the talk on the Holy Ghost. One of the Elders from Casa Grande baptized Mirna. She bore her testimony at the end about how happy she was and how much her life has changed from meeting with the missionaries. It was awesome! Mirna talked with Noemi afterward and now Noemi is super excited to be baptized. It was really nice to see all the people from Casa Grande again and Hermana Sedgwick and I were soooooooo excited to see each other.

Saturday night, we went to a house of a lady who was baptized when she was 8, but never really went to church after that. She wants us to teach her 2 kids about God, but she's not super interested in learning more. We went over, but she wasn't home, so we taught her kids, then her father-in-law, Hugo, who has been living with her for about 2 months. We taught Hugo the Restoration and he liked it a lot. He nodded his head in agreement to everything and understood everything we taught about the Priesthood. We asked him if he would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized and he said "cómo no?" (Sure, why not?) I asked him if he would prepare to baptized on January 9 and he said (in Spanish) "yeah, I'll start preparing." I guess he met with missionaries when he used to live in California and really liked it, but the missionaries stopped coming by (probably due to some miscommunication after transfers).

Being in a trio is super nice because there aren't any restrictions on who we get rides from and what houses we go into. With regular companionships, they can't go in a car or house without another person of the same gender. Trios are also super productive because one person can make a phone call, while the other one records a lesson in area book, and the other one drives. Our area is the entire Maricopa stake, so we have a car and lots of allotted miles which is really nice. I wish we could walk more, but our investigators live too far apart.

My companions have designated me as the fitness coach, so I come out with the workout every morning. We run a little over a mile (I'm building them up so they can run farther) then do lots of abs and push-ups. (Gotta work off the Thanksgiving feast)

I hope you had fun Black Friday shopping and putting up Christmas decorations. Sounds like you had a pretty good Thanksgiving too.

Love,

Hermana Gubler

Tripanionship in Maricopa

Lost in AZ desert

Farewell Casa Grande

11/23/15 letter

So today I'm writing you from Maricopa, Arizona. Transfers were on Thursday and I found out late Wednesday morning that I was leaving Casa Grande. Pretty much the entire mission stayed the same for transfers. The group of missionaries that was supposed to go home on January 1, is now going home December 18 because the church travel department didn't want a bunch of conflicts with flights and everything for the holidays. So the only changes were the missionaries going home, the missionaries coming in, and changes to make accommodations for the missionaries leaving on December 18. The reason I was transferred is because Hermana Sedgwick is training one of the missionaries that just arrived. We found out Wednesday at about 9 a.m.

that Hermana Sedgwick was training, so we knew one of us was leaving. At the time, we didn't know that basically the entire mission was staying the same for transfers, so we thought for sure that Hermana Sedgwick was going to leave and I was going to stay since she's been in Casa Grande for 6 months. We got a text at about 11:30 a.m. that the whole zone was staying the same except myself and one other elder who were being transferred. It kind of threw me for a loop because I wasn't anticipating leaving at all. I was pretty sad to be leaving Casa Grande and Hermana Sedgwick and I are heartbroken that we're not companions anymore.

 So Maricopa! I'm in a trio with Hermana Jensen from Indiana and Hermana Cloward from Grantsville, Utah. Hermana Jensen is one of the missionaries going home on the 18th. The transfer ends on December 31, so when Hermana Jensen leaves, I'll finish second half training Hermana Cloward for the last couple of weeks. They're both really nice sisters and great missionaries. The Maricopa zone is completely the same as last transfer besides the addition of myself and a brand new missionary to replace an Elder who just finished his mission. Our area for the Spanish branch is the whole city of Maricopa plus the surrounding desert. Our zone has all of Maricopa plus Ajo and Gila Bend, which are 2 small towns in the middle of nowhere. The sisters serving in each of those areas have to skype in to most of our district meetings and weekly plannings, so we don't get to see them very often. Since it's such a far drive for them, when they do come to Maricopa for zone conferences and things like that, they drive up the night before and sleep at our house so that will be fun. We live in a really nice house [1484 square feet built in 2013] with a set of English speaking sisters. My new address is 41188 W Barcelona Dr. Maricopa, Az 85138

Before leaving Casa Grande, on Wednesday, we had a lesson with Myrna where we had planned to teach the Word of Wisdom. Before we even started the lesson, she told us about her friend from work who is a member that showed her LDS.org and how to find General Conference and stuff like that. Thanks to her friend's awesome member missionary work, Myrna had listened to multiple conference talks and loved them, printed out others that she is reading and marking, printed out the Articles of Faith [13 basic beliefs of our church] and was reading them, and already knew all about the Word of Wisdom and has been living it ever since her friend told her about it! It was awesome! Myrna is getting baptized this Saturday and I should be able to get permission to attend. I'm so excited for her because she has completely changed her life and is so ready to be baptized.

The Spanish branch in Maricopa is awesome! The members are super helpful with everything missionary related. We had 2 investigators at church on Sunday and literally everyone at church introduced themselves to them and offered to sit by them.

There's a few people in the branch that don't speak Spanish (if their spouse speaks Spanish and is more comfortable attending in Spanish or they received a calling in the Primary or youth programs which are in

English) so during Sacrament meeting, Sister Jensen translates into English over headsets. On Sunday, one of the speakers from the Stake gave a talk in English and we didn't know before hand that she would be speaking English, so all the headsets were passed out to those receiving English translation. When she started speaking, Hermana Jensen and I frantically went and sat next to the members that only speak Spanish and translated for them. I wasn't expecting to be doing translation and I'm sure I said some things that didn't make sense, but overall, it wasn't that terrible. It was kind of fun to see how much my Spanish has improved and how quickly I was able to speak Spanish in order to keep up with the speaker.

Out of time for writing today, but have a good Thanksgiving.

Love,

Hermana Gubler

Selfie

Denise's baptism

11/16/15 letter

This week was awesome! We taught 26 lessons!

On Monday night, we did a Noche De Hogar (family home evening) with a part member family. Estela was baptized a couple years ago, but her husband, Isidro, doesn't come to church because he plays in a soccer league on Sunday's. We're also teaching Isidro's brother and his family. Their names are Caren and Alejandro and they just arrived from Mexico a few months ago.

They have a baby and a 2 year old who are both super cute. Caren came to the noche de hogar as well as a family from our branch who's getting sealed in the temple next week and a recent convert, Ernesto. So with everyone and their kids, there were probably 13 or 14 people there. It was super fun. We did a lesson on Sabbath day observance where I shared experiences about me not doing homework or playing sports on Sundays, then ate food, played games, and chatted.

On Saturday, Denise got baptized into the Spanish branch. She lives in the other Hermana's area, so they taught her, but we know her really well. She and her husband, Miguel are at church every week, then after church the 4 Hermanas, Miguel, Denise, and their daughter Kenya go to an assisted living home and sing and read from the Book of Mormon with a member and his wife who live there. Also, they invite us to dinner all the time, which we love because they make the BEST Mexican food. I love their family so much! Miguel got baptized about a month ago because he started meeting with the missionaries before Denise. It was awesome because he was able to baptize her. The baptismal service was super nice. I was so happy for Denise and I was smiling literally the whole time. Hermanas Mellor, Allred, Sedgwick and I sang "El Viaje Largo," a song that Denise picked out that was written about Esther.

The first and last lines are "Ha sido largo el viaje pero al fin llegué"

(it's been a long journey, but I've finally arrived) When we sang it, Denise and Miguel were both crying. The spirit was super strong. Miguel and Denise are really excited to be sealed as a family in a year. [Joined together for time and eternity in the Temple] On Sunday, we had dinner at their house and it felt like there was a different spirit there than the other times we've gone, now that they've both changed their lives and been baptized. Also, Denise grew up in Fresno, so that's cool.

There were 4 convert baptisms from our zone this weekend. 3 on Saturday and one on Friday. We invited Myrna to the one on Friday because she had to work Saturday. Her daughter was throwing a fit at home, so she got there in time for the closing prayer and song, but that was ok. We were able to show her the baptismal font and give her a church tour. She loved all the pictures of Christ on the walls and she felt the spirit really strong in the chapel and told us she felt peaceful and really excited to be baptized. We had an awesome lesson on the Sacrament and the Priesthood in the chapel and it was a really nice environment. On Saturday morning, we went to her house and taught her the 10 Commandments. She loved them and told us she's going to ask her boss for Sunday's off so she can keep the Sabbath Day holy. At church on Sunday, when she introduced herself in Relief Society, she said she loves the Book of Mormon and that she knows that this is the place for her and that she's super excited to be baptized. It was her first week at church and she said she loved it and that it was the first time she's ever been able to sit through a church service without getting bored.

Susi was able to come to all 3 hours of church for the first time and she really liked it too. Susi's mom is Estela's best friend, so Susi came to Sacrament Meeting 3 or 4 times with Estela before we started teaching her.

Missionary work is so much easier when members are doing member missionary work. In Relief Society on Sunday, the lesson was on member missionary work and it was awesome! All the sisters made paper name tags with their name and "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" on it, so they could be like the full time missionaries with name tags.

I love how much people like missionaries and how much free food we get. On Wednesday, we were invited to lunch at Jimmy Johns with a recent convert. We showed up 20 minutes late, and he showed up 20 minutes after that. While we were waiting for him, a member from Gilbert came up to us and said "I'm buying your lunch today." We weren't sure yet if our recent convert was going to show up, so we accepted. After ordering a sandwich, he asked the cashier "did they order chips?" and handed us chips, then asked the cashier "did they order cookies?" then handed us cookies. We had a nice conversation with him and thanked him profusely. Then our recent convert showed up and was so apologetic thinking that we had bought our own food, but we assured him it was ok. On Friday during weekly planning, a couple of people in the YSA [young single adult] branch texted us and invited us to Chick-fil-A for lunch, so that was awesome too. Also the guy I talked about a couple weeks ago who worked at a Mariscos restaurant gave us a ton of delicious fish tacos when we went by to teach him.

Our zone is in a competition for who can ask for the most referrals because we're supposed to ask everyone for referrals [opportunities to teach friends of church members]. Usually, we forget to ask, or will maybe ask 1 or 2 a day, but with my competitiveness, Hermana Sedgwick and I asked for 24 on Saturday and 8 on Sunday. We're definitely in the lead.

Transfers are this Thursday. I hope Hermana Sedgwick and I stay together, but she's already been in Casa Grande for 6 months, so we'll see what happens.

I love being a missionary,

Love,

Hermana Gubler

11/9/15 letter

Hola,

This week was pretty average. Nothing too exciting to tell about. Last night was the monthly mission presidents devotional in Mesa. Usually it's in Tempe at the ASU Institute building, but this month it was at the Mesa Community College institute building. Two recent converts spoke. One named Javier who was really cool and had a super awesome conversion story. The other was a chief from an Indian reservation in Yuma. He skyped in along with a congregation watching from Yuma.

Hermana Sedgwick sang a solo of "Be Still My Soul" at the devotional and it was so good! She has a really pretty voice.

Also yesterday was stake conference. It was a broadcast from Salt Lake to all the stakes in AZ, NM, TX, OK, and NV. Elders Robbins, Corbridge, and Oaks spoke along with sister Linda Reeves. One of our investigators, Susi (on date for Dec. 5) came with her 3 kids and said she liked it.

Monday was Hermana Sedgwick's birthday, so for pday [preparation day], we went to a park and had cake and played games. We had a water balloon fight and played kickball. I wrote Hermana Sedgwick a song on the guitar for her birthday. It was super cheesy and not that good, but she said she loved it.

It's starting to get "cold" and Hermana Sedgwick and I are always freezing. It's like 75 degrees everyday, but we got so used to the heat, that now we're cold.

We had a super cool lesson this week with Myrna, who's on date for Nov. 28. She said she used to chase missionaries off of her property or not open the door to them, but she said the day we came, something told her to let us in. She said that now that she's been meeting with us, her life has completely changed and her attitude and outlook on life has changed. It was a cool testimony for me to know that when someone rejects us, maybe someday they'll be another set of missionaries like for Myrna.

Sorry, not a ton of time to write today. But I love missionary life and I'm having a great time doing the Lord's work.

Love,

Hermana Gubler

Halloween costumes

11/2/15 letter

Hola,

For Halloween, Hermana Sedgwick and I had the idea to dress up like each other. So we wore each other's clothes, shoes, watches, name tags, backpacks, glasses, and did our hair like the other one usually does. (she wore my clip) With our costumes, it was a given that we had to act like each other all day (when appropriate), so we said each other's one liners and responded to the other missionaries like we were each other. It was super fun.

Saturday was such an awesome day. On Saturday morning, we had a lesson with one of our new investigators named Susi. She was a referral from a member of the branch [small congregation] and has attended Sacrament Meeting 4 times with her, but we recently got in contact with her and just started teaching her this week. On Tuesday, we invited her to pray morning and night. She said she's been doing that and that it has made a huge difference. She said she feels closer to God and that she has more peace in her life and is able to sleep better. We had an awesome lesson on the Restoration. After teaching about Prophets, she said she felt like crying. At the end of the lesson, we asked her if she would be baptized on December 5th and she said yes!
After the lesson, someone being taught by other missionaries in our zone got baptized and the Elders asked Hermana Sedgwick and I to play the piano and conduct the music. It was a really nice baptism.
After the baptism, our whole zone went to Sonic for lunch since they were offering $0.50 corn dogs for Halloween.

Our mission president didn't want us out doing missionary work on Halloween night, so he approved our whole mission to go to the Mesa Temple. He said we could go anytime during the day that worked best with our schedule, so our zone took off for Mesa after a late lunch and got the the temple for the 3:30 session. After the session, we went to Chik-fil-a with some of the missionaries in Chandler zone who were at the same session as us, then drove back to Casa Grande.

On Thursday, we went on exchanges. Hermana Mellor came into my area and Hermana Sedgwick went into their area with Hermana Allred. Hermana Mellor and I had a set lesson for 9:00 am on Thursday morning (a lot earlier than usual lessons. We're usually studying in the apartment until at least 11:00). So we went to the lesson, but the lady wasn't there. As missionaries, we always have backups, so we tried an investigator named Myrna, who we haven't been able to contact in a month. She was home and we had an awesome lesson with her where we taught the first half of the Plan of Salvation, our purpose on the Earth, and the Atonement. Hermana Mellor asked her how she would feel to be able to start over, completely free of sin, guilt, and shame. Myrna said she would want that more than anything. I asked her if she would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized and she said yes! We put her on date for Nov 28.

We now have 3 people with baptismal dates and about 4 more who are getting really close. Our other person on date is named Jose Luis. Hermana Sedgwick and Mellor put him on date last week on exchanges.

On Wednesday, we had zone conference combine with Maricopa Zone, so we drove there for that. We were there from around 8 until 2 with 40 minutes of driving time on both ends. The relief society in Maricopa made us a nice lunch with bread bowls and soup, salad, and ice cream cake. Almost all of the sisters from Casa Grande and Maricopa purposefully matched with their companions. 

On Friday, our Spanish branch combined with an English ward for a Halloween party. Myrna came with her mom and 3 year old daughter. Also, a family we're teaching-- Jaime and Maira + 3 kids came and had a good time. We also had a lot of less active church members there. There was dinner, games, trunk or treating, cotton candy, popcorn, and lots of fun. It was good for our investigators to be able to meet members and make friends.

I'm finally allowed to use Facebook for online proselyting, so I'll be posting periodically gospel related messages. I can message people in our area and teach them between visits. I can only respond to people who live in my area, so if you send me a Facebook message, don't expect me to respond. The Tempe mission is the only one in the world right now that is using Facebook. Church headquarters has asked all the other missions to stop because they weren't using it effectively.

This week was awesome! I hit my 2 month mark of being in Arizona, put 2 people on date, and had 2 much fun. I love being a missionary.

Love,
Hermana Gubler

Sisters Dozier, Gubler, Sullivan

10/26/15 letter

Hola,

Another great week here in Arizona! The weather has cooled down and it's a perfect 75-80 degrees everyday with a refreshing breeze. A lot of times, Hermana Sedgwick and I will stop walking in the church parking lot and just enjoy the weather for a couple of seconds.

This week we taught 22 lessons and found 3 new investigators. It was awesome! We try to get members to go with us to as many lessons as possible because their testimonies and personal experiences help out a lot (not to mention they speak Spanish a lot better than we do). On Saturday night, we invited a member to come out with us to couple of lessons. We met at 6:05 at the first house. No one was home, so we tried a second, but the people were just on their way out the door. At 6:20, as I was opening my mouth to tell our member where the third house was, she said "pues, cuidense," (well, take

care) got in her car, and left (my mouth still gaping open). Hermana Sedgwick and I could not get over how funny it was that we had a member come out with us for literally 15 minutes!

We gave lots of service this week. The relief society president in our branch is in the hospital in Phoenix. She gave birth 5 weeks early (the baby will be fine, he doesn't have to be in an incubator anymore), she has a really serious blood disease, and has 10 other kids at home ages 17 and under, plus a foster kid. As you can tell, her life is a "bit" hectic right now, so the four of us sister missionaries went and cleaned her house along with some other sisters from our branch. The sisters in the branch have been providing meals for the family and been taking turns watching the kids. It was fall break this week, so none of the kids were in school. So we did our best to help their family this week and went over to their house twice to help out. We also volunteer at a dog pound every week. We help out with anything they need: landscaping, cleaning, laundry, or giving the dogs human interaction. It's always really fun and we get to know our zone super well.

There are 13 of us in our zone (the smallest one in the mission) and we're all super close. (4 sisters, 9 elders) There's usually 2 districts and 14 of us, but our district leader was in the hospital last week with a weird rash all over his body. He's fine now, but he got temporarily transferred to Chandler zone so he could be closer to the hospital for return appointments.

So right now, we are a kinda district and a zone. The other district leader is in charge of all of us and gives trainings to the whole zone for district meetings. aka we basically have zone meeting every week instead of district meeting.

This week we had a lot of good food. A member gave us a giant bag of pomegranates, so we've been enjoying one of those every day for lunch and breakfast. (they're not as good as dads pomegranates though) After a lesson one night around 8:00 the investigator offered us dinner. We told him we had already eaten, so he sent us home with plates for us to eat for lunch the next day. He used to work at a Mariscos restaurant, so the fish tacos he gave us were super bomb. A recent convert, Miguel, and his wife who's getting baptized in a couple of weeks make super good Mexican food and had us over on Saturday. We're always super excited to eat at their house. We had posole and it was soooo good! I think my tongue is adjusting to spicy food which is a good thing. Hermana Allred thought the posole was super spicy, but I didn't think it was spicy at all. I even put hot sauce on it (I hated hot sauce before my mission).

We get to go to the temple on Saturday! Our mission president doesn't want us out teaching on Halloween night, so the whole mission is going to a temple. Some are going to Gilbert, some Mesa, and some Phoenix. The Yuma missionaries might even go to the San Diego Temple. I think we'll be going to Gilbert so I'm super excited.

Happy Halloween,

Love, Hermana Gubler

Group Photo

10/19/15 letter

Hi,

This week involved a lot of driving. Two trips to Tempe, two trips to Coolidge, and a trip to Maricopa.

On Friday afternoon after weekly planning, Hermana Sedgwick and I took the 50 minute drive to Tempe for the 6 and 12 week training meeting.

President and Sister Toone talked to the missionaries about how their [missionary] training has gone and what we've learned and if we have any suggestions for improvement of the training program. I'll go to the same type of thing in another 6 weeks, once I'm all done with my training.

On Sunday, we went to the Mission President's Devotional (MPD) in Tempe. It's every third Sunday at the institute building on ASU campus. It got cancelled last month, so I was excited to get to go to my first one. People who have recently been baptized speak about their experience and the difference they have seen in their lives. It was really cool. We invite our investigators and recent converts to come and it's a super good opportunity for them to feel the spirit. We had weather similar to what Visalia has been having during the car ride to and from Tempe. It was pouring rain and there was lots of crazy lightning. I'm glad to hear that Visalia is finally getting some rain.

Coolidge is a city about 25 minutes away is part of our area. There are 2 English wards in Coolidge, but since our Spanish branch covers the whole stake, we cover Coolidge as well. We usually go to Coolidge once a week, but this week, we went twice because we had a lot of people to teach. It was really cool, we finally found a family that we've been looking for forever. On my first day in Casa Grande, we found the husband, Hermán, who was living at one of our investigator's houses and working for a couple of months before his family crossed the border from Mexico. We taught him for a couple weeks until his family arrived in the US, and he and his family moved to a house in Coolidge. He didn't know what his new address would be, but he gave us his phone number. Every week, the night before we go to Coolidge, we call him and ask him for his address. He'd say "I'm not home right now, so I can't look on the side of my house to know my address. When I get home, I'll text it to you." (in Spanish) ...and then he would forget to text us. This happened for about 4 weeks straight. We went to Coolidge on Tuesday and we called his phone before we went. Hermán forgot his phone at home that day, and his wife answered. She gave us the address and we were able to go by. When we got there, their whole family (Hermán, his wife, Rosaria, and 2 kids) were home! We taught them about how their family could be together forever. Every time we said that families are eternal, Rosaria got a big smile on her face.

It was awesome!

Today was our trip to Maricopa (about 40 minute drive). We found out last night that we would be going. President Toone spoke to our zone and the Maricopa zone about some online proselyting information and some other announcements. That's why my email is so late today.

On Friday night, we got a text from a member of our branch presidency that Hermana Sedgwick and I would be speaking in church on Sunday and we got the text with what our topic would be on Saturday morning. His wife is in the hospital and he has a large family at home to take care of, so he was a little preoccupied and didn't have time to find a speaker more in advance. With the lack of notice and the lack of time to prepare, (mind you we still had a full day of proselyting on Saturday, so we pretty much only had an hour on Sunday to prepare and a little time before bed on Saturday) I decided that the Spanish of the guy who translates general conference talks is a lot better than mine. So for my talk, I pretty much just read the highlights of President Uchtdorf's talk from the general women's session "un Verano con la tía abuela Rosa". I spoke about hope and how we need to follow the example of great aunt rose in our life in order to find happiness. Pretty simple talk. It wasn't too fancy.  [See link at end of e-mail for his really interesting talk on hope and happiness called "A Summer with Great Aunt Rose".] Our mission did an emphasis on doing an hour of knocking doors everyday about a month ago, but it's not really a thing anymore. Since Hermana Sedgwick and I have 2 more hours of studies than most missionaries (1 hour of Spanish, 1 hour of training) it was hard to find time for tracting any way. Every Wednesday, we do service at the valley humane society, playing with dogs, we have a lot of set lessons, and if there's not any set lessons, we have lots of investigators who we stop by. If we have like 15 minutes between lessons, we'll knock doors or walk down the street looking for people outside we can talk to. We have dinner with a church member every night, but we're on our own for lunch and breakfast. I eat lots of sandwiches, eggs, and fruit. Also, there's a place here that sells thrifty ice cream. We went last week and it brought back fun memories of going all the time growing up.

Another great week here in Arizona!

Love,

Hermana Gubler

Zone missionaries

Tattooed Mormon

10/12/15 letter

Hola,

This week was great! Transfers were on Thursday, so for our last district meeting (ended up being more like a zone meeting since we were all there), we had Al Fox Caraway as a guest speaker. You might know her as the Tattooed Mormon (but she says she hates that name).

She lives in Coolidge, which is part of our area. She told her conversion story and told us her motto of "set goals, say prayers, work hard," which also applies perfectly to missionary work. She shared Alma 56:46 which says "Father, behold our God is with us, and he will not suffer that we should fall; then let us go forth." She said that this scripture helped her through all of her hard times. I don't know how much you know about her. She joined the church when she was 20 (6 years ago) and the church has used her story to show that it doesn't matter who you were, it any matters who you can become with Heavenly Father's help. If you google her, or look at her Facebook (on which there is a picture of us), or blog, you can learn more about her. She was super awesome and fun and was such an amazing speaker.

Lorenzo's baptism

Mesa Temple

Where's the beef?

10/5/15 Letter

This week was awesome! On Wednesday we got to go to the temple in Mesa. (We get to go every 3 months) They were already starting to put up Christmas lights. I can't wait to see the lights at Christmas time; I've heard that the Mesa Temple grounds look better than Temple Square. The temple was super pretty and the spirit was really strong and it was really nice to be able to have some time to sit and ponder.

On the way to the temple, we were following the Zone Leaders in the their car. They took the freeway exit at the last second and we didn't have time to follow them. We got super lost and ended up driving way outside the boundaries of our mission into downtown Phoenix. So that was an adventure.

On Tuesday, after district meeting, our zone went to get hot wings.

The restaurant has a ghost pepper wing that is super, super, super hot. We were all stupid and decided to each try one. There were lots of tears shed and it was really funny to see everyone's reaction. I only took one bite and swallowed it super fast, so it wasn't horribly terrible. I drank like 3 cups of water and lots of ice and put on lots of chapstick, but I was good after about 10 minutes. I felt bad for the missionaries that ate a whole wing or got some of the sauce on their face.

On Friday, we went on exchanges and I was companions with Hermana Allred for the day. Hermana Allred is a greenie like me, so we had some "fun" teaching lessons in our broken Spanish. They didn't end up super terrible though and we got the point across pretty well.

Saturday, Lorenzo got baptized!!! He's been ready to be baptized for 5 weeks now, but he needed to attend church one more time before he could. He's been in and out of the hospital (pretty much always on

Sundays) so hasn't been able to go to church. We found out that if they watch general conference, it counts as church attendance, so he watched the Saturday afternoon session, then got baptized at 3:30. It was awesome. His sister and niece watched conference with us at the church and then attended his baptism. They really liked it and we're hoping to be able to teach them in the future. The baptismal service was really nice. A recent convert spoke on baptism, then the branch president spoke about receiving the Holy Ghost. Then the Hermanas sang Divina Luz (Lead Kindly Light). Lorenzo was super happy. He'll be confirmed next Sunday in church.

General Conference was awesome! We watched all of the sessions at the stake center. I loved Elder Renlund, Bednar, and Stanfill's talks, as well as President Monson's. Lorenzo watched Saturday afternoon with us and one of our investigators watched the Sunday sessions at her friends house.

Now I'll explain the reason that "dead cow" is in the subject line. On Tuesday, we had a set lesson with our investigators Jose Luis and Kassandra. (Grandpa and granddaughter) That morning Jose Luis decided to kill one of his cows and cut it up. He spent all day draining the blood, skinning it, etc. When we walked up, him and some friends were all standing around a table in front of their house, covered in cow blood. They were cutting the last of the meat off of the bones. They were filling a giant bin full of beef (which was also covered in flies). I wasn't quite sure what type of animal it was until I saw the hooves. (I'll attach pictures) After an minor freak out, and fake whimpering, I told them about Big Mac and how we hired someone to take care of him. As you can guess, we didn't really get much of a lesson in, but it was an interesting experience.

Transfers are this Thrusday. I can't believe I've been in Casa Grande for 6 weeks already. I'll most likely be staying. Also, this Saturday is the 6 month mark of when I opened my mission call. We had 5 member present lessons this week, which is more than we've had in a week since I've been here. We set a goal this week to try to get as many as we could (our goal was 4). We would have had more, but some of them fell through.

All in all, awesome week. Can't wait for next week and more missionary work.

Love,

Hermana Gubler

Elder, Sister Greer with missionaries

Service project in country

Silly Picture

9/28/15 letter

Hello family,

This week was awesome! I'll start off my email with a funny thing that happened. We had a lady in our area book that we have tried to contact multiple times, but is never home. We finally caught her at home and sat down and had a nice chat/lesson with her. Since it was our first time contacting her, we tried to get to know her a little so we could discern her needs and figure out how we could help her. She's a cute old lady who is pretty much completely blind. Anyway, so while we were trying to get to know her, I wanted to ask her how many kids she had.

However instead of saying ¿cuántos niños tiene? I said ¿cuántos años tiene? (How old are you?) She looked shocked that I would ask her how old she was since that's not usually a question you ask an old lady. I quickly realized what I said and corrected myself, but I was super embarrassed.

Last week for pday, we had so much fun! After doing 2 hours of studies in the morning, Hermana Sedgwick and I went to Goodwill to see if we could find anything fun. They already had a bunch of Halloween stuff, so we had fun messing around with that as well as making fun of all of the hideous clothes. In the midst of the hideous clothes, Hma.

Sedgwick and I actually found some descent stuff. I bought a new shirt, cardigan, and 2 jackets. After that, our zone went bowling.

Then we went back to the church building and played volleyball then basketball. We play basketball pretty much every pday and it's super fun. Some of the Elders are really good and it's good practice for when I get back from my mission and beat dad at basketball again.

So the bugs here love me; so much that they bite me ALL THE TIME! I'll attach a picture of my legs covered in bites. I didn't expect there to be mosquitos in Arizona, but since it's monsoon season, it's pretty humid, meaning...mosquitos. and lots of them.

On Thursday, we drove to Maricopa (about 40 minute drive) to do interviews with President and Sister Toone. It was our zone and the Maricopa zone totaling about 30 missionaries. We started all together in the chapel and received training and information from President and Sister Toone, the vehicle coordinator senior missionaries, housing coordinator senior missionaries, and the assistants to the president.

After that, we each got a couple of minutes one on one with President Toone followed by a couple of minutes with his wife. President Toone's main message to the missionaries was to focus on our vision as missionaries and try to get our members to have a vision for member missionary work.

On Saturday morning, there was a stake service project in Coolidge (about 25 minute drive. There are 2 wards in Coolidge, but our Spanish branch covers Coolidge as well, so we go teach in Coolidge once a

week) For the service project, we made cards and put care packages together for all of the people serving in the military in our stake.

After that, there was a really nice patriotic program with speakers, a music program of patriotic songs, and a slideshow celebrating all of the veterans in the stake. Then they fed us a nice lunch. I sat next to a 91 year old WWII medic in the Navy. He was super cool and had a bunch of awesome stories. After the lunch, we taught in Coolidge for the afternoon, then drove back to Casa Grande to watch the Women's Conference.

On Sunday, we were combined with the English ward again because a member of the Seventy came to speak to us. Elder Greer and his wife spoke to us during Sacrament Meeting and 3rd hour. They were super awesome! They spoke about the Doctrine of Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the

end) which is pretty much what we teach people all day considering the fact that our missionary purpose is to "invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end." Elder and Sister Greer used to be mission presidents in the Washington Kennewick Mission, so they were excited to talk to the missionaries. There were

6 of us there. (4 in the Spanish branch and 2 Elders in the English

ward) I'll attach a picture of all of us.

Sunday night, we were invited to the 7th birthday party of the daughter of Miguel, the guy who was baptized last week. They had a piñata, amazing carne asada, chicken, salsa, and tres leches cake. I was VERY full afterward, but it was worth it.

All in all, super awesome week. Lots of fun, but also lots of sharing the gospel. This week, I wrote about all the fun things that happened.

Would you rather have my letters be more about our lessons and investigators, or more about the fun things?

Love,

Hermana Gubler

Come Follow Me Song

Branch Pres. with Sister Missionaries

Silly Sister Missionaries

Branch Birthday Party

Branch Birthday Party

9/21/15 letter

This week was really fun! Every Monday night, we do noche de hogar (family home evening) with a less active family consisting of a grandma and her 2 grandsons who live with her. We've started acting out scripture stories for the lessons. We each chose one prop, then act out the story while someone reads from the Book of Mormon. Last week, we acted out Ammon cutting off the arms of the bad guys who tried to scatter the sheep and this week, we acted out Samuel the Lamanite preaching on the wall. They have a lot of fun with it. I'll send a picture from this week's lesson. Hermana Ruiz said the closing prayer in which she apologized to Heavenly Father for her lack of acting skills. I had to try really hard not to laugh because that was the first time I've ever heard someone say that in a prayer. 

On Thursday, we had a Sociedad de Socorro (Relief Society) activity, where we celebrated the birthdays of everybody who has a birthday this year...so everyone. There was dinner, presents, cake, games, prizes, and a piñata. We played lotería (bingo) and the investigator we brought won a super nice blanket. She's pregnant with a little girl and the blanket was pink, so it was perfect! They had presents for everyone to unwrap. The presidency had sewn aprons for everyone. I'll send some pictures of Hermana Sedgwick and I in our new aprons. 

On Saturday, there was a baptism for Miguel, a guy that the other Hermanas are teaching. It was a super good baptism. He was so happy and his wife is super excited to get baptized in 2 weeks. The companionship that the other Hermanas replaced, who taught Miguel before they were transferred were allowed to come to the baptism, so they were there, plus their companions (who had also served in Casa Grande at some point), so we had 8 sisters at the baptism. The Branch President and all of the branch members were so excited to see all the sisters that they hadn't seen in a while. 

Yesterday was the primary program. The kids in the Spanish branch are combined with an English ward for primary, so we had sacrament meeting with the English ward. It was fun to attend an English sacrament meeting after 2 months of Spanish. The primary program was super cute. There was one girl who waved at her mom for pretty much the entire thing and another little girl doing ballet moves to all the songs. I told Hermana Sedgwick that I always had my speaking part memorized for the program when I was in primary. 

Every third Sunday, there's a Mission President's Devotional in Tempe. The mission president speaks and recent converts bear their testimonies and share their conversion stories. It's awesome to take investigators to. This month, the WWII candy bomber (the guy on Meet The Mormons) was going to be a guest speaker (he lives in Arizona). I was really excited. Unfortunately he wasn't feeling well...probably because he's 95 years old, so the devotional was cancelled. :( I hope he can speak another time, because that would be really cool. 

Lorenzo was admitted to the hospital on Sunday morning, so obviously he wasn't able to attend church, so we're going to have to postpone his baptism by another week. We went and visited him in the hospital last night and read him the baptismal interview questions. He knew all the answers and is so ready to get baptized, but his health isn't allowing him to. 

I'm having a great time on my mission! The lifestyle and schedule are right up my alley. I love being busy all day (as you can tell by my long list of high school activities) and what better a way to be busy all day than with the work of the Lord. 

Love,

Hermana Gubler

At Assisted Living Home

9/14/15 letter

Sorry, this weekly email isn't very long. The attached picture is at an old folks home we go to each Sunday to sing to and read the scriptures with an elderly member. The girls are the daughters of a couple that the other Hermanas are teaching who came with us to sing. 

So we have one person with a baptismal date named Lorenzo. I wrote about him a few weeks ago and said that he was getting baptized that week. However, he hasn't been able to make it to church twice (mission rule) so he can be baptized. He's been once, but has really bad health problems and hasn't been able to return. He's super awesome and wants to be baptized so bad, but his health isn't allowing him to. Sad :( We're hoping and praying he can come to church this week. 

This week was super awesome. We got 7 new investigators and taught a ton of lessons. On Saturday alone, we taught 5 lessons. We also had 4 member present lessons this week.

Sorry this email isn't super entertaining or detailed. I'll write more next week. 

Love,

Hermana Gubler

Singing Sisters

Sisters Sedgwick and Gubler

Sunset over Casa Grande, AZ

Sisters Greenhalgh, Gubler and Allred

9/7/15 letter

This week flew by. Let's just say that time goes a lot faster in the mission field than in the MTC. Being a missionary is so much fun. I'll explain my daily schedule a little bit. My companion and I wake up at

6:30 and go running for about 20 minutes, then do abs for a couple minutes. Our mission president is working with Salt Lake to see if we can get an hour for exercise time instead of 30 minutes, so I hope that gets approved. We then have an hour to eat breakfast (usually eggs and fruit), shower, and get ready for the day. I don't need an hour to do all of those things, so I usually will just chill and mess around on the guitar in our apartment. (It's a really crappy guitar and sounds really bad, but it's fun to play around with) I then do an hour of personal study, hour of companion study (plan for that day's lessons and share what we learned during personal study), and hour of language study. Then we do an hour of training, which I will be doing every day for my first 12 weeks as a missionary. During training hour, my companion and I go through how to make lesson plans, how to teach effectively, how to transition conversations to the gospel, etc. After training, it's lunch time, which we get an hour for. I usually will have a sandwich or quesadilla. At 1:00 we're out and about teaching lessons, finding people to teach, or doing service. On Wednesdays, we volunteer at an animal shelter for a couple of hours. We play with the animals to give them human interaction and personality. I like playing with the cats a lot more than the dogs. On Tuesdays, we have zone/district meeting for a couple hours. Anyway, so we do stuff until around 5:00 when we have dinner at a member's house. We are in the Casa Grande 4th branch and they keep us pretty well fed. Our dinner calendar is always full. We get lots of really good Mexican food, which I am loving. After dinner, we teach more lessons and find more people to teach.

I finished reading the Book of Mormon this morning. I started it in the MTC, which means I finished it in less than 7 weeks. I invited 3 people to be baptized this week. They all said that they would like to, but aren't ready yet. But it's really cool to invite people to be baptized. (¿Seguirá el ejemplo de Jesucristo al ser bautizado por alguien que posea la autoridad del sacerdocio de Dios.) Two of our investigators, Jose Luis and Kassandra (grandpa and granddaughter) prayed about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and received answers and know that it's true. We are going to ask them tonight if they'll be baptized on October 3. We hope that goes well.

My zone is super awesome. On pday, we play basketball together and it's super fun. There are 4 Hermanas and 10 Elders. My companion is the sister training leader, so she meets with the Zone Leaders a lot.

They're all super awesome.

Hermana Sedgwick is super awesome and is a super good missionary. We have a lot in common and get along really well. We share our apartment with the two other hermanas who are really cool too. There are 2 bedrooms, each with a bunk bed, a nice living room with comfy couches, and a decent sized kitchen.

Anyway, I'm out of time today and I'll send some pictures. I hope you're all doing well without my sparkling personality around.

Love,

Hermana Gubler

8/31/15 letter

Hi family!

It's been a great couple of weeks. I finished strong at the MTC and am now in Casa Grande, Arizona (about an hour south of Tempe). I got to Tempe on Tuesday at about 9:30 am and we went to the mission home. We basically did a 2 day orientation type thing with all the new missionaries. In this group of about 20 new missionaries, there are 3 who are temporarily reassigned to Tempe while they wait for their visas to Argentina, New Zealand, and Australia. There were also 2 sisters from Temple Square who get transferred somewhere else for 3 months. As far as people originally assigned to Tempe to speak Spanish, it's just myself and Hermana Allred. She went to the Mexico MTC. It sounds like the Mexico MTC had about the same amount of Spanish instruction as the Provo, so I didn't miss out on too much.

She said she got to go to the Mexico City temple twice. Once to go to the open house, and once just to walk around. She said that the missionaries there get to go to the dedication in a couple of weeks.

Anyway, so the mission home was super nice. The beds were super soft and the food was great! We did lots of get to know you stuff with the Mission President. On Wednesday, we got to go to the Mesa Temple and do a session. We only get to go to the temple every quarter, but we can take investigators to the visitors center occasionally. We're taking one on Friday. The Mesa temple was one of the first dedicated temples (around 1930) so it was cool to see all the old architecture inside. I looked in the sealing room where Kelly Briggs (rugby) was sealed or is going to be sealed (I don't remember when her wedding is) and that was really cool.

Thursday morning was transfer meetings. My companion is freaking awesome! Her name isHermana Sedgwick. She's from Connecticut and has been out for 7 months. Her Spanish is really good. We set a goal yesterday that we are going to try to speak Spanish all the time to each other and I think that will be really helpful for me. About 2/3 of our lessons are in Spanish. The other 1/3 are people who speak Spanish and can attend the Spanish branch here, but are more comfortable in English. We have one guy named Lorenzo that is going to be baptized in 2 weeks. He's really awesome. The last missionaries taught him everything, so it's kind of nice to show up here and have a baptism already and not have to do any work for it.

There is one other set of missionaries serving in our branch (Hermanas Allred and Greenhaulgh), so our area is divided in 2. Our area is super big (Like 45 minutes from one end to the other) which means...we have a car with a large allotment of miles. YAY! The bike I got is really nice, but I don't think I'll be using it at all in this area.

Hermana Sedgwick served in Yuma before and she said she was always on her bike. It's really nice to have a car in the summer though. We have great air conditioning and are rarely in places without air conditioning, so the heat hasn't been a problem at all. The only problem is that my tan isn't getting any better since we're always in a car.

Also, we use Facebook in our mission for proselyting purposes. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be cleaning out my old posts and pictures. I don't think I'm allowed to write anything on FB for the first 10 weeks or so though.

My area covers Casa Grande, Coolidge, and Stanfield. There have been super cool lightning storms every night which I love watching while we are driving from place to place.

My new address is

351 N Peart rd #1511

Casa Grande, Az

Our apartment is nicer than I expected, which is very nice.

Also, I'm typing this on my new IPad. It is awesome! All I carry in my backpack is a hairbrush and my IPad and it is super nice. We're allowed to check our emails anytime during the week on our IPad, we just can't respond until Monday.

Hope you're all doing well with an empty house now, Love, Hermana Gubler

Newly Arrived Missionaries in Tempe AZ

Sis. Gubler and Pres./Sis. Toone