7/29/15 letter

The MTC isn't too bad. It's a little bit boring to sit down all day, but we do get 50 minutes in the morning for exercise. Unfortunately, my companion and I don't use up the whole 50 minutes...but this decision did not come from my half of the companionship. We get up at 6:30, get to class by 7. Study for an hour, then go to breakfast. Then we have exercise time (kinda stinks that it's after breakfast). After that we are back in class for 3 hours until lunch. That time is for personal, companionship, and language study. After lunch, back in the classroom for another 3.5 hours for Spanish instruction from a teacher. Most of the teachers are just BYU students who are returned missionaries. Some of them have really good Spanish, others have not so good Spanish. Then its dinner time. After dinner (except Tuesdays when we go to a devotional) we teach our investigators. We had our first investigator this week. His name is Ulises. We taught him 4 lessons (all in Spanish). He's just an actor pretending to be and investigator, but he's pretty convincing. The other missionaries in our district have about 15 minute lessons with him, while my companion and I have 30-45 minute lessons. The lessons can last for however long you want, so it's basically how long you can speak in Spanish for. We got a new investigator yesterday named Rosi. We're not sure if she's a member or not. 40% of the investigators at the MTC are non-members. Rosi speaks really quietly and is hard to understand because of her accent, but I thought out lesson with her went well.

On Sunday night, we had a devotional by Stephen B Allen, Managing director of the Missionary Department. He was the mission president in Tempe 20 years ago. He asked everyone going to Tempe to stand up and I was the only one. The Jumbo-tron zoomed in on me and now I'm kinda famous because everyone asks me "hey aren't you that girl going to Tempe?" Here one week and already famous...shocker. The rest of the missionaries going to Tempe will be coming in on August 12 because they will only be here for 2 weeks because they're English speaking. 

I've seen a million people that I know...mainly from BYU. My zone leader was in my ward at BYU and there are about 4 other people here from my BYU ward. There's also an elder from Hanford and a couple people from different classes at BYU. I also got to see Sia from the rugby team who's a janitor here. It was so fun to see her. Also, Austin Ware is here. He's going to Nicaragua. He's sooo grown up. I havent seen him since sophomore year seminary. I also think Dallen Hagman is coming to the MTC today. 

The size of our district set a record. We have 13 (4 sisters and 9 elders), but one went home today. I think some personal issues. We are all crammed into one tiny room (I'll attach a picture) but its fun because they're all cool people. Some of the Elders are pretty goofy. I don't think there are any intermediate Spanish classes in the Provo MTC anymore and an advanced class would be too advanced for me, so I'm happy where I'm at. The reason I didn't join a district that had been here for a week was because there were no Spanish speaking districts that entered last week. This week our zone is getting 10 new elders, but no sisters. 

We go to the Temple for the first time this afternoon. We got to walk to the temple on Sunday, but that's it. I'll send the pictures in a separate email. Make sure you send out both the pictures and the email to the group email.

Lots of love,

Hermana Gubler

7/22/15 letter

Hi family,

So it turns out that Wednesday is my P-day, so I get to email you for a little bit even though I just got here today. 

Eddy dropped me off around 12:30 and I got all checked in. It turns out that my district actually all arrived today, which means that instead of missing the first week of the MTC (CCM in spanish), I'll be missing the last. 

Unfortunately, it would probably be better if I had been able to miss the first week. My Spanish is way ahead of pretty much everyone here and the teachers go really slowly. I'm sure that will get better the longer I'm here. I'm enjoying learning Spanish.  It's been a while since I have been in a Spanish class and its fun to reminisce about previous Spanish classes. My companion's name is Hermana Brown and shes from Canada. She's going to Ft. Worth Texas. 

I still haven't figured out why the people in my district are not going to the Mexico MTC.   

The food isn't horrible. A lot of it is the stuff served at BYU. i.e same ice cream, soup, chicken cordon bleu, vending machine items...

Tell Eddy and Nic (shes on my email list) that my p-day is Wednesday. We go to the temple in the afternoon.  I've seen a bunch of people I know. Mainly from my BYU ward and classes. I talked to one Elder from Hanford.

Not much more time, but miss you all. 

Love,

Hermana Gubler