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

8/25/15 letter from President Toone

Sister Toone and I wanted to let you know that your daughter, Sister Gubler, arrived safely at the Mission Home. Attached you will find two pictures that we thought you might enjoy. One is your missionary with Sister Toone and me, and the other is the group of missionaries with whom she arrived in the Arizona Tempe Mission.

We are so pleased to have Sister Gubler serving in the Arizona Tempe Mission. Monday is Preparation Day at which time she will let you know her mailing address, the zone and district to which she is assigned, and the name of her trainer.

As we met with Sister Gubler, we stressed the principles of obedience, hard work and worthiness.  This mission holds great potential for each missionary assigned. The members are strong and love these great Elders and Sisters.  You can be assured they, and we, will do all possible to watch over your daughter.  It is a very special responsibility we feel toward our missionaries. We want to see them enjoy a happy and successful mission.

Our missionaries have permission to Skype or telephone their families twice per year, on Mother's Day and at Christmas. If you need to get a message to your daughter, or if you have any questions, please call us directly (480-838-0659). We do want the missionaries to receive letters from home on a regular basis encouraging them in their proselyting efforts.

Thank you for raising a daughter who has a desire to serve the Lord.

Sincerely yours,

President James L. Toone

8/19/15 letter

Dear family,

This will be my last email to you from the MTC. I leave at 3:35 this Tuesday morning to go to the SLC airport. I'm flying Delta from SLC to Phoenix at 8:37. Good news: I get to call you at the airport for however long I want. Bad news: you're going to receive the call really early in the morning. We only get to talk as long as there is an available pay phone. (I'm buying a calling card today) The later it gets, the more missionaries will be at the airport using pay phones, so I am going to call you as soon as I get through security if I can. Since you're an hour behind Utah, it will be about 4:00. Make sure you have your phone ringer on. I will call dad's phone. It might be after 4:00, so dont set your alarm or anything, just wake up to a ringing phone. I probably won't get to email again until Monday the 31st (probably 1st Pday in Tempe). I've met 3 sisters going to Tempe English speaking. They all seem really nice. My travel group has 19 missionaries. I dont know if they're all going to my mission or to other missions that also fly into Phoenix. 

I had a great week. It went by super fast. On Sunday, instead of a regular devotional, the Nashville Tribute Band gave us an hour long concert. It was awesome! The choir got to sing 2 songs with them and I've had those songs stuck in my head all week. 

Also on Sunday, I spoke in Sacrament meeting. They have everyone in the zone prepare a talk (in Spanish), then after the Sacrament and 30 seconds before you are going to speak, they announce your name from the audience. They call one Elder and one Sister. This week, I was that one sister. The topic was how to recognize and understand the spirit. I thought my talk went pretty well. My Spanish is progressing. Because of speaking and listening to it most of the day, now I think in Spanish sometimes and also can talk really fast if I need to. Also, to practice my Spanish, I've been signing up for ZRT, which is where you can work one on one with a teacher. That has been really helpful because I can learn the things that I need to work on.

We have 3 investigators that we teach each week. Two of them are just our teachers acting like investigators, but one of them is an actual investigator. We teach about 2 lessons a week to each of them. I'm getting pretty good at giving lessons in Spanish. 

I'm in Helaman chapter 7 in the Book of Mormon. We get a lot of study time here and I've used it to read the Book of Mormon. Our branch president wants us to read to the end of Alma by the time we leave the MTC, so I'm done with that. I won't have time to finish the Book of Mormon before I go, but I'll probably get through 3 Nephi or something. 

Last night at the devotional, I sang "Where Can I turn for Peace" with the choir (about 1000 people in the choir each week). Elder Echo Hawk of the Seventy spoke. It was really good. He talked about putting our all into our mission. 

I'm really good at getting free stuff here. Everyone has bought a $15 bottle of laundry detergent (they only sell really big containers), but then don't even come close to using all of it. Trickily, I went around my residence hall and made friends with all the sisters that are leaving that week (by offering them various snacks), and then when its time for them to leave, I ask them if they have any leftover detergent, dryer sheets, food (to offer to the next set of missionaries leaving), lotion, etc. I've gotten a lot of free stuff and have saved a lot of money. I guess you could say I'm my father's daughter. 

My clothes are all working out great. I see a lot of sisters with really nice, expensive clothes, but they don't look comfortable at all and they will probably wear out pretty fast. 

I'm jealous that you get to see the llama farm in Santa Barbara. Unfortunately, there are no llamas at the MTC. 

I cant wait to talk to you on Tuesday! Don't forget to have your phone on.

Love,

Lora

Provo Temple Pictures

8/12/15 letter

Hola! 

This week has gone by really fast. I thought the first week in the MTC was never going to end, but it's going a lot faster now. I should get my travel itinerary on Friday, so the end is in sight. The english speaking missionaries going to Tempe arrived today and will be leaving in 12 days along with me to go to the mission field. 

I've been exercising a lot more this week. I learned that if we go out to the exercise field, we are allowed to run laps around it, even if our companion is playing frisbee or soccer or something. It's felt good to run again. I've definitely missed it. I probably won't like running as much in Tempe because when we go running at 6:30 in the morning, it's already 90 degrees outside. The basketball gym floor is being resurfaced, so I haven't been able to play basketball all week. We also have been having our devotionals in overflow rooms (our district goes to the cafeteria) because the devotionals are in the same room as the basketball courts. There is a weight room at the MTC which I used a little the first week, but my companion complained waaaaaaay too much about being sore that I couldn't stand going back and having to listen to her complain more. I've been doing lots of push ups and stuff though to keep me strong. 

I heard through the grapevine that we get an hour to talk to our families when we are at the salt lake airport before we go to our missions. I'll find out if that's true and I'll get you more details. If we do, it would probably be a pretty early call to you (about 5 a.m.) because stateside missionaries usually have early morning flights. 

Cheyenne's wedding sounds like it was fun. She looked really pretty in the pictures you sent. Boaz got married this weekend too (san diego temple). Sia (who works here, I've seen her about 5 times) showed me some of the pictures from Boaz's wedding and it looked really nice. Also, nice newspaper and direct magazine articles dad. 

We got one of our investigators to commit to baptism this week! Ok...well he's not a real investigator, he's just an actor, but it's pretty realistic. We have two Spanish teachers and one of them served in Tempe, so I've gotten lots of mission wisdom from him. Also, tell Grammie Jan and Grandpa Keith that there's an elder in my district going to Tampa, Fl. Also tell them that there's two sisters from their ward here. Sister Smyth and Sister "something". Sister Smyth recognized me as their granddaughter and we had a nice conversation. She remembers achievement days with her and making some sort of pen/pin (I didn't quite understand).

This week, I read from 2 Nephi 25- Alma 31 in the Book of Mormon. Hermana Bassett (in my district) had an upper respiratory infection, so on Saturday, I stayed in the room with her and had lots of time to read the Book of Mormon so that her companion could go to Spanish class and learn the things that I already knew. 

I really enjoyed getting Aunt Linda's package. Please tell her thank you for me. I shared the cookies with my district after I ate as many as I wanted. This Sunday for the devotional, the Nashville Tribute Band is coming and the choir is singing 2 songs with them. Their music isn't quite as reverent as the choir songs usually are at the MTC, but the MTC presidency made an exception. It will be really cool. We're singing "John's Song" and "I was Born" youtube them or something. You'll be shocked. 

Elder Carter in my district (the one next to me in the pictures) got his Visa to go to the Mexico City MTC for the rest of the 6 weeks and then on to Culiacan, Mexico mission. He'll be leaving either tomorrow or Tuesday. 

Missionary life is good. I'm assuming it will become great once I get to the field.   

Love, 

Hermana Gubler

8/5/15 letter

Hola from the CCM. 

This week, we didn't have our whole district together very often because so many people caught the MTC plague...except me! Apparently pretty much everyone gets sick at least once at the MTC and they call it the MTC plague. On Sunday, we only had 6 of the 12 people from our district at church and in class. My companion, Sister Brown, as well as Elder Cook, and Hermana Bassett stayed in bed all day on Sunday. Since there were 2 sisters sick, I was able to do splits with Hermana Schmutz, instead of having to stay in the residence hall all day with my companion (what would have happened if Hermana Bassett wasn't sick). Elder Bean got a really bad concussion on Saturday while playing basketball and has been bed ridden ever since. On Sunday, he had to go to the ER because he was getting worse and worse and they thought he might have had some brain damage. The district leader and his companion went with him to the ER, but, thankfully, its just a concussion, not brain damage, so he doesn't have to go home. 

For the Sunday night devotional, Sheri Dew came to speak. Unfortunately, I fell asleep after the opening song and woke up for the "amen" at the end of her talk. I had people share with me afterward what she had spoken about. For the Tuesday night devotional, I kept hearing hints about who the speaker might be (they don't tell you before hand). Last week the choir director said "you're going to want to be in the choir for sure next week." I also heard that the devotional was broadcasted to all the MTCs around the world. I figured they must have an apostle coming, and I was right. President Russel M. Nelson spoke to us and it was awesome! He talked about being epistles of the Lord. You might be able to find the devotional on LDS.org and see if you see me on it. They zoomed in on me while I was in the choir. Jenna (in the Philippines MTC) probably saw me too. 

We taught 6 lessons this week to 3 different investigators (2 each). I'm getting a lot better at giving lessons in Spanish. I used to bring a huge notebook as well as preach my gospel to lessons, and now I just bring a hand sized notebook with just a few words written on it. In Spanish class, we are still learning about the present tense of verbs, which is stuff from like Spanish 1. The class is really easy, but there's not an intermediate class I can go to and advanced would be too hard for me. 

I saw Adam Denison this week. He works here. I also saw Dallen Hagman. 

For exercise time, our district likes to play sand volleyball on the courts by the temple. Its super fun. Since today was Pday, we got even more time to play. The basketball courts are being refinished until August 18th, but I got the chance to play on them a couple times before they closed. 

According to my companion, when I talk in my sleep, I speak in Spanish. Also, the other day in class, I was falling asleep, while speaking Spanish and the Spanish that was coming out of my mouth was better than my regular Spanish. Maybe I should teach lessons while I'm asleep.

Anyway, mission life is good. I keep seeing people with missionary name tags on and thinking "look the missionaries!" Then I realize that I am one. 

Love,

Hermana Gubler