Tuesday, September 29, 2015
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
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
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
Monday, September 14, 2015
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
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Monday, September 7, 2015
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
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