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