Happy
año nuevo,
Today
I'm writing to you from Yuma, Arizona! My apartment is literally 2 miles from
the California border and 5 miles from the Mexico border. It's so awesome!!!
Yuma is seriously the promised land of the Tempe mission and everyone wants to
come here. We're about a 4 hour drive from Tempe, so we're just kind of in our
own little secluded corner of the mission. We just Skype into transfer meetings
and if we need anything, the mission office comes to us instead of us going to
them. There haven't been sisters in Yuma in over 6 months. Last transfer, a
companionship of English sisters were sent down here and this transfer, myself
and 3 other sisters replaced the Elders in the Spanish branch. I got a call
late Tuesday night saying that myself and Hermana Rodríguez were leaving
Maricopa. In my head I was guessing where I was going to go and my dream was
for them to open up a Spanish sisters area in Yuma...and here I am. Hermana
Rodríguez get transferred to Phoenix.
My
new companion is Hermana Lambert from Lehi, Utah. She came out a transfer after
me and was Hermana Cloward's MTC companion in Mexico. So if I had gone on my
mission when my initial mission call said, August 26 to the Mexico MTC, I would
have been there with both of them. Hermana Lambert is super awesome and nice
and we're going to have lots of fun and do good missionary work together. We
live in a tiny apartment with Hermana Kiel from Washington, who goes home at
the end of the transfer, and Hermana Allred from Colorado who I lived with in
Casa Grande and who came out the same time as me. The four of us are all serving
in the Spanish branch here in Yuma as we each have part of the stake that we
cover. My area is part of the town of Yuma, plus most of the outlying desert.
It even covers part of California, so I have my dream of going in my home state
during my mission. (Now all I have to do is get into Mexico somehow) The other
sisters cover the other half of the town of Yuma plus the YSA branch. I'm
soooooooo excited for my new area and to explore the other parts of Arizona.
Today for pday, all the sisters are going to San Luis, a little town on the
Mexico/Arizona border, to do some border shopping.
The
Spanish branch here is super awesome and the members are all really nice. My
Spanish is going to get really good here because most of the
members/investigators don't speak a word of English. Also, Hermana Lambert and
I set a goal to speak as much Spanish to each other as we can. In Maricopa, it
was really hard to find Spanish speakers to teach, so this is a nice change of
pace.
So
since, neither Hermana Lambert nor I have never served here before, it's called white washing. It's
definitely an adventure to figure out who everyone is that the elders were
teaching before and where they live. Yesterday, we had a lesson with a guy
named Rafael and he accepted a baptismal date for February 13!
The only downside to getting
transferred to Yuma was that I didn't get to go to Eva's baptism on Saturday.
If I had gotten transferred anywhere else in the mission, I would have been
close enough to Maricopa to get permission to attend the baptism. But since I'm
over 3 hours away, I just skyped into the baptism. (I'll attach a picture of me
on the Skype screen with Eva) Aracely, who I taught in Maricopa is getting
baptized in a couple of weeks, so I should get to skype into that baptism as
well.
I
love it here and I'm so excited to teach the people here and experience the
culture of being so close to Mexico.
Love,
Hermana
Gubler
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