1/25/16 letter

Hello family,

This week has been awesome! It started out with a pday activity to a camel farm (I wonder who suggested that?) which was super fun...except they didn't have any llamas. They had a bunch of sheep, goats, emus, zebras, etc. and it was awesome! 

At members' houses this week, we got fed carne asada 3 times, so it was pretty much the greatest week ever. In Casa Grande and Maricopa, I only got carne asada 1 time in each even though I requested it to all the members, multiple times. The members in Yuma are so excited to have sister missionaries, so they all want to make us special food. 

Sorry to always just write about food, but we also have enough oranges, lemons, and grapefruit to last us a lifetime in our kitchen. All the members have citrus trees because citrus grows really well in the climate here and they always give us a bag full of citrus to take home whenever we come over for dinner. However, I have yet to taste an orange that tastes as good as dads. 

On Wednesday, there was a broadcast for all the missionaries all over the world (hasn't been done in over 10 years). Elder Oaks, Bednar, Anderson, Clayton, and many more spoke about "Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts." It was really good and I learned a lot of good things about always testifying of the Savior and His gospel. 

On Sunday, Hermana Lambert and I were assigned to speak in church. I spoke about simplifying the gospel in our lives and making sure we have our testimonies set on the basic truths of the gospel. I spoke about 4 questions that Elder Corbridge of the 70 talked about at a stake conference broadcast in October: Is there a God? Is Jesus Christ the Savior of the world? Was Joseph Smith a prophet? And Is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints the kingdom of God on the Earth? I spoke about how if we have testimonies of these four primary questions, we will have a testimony of everything else in the gospel. I was surprised at how well my talk turned out considering the fact that I didn't have a whole lot of time to work on it. My Spanish has improved a lot since being in Yuma. I get to use it all the time because most of the investigators and members don't speak any English at all. 

One of our investigators in named Irma. She is on date to be baptized March 5. She's super awesome. She lives in the foothills (about 20 minutes outside the main city of Yuma) right next to the chapel out there. One Sunday in November, she just randomly walked to the church building and has been going every week since then as well as attending all of the activities during the week such as Zumba class. The only problem is that the ward that meets in the foothills building is an English ward and Irma doesn't speak/understand and English. Luckily, the relief society president lived in Honduras for 2 years for the Peace Corp and has been able to do a little bit of translating during church. We were able to find a ride for Irma to come to the Spanish branch this week and she loved it. She told us that on Sundays, she wants to go to the English ward in the foothills in the morning, then come to the Spanish branch at 1. 

We were able to have 13 member present lessons this week, which is the most I've ever had (in other areas, it's been about 6 or 7 on a good week). The members here are so willing to come out with us and they are all so nice. 

I can't wait to see what this next week brings.

Love,

Hermana Gubler