2/15/16 letter

Hola,


So this week was transfers and for the first time in 3 transfers, I
stayed in the same place! I'll be sticking around Yuma for at least
another 6 weeks, if not longer, so I'm pretty happy about that.
Hermana Kiel went home, so our new housemate is Hermana Cloward, my
last companion form Maricopa. She and Hermana Lambert were MTC
companions and now she's companions with Hermana Allred, so she's been
companions with everyone in our apartment, so the adjustment was
pretty smooth. We all miss Hermana Kiel a lot though.

I thought I told you more about Hermana Lambert a few weeks ago, but
dad asked again so here it is: she's from Lehi, Utah and has been out
for one transfer less than me (so 6 months). Her first area was in
Phoenix and there's a lot of Spanish work there, so her Spanish is
really good. Her and I have a lot in common, so we have a lot of fun
together and we teach really well together.

A cool experience I had this week. We were having cleaning checks on
Tuesday and the housing coordinators in Yuma make cleaning checks a
competition with the prize being pizza, so obviously I had to win. So
on Monday, we spent all morning cleaning and making our apartment
literally spotless. That afternoon, the 4 of us were out grocery
shopping and we were all on edge and pretty grumpy. We couldn't figure
out why we were feeling that way, and then I realized that it was
because we hadn't read our scriptures that morning because we had been
cleaning. We read some scriptures in the car and listened to a
conference talk and then we all felt a lot better. It made me realize
the importance of daily scripture study. Even just reading a couple of
verses in the morning sets the tone for the rest of the day. I'm
grateful for the amount of time (1 hour) I have on my mission to study
the scriptures every morning.

Another cool experience, on Tuesday, all the sisters went out to lunch
at Chipotle after district meeting. When we walked in I saw an older
man and his wife looking at us and still watching when we said a
prayer over our food. While I was eating, the husband came up to me
and said "since the moment you walked into this room, I could feel
that you were a Christian" then went and sat back down. Missionary
opportunities don't get any easier than that, so I went over to the
table where he and his wife were sitting and explained that I was a
missionary and shared our message. They thought that it was awesome!
They are on a cross country road trip in their RV and are going to be
in Yuma until it gets warm in the rest of the United States. They said
they've attended church every week during their 2 year long excursion,
so I gave them the church address and meeting time for an English ward
so they could have somewhere to attend during their time in Yuma.

Speaking of weather, the heat is already making its way to Arizona now
that it's February. It's been high of 85 every day this week and is
just going to keep getting hotter from here. It's been absolutely
gorgeous and I wish it would just stay like this year round.

On Friday, was Hermano Mireles's birthday, so he invited us over for
dinner to have some carne asada. It was great! Hermano Mireles got
baptized a year ago and he and his wife (baptized 2 years ago) are
preparing to be sealed in the temple. We are teaching their 26 year
old daughter Heidy, who has seen the change in her parents and wants
to get baptized too. I'll attach a picture of us with Hermano Mireles.
Hope you all have a great week!


Love,
Hermana Gubler