Women's Conference aprons

4/25/16 letter

Hola,

This week was super awesome! We had so much missionary work and were literally going from lesson one lesson, to the next, to the next all day every day. We had 19 member present lessons this week and a lot of awesome progress with our investigators.

On Saturday morning, there was a Spanish women's conference for our branch and the San Luis branch. They asked us to sing at it back when there were 4 hermanas (including Hermana Allred who's a really good

singer) serving in our Spanish branch and we agreed. Then the other sisters got replaced by elders and Hermana Lambert and I were left alone with the task of singing "Yo Tengo Fe" (I walk by faith).

Thankfully, we were able to convince the English sisters in the foothills to sing with us, but neither of them speak Spanish...Let's just say our song sounded like a couple of dying cats. One of the members "jokingly" said that the missionaries always sing beautifully, but Saturday was the exception. But it's ok because the rest of the conference was really good. We came at the beginning to sing then left to teach some lessons while all the hermanas went to workshops, and then we came back for a delicious lunch.

One of the lessons we taught on Saturday was to our investigator, Rafael. He wants to get baptized on May 6, but is having trouble with drinking. We took Hermano Mireles with us to the lesson and it was perfect. Hermano Mireles was baptized a year ago and had trouble stopping drinking too. He was able to share with Rafael the blessing he's been able to see from keeping the word of wisdom. Rafael came to church on Sunday for the second week in a row and stayed all 3 hours and told us he didn't drink since the lesson.

We also took Hermano Mireles to a lesson on Saturday night with Javier. We've been meeting with Javier for about 4 months and he has been coming to church for about a month now. Finally at our lesson, he accepted a baptismal date for June 4, so that was cool. I'm thinking we should take Hermano Mireles with us to all of our lessons and everybody in Yuma would get baptized.

Not anything too out of the ordinary that happened this week; just a lot of missionary work. I'm excited to meet Elder Holland tomorrow!

Have a good week,

Love,

Hermana Gubler

Stevie's baptism

4/18/16 letter

I had another awesome week this week! So many cool things happened.

Stevie got baptized, I got to go to the Gilbert temple, we had zone conference, and I found out that Elder Holland is coming to speak to our mission next Tuesday! Also, I hit my 9 month mark this last week.

So first, I'll talk about Stevie's baptism. It was awesome! Hermano Mireles (his dad), who was baptized a year ago, was able to baptize him. Hermano Mireles was so nervous and stayed up pretty much all night Friday night praying and memorizing the baptismal prayer. He was relieved to see that we had printed it out and taped it to the glass for him to read. He did awesome though and was sooooo happy. At church on Sunday, he told everyone how proud he was and how strong he felt the spirit in the baptismal font. It was amazing to see how many people showed up to the baptism to support Stevie. Everyone loves him a lot. After the baptism, we asked him how he felt and he said "really good!" We asked him what he felt and he said "I feel good; I feel different." He got confirmed on Sunday and he wore a white shirt and tie and looked great.

On Tuesday, was my first training that I gave as a district leader. It went really well. After district meeting, our zone packed up and drove to Gilbert, about a 3.5 hour drive, to go to the temple. We stopped for food in Gilbert/Chandler and Hermana Lambert and I decided to eat at Costco which was fun, since I haven't been there in over 9 months because none of my areas have had one. The Gilbert temple was so pretty! At Christmas conference, I got to see the outside, but this time, I got to see the inside. Usually our mission goes to the Mesa temple, and the only time missionaries get to go to the Gilbert temple is when they finish their mission, but President Toone made an exception for Yuma zone this time because we never get to go to the temple because we're too far away. President and Sister Toone even came to the same session as us, so we got to see them there. After the temple, we stayed the night with some missionaries in the Chandler zone.

Wednesday morning, we drove to Maricopa for zone conference combined with Casa Grande and Maricopa zones. It was fun to see a lot of the missionaries from my old areas and ask how my old investigators are doing. We finally got back to Yuma around 8:00. It was kind of crazy to be out of our area for 2 days, but we worked hard the rest of the week to catch up on everything.

We found some new investigators last week named Leo (9 years old) and Duvia (17 years old). They are seriously the coolest and are so smart.

They came to church last week and this week and they went to Stevie's baptism on Saturday. Leo said he likes going to our church because he feels "like I'm with my real family." They both want to get baptized, we just need to talk to their mom about a date. She said they can go to church every week, so that's a start.

Sunday in YSA Hermana Lambert and I spoke in church about Jesus' visit to the Americas. We don't have very many investigators for YSA, so the majority of our work is in Spanish. Elder Holland and Lynn G Robins are coming on the 26th to speak to our mission, so we'll drive up to Tempe for that. I'm super excited!

Have a great week.  Love, Hermana Gubler

Expanding Book of Mormon class

4/11/16 letter

This week was awesome! We have been soooooo busy all week with all the missionary work we have. With a new area on top of our old one, there isn't much time to breath. We've been working through lunch everyday and haven't had much time to do Spanish study. At church on Sunday, we had 9 investigators at church; 8 in the Spanish Branch and 1 in YSA!

And, we taught 17 member present lessons this week! Also, Book of Mormon class this week was seriously amazing! Every person there was either less active, a recent convert, or an investigator and as you can see from the picture at the bottom, there was a lot of them.

Sunday's are going to be a crazy day with 2 branches. On Sunday, we started at 7:30 am for YSA branch counsel, then church from 9:00-12:00. Then we did our usual Sunday morning roundup to our Spanish investigator's houses to make sure they're awake and getting ready for church. Then we went back to church from 1:00-4:00 for the Spanish branch and then we had correlation with our branch mission leader until 5:00. But it was awesome that we had so many investigators at church! There were more people at the Spanish branch on Sunday than I've ever seen at church there before. We looked like a ward! It was branch conference for both branches, so the stake presidency and other stake callings were there for both, so we made a good showing.

In the stake president's talk, he told about a revelation he had 2 1/2 years ago about the Spanish branch about how the Ensign magazine was going to write an article about them one day. Before relief society, I talked to the stake president about Book of Mormon class and how 3 months ago there was one person coming, and how now the class is jam packed full and how the majority of the class is less actives and that they're all starting to come to church on Sunday's. He thinks that his revelation about the Ensign article is supposed to be written about that and he asked Hermana Lambert and I to email him the picture and everyone's story.

Awesome news is that tomorrow, we get to go to the Gilbert temple!

Yuma zone doesn't ever get to go to the temple because we're so far away from a temple, but President Toone approved for us to go, then stay the night in Tempe, then go to zone conference in Maricopa on Wednesday. So I'm excited for that since I haven't gotten to go to the temple since December.

Stevie Mireles is getting baptized this Saturday! His twin sister Heidy is going to wait a little longer before she gets baptized though, which is sad, but we're really excited for Stevie. Hermano Mireles, who was baptized a year ago, is going to baptize Stevie, so it should be really cool.

Tomorrow, I'll give my first training as a district leader. I will do one every Tuesday for my district. I'm excited!

So many cool things happened this week, and I don't have time to write them all, but it's been awesome! Have a great week.

Love,

Hermana Gubler

ZLs and Sistrict Leader

4/4/16 letter

Hola,

So lots of news for this week. Transfers happened and Hermana Lambert and I will stay together in Yuma for our third transfer in a row! I'm really excited about that. But, along with transfers, came a new area on top of our old area. Hermana Lambert now cover our Spanish branch as well as the Yuma YSA branch. Hermanas Allred and Cloward, who were covering the YSA and half of the Spanish branch, both were transferred out and replaced by elders. The YSA requested to keep sisters, so the elders took over the sisters old Spanish area and Hermana Lambert and I took over the YSA. It's going to be a little weird to teach people in English.

I've also been called as a district leader! We have a district of all sisters, which is pretty rare, since almost always the district leader is an elder. So on Tuesday night, President Toone called me and asked me to be the sistrict leader (as we like to call it). I'm pretty excited about it. Our mission has 2 sister training leaders and 2 sistrict leaders, who work with the sister training leaders to take care of all the sisters.

So in our Spanish area, we had 3 people with a baptismal date and inherited 5 more from the YSA area, and then Hermana Lambert and I have put 2 more on date since transfers on Thursday, so we're pretty stoked to have 10 people preparing for baptism! 5 of those are from Nigeria and all live in a house together. About 2 months ago, Hermana Lambert and I drove by their house and saw one of them, named Joshua, on their porch reading his bible. We stopped and went to talk to him since it's pretty rare to see a young person reading the scriptures.

We gave him a Book of Mormon and sent the YSA sisters over the following week. They taught Joshua as well as 3 of his 4 roommates and they all accepted baptismal dates for May 7. Hermana Lambert and I went over there on Saturday and met all 5 of them and taught them all (including the one the sisters never met and he accepted a date too during the lesson) and had an awesome lesson with them. Their names are Joshua, Simon, Vincent, Abdu, and Zach. They moved here from Nigeria in January and are attending AWC (Arizona Western College).

Simon and Joshua came to general conference for the Sunday afternoon session. We had 7 investigators total come to at least one session of general conference which was so awesome. We watched it at the stake center and went back and forth between the chapel and the Spanish translation room to check on our investigators. There was a surprisingly large amount of members watching it at the church building and not at home especially for the Sunday morning session.

Most of them were older people who don't have TVs at home.

I loved all of the general conference talks, but especially enjoyed Elder Anderson's talk about strengthening part member families because that is where a lot of missionary work can come from. I also loved President Monson's talk about making good choices in order to receive salvation and Elder Stevensen's talk about proper priesthood keys.

Im excited for all of the conference talks to be on the gospel library app so I can read them during my personal study each morning.

Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Gubler