Tuesday, August 30, 2016
8/29/16 letter
Hola
This week was great! We had 21 member present lessons.
Ivan's so excited to get baptized. Every lesson, he just thanks us over and
over for bringing this gospel into his life. He's totally going to endure to
the end. The member at one of our lessons who was baptized 18 years ago shared
his conversion story and Ivan was like "and after 18 years how is
it?" totally thinking about his life 18 years from now with this gospel
now a part of it. He said he wants his 9 year old daughter to serve a mission!
He's excited to get the priesthood. He said he's completely stopped drinking
and smoking and that he doesn't get mad at his kids anymore. He said sometimes
he is about to relapse into those things and then he thinks of the things we've
taught him about putting up a shield of faith between him and the darts of the
adversary and he stops himself. He loved church on Sunday. If you could pray
for him that he will be able to get a new apartment, that would be great.
This week, I went out of the mission 4 days in a row.
(With permission, don't worry) On Thursday, our zone got to go to the Phoenix
temple which was so beautiful. I'll send pictures. Friday, we took our car into
pep boys which used to be in our zone, but with the new boundaries is not. We
had 2 tires with nails and 1 with glass.
Saturday, we went to a baptism at our stake center which
oddly enough is not in our mission anymore. And Sunday, the zone leaders,
Hermana Irizarry, and I went to Tempe for a special MLC (the freeway takes us
out of the mission) where Elder Pearson of the seventy came and spoke.
It was awesome! He talked about not only having the faith
to serve a mission, but rather to have the faith to succeed.
A lame thing that happened this week is that Margarito,
who got baptized last month, decided he doesn't want to come to church anymore.
His wife was really mad at him and gave him a bunch of anti-Mormon material.
He doesn't want to come to church because it will make her really mad. So
that's dumb, but we're going to have our bishop talk to him.
We also finally found our investigator, Porfilio. He's
been working in Kansas for 2 months and he's finally back. While we were
teaching him, he invited his neighbor and his friend to listen during the
lesson.
Have a great week. Sounds like fun in Salt Lake.
Love,
Hermana Gubler
Monday, August 22, 2016
8/22/16 letter
Hola,
This week was good. On Monday night, we did a family home
evening at our ward mission leader's house and Ivan came with his kids. We did a
fun obstacle course blindfold type thing to explain the doctrine of Christ
leading you to eternal life and then played games and ate tostadas. Ivan loved
it and after we bore our testimonies at the end of the lesson, we asked if
anyone had any comments. He raised his hand and announced to everyone that he
was getting baptized!
On Wednesday, we had zone meeting where the zone leaders
and I gave a hour and half training on finding people to teach. I'll attach a
picture. I did exchanges on Thursday with Hermana Luthy in Mesa Zone and on
Saturday with Hermana Haueter from Phoenix zone. And on Tuesday, we had
interviews with the mission president. On Wednesday our bishop came out with us and we had some
awesome lessons with Angelo and Valeria and our investigator, Jesus. Jesus was
about to get baptized 2 years ago, but got super offended, but now is super
interested again and the lesson with Obispo was super good for him.
On Sunday night, we had the new convert devotional in
Tempe where recent converts share their conversion story. My convert Araceli,
who was baptized with her family in Maricopa, was supposed to speak, but had to
cancel last second because of work. I was sad that I didn't get to see her, but
Hermana Irizarry and I did the Spanish translation and it actually didn't turn
out too bad.
Probably the biggest thing that happened this week was a
special stake conference on Sunday. Elder Echohawk and Greer of the 70 came and
they made a new stake. From 3 stakes, they made 4 because of the hastening of
the work. I was in the Phoenix Arizona Stake, but now, I'm in the Phoenix South
Mountain Stake and the Phoenix stake is in the Phoenix mission. I'm still in
the same ward, but they took a tiny part of our area and gave it to the Elders
including Angelo and Valeria which we're super sad about. But like half of our
zone got put in the Phoenix mission and the missionaries in those areas got
sent to other parts of the Tempe mission. So lots of crazy stuff and changes.
Have a great week. Sounds like fun in St. George.
Love,
Hermana Gubler
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
8/15/16 letter
Hola Family,
This week was amazing! Probably one of the biggest
miracles of my mission happened this week. I met Myrna Valenzuela about a year
ago during the first 6 weeks of my mission when I was in Casa Grande. She was
baptized in the span of a month and was super solid. After I got transferred
away, she moved to somewhere in north Phoenix and I haven't had contact with
her since. She deactivated her Facebook and I've had no idea if she found the
church in Phoenix and I've been worried about her this whole time. The other
day, she was on her way to work in south Phoenix and got a flat tire. While she
was waiting for her car to be fixed, she walked to circle K to get a drink and
while she was walking, we happened to be driving by at exactly the right moment
in the 30 seconds that she was walking between the gas station and the car
place. The way we even ended up on that street was super random too. We were
going to a lesson, but weren't able to get ahold of the lady over the phone to
confirm it and we were running super late and when we were almost there, we
went turned around to meet a member and then drove back across town on another
road and that's how we ended up seeing Myrna. We pulled over and I was able to
talk to her. She said she stopped going to church for a little bit, but then
decided she needs this gospel in her life and has been attending faithfully
since. She said the missionaries in north Phoenix visit her every Wednesday and
she is preparing to go to the temple to do baptisms. She is even sharing the
gospel with one of her friends.
I'm so happy that the Lord made that whole turn of events
happen so that I could have some reassurance that my mission has made an impact
on the life of another person.
Also, our investigator Ivan told us how good he feels
since he met us
2 weeks ago. He said he's happier, less angry and more
peaceful and that he feels so comfortable coming to church. During our lesson
on Friday, he accepted a date to be baptized for September 10! We went to the
Mesa visitors center with him on Saturday and he and his kids loved it. He said
if he could feel that good outside the temple, he couldn't even imagine how he
could feel inside. He has the gospel library app and uses it all the time.
On Monday, we did a family home evening in a recent
convert family's home and Ivan came with his kids and our investigators Angelo
and Valeria came too. Ivan's kids have been asking all week when it was time to
do another family home evening.
I went to Tempe twice this week. On Wednesday, I had MLC
(missionary leadership council) and on Thursday, all the new missionaries got
to go to the temple. While they were at the temple, we had a meeting for the
trainers so that was fun.
Also, Hermana Castro in our ward was baptized 8 years ago
and has come to church with her kids all that time without any support from her
husband. Her husband has had his heart softened and wants to come to church
every week now. Wednesday night was the first time he has ever wanted to listen
to missionaries and we had an awesome lesson with him. We're hoping that we
will be able to have some progress with him.
Have a great week! Have fun watching the olympics.
Love,
Hermana Gubler
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
8/8/16 letter
Dear family,
So Monday morning, Hermana Mena left for Argentina and I
was in a trio with Sister Lungu and Hansens, the English ward sisters, for
Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday was transfers. I'm staying in Phoenix and I'm
training again. Her name is Hermana Irizarry from Orem, Utah. Her mom is from
Peru and she likes llamas and she's a native Spanish speaker, so life is pretty
good. Sister Hansens got transferred and Sister Lungu, who we live with, is
training too.
We had a lot of really good spiritual lessons this week.
Our investigator, Ivan, is doing really well. We taught him 3 times and he said
that what he wants more than anything is a change in his life. He wasn't able
to come to church because he got off at 12:00, the same time church ends, but
we're doing a family home evening with him tonight. He still doesn't want to
accept a date to be baptized, but he's close. It's pretty cool how we found
him. I think the Lord wanted to see how patient we would be; he usually doesn't
make it easy so that he can test us. So about 3 months ago, we got a random
referral in our area book of this guy named Gustavo. We went and knocked on a
few occasions until one day his brother, Adolfo answered. Adolfo was super cool
and wanted a Book of Mormon, but then was impossible to find after that. We
tried his apartment every single time we were in that general area, but no one
was ever home, but we were persistent.
One day, we were knocking on his door and his neighbor
across the street was staring at us, so we went to talk to her. She was also
super interested, but also super impossible to find. We didn't ever give up and
we went back to that street a lot for 3 months with no luck. But finally, we
were there once, and Ivan was outside drinking with one of his friends. We went
up and talked to him and he wasn't really interested at first, but then opened
up while we were talking to him and accepted a return appointment. Now he's
super interested and loves coming to church. If we hadn't been patient and
worked hard, the Lord wouldn't have blessed us with Ivan to teach.
We had a whole long list of people who said they would be
at church on Sunday and none of them showed up, but that's ok. We don't have
anyone with a baptismal date right now, but we have a lot of investigators that
are super close, they just need to read the Book of Mormon and come to church.
We'll keep working hard at it.
Also, on Saturday, I was able to pull a trip to the Mesa
temple from President Christensen. Yozelyn, who is a member here and come out
with us a lot in preparation for her mission to Mexico, received her endowments
and we talked President into letting us go.
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
8/1/16 letter
Hola family,
This week was super busy. Our only full proselyting day
was Saturday.
Tuesday, I went to Tempe with my zone leaders for MLC
(missionary leadership council) when Tracy Watson, THE GUY WHO WROTE
"PREACH MY GOSPEL", came and talked to us. He's been in and out of
our mission a lot over the past 9 months working on a project to film The
District 3 and at MLC, he showed us the finished project and we discussed how
it will affect missionary work in all the missions in the world. It was way cool.
He spoke to our whole mission last November after they finished filming and
we've gotten a plethora of training from the missionary department since then.
The videos aren't out for everyone yet; they still have to be fully approved by
the First Presidency. To my knowledge, I don't appear in any of the videos, but
Hermana Kiel, who I companioned with in Yuma was one of the 8 missionaries they
followed around and filmed.
On Wednesday, the zone leaders and I gave a zone
training, relaying all the info from MLC. On Thursday, I spent the morning in a
trio with some sisters in Tempe, while Hermana Mena went to the Gilbert temple
with the departing missionaries. She left to go to Argentina this morning to
finish the remaining 16 months of her mission. Thursday afternoon, we stayed in
Tempe for a meeting with all the trainers and their trainees and President and
Sister Christensen. Then on Friday after weekly planning, Phoenix, Tempe YSA,
and Mesa zones went to central Phoenix (in the Phoenix mission) with President
and Sister Christensen for the Feed My Starving Children annual food packing
event. We packed 121,176 meals for kids all over the globe.
At church on Sunday, our investigator, Ivan came. We met
him last week while he was outside drinking with one of his friends. We started
talking to them and they invited us to sit down. We've taught him 2 times since
then and he came to church for the first time with his daughter and nephew. On
Saturday, we were planning on going to the Mesa Visitors Center with some
investigators, but they all cancelled. We went by Ivan's and he said he was about to go across the
street to drink with one of his friends, right when we knocked on his door. He
has such a desire to stop drinking and he really liked church.
On Monday, we did a family home evening with a less
active family and some investigators and watched meet the Mormons and ate delicious Peruvian food. There was also a crazy sand storm and lightning storm
on Friday. We were outside talking to this guy when a huge wall of sand just started
hitting us way hard. A few minutes later, it was pouring rain and the power
went out in a lot of places including McDonalds and Walgreens. I'll try to send
a video if it will work.
I hope you have a great week. I find out tomorrow if I
get transferred or not (probably not) and I'll get my new companion on
Wednesday.
Love,
Hermana Gubler
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