Monday, December 26, 2016

Manuel's baptism


Delgados' baptism


Christmas Day family face time


12/26/16 Final letter

Hola familia,
Here's my last weekly email. This week was pretty great. Manuel, who I found and taught in Phoenix got baptized on Friday! I got permission to go. When we found him, he was drunk and crying and was telling us he wants to change his life so he can be happy. And he sure was happy on Friday. He wore a shirt and tie and he was smiling the whole time. He shared him testimony at the end and it was awesome! And he had Hermana Irizarry and I sign his Book of Mormon haha.At the baptism, I gave a talk and conducted the music. It was super fun to see everyone from Montaña de Sur again. 
And on Saturday morning, the Delgado kids I taught got baptized in Phoenix. I wasn't able to go back for that baptism, but I'm super happy for the 3 of them. 
We found 7 new investigators this week and 7 last week and we've been working really hard. We found this new couple named Baltazar and Anna and they're awesome! They're super intelligent. He's getting his PHD in applied Mathematics at ASU and barely even speaks English. As we were teaching, they had so many questions like "so what do I need to do to get salvation?" and "what would you say our purpose in life is?"  and "how can I receive and answer that this is true?" I'm super sad that I can't keep teaching them, but they will for sure be great members of the church. 
For Christmas Eve, we had to stay in the apartment, so we played Clue and we made our kitchen table into a ping pong table. On Christmas, we only had sacrament meeting in both wards. Let's just say there was a large difference in musical talent between the Spanish ward and English ward partially because of the fact that Hermana Cloward and I were part of 2 of the numbers in the Spanish ward. I played the guitar for one of them.
Also, we were able to go Christmas caroling twice this week with the elders and our ward mission leader. We visited investigators and helped out the elders quorum and visited the people who hadn't been home taught in more than 3 months. It was really fun and it brought joy to a lot of people. One of the days it was pouring rain and the other one, I played the guitar while we sang carols. 
And this week I went to the house of NFL Cardinals football player, Mike Iupati. He is a less active in our ward and we went and taught his family. He's a pretty big guy and he came to church on Sunday! 
We also had our investigators Lina and Leah come to church. 
On Saturday, Miguel and Denise who got baptized in my first area drove an hour to take us out to lunch and it was super fun to see them. 
On Christmas, we acted out the nativity with the sisters in our district. I was a shepherd as usual. And we ate Christmas dinner in the mansion of the multimillionaire bishop of our English ward.
See you tomorrow! Be on time to the airport please. It was good to talk to you yesterday. 
Love,

Hermana Gubler

Friday, December 23, 2016

Finally got to use my bike!


My Posterity


Gilbert Temple, Sister Cloward


12/19/16 letter

Dear family,
This week was awesome! And super crazy. I have like 20 zillion photos to send, but I'll send a few and show the rest when I get home in 8 days. 
On Monday, we went to the Mesa temple lights with some investigators and a recent convert. Tuesday, we drove to Casa Grande, my first area, and went to a baptism there for a guy named Roberto that Hermana Cloward found and taught. He read the Book of Mormon twice before his baptism! While there, I got to see a ton of people that I met as a brand new missionary and surprisingly, they all remembered me even though at the time I didn't speak hardly any Spanish. I got to see Suzi who I found and taught and has been a member for about a year now. She seems so much happier and her testimony is so strong! 
On Wednesday, we had our mission wide Christmas conference. We met in south Phoenix and played games like horseshoes, basketball, 4 square, etc. and had a huge competition between all the zones. It was way fun. Our zone won the puzzle competition and our prize was a giant present full of popcorn. Wednesday night, we taught our investigator, Magdalena about the plan of salvation. Her mom passed away this week and when we taught her that her mom is learning from missionaries right now, she just started crying and she had so many questions about sealing. She told us she wants to get baptized and go to church, but she works on Sundays. So that's the next step. Also, we starting teaching her roommate Antonia this week, and she's from Fresno.
Thursday morning, we got to go to the Phoenix temple. Then we met at the Gilbert temple for a mission picture and then we had dinner and a program at a chapel nearby. For the program, each zone did a skit and ours was by far the best, but the judge was biased and we didn't win. Everyone else there told us we should've won. I'll show the video when I get home.
On Saturday, I got to go on exchanges with Hermana Lambert in my old area in Phoenix. We had so much fun and met another guy from Fresno and he wants to start meeting with missionaries. Also Ivan, my recent convert, and Miguel, his new best friend came out with us and we were so happy to see each other. Miguel hits a year of membership tomorrow and will be endowed in a couple weeks. 
On Sunday, I translated again at the new convert devotional. 
So run down of the week: I was in Tempe, Phoenix, Gilbert, Chandler, Casa Grande, and Mesa, saw 3 temples, met 2 people from Fresno, and have 1 more week on my mission. I should write a song or something. I'll stay away from the 5 golden rings though. 
I'll write next week still. 
Love,

Hermana Gubler

Monday, December 12, 2016

Christmas Caroling


Tempe District


12/12/16 letter

Hola Family,
This week I'm writing to you from...Tempe, Arizona! Finally I can tell people that I served in the Arizona Tempe Mission and that I actually served in Tempe. Hermana Irizarry got a call on Monday night that she would be training a new missionary, so they needed to make room for her in Mesa, so they moved me to Tempe for my last few weeks. And my companion is HERMANA CLOWARD! We were companions last Christmas and we'll be together this Christmas too and we're having a great time! We're both new to this area, so we're still trying to meet everybody and find our way around, but I love it here and wish I could have served more time here. We have 2 wards. The Rio Salado ward which is Spanish and the Ahwatukee Groves ward, which is English. It was crazy to go to church in English on Sunday and see that the ward started on time and had the overflow filled with people. Our english ward has 11 ward missionaries who are all completely active which is insanely awesome! Another random thing is that we share both wards with the same 2 Elders. Elder Gardea from Chihuahua, Mexico and Elder Ocampo from Chile. They are both the only members of their families and converts of less that 3 years and they are both awesome! Elder Ocampo got here from Chile on Wednesday, so at dinner, he has no idea what he is eating and it's really funny. Our wards are in different stakes, so it's super random, but it's super fun. We live right near Ahwatukee and we take 3 freeways to get to our church building for Spanish. And we make the 20 minute drive between our areas like 5 times a day. Also, if I thought I got spoiled in Spanish wards, English wards are like that x100. 
Sister Cloward just came from Casa Grande, my first area, and gave me all the updates of the people I taught there. This guy Kevin that we were teaching got sent to jail soon after I left and just got out. He read the Book of Mormon twice while in jail and is meeting with the missionaries again! We are going to Casa Grande tomorrow for a baptism of a guy Hermana Cloward taught and hopefully Kevin is there and I'll get to see him. 
On Saturday, I got to go to the Mesa temple because this recent convert from Phoenix named Sabino received his endowments. He invited me and I got permission to go and that was super cool. 
Tuesday, my last night in Mesa, we went to the temple lights with our investigator, Pablo, and it was super fun. There was a bunch of people from Águila Ward in Phoenix that were working shifts at the lights and it was really fun to see all of them. I got to see Yozelyn's sister who got home from her mission this week. 
Also, now that I'm in Tempe, I've served in basically every area in the mission except for Chandler (Where nobody speaks Spanish anyways) so I'm feeling pretty accomplished. 
I feel like I have so many things to do and so little time to do so. See you in 2 weeks.
Love,
Hermana Gubler


Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Gilbert Temple with Christensons


Temple Lights


Santa has come to AZ!


12/5/16 letter

Hola Family
This week was cool. We got to go to the Mesa Temple Christmas lights twice. Once with Zoila and another time with a new part member family that just moved in. The lights are sooooo pretty! Zoila came to church again for the 3rd week in a row. After church, she invited us and another Venezuelan member for Venezuelan food. We ate hallacas, pan de jamón, pollo asado, and rice. I'll send a picture, it was super good. On Sunday, we ended up eating 3 dinners and I literally thought I was going to die. But when a Hispanic offers you food, you can't say no or they get offended, so you have to eat it. So we ate with Zoila, then went to the Jaramillos and read the Book of Mormon in English with their daughter so she could learn English and they offered us dinner. We had pork, rice and beans. Then we went to Hermana Candiani's house because she was actually signed up on our dinner calendar and she gave us mole, rice, and potatoes. I'm excited for the day when I will be the one in charge of when and what I eat. 

Teaching English to the Jaramillos daughter has been interesting. I'm glad I don't have to learn English. It's super hard to explain why "food" and "took" both have double O's, but make different sounds. 

On Thursday I got to go to the Gilbert temple with the departing missionaries group. It was super pretty. And on Wednesday, we had interviews and president basically told me that I'm going to be transferred for my last few weeks, so don't send me anything. We get calls tomorrow and transfers are Wednesday. I'll get you my new address next week. 

Our investigator, Joel, came to church for the 3rd time in a row too. He's so close to baptism, he just doesn't want to accept a day. He said he feels that everything is true. We asked him because it's true, what do you need to do, and he said he baptized. Him and his roommate, Eladio, came to the first presidency Christmas devotional too, so I got to watch that. Joel's friend/fellowship, Hermano Gomez,  invited us all for carne asada on Saturday so we were able to have a super awesome lesson while we ate carne asada. I'll add a picture.
Have a great week. See you in 3 weeks.
Love,
Hermana Gubler