Fast Week. Letter from Feb. 16, 2015

Just a random thought: I think if I just fast for 40 days and 40 nights that I might actually feel decent. I'm so tired of eating food- just sayin'. Haha.

This week seriously flew by. We were just busy, busy, busy. "Don't take your foot off the gas!"

VODA & DUSTIN. We FINALLY met Dustin! We had a lesson with him and Voda (AND their friend, Lilly!). We had a little testimony meeting where Dustin and Voda could share their experiences with the gospel so far.

LILLY. Lilly came to church with Voda a couple of weeks ago. She's seen the changes that Dustin and Voda have made in their lives and she wants that for herself as well. It's been amazing to see our investigators do missionary work!

BILLY. He's doing well. Still coming along. He had a drink of coffee this week though. (I hate those fancy coffee drinks!) :( So we're starting the clock over- 2 more weeks. If he can do good for that long, he'll be set for his baptism on the 28th of February. We're really praying that he can have the strength to do it!

GEORGE. George came to church!!! HE CAME! HE CAME! And he had a wonderful time! He said that he'd definitely come back again! I was so relieved to hear that. We knew that him attending church was going to be a "make it or break it" moment for him- I'm so happy that it "made it" for him. :) I always take for granted the spirit that's in our sacrament meetings... (especially because, as a missionary, you get so into noticing every little thing that the members are doing wrong during the meeting- loud children, talkative parents, inappropriately kissy young couples, etc) But he was really touched by the spirit as we took the sacrament and sang the songs- and he LOVED that the kids were there in the service with their families. He said he'd come again!

SHEILA. She's been really hard to keep up with. She's always going out of town and being really flaky with our appointments. The only times that we can catch her are when we drive up and see her outside smoking. (Gotta love that smell. Anywaysss..) In a previous discussion with her, she talked about how she's been living with her boyfriend for the last 17 years and she didn't ever plan on getting married (because the first one didn't end up too great). And she also told us about how she wasn't planning on quitting smoking- it was too hard and she didn't really want to. WELL. We show up yesterday night andddd..... *drumroll!* SHE'S ENGAGED AND SHE'S TAKING SOME MEDICATIONS IN ORDER TO QUIT SMOKING!!! YAY!!! Gotta love it.

We finished our bulletin board in the church building! It looks awesome. Super proud of it. I mean, for a couple of missionaries who have ZERO time- it's pretty legit.


FAMILY PICTURE DAY. We spent a lot of time this week putting up fliers for our Family Picture Day that's going to be going on the first Saturday in March. We spent an entire day going to businesses and inviting people. So we're hoping that we get a good turn out. We only have one photographer though, so we're still praying that we find another one. PRAYING.

CONSIDER THE LILIES. I sang in the La Grande 3rd Ward on Sunday- it turned out really well. I miss performing. But, more than performing, I love bringing the spirit through music. It's the best feeling ever.

Sister Gubler

P.S. Thank you, Mom, for the Valetine's Day package! Enjoy the picture of the man in a hot dog suit. Haha

Chillin' out with Layne!

Getting ready for service!!!

Apparently walkers are considered as vehicles in nursing homes. haha!

ONE YEAR! Letter from February 9, 2015

Well, it's official. I've hit my year mark! And I still feel like I'm a greenie. I don't think that these feelings of inadequacy will ever go away. But, hey, I guess they keep one humble.

I celebrated with a piece of apple pie. Yum.

By the way, I got a terrible haircut on Monday- don't ask. DON'T. ASK. I'm so mad about it. hair grows.... hair grows...

BILLY. Billy is still set to be baptized! We had planned on it being on February 28th, but now that Elder Perry is going to be here that day, we're planning on pushing it forward to the 21st. I'm praying that this goes through. He just completely quit coffee, comes to church every Sunday, reads his scriptures, says his prayers... It's crazy to think that he wasn't progressing at all when the other missionaries taught him one year ago, and when we first started teaching him he didn't even know who Heavenly Father was! And now he has the desire and the faith to be baptized. His story is amazing.

VODA. Her son, Dustin, gets out of prison TODAY! We are so excited to meet him! We learned that his probation is 90 days- MUCH shorter than what we were thinking that it would be. So the goal of Voda and Dustin being baptized together is definitely within reach! We have been chatting with the high councilman over the prison- and he has informed us of the great progress that Dustin has made in the gospel. Dustin has been described as "golden"! I am so excited to see this mother and son reunite and start anew. :) Our first lesson with them is scheduled for Wednesday.

Sisters in the gospel serving together!



TIFFANY. One of our new investigators. We taught her the restoration this week and... it was rough. Our teaching wasn't rough- honestly, I wouldn't have changed a thing. But when we were talking with her about the priesthood authority and how it's necessary for baptism, she was emotional. She felt like everything that she had been taught in the past was a lie. We tried to sooth her by explaining that we aren't here to rip away everything she knows to be true (because she does know a LOT of truths) but that we're here to ADD to those truths- fill in the gaps. She just told us that she'd have to pray about what we taught and then rely on faith, and that we'd have another lesson in 2 weeks (because she's going out of town). Oh man, never before have I come out of a lesson wanting to just hug someone and tell them that everything is going to be okay. But Tiffany is so sincere and really looking for the truth. I know that she'll find her answer.

SHEILA. We FINALLY caught her at home and scheduled a lesson for TODAY. (Yeah, I know it's p-day, but I'll take what I can get.) She promised to read the introduction page to The Book of Mormon before we come back, so I'm hoping that she's done that. She's kind of hard to teach... she's one of those people that is just so... random. Haha! But I'm sure that we'll be able to have a good discussion with her.

MISTY. Update on Misty. She's doing awesome. She still has 100% attendance at church so far this year! Totally rocking it. We sat with her at church on Sunday. We're trying to get her and her 3 kids to sit closer to the front of the chapel- helping them to get more and more reverent. (Taking care of kids is sooo hard to do during sacrament meeting... I'm not ready to be a mother. haha!) But Misty is making great leaps toward full repentance! I'm so proud of her.

SEANNA. Less active. We were visiting her for the second time since being here and she was a completely different person than the first time... It was night and day! She was WAY happier! But, long story short, after some discussion with us she said, "Please come and help me. I want to come back. Will you visit me once a week and help me?" WOW! YES, WE WILL!

BILLY(2). Different Billy! haha! He's 14 and has been inactive his entire life. But he has a lot of friends in the ward, so we've started teaching him the missionary lessons. We asked 2 of the teachers in the ward (a week in advance) to look at Preach My Gospel and teach about Joseph Smith- and oh boy... funny! haha! They literally told Billy EVERYTHING they know about Joseph Smith's life... everythinggggg. hahahaha It was a long lesson. ;)

We had exchanges this week! Sister Miller came up from Parma- comps reunited once again! It was awesome to see her and work with her for a day. :)

We had a new record week! 19 lessons! WHOOHOO!

A photo of my desk.

Sister Gubler

P.S. I was asked to sing a duet for Elder L. Tom Perry when he comes on February 28th. YAY!

Update from the Week Letter from Feb. 2, 2015

The Girdner's got baptized this week!! They were a family that I was working with when I was serving in Kuna. Man... One year later... And they're baptized! YAY! Unfortunately La Grande is too far away, so we weren't able to attend. But that's okay. At least I know that it happened. :)

Other exciting news!!!! *drumroll* L. TOM PERRY, ELDER NIELSON, AND SISTER MARRIOTT ARE COMING TO OUR MISSION!! YAY! It will be a great day! They'll only be with us for a 2 hour period, but we're hoping to squeeze out all of the goodness that we can. :) Our entire mission will be gathering for it. We haven't had a full mission conference since.... ever. haha. I'm squeeling like a little girl- I'm hoping to be able to shake their hands!

Our mission has announced new mission goals. They're hoping to have 504 baptisms in the year of 2015... A new high. They've also made new goals for us as missionaries, called "Standards of Excellence":

2 Baptisms per transfer
10 Member Present/Other Lessons per week
10 Recent Convert/Less Active Lessons per week
3 New Investigators per week

This is going to be a huge test of our faith. So far, we've been doing pretty well at having 1 new investigator and 13 lessons per week in our area... But we're determined to succeed! This is going to call for a new commitment to be even MORE diligent and MORE obedient than we already are.

 I've been spending the last couple of nights making little object lessons. My companion goes to bed at 9:30 (for health reasons) and so I'm left with an hour to... really do what I want. Haha. (That sounds bad, but I really just study or clean.) But the other night, I made a "prayer sandwich"- an object lesson from the Ensign. We've been using it to teach children how to pray. :) The more things that you say in your prayer, the better your sandwich gets!

And I still have a fascination with the deer that wander the streets... I don't think I'll ever get over it. 

The work in Elgin is BOOMING! Billy, Voda, and Kendra all came to church on Sunday- AND Voda brought a friend with her!! The people in Elgin are amazing missionaries. They remind me of the little branch that's talked about in "The Power of Every Day Missionaries". :) They haven't had missionaries give their little town a lot of attention, so they've learned to do missionary work on their own! (Really, the way that it should be.) So, now that we're here, there are a lot of prepared people. :)

GEORGE. George is slipping awayyyyyy! :( I'm so worried about him. We haven't had the chance to meet with him for a couple of weeks now- although we've been in contact over the phone. He just doesn't have any interest in coming to church... He laughs at me every time I invite him. Haha. And then I just have to give him my straight face and say, "I'm serious, George." He's kind of in limbo right now. He likes what he's learning, but he seems kind of content with where he's at in his life... Hopefully we can pull him back in.

Small miracle of the week: We were sitting outside of Tiffany's house (one of our potential investigators who is sooo prepared for the gospel) and talking about how we were going to approach her. We knew that she wasn't going to progress unless we got into her house and had a lesson, but we couldn't think of any way to ask if we could come inside... We had only met this woman once! But we decided to leave it up to the Lord and said a prayer that we would be able to get inside and teach her. We knocked on the door, said hello, and she said, "Would you like to come inside?" YES! YES, WE WOULD! It was a small miracle- but a miracle nonetheless. 

Sister Gubler

Our church building gives the missionaries their own board to decorate. We've decided to re-do it and make it look SPECTACULAR. So, he's the before and during pictures. You'll have to stay tuned for the "after" pictures. :) 

It's still in the process.

Long Week....Again! Letter from January 26, 2015

We had our highest number of lessons so far this week. New record! You'd think that, with that news, I'd have something to talk about this week. But I really don't... Haha! It was a long week.

Voda. We had a lesson with her and committed her to keep the Sabbath Day holy. Having lessons with her is so fun, because she's already following everything that she should be! She had already told all of the companies that she had applied at that she wouldn't work on Sundays. She's awesome. Her son comes home on February 10th and she's SO excited for all of us to have a lesson together- I am too!

Billy. We committed Billy to baptism on February 28th! It's kind of been an inner battle for my companion and I though. Billy has a severe learning disorder, so it takes us reviewed material 3 times before it even remotely sticks in his memory. But he comes to church regularly (if reminded) and he's living the way that he needs to. He WANTS to be baptized! It'll just take forever to get through the lessons with him.

Shantel. A new investigator. We taught her lesson 1 on Wednesday morning and it was pretty interesting. She agrees so quickly with everything that we teach and agrees that it makes sense and talks about how amazing the gospel is. But once we commit her to do anything, she puts up a wall and says, "I'm not going to change over night. I like my church." Sooo, we're kind of thinking she just likes to visit.

We did service at the Elgin Opera House this week. We painted the backdrop to their set. I don't know what it is, but there's a feeling of relief when I walk into that place. I think I miss my musical theater days. Haha. A lot of non-members volunteer there and the owner is a member of the Elgin Ward. So whenever we go, he gets us working with non-members that he's been talking to about the gospel. It's pretty great!

We did a musical number in the Elgin Ward yesterday. :) It was originally going to be just me- my companion refused. But after some pushing, we got her to sing with me! Yay! We sang Abide With Me; Tis Eventide. It was simple- last minute- but really great! I love it when my companions say, "But I can't sing!" and then the next thing they know, I've pulled them in front of a hundred people to sing a duet. :) Best thing ever.

And guess who my new Sister Training Leader is- SISTER MILLER. YUS! I love her. And I totally saw that one coming. If anyone asks, I just tell them she was made STL because I taught her everything she knows. haha

AND I FOUND MY CAMERA!!!! I found it literally minutes before I was going to buy a new one. Miracle.

Sister Gubler

Investigators Galore! Letter from January 19, 2015

I lost my camera. I am so distraught. So, no pictures for this week. Sorry errybody.

But, on the plus side, we're teaching!!!! YAY! 

Misty. She's doing amazing. We gave her the challenge to read Alma 5, and she's gone above and beyond! She's written down every question and answered it as to how it pertains to her in her life. It's amazing. She's making small changes in her life! This seems small- but she's come to church every week so far this month and she even wore make up to church this last Sunday! Her self-esteem is raising! 

Voda. We had a lesson with her on Wednesday and it went really well. :) Voda is totally progressing! We were a little concerned that she didn't have a firm testimony of The Book of Mormon and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. After much prayer, we decided to review The Restoration for a 3rd time before moving forward. We've tried visual lessons, scriptural lessons, etc. and so this time we decided to just put in The Restoration DVD- and it was the powerful lesson! The spirit was so strong. After the movie, we were all quiet and Voda finally said, "Wow... That gave me goosebumps..." She shared her testimony with us that she knows that this gospel is true and that it will (and is!) bless her family!

Billy & Jody. As we've been meeting with them, we've only been able to cover one little point at a time. In our last lesson with them, we talked about Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. And this week we reviewed what we talked about last time and also talked about baptism. Those boys want to be baptized sooo bad. Hopefully we'll be able to help them understand (and retain) the things that are taught. 

Sheila. We found Sheila while contacting a referral. She was outside doing yard work and we just decided to chat with her for a little bit. Anyway, we had given her a Book of Mormon during our initial visit and she invited us to come back. Her and her family are looking for a church to start attending- so we invited her to ours. But literally the night before she was going to come to church, she got a phone call about how her mom had just had a heart attack! Whoa. So she's really going through a rough time right now. We offered to pray with her, and after we prayed, she thanked us. She hadn't prayed in years. We have an appointment with her later this week.

Kendra. She's been attending church with her 2 little kids every week for over 2 months. OVER 2 MONTHS! She's good friends with the Bishop's wife- but they haven't wanted to "push her" so it's taken them forever to invite her to take the lessons. But it FINALLY happened. My goodness. So we went and had dinner with the Bishop's family and Kendra, and had a lesson afterwards. It went really well. She asked a lot about prophets and the priesthood. She's kind of hard to teach because it seems like she has a lot of walls put up. Hopefully we can begin to break some of those down so that we can know what she's thinking and feeling. We talked to her a lot about praying and reading the scriptures to find answers to her questions- but she didn't seem to like that very much. She mentioned how she'll "study up" on everything we talked about by reading the things that her grandma sends her via email... Yeah. I'm not sure how legitimate of a source that is.... It's a little worrisome.  

Shantel. We found her on our potential investigator sheet in our area book. We went and contacted her and she just said, "The missionaries used to come by every Wednesday morning- and then they just stopped! You should come back!" OKAY, WE WILL! But she also visits with Jehovah's Witnesses on Thursdays and her daughter is getting baptized into a Christian church... so she's all over the board when it comes to religion. We'll see how it goes there.

Vern & Ellen. A couple from the ward invited them over for a family home evening! It was awesome! They invited us as well and we taught a lesson on "CPR" (church, prayer, reading the scriptures). And we also played chicken foot (a fun dominoes game). It was great to see them get friend-shipped by some people in the ward!!
  
George. We weren't able to meet with George because he had the flu! :( Sad day. 

Kassie. She's had a ton of stuff going on the last year, so she's always busy when we go over. We were able to visit with a couple of her kids- but Kassie was busy running around the house. So the kids read us a Clifford book and then we left.  


The work here in La Grande is really taking off! And I think I'm starting to get the hang of this missionary thing. ;) Sister Broadhead and I are starting off another transfer today- so wish us luck for the next 6 weeks!

Sister Gubler

Quick Week. Letter from January 12, 2015

We taught Voda lesson 2: The Plan of Salvation. Voda is making HUGE progress in the gospel. She's really understanding everything that's being taught in church and in our lessons. As we were teaching her about the spirit world (talking about spirit paradise and spirit prison) she really embraced everything about it. Since her son, Dustin, is in prison she really understood how spirit prison wasn't a dark and dreary place- but that it was a place of change and learning! She's come to church 3 times in a row now. She's praying on her own and reading her scriptures every day. She told us about how she quit smoking a few days after meeting us because she thought: If I want to be more like Christ... Jesus wouldn't be out here smoking! Haha! So true. She's making changes in her life- truly repenting.

George... How I love George!! We had an AMAZING lesson with him this week. In our previous lesson, we assigned him 2 Nephi 2 to read before we came back over. When we went over last night, he told us about how he had started to read it but he can't read very well (so he didn't comprehend anything he was reading). He told us that he's never even read a book before in his life. We promised him that if he prayed before he read the scriptures, that Heavenly Father would help him understand the things that he read. We offered to read the chapter to him, and he accepted. So we prayed together, and then read 2 Nephi 2 (stopping every 3 verses to explain what had happened)... he was so excited about everything that we talked about! At one point in the lesson, he read one of the verses and explained it- so happy that he could understand what he read! It was a fabulous experience- definitely our own little miracle. He committed to praying and then reading the scriptures before we came over next time. 

We've been contacting a TON of referrals and potential investigators this week! It's been AMAZING! We never run out of things to do! (May I just say, that's the best feeling ever.) But we've also run into a couple really rude guys.... And I was going to tell you about them, but never mind. haha It'll make a good story for when I get home. ;)

We're hosting a community activity at the end of February- Family Picture Day! I'm really pumped for this- it's going to turn out great. We're inviting the entire community to come to the church building to get their family picture taken and then we (the missionaries in the area) will go and deliver their framed picture along with a copy of The Family Proclamation. We're getting the entire La Grande area involved in this. There's already been a few people volunteer to take pictures, get backdrops, donate props, etc. It'll turn out great! 

We've been getting a lot of speaking assignments lately. I was asked to speak at the baptism of an 8 year old in the ward (both of his parents are converts and have a good relationship with missionaries). My companion spoke in church on Sunday, and it's my turn next Sunday. I'll be speaking on charity- and as I've been studying the topic, I've been learning so much! I'll write more about it next week.

Sister Miller, one of our ward missionaries, came out with us this past week. We've been starting to do things a little differently with our ward missionaries. In the past, they've really just gone and seen a couple semi-less active people in the ward and then called it quits for the night. Sister Broadhead and I decided that we'd try and help them (the ward missionaries) understand what it is that we do each day by taking them out TRACTING. Yes, tracting. Haha! We're so mean. But we've been taking them to their neighbors homes and having them introduce themselves (and us) and offer that we teach them and/or offer service. We've had a few people just completely hate us over that (mind you, they're the members that always tell us that we're not doing enough haha) but Sister Miller just EMBRACED the entire experience! She was nervous at first, but after 2 doors she just said, "What the heck?! What's the harm in just inviting them to learn more?!" HAHA! Exactly! We talked with her about how, if her neighbors are ever interested in the future, they'll know who they can go to to get in touch with the missionaries. She loved the entire experience.

Let me tell you about Misty. I love Misty. She's great. She's had a lot of bad things happen to her throughout her life- some because of her choices, some because of others choices. Unfortunately, some members of the ward have completely given up on her. They don't believe that she can come back or that she can progress. And she's completely aware that they feel that way. How sad! She's made goals for herself- including getting her patriarchal blessing and going to the temple by the end of the year. No matter how rude people are to her, it doesn't get her down. She's so positive and determined to move forward with her life! She deserves a clean slate- and it's too bad that she isn't receiving one from the people around her. As we visit with her twice a week, we have family home evening with her and her 3 kids and then we have a scripture study with her the other day. We assigned her to read Alma 5 before our visit- and she went above and beyond! She wrote down every. single. question. and answered each one as it pertained to her. THAT'S 41 QUESTIONS! DANG! She's just awesome, and she's making so much progress.

One awkward moment from this week:

#1. I see a familiar face at church on Sunday and, out of instinct, I just start talking to this random stranger without delay: "HI! I know you! You're Sarah's lawyer! I saw your picture on her fridge!" *he gives me a blank, scared stare* Obviously, it's illegal for him to tell me that information... awkward... So he just said, "Well... Uhhhh... You caught me. I don't know how else to answer that. Who are you?" I immediately start apologizing to this random stranger for yelling that across the foyer. I felt like an idiot.

Sister Gubler

Snow Storm. January 5, 2015 letter

The work this week has been amazing. We've been focusing a lot on finding and really trying our hardest to follow Preach My Gospel exactly. If there's one major thing that my companion has taught me it's that Preach My Gospel sounds so unnatural but it's SUPER effective! We've been practicing a ton of new door approaches and doing a lot of tracting. We've also been able to get a TON of referrals from members, and then we'll stay busy the entire day just from trying to contact all of them. It's been a faith booster for me to really take Alma's promise and "experiment upon the word" and exercise the faith that I already have.

We finally had our first lesson with Voda- lives in Elgin. She was a referral from her son, Dustin, who is in prison. He's taken advantage of the time he has to attend church while there and he wants to be baptized! So he referred his mom to us, and she has just welcomed the gospel into her life! Since we aren't able to get up to Elgin very much (it's so far away and the snow makes it terrible) the Perren's (ward missionaries) took the assignment to go knock on her door and invite her to church with them. And she accepted! She's attended church for the last two weeks! She's made so many new friends and has been listening closely to the lessons and the testimonies that have been shared. We haven't even had to do anything and she already wants to be baptized. (I LOVE when the member's get involved!) We had our first lesson with her after church yesterday. She talked a lot about how the gospel has been answering questions for her that she didn't even know that she had, that she's open to whatever God has to tell her, and she has an open heart <---all her words! She told us about how, when she walks into church, she feels like she's come home! Oh my goodness. Meeting with her has strengthened my testimony that the Lord is really preparing people for the gospel. She expressed how she's amazed how the Lord has worked in her life- it took her son going to prison for the two of them to realize just how much they need God in their lives. We taught her The Restoration and set another appointment for Wednesday morning in Sister Perren's home. :) 

We had our first lesson with George as well! I don't know if I've mentioned him before. He lives next to a part-member family, and we tracted into him. After bringing him cookies several times, sharing scriptures with him, inviting him to activities- he finally decided that he'd like to take the lessons! :) His mom was actually LDS, but married a non-member that didn't want her talking about the gospel. So he never learned anything about the church. He's had 2 brothers pass away, and his main question to us was why God allowed suffering. He asked us a TON of questions while we were there- it was an amazing spiritual experience as he listened, not just to us, but to the spirit! We left him with a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and a Book of Mormon and encouraged him to read 2 Nephi 2. 

Along with all of the exciting things that have happened this week, there has to be some tough challenges, right?! haha! How are we supposed to grow without tribulation? We lost our phone. For those that have served missions, your phone is one of the most important tools you use! Sister Broadhead had it in her pocket... or something... But we got home from Elgin and it was gone. So, after I was done panicking, we set off to Elgin to look for it. (FYI, there was a crazy snow storm going on. The road was impossible to see.) We walked all around Elgin, in a snow storm, looking for the phone... but even if we did drop it, it would have been covered by 6 inches of snow by that point in time. We tried calling our phone, but it was off. Sooo... Yeah. We're without a phone now- yippee. 

Oh, and it's my 11 month mark today. Yay! :)

Sister Gubler

Merry Christmas! Letter from December 29, 2014

It was great to be able to talk to the family this week! It's always a rejuvenating experience! 

This week was Joseph Smith's birthday! So, me being me, I decided to celebrate! haha! I went and bought a cake from Dairy Queen (cause those things are delicious) and we had a grand party. :)

Christmas Eve we didn't have any plans... so we got together with some of the Elder's in our district and went caroling to a few investigators and less actives. It was so much fun! And the spirit was really strong as we sang hymns to those that we having a hard time during the holidays.

Christmas was fun. We had a couple of families invite us over to their homes for meals. It was nice of them. :) Overall, it was a humble Christmas and a GREAT Christmas. 

I had a cool experience this week. We have been teaching this couple- Ellen is a less active member and Vern is a non-member. We're trying to focus on Vern, but as we talk with them, Ellen participates a TON and Vern doesn't say anything at all. But that's besides the point. We had invited them to church and then they didn't come, so we decided to drop by their house on Sunday evening. As we were talking to Ellen, I began to share the story of the 10 Virgins. (It's one of my favorite parables to share with those that are on the fence of activity. Encouraging them to get prepared for when the Savior comes again, because others are not going to be able to share their oil.) As I was sharing the message, I told Ellen that "now is the time to choose a side because there isn't any fence sitting in the kingdom of God". When she just stared at me really weird.... She told me that an old, frail woman had approached her at the store the day before and had told her, "You need to figure out whose side you're on." And then walked away. Ellen then told me that what I had told her had confirmed to her that this was a sign from God- she needed to pick a side! 

I'm not exactly sure why, but the topic of grace, mercy, and justice has been on my mind a lot this week. Probably because there are some people that I've been talking to that think that if they just pray really hard that grace and the Atonement will go to work and that they'll become perfected. Elder Christofferson says: "...salvation is certainly not the result of divine whim, but neither does it happen by divine will alone." People put so much stress on knowing the "WHAT" of the gospel but they don't focus enough on the "WHY" and the "HOW" of the gospel. The question at judgement will not be "What do you know about the Savior?". It will be "How well do you know your Savior?". 

I love Elder D. Todd Christofferson's talk from conference ("Free Forever, to Act for Themselves"). I've been reading it a lot this week. And I've been being caught each time by the phrase: "Misunderstanding God's justice and mercy... will result in our achieving less- sometimes far less- than our full , divine potential." So, it's obviously a big deal to understand these things. And our Savior didn't die for us to save us indiscriminately but to offer us repentance! And repentance takes a great deal of WORK on our part.

Sister Gubler

EMAILLLL. Ta-Da. Letter from Dec. 22, 2014

We're really not sure what we're going to be doing on Christmas day... I'm honestly not looking forward to it. It's going to be like Thanksgiving all over again... we're going to have to wander from house to house finding somewhere to go. And no one is going to really want us at their house, so we'll just awkwardly sit there for a few minutes and then leave. hahaha

Okay, I shouldn't complain too much. We've been invited over by a few families (granted, they're families that are super OLD and that we haven't even met before!)... The Bishop of one of the wards invited us to have breakfast with his family. And there's another family that invited us over for the entire day (they have a son on a mission). That's probably the house that we will skype at. I'm assuming that we will probably skype later in the afternoon... Not sure what time. Be looking for a call/text from me (to Mom's phone- I can't remember dad's number haha) on Christmas Eve to confirm a time. But we'll probably skype around 1 or 2ish (my time). 

This week was super productive, although it didn't show in our numbers AT ALL. We got a total of 9 lessons this week (my mind is pulling me back to my Kuna, ID days). BUT! I think I talked about this last week, but our area book was filled with all of these names, numbers, and addresses... but no other teaching information. So we did a lot of contacting over the phone. I felt super weird about it... Mostly just because I wasn't outside of the house. I even joked with my companion about how I'd probably just feel better if we even called people from the front step of the apartment. haha! 

But, point is, we were able to narrow down our list of names and figure out who was really prepared to hear the gospel! We set a couple of lessons for next week. It's been pretty tricky with Christmas coming up, mostly everyone wants to wait until after Christmas to meet with us. So our schedule is pretty empty for the next week. Hopefully it'll pick back up after the holidays.

Another problem (man, I seriously can't remember what I wrote about last week) is that there are so many people that the other missionaries were seeing, but none of them were really progressing. And no one that they were seeing has attended church in about 6 months! So we're going to really focus on church attendance for the next couple of transfers. 

We did a lot of work in Elgin this week. We met a lady named Voda- she was actually a referral from our zone leaders. Her son, Dustin, wanted the missionaries to contact her. So when we went to her door, we were assuming that Dustin was a member of the church and that Voda was just his mom.... As we were talking to her, she seemed AMAZED that we "know" Dustin and she just had a look of disbelief on her face. Turns out, Dustin is in prison (gets out in February) and he has found the gospel since being there! Voda immediately accepted our invitation to learn about the gospel! We have an appointment with her on Christmas Eve. :)

We also met Billy and Jody- two brothers that live in Elgin. They had been taught by the missionaries before, but we're thinking that they had missed an appointment with them and then had gotten lost in a transfer. (That unfortunately happens when people shotgun an area.) We invited both of them to church, and Billy came! He said it's been about 3-4 years since he last attended a church service. After church, we had a lesson with Billy and Jody- focusing on the godhead. The boys have absolutely no knowledge of the gospel, so we're having to start from the very beginning. And they also have learning disabilities, so teaching them (even though they are 22 and 14) is more like teaching two 8 year olds about the gospel.

The ward in Elgin is soooo small. We counted 80 people at church! TINY. 
We attended 2 Christmas parties this week and our Mission Christmas Conference. We had to wake up at 3 am so that we could drive up to Caldwell, ID on Wednesday morning. Yeahhh. That was no fun. I didn't enjoy that part. But the conference was great. We watched some Christmas movies (Mr. Kreugar's Christmas), had lunch, a white elephant gift exchange (I brought a Despicable Me light up watch and mustache stickers), and a lot of time for pictures. It was a good day. I love Christmas time!

This starts week 3 of the transfer (it's almost halfway over! CRAZY) and I still feel like we don't really have a set routine yet for this area. Hopefully we find it soon. It's pretty stressful to shotgun an area. Luckily though, the ward members and ward councils have been extremely supportive! That makes a HUGE difference! We couldn't ask for better wards to be serving in.

I can't think of much else to say... This week went by really quickly and it was really just us trying to wrap our heads around how we're going to work in this area!! We need prayers. haha. It'll all come together eventually.

Sister Gubler

December 15, 2014 letter

Hey familia!

I haven't gotten the letter from Ryan- but S. Miller probably has it for me back in Parma. She'll bring it to me on Wednesday at Zone Conference.
Sorry I didn't send Dad a birthday card- because of transfers the day was pretty hectic. But tell him that I love him and happy birthday!

We did a lot of tracting this week. We've been trying to get our area book organized because it's just full of a ton of different names, addresses, random information, blank teaching records, etc. By the time we're done with this area, the next missionaries are going to be so grateful for us. haha! But it's been keeping us super busy.

We tracted into this guy named George the other day. He lives right next to a part member family in the ward. Anyways, we were just chatting with him (I was cracking jokes like I always do haha) and he said that he'd love to attend church with us! SWEET. We gave him the address and the time, got his number, and hopefully we'll be going back this week to see him. That was pretty cool.

I'm loving Oregon. No one has really heard about the church here- which is actually kind of nice. They don't have all of these already-formed opinions about the church and the people there. So they get to learn THE TRUTH about who we are and what we believe. It's AWESOME. I love it! And the people here are SO receptive! Most of the time on my mission, we've just had to stop by peoples houses and hope that they're home. But HERE.... MY GOODNESS! I'm thoroughly convinced that this is Zion!... we end up calling a whole list of people that we need to contact and they ALL CALLED US BACK and set up appointments!! We literally had our entire day full on Saturday- no breaks in between appointments. It was AMAZING. I just crashed at the end of the day! YES! La Grande has brought a whole new level of stress- GOOD stress. :)

Being all the way in outer darkness (aka La Grande) has proven quite difficult. We had a zone meeting this week (just the missionaries in the zone got together) and we had to drive AN HOUR to get there. My goodness. And we have a Christmas Zone Conference this week in Caldwell, ID... which will probably take about 3 hours to get to. We'll probably have to drive up the night before and then stay the night with some other missionaries. But yeah, we're super far away from ANYTHING. The furthest away Sisters in the ENTIRE mission.

We traveled to Elgin this week and BOY it is ALL mountains. It's so beautiful. I worry about traveling up there when it's snowing though... Me+driving in the snow= SCARED COMPANION. hahaha! (Don't worry, I actually drive pretty okay. We just don't have a 4 wheel drive vehicle.)

A little about my companion:
 She's totally awesome. A super obedient and diligent missionary. The one thing she's taught me is that there's always a "better and best way" to do things. So I've been working on being my best self.
A little about the wards:
 Everyone here is SO friendly! They've made us feel so welcome since day one. We get calls all the time from ward members just wanting to introduce themselves and offer service to us. It's so nice. I love it here!

Sister Gubler