Photo 1 is the four Chandler Spanish elders, our bishop from Spain (my role model) and our Guatemalan ward mission leader
Photo 2 is our awesome English ward mission leader
Photo 3 is my companion and another recent convert (from Puerto Rico)
Photo 4 is of our recent convert and the companion who went to Mexico

Dear Family,
This week was even busier than the last. And it has been a blast! The most recent news has to do with transfers this Wednesday. Since Christmas up til now there have been 4 elders in our Spanish ward, and each companionship also has an English ward. We were told on Friday that they are taking our English wards from us, confining us to Spanish ward, removing one set of elders and replacing them with sisters. That really put us on edge all weekend because it meant there would be more changes and we had to wait until last night to find out. Turns out that 3 of us 4 elders are leaving...and I'm staying! I'll get a new companion on Wednesday and will just be working in Spanish for at least the next transfer. I'm excited that I'll stay because we have had a lot of success this week in Spanish that I didn't want to leave. But it's sad that we're handing over our English ward because we were given two new English investigators on Saturday who are super interested. My companion and I were running around all day Saturday driving to lessons and the best lessons we had were with a 16 yr old who wants to be baptized and a 30 yr old who asked us so many heartfelt, sincere, and quality questions. It amazes us because we don't feel that we have changed much in the way we work, except with an increase of faith, and suddenly the Lord decides to shower us with blessings. I know that all we need to worry about is giving our 100% to the work and the Lord will use us according to His own will and pleasure to bring about His designs.
Wednesday was one of the best days of my mission so far. Lunch hour came and we were right by a Mexican restaurant/store that we hesitated to visit, but decided we would take a look and come back Monday to buy anything we liked. So we went in, walked to one of the shops they have, and the store attendant started talking to us, asking us how we knew Spanish, then talking to us about religion. About 15min later, in walks the ward mission leader of Tempe's Spanish ward. He freaks out to see us talking to his friend the attendant and helps us get her contact info to refer to the Gilbert elders. But he grabs us all and we had a lesson right there in the middle of the restaurant. That whole hour made us feel like a little part of God's great plan. We just felt to take a look inside the "Mexican mall" and He had made all the arrangements for this lady to have the opportunity of eternity. We are on the front lines of missionary work and even we don't really know what God has up His sleeve. It's honestly a privilege, a blessing, and a blast.
Congrats to Jessi for passing the school year in seminary. Stick with it. Do you have the new edition of the FSOY? I love it even more than the previous one. Summer here is pretty hot, but people are always offering us bottled water. The heat hasn't bothered me too much yet, although I am in a car area. People like staying inside so there's less people out and about. It's fun being down here though. And we're working for the greatest cause of eternity :)
Thanks for the update, Erin. Dennis is a hero. He's always got something. That sounds like a solid name, it'll be famous in no time.
Carrie, what's the recipe for oatmeal burgers and when is your baby due? Tyler, how do you go about teaching English as a second language? Does anyone know where my CDs are? I would still love to have my 2009 EFY and the BYU singers.
I love you all so much. Thank you for your support and prayers. I pray for you all as well. Have a great week!

Hugs to all,
Elder Joshua Gathro

Too good to be true, and yet the truth.

Hey que tal? Really good week with disappointment, success, learning, and fun. Oh and heat too. It's over 100 every day, but still preferable to Florida heat. We had a lot of good little stories, too many to share. But something really exciting was what happened yesterday. Background info: President issued the standards of excellence this week for our mission. And if we were consistently achieving those standards, there's no doubt it would be excellent, haha. But bottom line, God rewarded our efforts this week with enough new investigators to hit the goal. And they all came yesterday. Sundays are usually a bit slower for work because we have less time to proselyte, but we used our lunch (we were fasting) to go visit a few people, and the first one we visited was a lady recently met, with a lot of potential. She was at the point of getting baptized ten years ago and tore up her image of the Virgin Mary. But days later her 1-yr-old baby died, giving her the thought that God was upset and she was scared to join the Church. Now with struggles in her family, she is eager to learn and is so sincere. She says that her son is doing drugs and she feels like crying all the time. We relayed to her promised from the Lord that the Gospel will bring her family peace, happiness, understanding, comfort, stability. My companion and I talked about it afterward and agreed that as we were helping her to see the glorious vision the Gospel offers, it almost seemed too good to be true...and yet it is the truth. How wonderful! There's no problem, no challenge, no dead-end in life that living the Gospel of Jesus Christ cannot fix. I love being able to feel confident as I teach that to others. It's not me making people promises; they are promises from God that will all be fulfilled. I know that is true. The other new investigators are a family we met on Friday and they came to church! They actually know a family who just moved out of our ward and became interested in the church from talking to the member family. It was a thrill having them there and seeing them learn. They really loved it, too. Our lesson in Gospel Principles was the atonement. I leaned over and asked the father if he's heard that word before. He said he hadn't. I asked, "What do you know about Jesus Christ?" "Well He died on a cross, and...I don't know. I just saw a movie once." It really surprised me. I realized it was the perfect lesson for him that day. In primary one of his kids got a handout that says "Does this choice draw me closer to Jesus Christ?" And the ward shared really heartfelt testimonies of the Savior. I think he and his wife really got the impression that we follow Jesus Christ. It will be exciting to teach them, although we've only got another week before my area will be trading English wards within our zone. With or without seeing them be baptized, it's a thrill to help others understand the role of the Savior in their lives. Well I don't really have time for much more. I'll have to tell you about Joe one of these days. We ran into him again this week. It's classic. We crashed a Catholic baptism after-party this week. That was kinda interesting, too. Carrie, what's the recipe for oatmeal burgers? Tyler, how do you go about teaching English as a second language? Does anyone know where my CDs are? I would still love to have my 2009 EFY and the BYU singers. Happy Birthday to Erin and Dennis! Have great week, everyone! Much love, Elder Joshua Gathro