February 25, 2013

First off, this Sunday = BAPTISM BABY!  We finally broke the little drought that we were passing through! _____ is the Mom of some recent converts is gonna get baptized this Sunday and well if you knew her, you would know how big of a miracle this is! When her kids got baptized she didn’t want anything to do with the church, as in NOTHING... but well when the Spirit touches, oh does he touch, she has been coming to church for a solid five weeks now and accepted baptism for this week! No one in the Ward believes it but I am so happy for her! From here on out, were gonna change this Ward! The new Bishop and our new LMA (ward mission leader) are both super pumped for the work and even though there are still plenty of people that don’t understand what it means to be a member of the Church but we had some great meetings with the Bishop and the LMA and then the LMA and ward missionaries and its GAME TIME ladies and gentlemen!  But I’m really scared that it’s going to be like Bertioga again.... I work my butt off for four months, whip the ward into shape and we start getting referrals and baptizing and then I get transferred...after ____ there are still six people that I want to baptize here before I leave so I’m hoping the Lord will let me stay here for at least one more transfer! :) But story time, so one day we were knocking doors and we got to the end of the street and didn’t knock three doors but we realized what time it was and we had another appointment that was SUPER important so as we are leaving Elder ____ says that he wants to knock a certain house the next day so flashing forward to the next day, we ended up doing a surprise service project and painting a members house which took some time, the time that I was planning on using to go knock the door that he felt like we should knock... flashing forward to that night, we had an FHE with a less active family that wanted us to teach one of their friends so we go to pick the kid up and well, where does he live? The exact house that my companion said we needed to knock. WOW. We truly can’t do anything without the Spirit. It’s him that finds the elects not us and the kid is 100% elect. He accepted baptism and we ended up teaching his brother and his grandma who also accepted baptism! I love this mission! Feeling as though the Lord is really using you as a tool in his hands is something indescribable!  Well that’s it for the week! I love you all more than anything! I’m so grateful for all that everything has done to help me be the person I am today, for the wonderful examples of all of and all that you do to support me on the mission! I love this mission and I can’t say that enough. This Church really is the Church of Christ because that is the only way that this could happen. One more time, I love you all! Read your scriptures, say your prayers and keep the letters and emails coming!

Com amor e gratidão,
ELDER GUBLER

February 17, 2013

This week was pretty great!  It’s funny how one great appointment or day can make up for weeks of getting denied. So first off I just want to say that this Church changes lives and it never ceases to amaze me. I seems like I didn’t really understand anything about Church and why we do the things we do before the mission but let me assure you all that EVERYTHING that we do or that happens in this Church has a purpose because who is in charge of this Church has one amazing plan. These past couple of weeks we have been reactivating a kid that hasn’t been to church in over five years and well now he wants to serve a mission and is already starting to prepare himself so that he will be able to go out in a year. If you let it, this church will CHANGE you. If you think life is good and you are happy, life gets better and you are happier. I will not say that life will be easy because that is 100% a lie but when you start to understand the real purpose of life and when you look to match your desires with those of God, it just gets better. We also are working with a family that the Dad is a recent convert less active that has some problems with the word of wisdom and we had an amazing family night at their house about why life is hard and the atonement. We have been teaching the Mom of some other recent-ish converts who never wanted anything with the Church but now, once she stops drinking coffee she’s gonna be baptized. This church changes lives and I don’t want it to seem like this is me bragging about stuff that "I" did because one thing I’ve realized is that I am nothing…nothing. It’s Heavenly Father that makes me someone and I am just a tool in His hands. I don’t teach anything, that’s all the Spirit. But I also had a really interesting pretty sad experience this week,  a member that were really tight with, her Mom had a heart attack and was in the hospital so she wanted us to go give her a blessing but turns out we wouldn’t be able to see her until after 9 which is when we need to be home to we gave her a blessing and well I was planning on saying something along the lines on how her Mom was gonna get better but right before I was gonna say that I just went quiet and like couldn’t do so the blessing ended up being a blessing so that she would be able to understand and see the purpose of whatever may happen and well after her Mom had the surgery she entered in a coma.  I’m not sure what’s going to happen but I know that whatever happens has a purpose as hard as it may be. It’s a lot harder to see that when it is happening to you but I know that God loves us no matter how hard life may get. Also He answers prayers, it doesn’t matter how small the thing may be, prayers are answered. I love all of you but I want you all to remember that all that we face has a purpose. Faith brings trails, which creates more faith. Always read your scriptures and pray DAILY and remember about the small things, they make a big difference. i.e. a letter ;)

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING YOU ALL DO FOR ME EVERYDAY. BELIEVE IT OF NOT I FEEL YOUR PRAYERS. I LOVE THIS CHURCH, THIS MISSION AND YOU ALL.

ELDER GUBLER

February 11, 2013

This week was another super hard one for us.  I don’t know why EVERYTHING keeps falling but it does but this week is gonna be SICK!  There is no way I’m gonna let be like this past week. We did find some pretty solid people this week but it’s one thing to find solid people and another to find the ELECTS that are actually willing to follow the answers that they get. So that is what we need, the ELECTS!  But crazy story, This last week we have Nova Força which is a meeting for all the newbies when you show up in the mission and well we had it on the 7th and well exactly one year ago I showed up in the mission field...... it’s already been 14 freaking months.....WOOOOOWWWWWW. That means I’ve got less that 9 months :(.  I do officially know the day for sure that I’ll be coming home if you want to start getting the festivities ready..... 20th of November, before Thanksgiving baby!  On Friday and Saturday I was essentially not even in my area at all.  That is definitely the hardest thing about being DL because I’ve got to keep track of not just my ward and my investigators but two other areas as well.  On Friday I did a division with Elder ____ in his area Batistini and it was a pretty solid day and by the sounds of it, it was a good day to not be in my area because ONE appointment worked out during the day and it was raining like nobody’s business so the streets got flooded with the sewer water mixed with the rain water.  I don’t know if I’ve told you but sewers here are just like rivers along the side of the road so that’s cool. But while I was with Elder ____ I did two baptismal interviews which are amazing! One of them took FOREVER though because I feel like everyone always attempts to show up during the interviews haha either way I LOVE baptismal interviews because that is when I feel most guided and inspired. It’s hard to even remember what I said in the interviews because frankly it’s not me that talking. One thing that Elder Bednar said when we had the conference with him that I loved was "talking isn’t teaching" because it isn’t. If the Spirit isn’t there, NOTHINGS gonna happen because frankly we as missionaries can’t do anything without him. We are just humble simple tools in the hands of the Lord. You can sit there are talk someone ears off for an hour and a half but you could have not taught them anything. But then on Saturday we did another division but with my other area in my district. I went to Elder ____ area: ____ and well I ended up doing four interviews so that was a tad bit tiring especially because we walked all over the place too.... 23,000 steps and then that night we had a lesson with ____ and ____ and it was just your average lesson but after ____ wanted to talk to me alone so we chatted for an hour de boa and well to make a long story short, it was super spiritual because he got everything out and told me WHY he doesn’t feel ready for baptism and he may have been crying pretty hard but now I know the problem and I just want to say that he is one of the most amazing investigators I’ve ever taught! I have never met someone who truly understands baptism so well and who truly wants to this for the right reasons at the right time. Then we had a SICK BBQ Brazilian style and it was phenomenal and we know broke the ice and got the friendship with this non member husband of a girl in our ward and turns out the guy is super chill and he has his own store here so we talked about how he pulled it off and now I’ve got some contacts and I can totally pull it off.  But well that’s it for the week!  Tomorrow is transfers but luckily no one is leaving from my District which rocks because I LOVE everyone here but I love you all too! I loved the emails but letters would be much better because I don’t have much time to write emails.... read your scriptures, say your prayers and write me :)

amo voces,
ELDER GUBLER

February 4, 2013

HEY GENTE,

So first off, I TOTALLY spaced about the super bowl...heck I can’t even remember what day is Valentine’s Day.  It’s funny how "out" of everything you really get on the mission!

Last Tuesday we had the AMAZING privilege to hear Elder Bednar speak to our whole mission and well it was PHENOMENAL! I don’t think I will ever be forgetting that one. The whole three hour conference was essentially just like a huge example of how we should teach our investigators because he let us "lead" or decided where the meeting was gonna go and what were our major questions that we always wanted to ask an Apostle. Also, he was hilarious! I was expecting him to be super serious but he has some pretty solid jokes :) very impressed. At the same time I don’t think I’ve ever learned so much in three hours in my life, I was very impressed. We TRUELY do have people called of God that talk with Him and pass His will to all of us. In this meeting and the last one we had with Elder Cook, in the ending testimony of them you can just feel that they sincerely KNOW God and Jesus Christ. Wow this church is true. But then after that meeting we had Elder ____ "son" (the person he was training) felt like he had some stuff that he still needed to work out but never did before the mission so to make a long story short he was interviewed by the Pres and ended up going home on Friday; it was a rough day. I only knew the kid for four weeks but the fact that he had to go home REALLY bummed me out. Tears may have been shed and prayers may have been said and well everything will all work out.  Some other big news ____ a kid in our ward got his mission call this week too and he is going to missão belemixi, the jungle baby! We found that out on Sunday and ended up getting a new bishop too! But well last week was a little rough because almost all of our appointments fell and nothing seemed to work out and Elder ____ went home but the conference with Bednar was amazing! So onto this week real fast!

Tuesday we had some SUPER good lessons with this family that we found last week and with ____ about Alma the Youngers repentance process and some other solid lessons, it was the day we had district meeting and Elder ____ gave the training this week and it was great and I bought another Elders shoes because he is going home in three months and the shoes are essentially new and actually water proof and legit!  Make sure Michael gets ecco shoes for his mission.  But then I sent my package home which ended up being R$154 which is $72 bucks, ouch and I bought the shoes from the elder for R$120 reais which is only $60 bucks which is a WAY good deal because they are worth $140 but then some other big highlights for the week would be that we FINALLY connected with ____ again who is the mom of the some kids that are members. We taught her once like two months ago but never connected with her again because she works like crazy and well we connected with her this week and well we had some SUPER spiritual lessons and she should be good to go for the next month!  On Thursday, ____ came from Diadema because it’s pretty close to Sao Bernardo and he stuck with us for like four hours teaching people and so that was super sweet being able to chat with him again and he said that he felt like the stuff that we taught for our investigators was for him so that was a sweet day. Then the rain from hell came back on Saturday and we got stranded standing on some benches at a bus stop for half an hour because it was raining so hard that the streets flooded all the way to the bus stop...ugh. I would rather be freezing my butt off then taking on the miserable hot humid downpour of São Paulo! Yesterday we had stake conference and actually had four investigators there and it was super spiritual so that was fantastic and today we went to the institute building as a district and we had a BBQ that didn’t turn out as good as I was hoping because I’m feeling a little sketch as of right now but there was foosball and air hockey and pool and ping pong so we just spent the whole day messing around there.  But well that wraps up the week.... another week in Brazil!

I love you all, thanks for everything! I hope everyone is just doing great and I’m still waiting for all of those letters promised at Christmas....hmmmmmm....

com amor,

ELDER GUBLER