September 12, 2013

So it was a pretty eventful last week here in Brazil.  I know the last couples months on the mission are always memorable because its seems like you notice the small miracles and stuff you didn’t catch at the beginning but I also feel like there is quite a bit more random stuff happening too.  Last Saturday we painted a recent convert's house for 5 hours but I got pretty good if I don’t say so myself and the house turned out sick and doing service projects here is super hard so it was nice to be able to rock some shorts and do a little service!  Then that night we watched a Christian movie with _____ (one of our recent converts and some members) about a man that tried to sue the devil because he was life is "too hard" and it was a way good movie! We watched because we are gonna pass it in the ward as a ward missionary work activity and I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be a hit!  We are really getting somewhere with the ward now, everyone wants to do visits with us.  But we had a sick FHE at the Bishops house on Monday, he gave us 2 boxes of candy each and bought pizza.  On Sunday we were teaching this family a mom and her 27 year old son about the Book of Mormon and its purpose and we were talking about what "fullness of the gospel" means and to make a long story short, the lady made a comment that didn’t make like any sense so her son just started laughing and was like "that isn’t even what they asked" and they both just start cracking up.  It was actually pretty funny because her comment had NOTHING to do with anything but they just kept on laughing and laughing and laughing and me and comp just here on the couch and then I realize that the lady was coughing more than laughing so I look over at her and I realize that she was totally chocking and as soon as I looked over at her she starting drooling and was turning like purplish and starting seizing a little so I like flew from the couch and went to try and lift her up to do the Heimlich so I realized there was no way I was gonna lift her up so I just start hitting her back and after like 5 time she just like gasped and came to and was like totally confused and starting asking what happened and all this stuff.  Come to find out that she said she saw "the light" and was going towards and she like saw herself like some sort of an out of body experience and she said she thought she was dead but well good thing she didn’t die in front of us because I don’t know how well I would have taken that but anyways pretty sure it was me that almost went to the hospital after because my heart rate was so high but well everything worked out in the long run.  But pretty sure I don’t think I’ll be forgetting that lesson anytime soon.  Then on Tuesday we had a mission leadership meeting which was SUPER good but its kind of super weird because since we are the oldest group in the mission right so the APs made me and another kid from our group participate in their practice and then I got to do a nice little practice in front of everyone.  I’m getting better at this whole public speaking thing and well that is essentially it! Today we are gonna take p-day and go hit up São Paulo.  I’m pretty sure I’ve already mentioned this but I started an international money collection and we are gonna hit up avenida paulista which is the most famous street in Brazil and there is a guy that has coins from ALL over the world! A member got some for me from Israel and Spain and all these south American countries but I want to check this place out for myself and my comp Elder _____ wants to hit up some nerd store called geek etc so that should be great.  But oh speaking of money, do you think you can send me like 15 one dollar bills because I want to give some to a couple missionaries and some members and everyone is always asking for them so it you could send me that ASAP it would be GREAT but well I think that is essentially it for this week, I love you all, I love the mission and I love my Lord.

Elder Gubler