November 8, 2013

So this week was kind of madness so hence the delay.... and I don’t have much time because we our casal missionário (I don’t know what you call them in English... elderly missionaries) are leaving today!! I honestly don’t know what we are going to do without them!  They are the greatest and have saved me plenty of times! It’s a good thing I will only have to know what it’s like without them for 6 weeks but well let’s move onto the last week or so.  I never remember what I tell you all and what I don’t because I always email on different days but so last week we had a guy from the church office building come and do an inspection on the office and how everything is going and well I found out that this last month I was the executive secretary that spent the least in all of Brazil!  How’s that for being frugal?  Well he took is out to lunch and said that we could eat wherever we wanted and it was "on the mission" so we all went to a LEGIT all you can eat type place that is way fancy!  There was everything from sushi, to Brazilian barbeque to crepes and well I don’t think I have eaten that much food in a LOOOONNNG time!  I ate some raw squid which actually wasn’t that bad! It was kind of weird seeing the little tentacles and everything but só vai right?  And well we had another sister that had to go home because of health issue so that sucked to have to send her off... that is already the third that I’ve had to buy emergency flights for them to go home and bleh…not too fun.  And she almost missed her flight too so that was quite the day... some other big stories, I took a group to the federal police station and well that was QUITE the day!  We snuck some sisters in which was a lot easier to get them in that out.  It was _____ b-day who is my hook up with all the federal police stuff and well luckily had some peanut butter with me just to suck up a little because I had no idea it was his b-day but well it ended up working out pretty well!  The fingerprint ladies and I sang happy birthday to him in English and everything, super funny!  I wish I would have been able to film it but well you can’t take out cameras there.  And then I got some fines too because 2 missionaries arrived in the field from the MTC with 30 day limit that they have to go to the federal police station passed... oh joy. But the church office building is going to pay it for us because it wasn’t our fault!  And then more fun stories about that same day, we used to buy some gross take out for all the missionaries to eat "lunch" in the office but well I can’t handle that take out anymore so everyone paid some personal money and we took them to sweet tomatoes (yeah the one from the states) and well everyone that works there knows us and we already get a discount because we eat there like 2 times a week and well I still don’t really know why this happened but they brought out a cake with a sparkler on it and gave it to me... hahahahah they think I’m like the boss of the missionaries and well I got nice and red and everyone sang, fun stuff!  I think we officially made the VIP status in the restaurant.  One more thing about that day, I spent R$1435 in one day!  I’m going to have to spend a LOT more next week when I take another 12 people to the federal police station.... some good news about the work, we marked _____ and _____ wedding today at the Cartório and it worked out about as well as it could have!  They let me be a witness which they usually don’t because I’m not Brazilian, we marked the wedding for the 7th of November which is SUPER fast because it usually takes over a month to be able to mark and I was stressing that I wasn’t going to be here anymore for their wedding and baptism so now I won’t have to stay an extra week.  And more good news, instead of spending R$355, we marked it for FREE!  I know TONS of people that work there because I got there at least twice a week to get authenticated copies of stuff for visas and well it’s all the people you know because they really hooked us up this time!  I’m SUPER, SUPER pumped for them because I love this family more than anything. They really are amazing and seeing their growth in the gospel over the last couple months that we have known them has been amazing!! I really love this family and want to come back down next year for their sealing!  I don’t want to have to leave all these amazing people behind.... we also have a super sweet older lady that is going to be baptized this Sunday and we are super excited about that because we thought she lived with another man who isn’t her husband since she has been a widow for over years and well she doesn’t consider the guy her hubby, they are honestly just like friends and we thought they lived in the same house and even though there is nothing going on between them we didn’t know what to do about that but we found out this week that he has his own little house under hers!  He sleeps there and has his own little bathroom and TV so Pres said she is good to go and can get baptized this Sunday as long as everything goes alright with her baptismal interview which will be tonight and then we have _____ who we have been working with for some time now who says his GF wants him to wait for them two to get baptized together but the kid is beyond ready so we are going to see if we can get him baptized and get him the Priesthood so he can baptize his girlfriend.  The Lord is truly blessing us with amazing people to work with! It’s going to be way hard to have to leave all of them though.  But well there is a rundown of some recent highlights, love you all! See you soon!

Elder Gubler