October 24, 2013

I’m officially almost down to a month left on the mission (it’s REALLY starting to set in that I’m going to have to go home and I don’t like it one bit. But well instead of thinking about that, I’m just trying to soak up every last little minute and well this last week was pretty eventful! I’m pretty sure I already talked about the wedding of _____ and _____ on the 9th but I just don’t think words can describe how happy I am for them and how much I’m going to miss that family. I’m pretty sure their youngest kid _____ is just going to come home with me so hopes that’s okay.  This whole "bye.. see ya who knows when" things is going to SUCK because yeah I want to come back next year but I doubt that I’ll go down because of school and lack of cash so realistically I have no idea when I’m going to see all these people again. Yeah, goodbyes just always kind of stink. But well on a happier note.... we took p-day this week and we went to Pico do Jaraguá which is the highest point in São Paulo! When there is some decent weather and the pollution isn’t too bad you can see everything but the day we when it was a tad bit cloudy and pollution was pretty sketchy also. But either way it was nice to just get away from the office and do a little "passeando" and then after we got done checking that out we hit up some legit place of the Corinthians which is my favorite soccer team and that was pretty rad! I got some free stickers because we went _____ and _____ (as usual :) our recent convert and a guy from the ward) and well _____ always tells everyone how I’m American and how I’m Corinthiando and well people LOVE it and always give me free stuff.  Gotta love special treatment! Then for lunch we went to this MASSIVE fruit market place that is by 25 de Março (the china town of São Paulo and we ate some crazy fruits that I have never seen in my live, saw just about EVERY part of the cow for sale (and yes I mean EVERYTHING hahahaha), ate the São Paulo famous bologn sandwich and the cod little fried tort-ish thing, both of which were way good and well then back to the office. But it was quite the day! It always stinks to get back to the office though because it’s like real life settles back in and you have to catch up on everything and it’s just great. So hence we never taking p-days but well since I’ve only got like 4 weeks left there are still some places I want to check out so the goal is to take p-day every week from here on out.  Flashing back to Saturday and Sunday, on Saturday I spent like three hours doing baptismal interview and just making goals with some kids and that had some stuff to work on before baptism and well that took some TIME and then on Sunday we had _____ BAPTISM BABY which turned out to be quite the day.  The water got cut in our chapel because get this the church didn’t pay the bills hahahaha classic. So we went to the stake center and did the baptism there so there wasn’t as many people as I wanted or as there would have been if it was at our chapel but we had a solid group that went with us and I decided that since we have four kids in our ward that all have mission calls and are leaving within the next two months, I want to have them all baptize before they left and so one hadn’t baptized in forever so we had him baptize _____ and well it was just a great day.  Oh and flashing forward to yesterday, the fourth kid in our Ward got his call and he is going to JAPAN!  I didn’t see that one coming seeing as the other 3 staying in Brazil but well he leaves on the 21st of January and goes to Provo MTC so how sick would that be if I see him there.  We’re going to try and meet up but well that’s kind of it for right now.  Enjoy my email that is all over the place.  I’ll send some pics too.  The guy that took the pic at Pico do Jaraguá had us do some crazy poses; he really liked taking pics apparently.  Love to you all.

Elder Gubler