May 21, 2012

Monday:

-so I realized Monday that I know my verb conjugations pretty well and grammar and that stuff but my vocab kind of sucks so I printed out the 1000 most important verbs in Portuguese and I’ve been studying that thing up so let’s hope that will help because for some odd reason it had a little break down on Monday about Portuguese.  The language is hard but we’re getting there and the harder something is the more rewarding it is when you pull it off so I will be "patiently" awaiting that day. 

-also I printed out those stories you sent me in the CTM so I could finally read them and just out of curiosity I translated them with Google translate to see how off it would be and well that program doesn’t really know grammar so me and my comp are gonna work on translating it correctly so I can use them in my little lessons and thoughts with members.

Tuesday:

- We had district meeting and we did a nice little tie trade and that is what the mission is all about , that’s how I’ve got a different shirt and tie on in almost every pic because we love to trade.

- We did some service for a ward member after lunch and that was fun. We used a pulley thing to lift and dump sand and bricks onto his roof.

- And the most important story of the day, we had an split with young men from the ward. We got a pizza that night and well half of it was all these meats and I think clam (MEGA salty and pretty gross) but the other half was the cheesy chicken one we got last time and I certainly enjoyed it.

Wednesday:

- FINALLY our money fell on Wednesday and it was about time because I was sick of eating crackers and butter for dinner ha but we may have gone grocery crazy and I dropped 45 reis on groceries but good news I’ve still got a TON of food so it was a good call because I don’t have to go shopping again and we had a split with our old bishop, and visited an investigator and talked about her goals to stop smoking and all that good stuff! I really want to baptize that family because I can see them really changing, we’ve just got to get the coffee and cigs totally gone and then we should be good. 

Thursday:

- A young man in our ward that got his mission call a while ago and is going to Brasilia spent most of the day with us to see how the mission is really like so that was pretty great and we got some solid lessons with members.

-Also I know this isn’t big for you all but the funk, that annoying really bad Brazilian music is always playing on the streets and its amazingly annoying so when I hear English music it’s like a tender mercy and well I heard dubstep in a car that was passing by and well I’m just glad about the tender mercies of the mission.

- And then there is English class... this is quite the story so buckle up! but we teach English class at nights on Thursdays and I always leave the front door open so welcome people in a stuff but now I’m a little nervous too because well I’m talking about verbs or something like that and this guy that is BEYOND drunk stubbles in and well let’s just say it was mega interesting because I could obviously hardly understand him because he was slurring everything so bad so he was mega drunk he called everyone there the N word a LOT, he kissed my hand a LOT and kept saying how beautiful I was, he smelt AWFUL and well it was essentially quite the experience.  I finally got the courage to touch him and just kind of escorted him out of the church and shut the door. Gotta love those drunks.

Friday:

- I found out I’m not 170 so that’s 20 pounds I’ve gained since being in the field and becoming fat is becoming a serious worry.....

- Also saw a crazy bad motorcycle accident... we went to the church to use the bathroom and when we came out there was a HUGE crowd of people in the road and well come to find out two motorcycles crashed into each other and it was terrible.  One of the guys wasn’t too bad, he was just lying there but the other was all cut up and they both were pretty bloody but I realized that as a missionary I couldn’t do anything because if something happened to him it would come down on the church so I just kind of told people to hold the guy down because he kept on trying to get up and well it was just pretty sketchy.... but the ambulance finally showed up and there was nothing I could do with all my amazing lifeguard skills so we left to use our soul saving skills ;)

Saturday:

- I had a sneeze fest.  We are talking 25+ times in a row and it was wretched. I almost died.

- We also we took an investigators pack of cigs to help her with her goal.  It felt a little weird knowing my comp had cigs in his backpack. 

- Also had a FHE at our ward mission leaders house and it was solid but a few people came so that was kind of a shame except for the fact that it means more sandwiches and cake for the fat kid i.e. ME.

Sunday:

- Church was solid, we talked about baptism in our principles of the gospel class and well got the sister of  to mark for baptism this next week so I am PUMPED for that

- Also I found a shock pen I think on Friday and I put it to the test on Sunday because everyone is always asking to borrow my pen and well it was a hit and I decided that will be my goodbye present for young man when he is off to the CTM :) I will miss the little guy because it was absolutely hilarious but he can put it to much better use there!

Monday:

Well after all that it bring us to TODAY which was quite the day.  We had a district P-day all together and played basketball, card games, weird EFY games that were pretty fun and kicked the soccer ball around a lot, oh and capture the flag!  Pretty solid day but man the mission does a number on you because I feel like I’m gonna die I’m so tired!  I may have ate it during capture the flag, I get a little competitive but it was a solid day.

com amor, ELDER GUBLER

May 14, 2012

Since it was my 5 months on the mission we bought a pizza and it was my first one in the field and it was pretty solid!  The pizza in the CTM was pretty gross but turns out that real Brazilian pizza is pretty solid.  I made my little special invites "convites especias" for English class and church and I’m pretty proud of those little guys and we had a solid 7 new people in English this week and I’m even more recognized as the free English teacher so we are getting there!  Onto Tuesday, it was kind of a rough day but we did talk to a few less actives and recent converts.

Wednesday:  sadly Wednesday was another tough day with connecting appointments but it was a day marking with people so that was solid! We filled up every single hour of Friday so that was pretty sick.

Thursday:  On Mother’s day you got a nice little sample of my companions’ magic!  It’s solid the first time you see it but if you see it more than once it’s pretty easy to figure out how he does it so essentially I know how he does all of this magic but Thursday he pulled out a new one that was absolutely crazy!  I don’t want to take forever talking about it but he asked four questions, one for each person: think of a number 1-1,000,000; an object in the room; a color; and think of either a car or a bus and he wrote his "guesses" on a piece of paper and had someone hold in their hand while we wrote our answers on paper too and well I have no freaking idea how but he got all 4 things right!  Another highlight for the day is English class!  I’m starting to get the handle of this solo teaching thing!  I just did the basic stuff like the ABCs and they wanted to know happy birthday so we did that and some grammar but the little outlines I’m using is helping a ton!  Soon I’ll be an English teaching pro and maybe I can get my comp fluent too. 

Friday was quite the day!  We finally had district meeting but well we took the wrong bus in the morning and ended up going to terminal and it was just a tad bit stressful because we ended up being a solid 30 minutes late.  In district meeting was when I got the packages which rocked Tara and the letter from Carly with the pics so thank you again!  After district meeting we had the full day marked!  Every single hour but sadly only 3 lessons went through so we only got 50% of the stuff that we marked... welcome to Inamar! It’s not hard to mark with people but to actually find them home the second time is nearly impossible!  We also had another lesson with a recent convert and his family where we talked about the plan of salvation and out lesson turned into a discussion of deep doctrine so that was mega fun but they all seem to believe everything but baptism is a big step so patience I think is gonna be the key!

Saturday:  We had the new 7 people so I taught some new stuff and it was pretty solid!  I got some free cologne from a member once again, gotta love being American, and well we had some lessons and a the person in our ward who is going on the mission had a little party at the ward but we couldn’t be there to see all of it so that kind of sucks but he is leaving next week and this week he is gonna spend a whole day with us!   From 9 in the morning until 9 at night so I’m pumped for that!  I love you all more than anything and I already can’t wait until Christmas so I can see you all again! try not to forget about me, remember who you are and I’ll talk to you next week!  You are always in my heart and in my prayers.

com todo de meu coraçao,

ELDER GUBLER 

April 23, 2012

Dear Family,

Tuesday (terça-feira): we had district meeting as usual and it was the last one with everyone in the zone there because its transfers this week so some people are moving on, but really it was a pretty slow day on Tuesday we only had one lesson go through so that means your average day of walking all over the place but welcome the mission!  We also practiced up a storm for the musical number! I was kind of a just a tiny bit nervous about that so when we would get home at night that may have been my focus so now that it’s actually over I can catch up on my journal and actually relax a little!

Wednesday (quarta-feira): we did a division with one of the areas in our district, Serraria. I stayed in our area and it was quite the day! that was the first time that I had to navigate the area by myself because the one other division we did I was the one that went to a different area so it was a nice little test to see if I actually how to get places in our area and I think I did well.  The division didn’t start until one thirty but we started thing out by getting someone from the ward to come with us to get some lessons with members, we knocked some doors, met some new people and got fed quite a bit.  I really like the Elder I was with.  He is brand new in the mission and only had one transfer so 6 weeks but he is Brazilian so obviously has the Portuguese so it’s was way cool to be able to see him in action conjugating everything the way it actually should be done.  He was quite the spiritual kid so I definitely learned a ton and overall it was just a solid day!  He was also eating up our area because he just kept on saying how the work is so hard in their area.  We visited an investigator family, I could name everyone off for forever but it’s a huge family that all lives together in the same house so it’s always madness and they love us.  We actually taught I think the only person in the house that we never taught before, so it was a productive stop in too even if they may have kept us there for 2 hours talking away.  But there really isn’t that shocking for that house because so much is always going on but essentially I’m just really glad I am where I am! Because everyone always says all of Diadema the work is pretty easy but I think every area in the mission has its positives and negatives but we had to end the division.

Thursday (quinta-feira): Thursday was definitely a good day!  We got a solid 5 lessons which I’m plenty proud of for one day and we got someone to mark a date for baptism!  A little background info, on Wednesday we marked with someone we made a contact with on the street but when we went to where her house should have been, the number didn’t exist so I asked all the houses around the area if they recognized her and no one did sadly but that was how we met our new investigator.  The conversation started out if she knew our contact and went from there to can we come by and talk to you tomorrow because she was pretty excited!  So excited that after the first lesson, the first time we actually talked with her she marked for baptism on the 29th but sadly that can’t happen anymore because she didn’t come to church this Sunday so now we have to push it back one more week and she was definitely prepared as well!  It’s so amazing that the only thing that we had to do is share the knowledge that we have, talk about the blessings we have received and bear simple witness and God takes care of the rest. This work is amazing!  The opportunity to see people completely change their lives right in front of your eyes is something that cannot be replaced!  Also knowing that you helped someone make that change is one of the greatest feelings ever.  We also talked a recent convert and had English class that night that the bishop actually attended so that was fun but no pressure.  It was just numbers which is pretty easy to teach so I held my own and well as of this transfer I better get used to holding my own because well I’m gonna break the news to you all now.... Pedersen is going away.  My daddy of the mission, devastation I tell you and I am actually kind of pretty nervous about solo teaching but I should get the hang of it fast enough or at least I’m hoping so.  But anyways after we got up to 999,999 on the numbers we did a quick little scripture study which turned out to be not so little at all.  The class is usually over at 8:30 so we can get home by 9 on time but it went to 8:45 so we were already a tad bit behind in the first place but instead of me trying to explain all the scriptures in the Bible about the Book of Mormon, the bishop was all over it and well he really got into it.  He switched back into missionary mode and our investigator got all of her questions answered, it just may have taken some time.  We may not have gotten back at the house until almost 10 but they Bishop was with us, he knows our curfew but he let it slide I guess.  It was really cool to be able to see him in missionary mode and hear how to actually explain the scriptures well.  The week before in English class she asked us to show her some but I didn’t a ton of the top of my head so I pulled out the Isaiah scriptures but said id study and come back with more and well I came plenty prepared with a solid 10 but the Bishop was all over it and he is one spiritual guy!  I really just got pretty lucky with my ward but onto Friday!

Friday (sexta-feira):  Not much went down at all, another one of those days. We talked to our new baptisms and did some lessons with them and talked to our investigator that was really progressing but then just stopped and won’t come to church, keep appointments, or obviously commit to baptism but ugh it’s just tough with her because she was so close to committing but then slowly started falling away and as much as I really don’t want to admit to this I’m pretty sure we lost her for at least right now.  She is back hanging out with her partier friends and she is changing.  We talked to her and it was like our power lesson, focus on baptism, and kind of guilt trip and ask her what she wants to do type lesson.  We were fasting to get ready for the conference with Elder Cook but we invited her to fast with us about what she should really do.  Well as of right now still no word from her because we haven’t had time to go to her house and she didn’t come to church but that’s when the work gets tough, "dropping" people... especially people that know it’s true but there are so many people that are prepared and are ready to make the covenants with God right now.  We talked with the bishopric on Sunday in our little meeting we started having about the ward helping her realize that you can have fun in the Church so that is the next step but I’m thinking it could take a while to get her back to where she was.  We just have to get her to follow through with the things she knows

Saturday (sabado): Saturday was quite the day I tell you! I had my first singing performance which went pretty great if I do say so myself :), I got to see the old CTM district again, we got some more mail (sadly still no sign of packages and lastly but most importantly we got to hear the words of God through one of his disciples on earth today Elder Cook!  Let’s start things off at the beginning though!  We got to São Bernardo at 8 in the morning to "practice" and well no one was there yet so we warded a little, came back at the 8:30 and it seemed like half the mission was there.  I saw some Elders from the CTM and so we were chatting it up, re living the old days, telling mission stories and just bonding. I told him and essentially everyone else there about my first baptism story and well that was a hit.  An Elder from the CTM and well he thinks he tore a ligament in his ankle.  They thought it was broken and took like 12 x rays but now they think he tore something and he said they just sit in front of the church all day and try and hand stuff out there but man I feel bad for the kid and he is now staying in my prayers because that would stink more than anything to have to go home to get surgery or something like that.  But after some madness of the assistants trying to get control of everyone, we finally got to practice the number a couple times with everyone and the piano and it was a little sketchy during the practice because it was hard to hear yourself and the piano and stuff but prayer was about the only thing I had at that point because after only practicing it two and a half ways through, Elder Cook showed up so it was game time! He came with Elder Mazzegardi the area 70 here and also the one who gave the closing prayer in the Sunday afternoon session of conference.  President and Sister Tanner started things off with their talks and then we were up... did I feel like I was gonna die…of course not.  It’s not like I have never sung before in my life, it was in front of the entire mission and an Apostle and it was recorded.... no biggie right?  But well it turned out pretty solid!  We didn’t have many tenors so were all just kind of holding ourselves and I help my own so I guess the process of beginning to learn how to sing has begun!  Youre all gonna be in for a treat in two years but onto the real highlight, Elder Cook!  He talked about converção real or real conversion and it was a pretty great talk but it was funny because the two things that hit me the hardest were new scriptures that he showed us or new principles.  They were two things that we hear all the time as missionaries but when an apostle of God is speaking directly to you, it makes it a little more profound. he said this is EXACTLY where all of you are supposed to be. I get the chills just writing that and I have always known that this was what I was supposed to be doing, I got my answer a long time ago but the comfort and the spirit that I felt was amazing.  The other point that hit me like a wall was that no matter how hard anything gets or how unfair something is, everything is made fair through the atonement of our Savior. Wow did that hit home because yes this mission is hard. I’m not gonna lie and say it’s all fun and dandy and I’m in one of the better off areas in the mission but things still get hard.  No matter how bad things may feel, all I have to remember is that Christ has been through EXACTLY what I have been through and that this is EXACTLY where I’m supposed to be.  Wow. I just love this mission!!!!  After that though we got our little sack lunches and were on our way, back to the real world the rest of the night we just worked on but not much more happened or at least compared to the stuff that happened earlier nothing felt that noticeable time is just weird on the mission I tell you.

Sunday (domingo): Another pretty big day!  It was the day I did my first confirmation/blessing in Portuguese and well it went pretty solid. I was kind of freaking out about that for the last half of the week but I didn’t want to memorize anything for the blessing so it was tough to really feel like I was prepared but I had the opening prayer part down anyways it of course wasn’t as smooth or eloquent as I wanted but my companion said I didn’t conjugate anything wrong that was what I was freaking out about because it was ALL subjunctive conjugations, hence it changing every time, which are mega hard to remember... especially when you are the spot like that but hey I didn’t screw up too bad and even if my whole body was like seizing I was shaking so bad I survived.  I had this weird quiver in my knee that started out small but got bigger until this shake consumed my whole body so that was interesting but also our recent convert got a calling!  That was mega exciting because my first baptism in the mission is staying strong and already has a calling wooooooo!  Other than that though not much went down, and the other big point of the day that I’ve got to talk about before I run out of time was the transfers!  We were kind of freaking out, we got home early to do our area book updating and all of that stuff and well turns out they took forever deciding what was gonna happen for this transfer because we had to stay up until 11:15 to finally find out who was going where and what was going to happen!  Well here is the news, like I already said, my trainer is going away and I’m gonna miss the kid like crazy. I really learned more than I thought possible from him.  And I was really hoping we could get one more together but well apparently that’s no supposed to happen because he is off to Orquedario in Santos which is down by the beach so it’s the biaxada where is insanely hot and is exactly where he doesn’t want to go so that kind of stinks but he is finishing the training of another missionary so I’ll have a brother on the mission and I’m pretty excited about that.  I get a Brazilian companion.  I love you all and don’t ever forget that!  Keep the emails coming and I’ll talk to you all next week!

ELDER GUBLER 

April 16, 2012

Tuesday not much happened on Tuesday, we had our District meeting as usual and as I’m sure you’re starting to catch on…we saved some souls.  It also marked 9 weeks in the field so that is kind of crazy to think about that because that is how long I was in the CTM and it went by much faster in the field!  The CTM kind of dragged on a little bit but essentially when I think of time in the field it is flying by but sometimes the days seems to crawl by which gets rough at times but the weeks overall are faster and months are mega fast but really not that much happened on Tuesday.

Wednesday was the start of the interesting stuff for the week! We had our first atheist contact which was really weird and I still have no idea how you could just not believe in God. Open your eyes and look around.  We didn’t come from monkey and this world isn’t an accident but this guy thought that because life it hard that means there is no God but we tried.  I realized that he just had a sad depressing way of looking at things but anyways on a positive note we talked to our investigators parents again and because they had to approve his baptism for it to happen because he is only 14 but it worked! He said he really wanted to be baptized and flashing forward to Sunday when I was talking to him at church he was pumped so that was really cool :) I bought a churro from a street vendor for the first time and wow was the thing the most delicious I’ve had yet? YES! Oh Brazilian deserts, wow.  It was filled with chocolate and then had a line of chocolate on the outside with sprinkles and I love this place but there is my food tangent for the week.  Those seem to be happening quite a bit.  

Thursday was another day that not much went down.  We found a crappy dresser thing on the side of the road but it was actually in pretty good condition so we took it back to the house, cleaned it up and we are now using it.  Gotta love having a crappy house baby but its just to hold all of our books and pamphlets and stuff so don’t worry it’s not like a clothes dresser or anything like that.  I just can’t wait until we find a house and we get to move!  Our investigator decided he wants Elder Peterson to baptize him. 

 Friday I sent my little package that should arrive in 3 weeks or so, be patient but get pumped! Also we had the baptismal interviews for our two investigators and well good news they both passed so needless to say we were excited about that.  At this point one still hadn’t decided who he wanted to baptize him.  Also this was kind of scary.  When we were walking home there was a girl that was just laying in the road with her bike crashed next to her and there was a huge crowd all over the place just kind of staring and then 10 or so people doing stuff around her but I may have switched into first responder mode and I was looking for breathing but she was breathing and moving her fingers so I figured she was fine, someone looked like they were talking to 911 (I don’t know what it is called in brazil or if it is still 911), and she was conscious and active so I figured I couldn’t help.

Sunday, the big day of the double baptism was finally here!  During church all I could think about was the baptism because good news, one of our investigators finally decided that he wanted me to baptize him so I was pretty pumped about that! I got the prayer memorized and essentially just let my mind go crazy with everything that could potentially happen during my first actual baptism but I boy was not even close.  We had all the opening talks and hymns and then it was game time!  It was a great experience.  My baptism pants were unbelievably tight, I was in pain after wearing them just for pictures and the baptism.  The actual baptism did take a little more time that I thought but still there is proof I’m gaining weight and well I REALLY need to find a way to let out those pants so any ideas and that would be great mom.

That just wraps it all up for the week though! today we went to São Judas to practice for the special choir for the fireside with Elder Cook on Saturday and turns out I really like singing and I’ve caught on pretty fast if I do say so myself so im pretty pumped for that! But anyways I love you all! Again eu amo todos de vocês e até a proxíma semana!

Seu filho, irmão, e melhor amigo ELDER GUBLER

April 2, 2012

Let’s start things off with Tuesday. I bought some more pants a couple weeks ago but of course nothing is hemmed here so someone in the ward sewed them for me but there color turned out to be mega weird.  We had District meeting and I got the Easter package and a letter, woohoo you all are the greatest. I may have downed the candy hearts and the junior mints kind of really fast.  Onto Wednesday, first off this is really random but I’ve been studying the Bible a ton lately or at least trying to.  We really need the Book of Mormon to actually understand that thing!  But in 1 Chronicles 5:12, (look it up right now) at the end of the verse there just happens to be a smiley face, like a texting one [ie :)] and needless to say I loved it.  It made my day a little.  But Wednesday was supposed to be the day of my Portuguese test. Remember how I’m a church experiment? I feel important saying that but well it got cancelled and we would have had to go to Jabaquara to get to the secretaries office and that takes some time so we didn’t mark anything for the day after lunch.  So when that got cancelled, white day, which usually means not a lot goes on but we had quite a good day and some major luck!  We knocked a ton of doors, got a lot of news and a solid 4 lessons with random people and explored some places that I have never been to in our area.  Overall it really was a pretty good day.  It just proves that really if you are doing what the Lord wants you to, he blesses you and we got another example of that on Thursday.  The first week I got in the mission field, it was like my third day but we talked to a referral but Elder Pedersen said he wasn’t gonna go anywhere because he LOVED coffee which is nothing new in Brazil but we taught him the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity and then he kind of dropped off the map after that.  But the past couple of weeks, he has been coming to church and all this stuff so I have wanted to go to his house but we never did for some reason. But anyways to get to the point of this story, we finally connected with him and talked to him on Thursday and well good news, he wants to be baptized!  He has come to church a total of about 4 times now so he is good with the minimum of 2 times to get baptized so now all we have to do is re-teach him everything and he will be baptized on the 8^th, this next coming Sunday.  We may have to move it so we can have everything work out but needless to say I’m not complaining at all because we taught him one lesson and the Lord did the rest. This work is absolutely amazing, seeing Gods work first hand, shaping peoples lives is such an amazing blessing. 

Onto Friday!  Today we finally didn’t have to wear sweaters. Believe it or not, Wednesday was actually really, really cold. I am really curious how cold it actually was.... am I really adapting to the Brazilian heat and just becoming a pansy with cold or did I actually have a right to be freezing? Who knows but Friday we just wore long sleeve shirts and no sweaters but it was the day of the big Portuguese test!  The test I took had 3 parts: grammar, a speaking section, and a CTM evaluation and well the grammar part rocked me to be completely honest.  It was all conjugations and subjunctives and that stuff and I’ve never been good at tests anyways so I over thought everything I came out with a solid 17/27... a solid D for my Portuguese.  But also while we were there we got mail and packages and that was the greatest ever.  But to wrap up the night we talked to a few investigators and then promised we would stop by a house of our investigators that had a pastor come to their house and "preach" to them but in reality he just screaming at everyone the whole time and at one point he was talking about a vision he had when he was visiting his sick mother, but everyone else seemed to eat it up because there were all screaming "obrigado Jesus" and "Gloria Deus" the whole time.  Very interesting but eye opening because after seeing that it just makes me even more grateful for our church and how we aren’t totally insane. 

Onto Saturday.  The first sessions of General Conference and I think my favorite two sessions! After Saturday we were just spiritually and physically fed because every kept on giving us candy and we both got packages so we brought little candy bags and just got enlightened! In between the sessions we went and made some contacts and got some ice cream with everyone and Brazilian ice cream turns out to be amazing delicious also. I was thinking about how brazil isn’t as fat as the US because there eat a heck of a lot worse foods here but then I realized it’s because everyone walks everywhere and its all up hill so after you pig out on some ice cream or coxinhas or salsishas you’ve got to climb some mountains to get home. That has to be it.   But anyways onto the good stuff, conference! I decided I’m gonna throw some of my favorite quotes from each session so brace yourselves.  First off in the first session, I don’t remember who said it... but my favorite line was "If the church really is the ONLY true church on the earth, then WHAT ELSE MATTERS" and isn’t that true.  Frankly that is the only thing we need to know and want to do all the things that God wants us to do. We should want to follow all the teachings of the Prophets and read the scriptures because they really contain the words or God and help us return to him again. The first session on Saturday also had a ton of stuff on families and it really made me realize how blessed I am to have you all as my family.  To have the people I have in my life is just amazing. God truly cares about each one of us so he gave us other amazing people in our lives to help us when times get tough but just remember I love you all and that will never change no matter what. Onto the second session.  First off, there was a speaker with a strong Scottish accent.  I may have been a little distracted by his accent and when he kept on saying "fret" and "chap" and stuff like that but it made me realize that we really have representatives of Christ all over the world.  Leaders that are chosen from God through the Prophet to help lead the world, what a blessing.  This church just absolutely amazing me and there is just no way it isn’t true. One random thing that I’m sure you all saw but David Archuleta or Elder Archuleta I guess but he was there in the MTC choir and the camera guy totally panned on his face! I kind of got a kick out of it because of course he was on the first row and of course the camera stopped on him but good for him for serving so that was kind of cool!  But onto my favorite line of the second session, I’m sure you can probably guess it but Elder Holland is so great.  I love him so much! He just always gives the most powerful talks ever and that was probably the most powerful ending of a talk I’ve ever heard.  “Don’t delay, it’s getting late, In the name of Jesus Cristo, AMEN".  BAM!  He is just amazing and if that doesn’t whip you into shape I don’t know what will. But onto Sunday now....

Sunday started out nice and early because we had Priesthood at 6 AM so we woke up at 4:40 to get ready and get to the Stake Center on time. I just realized I haven’t explained how things work yet but we all went to the Stake Center and they had two rooms for the Missionaries. One in English and one in Portuguese so you could choose which one you wanted to go in but needless to say all the Americans stayed in the English room.  I wasn’t gonna risk missing out on anything!  But we got a ride from our first counselor to the Stake Center and topped out at like 75 kmp.  That is a little sample of Brazilian driving but needless to say we were right on time.  Priesthood was a little tough to focus totally on but I wasn’t feeling too bad so I survived that one and the line that hit me the most was just Pres Monson saying "never underestimate the far reaching power of your testimony". Have I learned that first hand? I’m gonna go with yeah. The lessons that I have felt the Spirit most strongly is just when we are bearing simple testimony at the end or hearing others bear their simple testimonies. A simple heartfelt testimony is what makes the difference. It lets the spirit flow right in, lets them know the truth of things, and if they haven’t understood much of what you have been talking about, they will always understand you testimony of this amazing Church. After Priesthood we had some more big news, someone in our ward FINALLY got his mission call. He said it had been like 4 months since he put in his papers and I’m pretty sure I would be dying if I had to wait that long but he opened it there and he is going to Brasilia and leaves the 24 of May. Exciting stuff right there but I was thinking back to my mission call and that was quite the day!  It feels like FOREVER ago but he has quite the path ahead of him and I’m so exciting because I finally understand how amazing this work is. After Priesthood though we found a ride home and taught some lessons and even more good news! A contact we made a week or so ago, we finally connected with him and taught him for the first time and finally after no one accepting during the first lesson....SUCCESS!  He accepting to be baptized on the 15th if he comes to know that this church is true which I think he was starting to believe by the end of the lesson so we are pretty excited about that too!  But then back to the Stake Center after lunch at a members and Elder Uchtdorf took the gold in my opinion on the first session. The bumper sticker part that said "don’t judge me because I sin different than you", genius and very true.  On the mission you talk with some sketchy looking people and you would be extremely shocked who accepts and lets us return and who doesn’t. We are all children of God and we need to all think of each other that way. In between the first and second session it was Sunday so we didn’t leave, we just stayed and snacked on some candy and watched a little show on the Bible which was interesting and it had a line I liked too! It said something along the lines of the scriptures being the manufacturers guide to this life. We have the things that we need to do in this life to be able to reach the end goal and return to our Heavenly Father. The scriptures are our guide in this life. By the second session on Sunday I was starting to crash.  The 4:40 wakeup started to settle in and my focus was dwindling so I didn’t write down my favorite quote from the session but I did like the part on writing missionaries ;) And on that note I think I'm wrapping up this email! I kind of wrote a ton this week so enjoy and again remember how much I love you all!  thank you so much for all each and everyone of you do for me. Eu amo todos de vocês com, todo de meu coração!

Seu filho, Iramão, e melhor amigo, ELDER GUBLER

March 26, 2012

I think I already gave everyone the run down of one of our investigators.  We have been focusing a lot on her lately because really she has such an amazingly strong testimony that really came out of no where! It has been such a testimony builder to be able to see her grow in the church when it felt like we hadn’t done that much but then again we aren’t doing anything. It’s the Lord working through us.  But the one problem with her is that she really wants to be baptized but she is afraid that she may go back to her old life at some point because she has a kid and I don’t really know a lot about her past but we have been trying to focus on the present with her and how if and when she is baptized because we know she will be its just a matter of time that she will get the help she needs to stay on the path the Lord wants her too. But essentially she still hasn’t picked a date yet but we are banking on General Conference doing the trick because if there is one person you can always rely on to get things done it’s the prophet.  I’m pretty excited for general conference!  We get to watch it in English so that will be amazingly nice to be able to hear my own language spoken well from someone besides my comp.  We do have one investigator that really is pretty close to fluent though so that is cool to be able to talk to him about the church in English!  Everyone always says that they don’t want to go English speaking for a mission and don’t get me wrong I LOVE it here in Brazil and I know this is exactly where I am supposed to be but being able to teach in English would be EXTREMELY nice. 

Oh another kind of random thing that happened this week is I found out that I am part of a "church experiment", exciting right?   We got a call from the secretaries this past week which is exciting enough but they asked for me which was a little nerve wrecking.  They went on to say how I have been selected to be part of this church experiment that my district in the CTM is apparently one of the last to stay there for 9 weeks and how they are gonna start only keeping people there for 6 now or something so I have to go to the mission office building and take an Portuguese test to see if 9 or 6 weeks is more effective, no pressure.  We'll see how that goes and I guess ill be able to find out actually how good my Portuguese is which I’m a little nervous about it.

Another thing for the week is we had our first transfer this past week which means our first zone meeting with all of the new people was this week!  It feels like our zone got a ton bigger now but we did get a new area opened up and our district got moved around so that is pretty exciting in itself but we got an Elder from the Baixada which sounds really nice by the way! They have couches and stuff in their area but everyone says it is MEGA hot and kind of tough for the work because it’s by the beach so everyone there is on vacation and doesn’t actually live there but that’s beside the point!  We got a new Elder, Elder Brown who played for BYU football so I felt pretty cool talking to him! The people you meet on your mission you get oddly attached to so lets hope I can stay tight with him ;)

Another random story really quick because I'm almost out of time is I talked to Jehovah Witnesses missionaries this week.  We were at the bus stop and there were two old ladies that I was just talking to but they gave me magazine pamphlet things and all this stuff and I realized that they were missionaries so that was exciting and the magazine things they gave me were pretty interesting.  They were called ‘Is it possible to be honest today’ and ‘Does God cause natural disasters’ so I had a good time reading those.

But that’s gonna have to be it for the week! I love you all so much and keep the emails coming.  Hopefully next week I’ll have a little more time to email!

Com todo de meu coração, ELDER GUBLER

March 19, 2012

Querida Familía,

 

I feel millions better than last week but frankly I don’t know that I could feel much worse... last P day was one that I really I do not have to repeat haha.... and bad news ever since then I don’t really trust food anymore so needless to say I’m not gaining weight anymore.  I’m sure you’re all devastated but on the plus side we just slept ALL day. As soon as we got home after emailing which was the only we left the house, it was straight to bed but things definitely got better after that! Tuesday was still a little sketchy but we held it together and had too much going on to be sick so we pressed forward! We had District Meeting for the last time for the transfer and I decided I’m gonna miss a ton of people during the mish because really I haven’t come across anyone I sincerely didn’t like so you get attached to people but we found out who is staying and who is going last night and by the sounds of it they are changing up areas and districts and stuff but that’s good because the boundaries are awful here. We have people that like a block away from another church in Eldorado but they are "in our area" so they have to walk to all the way up to Inamar which is all up hill to come to church. Kind of a pain and needless to say we haven’t gotten him to come to church yet ha but good news I’m staying here in amazing Inamar and Elder Pedersen is staying my trainer! We were kind of nervous about that and I really am mega glad he is staying because I still don’t know our area yet and I don’t know our Ward well enough to know who is who for lunches but we may have had a little celebration this morning and made the most delicious smoothie I’ve ever made! We finally got a blender that is a disgusting mess and I’ve been going shake crazy because the fruit down here is too amazing to not eat it right up! But listen to this, I’m pretty proud of it so I may brag a little bit but it was mango, strawberry, banana which sounds kind of gross I know but it was phenomenal I tell you! Looks like I’ll be opening up my own little Jamba Juice in two years :) and we bought french fries and finally gas so I can actually cook things! Needless to say, on the mish you take every opportunity you can to celebrate. But some more big news for Tuesday was that Jecika one of our Investigators, who is the niece of our first counselor, said that she now KNOWS the church is true and realistically we didn’t do that much so it really was amazing to see the Lords hands working on her because she explained to us why and how she came to know that it was true and it started with the wedding last Saturday when she loved that and we gave her daughter, she is 20 and has a 3 year old daughter Edwarda who is freaking adorable, but we gave her a blessing because she was sick and right immediately after she was a ton better. Then on Sunday she came to church and it just so happened that in Relief Society or Soc Soc here, they talked about the priesthood so she better understood the blessing we gave her daughter and then Monday she realized that the Book of Mormon is true and it really does have the words of God. That’s what I call a weekend right there and the most amazing thing was, was we were just teaching her to teach her because she has been taught her entire life by missionaries and has been around members her entire life because most of her aunts and uncles are members but for some reason now, this time, everything clicked. It all made sense and we had just been doing our job. Nothing extra, teaching about the Church and the Book of Mormon and helping where we can with blessings and the Lord did the rest. Really this isn’t my mission, it's the Lord's. I realize that more and more every day. But now onto the rest of the week.

Not much out of the ordinary happened on Wednesday, taught some lessons and saved some souls the usual but it was Elder Pedersen's 6 month mark so he tried to burn a tie and it was an epic fail but pretty entertaining.  Onto Thursday, we had Nova Força on Thursday so we went to São Judas and saw all of the other missionaries that arrived in the field when I did so that was way cool to be able to see and talk to my district again! :) They were the greatest and I kind of totally spaced who went where so that was cool to be able to talk about our own little areas because by the sounds of it the São Paulo, ABC, and Baixada areas are all completely different so that will be cool to be able to sample some other places but I love Inamar so for now I want to stay here :) I also I realized I actually am learning Portuguese! I was one of the few from our group that got an American trainer so that was a little worrying that my Portuguese would be way far behind but by the looks of it I’m keeping up and I am learning stuff! It’s funny how you never feel like you’re learning but in reality I’m holding my own! Yesterday we were talking with Jecika and her family about transfers because everyone was kind of panicking that Elder Pedersen was gonna leave but they said that at this point for him, one transfer in the field, my Portuguese is a little farther along than his and I don’t want to toot my own horn and don’t any ideas that I’ll be fluent by 4 and half months but there is still hope for me!! 

Friday we had a baptismal interview to do in Taboão and it’s kind of far away so we kind of spent like the whole day but the interview apparently took forever but it was an interesting day.  Me and Elder Newsom went to go do contacts because we set a District goal of actually getting 140 for the week which is the missions goal but realistically that is almost Impossible to get but while me and Newsom were out on the street, we saw a kid peeing, just flat out doing his thing. And once again I realized that I am learning things because there is no wrong way to do a street contact but ours is just a tad bit more direct and that’s another point of the splits with other missionaries to teach and learn more things but essentially the entrevista took all day so not much went down. Onto Saturday where again not that much out of the ordinary went down. Just your average day but Elder Pedersen did get asked to give a talk for Sunday so be grateful for our heads up in the US because he was a little stressed about that and thank heavens my Portuguese still sucks too much so the Bishop wouldn’t dare ask me to give a talk, but he did a good job! Especially for it being in Portuguese, not having any time to prepare, and for lack of a better way to put it Brazilians aren’t reverent at all haha people were just kind of talking the whole time so he had to talk over everyone but it went pretty solid. We only had three people show up to church, so that is kind of really annoying because we can’t count people as "progressing" until they come to church and it is soooooo hard to actually get people to come. We spent like half of our phone credits calling everyone that morning and still nothing... but we’ll get there. Anyways the bulk of Sunday consisted of making contacts. Up until this point we only had 68 contacts for the week and we really wanted that 140 so we worked or butts off! Right after Church before lunch we went on splits to do contacts and got a solid 30 and a couple lessons but really after lunch we spent so much time talking to people. All but one of our appointments fell and I think that was the only time I have ever been ok that an appointment fell because we had so much to do! But believe it or not, after 76 contacts for the day, we got the 140 and I am nice and proud of it baby!!! :)  I don’t think that I will ever get that many contacts in a day ever again either. I at least hope not but there is my run down for the week so I hope you enjoyed it! I’m getting mega fast a typing as you can probably tell :) but I love you all and keep the emails coming :) 

Com todo meu coração, ELDER GUBLER