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 

March 12, 2012

So this week was nice and interesting, I don’t even know where to start.... let’s go with Wednesday, the 3 month mark in the mish! Is that weird that I’ve already been out for 3 months?? Because that feels kind of really weird if you ask me... that means I’m already 1/8th of the way done, not that I’m counting down though because I really love it here! This past month in the field has been one of the hardest months ever but it has also been the most rewarding month ever. The things I’ve learned, I really will never forget and I’ve only been out for a month so I can’t imagine what it will be like when I’ve only got a month left. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, onto Wednesday. Wednesday was one of those days when we had so much stuff marked to do but you don’t get any of it done... there was a leadership training thing that Elder Pedersen went to so I went on a split with Elder J Santos and Clingman the other comps of DLs and well our day was quite interesting. First off we took the wrong bus and ended up in some jungle town but really I love getting lost in Brazil because then I get a little more of a sample of what this place is like and I decided it’s just straight up insane!!  But after we got un lost and finally got to their apartment, the place was huge! It was Eldorado and Vila Paulina that lived together and wow the more apartments I got to, the more I realize how much ours sucks.  But Elder J Santos had a few appointments marked for the morning but someone in their ward ran away so instead we spent all morning looking for someone who ran away and then had to walk all the way to our area for lunch and by the time we finished eating it was already time to go back to terminal and wait for Elder Pedersen and them to show up...but apparently their bus took forever showing up so we got to wait 2 hours and terminal for them to show up.  When they finally showed up we had a lesson marked for that night and dinner with a member but when we got to the apartment, Elder Pedersen realized he didn’t have the phone and they are R$ 50 if you lose it and we are absolutely broke so needless to say the hunt and prayers began!  We used our tenants phone and just called the things like 10 times but no response so we figured the only thing we could really do was wait for the bus to finish its route and hope that no one had stolen in by that time.... so we waited and after stopping 3 buses we decided on waiting for one more to check and when it showed up we searched the thing but no sign of it and then right when we were about to get off and search for R$50 to pay for a new one, some guy was like hey its right here and there it was pinned between the seat and the wall of the bus! QUE SORTE! :) Essentially the purpose of this story is that prayers are answered, even about the little stuff and that was essentially it for Wednesday.  On to a few more highlights for the week but this email may be a little short because Elder Pedersen and I are both sick right now... I forgot how bad it sucks to throw up seeing as it happened like 4 times last night and after that I’m not sure how I feel about the food here anymore hahah, just kidding I still love it :) but a few more highlights!

So Saturday our 1st counselor got married and oh that was quite the adventure but we spent all night on Friday helping him set everything up and he wanted us to come on Saturday so we got permission from the Pres and crashed the wedding! They had a mock ceremony if you will in the chapel because most of their family isn’t members and that was why were there!  We ate some delicious food and cake and more importantly made some contacts and got some news :) 

On to yesterday! So as you know Natani got baptized last week and was going to get confirmed this week by her boyfriend again but he could make it to church for some reason so Elder Pedersen confirmed her and oh it was cool! :) The language is still coming and frankly I’m glad I didn’t have to do it ha but wow I just love this work! We brought some investigators to church so that went was pretty good because we can never get anyone to come to church with us and if they don’t come to church, they can’t be considered progressing so needless to say on paper we don’t have that many 'progressing' investigators and on a sad note we had a ton of people fall this week.  Quezia and Caroline who both came to church with us, after said they didn’t like it at all and they like their church more.  Jennifer one of eternal investigators got kicked because she stopped progressing and Ana Lucia the Mom I was telling you about last week, that came to the noite familiar (FHE)... yeah she told us not to come back anymore.  But with her we are 90% sure it’s just her husband because she really likes us and has always been pretty interested so well give her some time and space and then see if we can get her to come back but needless to say we will be knocking/ clapping plenty of doors this week to find some new people but realistically I think that’s it for this week! Sorry it was a little small, but I’m not feeling too hot so back to bed....

I love you all and think of you every day! Try not to have too much fun without me ;) 

Com todo de minha amor, Elder Gubler

March 5, 2012

Hello one and all welcome to another week in Inamar.....

My first baptism in Brazil was AMAZING. That right there is why I’m here and it makes all the days that I’m dripping with sweat and my calves are burning worth it. But more details on that later, on to my week!

Not much went down this week because we had meetings and went to the temple and all I can really think about was yesterday (the baptism) so looks like I’ll just start the rambling and see where it takes us.  First off a little language rambling, it’s still a work in progress... it’s hard having an English comp because we both want to speak English all the time so it’s always kind of a struggle to always be talking Portuguese but really for me I think it is probably better. This week I’ve been trying to work on using subjunctive conjugations and it’s hard to learn how to speak correct Portuguese because none of the Brazilians do but speaking of the spelling I found out I’ve been spelling ala de ingles wrong this whole time... is aula not ala... got to love it oh and during English class we were talking about days of the week and stuff like that and how do you say the morning of yesterday? Is it really yesterday morning because that is what we decided it was but that sounds really wrong. Language limbo. Also this week kind of flew by as a whole but day by day things either fly by because we have way too much to do in one day or they crawl by... you have to think that the work for one day can transfer over but apparently its doesn’t but on to yesterday!!

Sunday was a day of firsts, my first testimony meeting in the field and the first baptism.  I’m sure you have all caught on that church meetings are kind of extremely different here but whoa testimony meeting was way cool! I really like that everyone bore their testimony because our ward is a little small but I felt like really everyone wanted to share which was shocking to me! There really was no break from person to person and I don’t think there was never not a line to bear testimonies either but now onto the highlight of the week, the baptism.  First off the baptism was supposed to be at 3:00 so of course we plan on leaving an hour early because it takes 20 minutes or so by bus to get to the stake center because our ward "building" of course doesn’t have a font but so we are all gonna meet there and we are waiting for the bus which really NEVER showed up. It took like 45 minutes to show and at that point we had already called one of the 3 people in the ward with a car to come pick us up but we finally arrived and the font was just taking its time filling up because the people that were supposed to start it early didn’t do it early enough so we are all carrying buckets and buckets or water from the kitchen to the font and dumping.  It was quite a sight but finally the font gets filled we had some special musical numbers by some ward members who we actually had an extremely good turnout in people coming especially considering that last time Elder Pedersen said he got a baptism it was just the kid, his mom, the Bishop and them so man am I glad people showed up! We had a solid 25 or so people and after the opening stuff it was time for the baptism! I was kind of freaking pumped :) so Rafiel and Natane go into the water which turned out to be nice and cold and it may have taken four times before he got here all the way under but after what felt like a lot of stuff not going how I had pictured but the testimonies after and the spirit that was there was amazing. It’s amazing to me how you really can go from any state to just complete joy within seconds when the spirit is there. Natane's whole family is Catholic so that’s why only her Mom came because I’m sure the rest of the family didn’t really support it but her Mom was crying and it looks like the spirit has opened her mom up just enough to let us and I think there is a chance that we may be able to get her as well. With all the things that could have gone a little better it really felt perfect because all that mattered was that Natane became a member of the only true Church of Jesus Christ on the earth and that she became perfectly clean.  Isn’t that absolutely mind blowing if you think about it.  We really can become as Christ was, perfect even if it is only for a little while we have the opportunity to partake of the sacrament and renew the sacred covenants we made and become clean again. Also on Sundays we are usually supposed to go home early because we have renew the area book but we felt like we should talk to a few more people which ended up taking the whole night but it was well worth it. The spirit really shows you exactly what you need to do even if the things you were planning on doing were good too.  We ending up having a family night at a members house and after much convincing got an investigator and her 2 kids to come with us and wow was the spirit there too. We watched kind of a really weird little video on the organization of the Church which I was a little nervous about but after once again the testimonies that were born saved the day. The simple yet powerful testimonies about Christ and His Atonement brought the spirit there so strong. we may have to go to her church before she will come to ours so I will tell you how that is next week.  Wish us luck because the Assemblea de Deus doesn’t like us but we now have an in with her. So essentially Sunday just rocked :) definitely a great day :)

 

But really that is pretty much it for the week! We went to 25 de Março today (yes they have streets named after days of the month and no one knows why...haha) but it’s essentially just Brazilian Chinatown but on steroids!!! It was insane and I kind of ate it up :)  I wasn’t joking when I said start saving up so we can come back here :) but that’s it for now I think.... até mais!

Eu amo todos de voces com todo meu coração.

ELDER GUBLER

February 28, 2012

Sorry the email is late! I’m alive and I’m fine so no worrying mom! Yesterday is usually our P-day but since we went to the temple today we worked all day yesterday and tried to have P-day today but literally just barely got back from the temple so it was kind of an all-day adventure! Dad it really is comforting to hear that other people do struggle too. I know Brazil is one of the more successful missions in the world but learning a language, and putting everything into investigators plus walking up massive hills all day really gets tough sometime and the thought of other people not teaching lessons for weeks makes me feel a little stuck up, because that would be pretty tough.  Apparently God knew that I’m not man enough to handle that so he sent me to Brazil where the people are prepared for me but it really is all work it when you get a good day or even one good appointment! But thank heavens we had a few great appointments and good news, we have our first baptism next Sunday at 3! :) wooooooohooooo baby!!  That's what makes it all worth it right there, really actually bringing people unto Christ and His true church. But if you remember last week I think I talked about Natani, the girl who we wanted to get baptized this week but she drank coffee so we have to wait another week but we finished teaching her all the lessons and everything is good to go! :) Her boyfriend, a Priest in the ward will baptize and confirm her which will be really cool and will for sure help her stay active in the Church so even if we were a little tad bit bummed about that it will make it more special for them. Cute right? 

But oh also I had quite the experience this week! We were looking through all the Ensigns and Liahonas we have in our apartment for pictures to put on out planners...it sounds really dumb everyone does it and it looks really cool! I put a pic of the SLC temple and El Salvador and I think it looks pretty great but I was just sifting through a 2000 conference address and flipped past someone I recognized so I flipped back and who was it? Patricia P Pinegar with her talk "Paz, Esperança, e Orientação"!! needless to say I was pretty pumped about that so I may have ripped it out and ill work on translating it :) 

Also this week our Ala de Inglês (which we have Thursdays and Saturdays) had some solid turn out! On Thursday we have a solid 8 people show up which is the most I’ve had since we’ve been here and on Saturdays I solo taught! Definitely a good week for that even if we did only have 3 people on Saturday, they are the most experience people in our class so we practiced real life situations and stuff like that and one of the kids is a member but the other two girls aren’t so I taught the first lesson in English too which was really cool to be able to do with Brazilians and really actually have them understand and oh it was just nice to be able to teach in English!  Being able to actually say exactly what I wanted to say was amazing but I’m so used to teaching the first lesson in Portuguese that a few times I would slip some Portuguese words in there :) 

A few more random things for the week! We saw an BMW M5 just chilling on the streets of Inamar! Sadly I didn’t have my camera with me and we probably won’t ever see it again.  Gotta love those drug dealers that have got WAY too nice cars to be living in the favellas of Brazil!  Also got my first haircut in the field and its awful of course but we all saw that once coming because I’m not the biggest fan of haircuts.  Also I think it is finally happening.... I’m putting on weight!! :) I really have never eaten/ate this much food in my life! I am hungry all the time and even thought Elder Pedersen says that I look exactly the same and I do but apparently all those beans and rice are going straight to my hips because the pants are getting really, really tight.  I get a nice waistband line on my belly so I think it finally could happen and now that it may actually be possible for me to gain weight I’m getting a little nervous because them none of my pants will fit.  But back to some spiritual stuff, I had my first solo invite to a baptism this week with Bruno and we got a new investigator who adores us seems really interested.  Her name is Sherli and is the niece of Monique.  I don’t know if I’ve told you about her but we ended up spending three hours at her house one day because her daughter is a riot and she had a TON of questions so the lesson itself took some time and patience for that matter.  But then after that she wouldn’t let us leave without making lunch so we are keeping our fingers crossed for her! Her daughter Stephanie has epilepsy and had an attach this week so we went to go visit her in the hospital and it was the biggest pain ever because they would only let one of us go up at a time for some reason but we can’t leave each other so she was running all over the place talking to bosses and bosses until she got us up.  She is kind of stubborn if you can’t tell but her excuse and explanation as to why we needed to stay together was that I didn’t know Portuguese so I couldn’t be left alone which is essentially true but I got a kick out of it!  Brazilians just think Americans are insane. This week we did a baptism interview for Vila Noguira one for the areas in our district because Elder Pedersen is DL but Elder Barbosa took me around while Elder Pedersen was doing the interview and was essentially showing off the fact that he knew an American.  It was kind of mega awkward because I would just stand there and he would say have you ever seen an American before?  Well I’ve got one here and then he presents me like I’m an animal.  Oh you gotta love Brazil but I really do love it here!  Start saving up now so we can either come back for the World Cup or the Olympics but I’ll let you guys makes the final decision. But that is essentially it for the week! Going to the temple today was so nice because man I got dependent on that place in the CTM so it was kind of a shock to my system to just stop going every week even if it only was for three weeks.  I think that is about it.  Mom you are gonna love this, I’m not 100% sure yet but Elder Pedersen says that we can and he did skype on Christmas!  He said he didn’t think we could on Mother’s Day but I’ll look into that get back to you :) 

In closing we got to go because it’s getting late but I love you all, I pray for you all individually and think of you all every day!  I hope all is well and remember my love and the love of the Savior. You are all the greatest and are such good examples. 

Eu amo todos de vocês! 
Com tudo de meu coração, 
ELDER GUBLER