September 12, 2013

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

Elder Gubler

September 6, 2013

Well I am SUPER crazy busy as usual! Yesterday was probably the craziest day I have had in months!  I woke up 5:30 to take 7 people to the federal police station including Pres and Sister Tanner and well on the way there we had a sister get stolen on the train and an Elder puked and that was before we even got to the best part. Then once we got there, since no one from the church office building knew how to finish the Presidents visa process they told what they thought I would need and well come to find out here was another fine I needed to pay so I had to run around and get that paid and help another new mission secretary from another mission and they made some people retake their pictures because sometime the accept people smiling and a gray background and sometime you can smile and the background has to be PERFECTLY white and their can’t be a shadow on you face so we had 2 people that had to retake pics and man it was just a BLAST let me tell ya. I just LOVE that place. It’s always super organized and everything. but we all survived and only one sister didn’t make it through because her paperwork was wrong so I’m gonna have to send that to the US Consulate here in Brazil for them to figure that out and then we got back and I went to get some authenticated copies of everything and then at like 3 we finally went to lunch and I ate WAY too much because I felt super hungry but my stomach was tiny and then we painted part of a house and then we went back to the office until 6 and then taught some lessons that night. The day is going down in books and there is just a little sample of my life but other than that, Wednesday we had a division and had some super good lessons and the ward is really noticing out work now so we are really getting somewhere! The couple we are teaching is gonna get married as soon as we can get all the papers ready but it’s gonna cost R$250 reais to get all the stuff we need and well the ward is taking FOREVER to decide it they can pay it or not so if it takes much longer I’m just gonna pay just FYI it would end up being like 120 dollars.  _____ got confirmed on Sunday and she asked me to confirm her and well it has been a WHILE since I’ve confirmed someone so I was oddly nervous and it was kind of hilarious because my hand and my knees were like uncontrollably shaking.  I you couldn’t tell from my voice that I was nervous and as soon as I started I was fine but I was just shaking for some reason, super funny and everyone keeps on giving me crap for it. Gotta love the mission  and one more fun detail our stake got its named changed from Sao Paulo west to São Paulo Sul which make a ton more sense because west had nothing to do with the area or the mission but now our stake has the same name as the mission, aí sim!  A few other things, _____ our other super firm investigator is gonna get baptized on the 21st and so she is progressing super well too and a super weird fact, we had zone meeting this week and the zone leader was like "why don’t we ask the veteran in the zone" and then looked at me and I totally thought he was talking about someone else but then I realized that I’m officially the oldest in our zone. It’s really starting to hit now... and I hate it... I remember when I was super new in the mission and hearing the people that only had 2 months left was always super weird and well now that’s me.... time is weird. But well I love you all! Hope everything is going good back at home! I always pray for all of you, thanks for the support and I’ll see ya soon ;)

Elder Gubler

August 30, 2013

So the good news is that I survived, the bad news is that I kind of almost died on Wednesday. After two days of almost no sleep my body just about gave out and I got a nice little cold and just had the greatest body aches ever, fun stuff. But luckily Sister Tanner is the greatest ever and she made me a care package of all the meds I would need, and cinnamon rolls and natural juice.  Well after following her instructions and FINALLY getting some sleep I feel WORLDS better. As Aladdin well stated, "a whole new world".  But about the week, the transfers went pretty smoothly, like they were going oddly smoothly because there is almost always something that is forgotten or not done right or something like that but I double checked like everything on Monday night so no materials or slideshows or newby packets were forgotten but something big did kind of go a little wrong. We have a member of the church that always does our lunches for us and well she did last week and I marked with her husband to do another lunch for us on Tuesday for the transfers and so I call her on Monday morning at like 10:30 just to confirm that everything was good to go but when I call her I’m like "hey is everything good to go for today?" and she was like "what’s today?". Great sign right, so come to find out that her hubby was at the beach and had forgotten to tell her that he marked with me so then the blood pressure went up and I went into game mode because I have an hour and a half to get a lunch together. So I call Elder and Sister _____ who are the missionary couple in our mission and they go off to the market to get stuff to make sandwiches so yeah we made sandwiches and fruit and cupcakes, SÓ VAI.  I did feel pretty bad for the new missionaries though because their first lunch in brazil fell through, welcome to the mission.  Other than that TINY detail, it was a SUPER busy day of running around from Presidents house to the office to the chapel to the office to the cartorio and well welcome to my life.  Some other fun news, I sent the last big group of Americans home before my group, super weird. I’m sending a pic of the group but this next transfer, the only people leaving are our missionary couple which is gonna be SUPER without them because they have saved me multiple time.  Fun fact they are from St George so I plan on visiting them because I like them.  But the other big news which is pretty big new is THE BAPTISM OF ______, after 15 some odd years!  Great day and it was a SUPER spiritual baptismal meeting. It was really packed because she invited some friends that are and some that aren’t members of the church and since her mom and two daughters are all members they all bore their testimony and they were plenty of tears and it was just amazing. Here in a year they will be able to get sealed and I’m SUPER excited for them because I really love that family and frankly I love the gospel and the amazing opportunity I have to be able to share the gospel with others. Michael get ready big boy because there is nothing better. Beats an iPhone out of the water any day but well I think that’s gonna have to wrap up my letter for right now! I love you all, thanks for all the support, remember who you are, the importance of the small things and that the gospel is perfect.

Elder Gubler

Missão Brasil São Paulo Sul

Secretário da Missão