Elder Gurksnis Goes to Brazil

Today we decided to climb Pico de Jaraguá (Jaraguá Peak) here with a couple guys from the office. It was super fun and full of laughs. When we were on the trail we saw two monkeys. I forgot bananas this time, but i got these chocolate crackers out of my backpack and one of them immediately started approaching me hahahah. I was trying to give him just one, but somewhere in the middle of this process he jumped on me and grabbed the whole bag and went back up in the tree where he was...  bruh these monkeys always get the best of me. But it was good to go back to this mountain one more time. I´ll put all the pics down below.  So in relation to the work this week...we may have had one of the BIGGEST MIRACLES OF MY MISSION YESTERDAY! So for the past year this man named Luis has been investigating the church in our ward. Me and him have been able to enjoy a great relationship as good friends in the time I've been here. I love him and his family. His son was baptized a year ago an...

This week São Paulo had record lows and got down to like 34 degrees. I know, i know thats not that cold, but remember I'm in Brazil...theres no such thing as heaters or a/c. So you could compare it to camping in 34 degree weather because the house is basically the same temp as outside. So I've been sleeping with pretty much all the clothes i have haha. But its been fun and a nice change of environment. I'll be welcomed by the Texas August heat sooner than I know... This week has been a fast one. I dont have too much to report on. But after Thiffane's baptism last week we were pretty happy. She expressed to us how she knows she made the right decision and she is already looking forward to enter into the temple to help her brother receive the ordinance of baptism (he passed away about a year ago, at just 21 years old). We continued working with Claudia, Manoela, and Marcos. This week we are even trying to take them to the visitors center by the temple. We are grinding...

Grayson forgot to send this out and asked me to send it. This week I read this scripture in 1 John 2:6 that says "He that saith He abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." I have thought a lot about this over the time on my mission. If I truly want to know my Lord and Savior I must too also pass through a fraction of what he went through. One time Jeffrey R. Holland, one of the 12 apostles, said, "But I do believe that there is something in this walk of salvation, this quest, that says we have to pay something for salvation. So I think when we´ve come to know the Savior, its when we´ve been out somewhere, at least in the borderlands of Gethsemane. The road to salvation always goes through Gethsemane, and it will always require a journey to the summit of Calvary." During this time on my mission, I have tried intensely each day to walk as He walked. I know that I will never be what He was. But I have strived to become more like Him. And I...

Well, this past week I started my last transfer here on the mission. We got a new companion and we are gonna be in trio so I can train the next financial secretary. His name is Elder Sandberg. He's from Utah and he's a cool guy. I already knew him from when I was his zone leader like 9 months ago. But I'm excited to be able to train him and help him out in the office and in the field.  I feel like so much has happened in this week! Here is a miracle from our week: This past week we had the idea to send a text message to ALL of the people who were once taught by missionaries in our area looking to respark the interest of someone. We sent a message to a woman named Claudia who we were teaching about 2 months ago. We ended up not teaching her anymore cause she never went to church. But after all this time, something changed. She asked us why we had dissapeared haha and asked if we were gonna have church on Sunday. We told her yes and she ended up going with her 6 year old ...

This week we were able to baptize Odair! He is a great guy who we found knocking doors about a month ago. We had a little bit of a scare this week, cause we showed up there one night and he said that his son had been put in prison for robbery. He had second thoughts about the baptism just cause he feels his like will be much more complicated now. But we were able to relax him and show him the kind of example he can be to his son. He has made some great friendships in the ward and we are super happy for him. There was a talk given on Sunday about sons helping fathers and fathers helping sons and he went up after the meeting and asked the speaker for his notes he took on the talk. It was a special moment as he said he would put it in use with his son. I wanted to tell a story this week that was told by a member in Odair's baptism that I thought was really cool. He told about a father and son who were out walking one day and they both saw an airplane. After the dad asked if the so...

this week our hot water/electricity stopped working exactly in the coldest week of the year hahah. But its mission memories so I was all down for it. When you get really hyped up its not even that cold. Hahah sometimes in my prayers I just ask the Lord for experiences. I dont specify the kind of experiences I want, but I know the mission is all about experiences so I've been able to have all kinds of experiences while here in Brazil. Thats what I love so much about the mission is you really never know what your day is gonna be like and who you will end of meeting, etc.  This week our focus was marking a date with Aldair. He has already been to church 3 times and had already accepted baptism, but we werent able to mark a specific date with him. When we went there on Wednesday, he was super firm in wanting to be baptized on this next sunday the 15th. We feel that he really was an elect from the Lord. He's a 55 year old man, he doesnt smoke, doesnt drink, doesnt drink coffee, ...