Elder Gurksnis Goes to Brazil

So our mission president blessed us with a Pday today so that is why im emailing! Earlier this week we had our mission Christmas Conference. It was a really awesome start to my Christmas week and a good reminder of the meaning of Christmas, especially as a missionary! At the end all of us walked into the streets and sang Christmas hymns. Lots of people stopped to listen to us and everyone was able to go out and talk to those people about our church. It was an awesome experience and so cool to see all the missionaries together so motivated.  The best part of the week was getting able to talk to my family yesterday! They are my biggest supporters and I was soooo happy to see all them and talk about everything. I am truly blessed with my family and am so grateful for each one of them. I love them more than I can say! We were able to skype at this family's house in our ward. They are truly awesome. My first  sunday  lunch was there and I knew right away I would love t...

Carumba first of all it was sooo hot this week. A pool sounded like heaven most of the week. But the next best thing was that the baptism of Elaine all went through and it was awesome! Our ward was so supportive of her and she seemed super happy. The gospel brings without a doubt a knowledge and a happiness that I cant find anywhere else in my life and its exciting to see that begin to happen in the lives of these people in brazil we have an opportunity to teach.  Other good news, our first baptism, Carlos, has been super strong! He has since recieved the priesthood and is always early and sitting in the pews when we walk into church each week. it puts a big smile on my face to see him continue in his journey in the gospel.  "Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me..." (D&C 88:63) I would invite all of you to seek the Lord and serve him by serving his children. In turn, you will see a larger presence of Him in your ...

The most exciting news from this week is that one of our investigators from church last week committed to be baptized this sunday! Her name is Elaine. Im praying that that will all go through and she will continue to be strong. In our lesson this week we found out she drinks coffee a lot, but has a desire to stop and just needs a little time. Its awesome how motivated she is to do this, so that she can be baptized! She told us she had been reading the book of mormon on the bus to work and has really loved the effort that our church has made to make her feel welcome. our members here are awesome! The other cool thing that happened was stake conference this sunday. The president of our mission and his wife (the Ribeiros) were there and spoke to everyone. All the members love them and they are great speakers. The spirit was so strong and I just have such a great respect for them. President asked if all the missionaries in that stake could bring up investigators if they had any to meet...

So my pday is today cause we had the chance to go to the Sao Paulo Temple today! It was super awesome and so beautiful. I'll only get a couple chances to go during my mission so it was definitely a special day! Hopefully I can go to the Campinas Brazil temple too if I end up serving in the interior part of the mission.  Not too much to report on this week. We had an investigator in church for her 2nd time this week and she started talking with us about baptism! She has a great desire to learn about the gospel and we are excited to teach her this week. We had two complete families that committed to church this week but ended up both being no shows. It was super sad, especially considering the kids had been at seminary all week, but we just need to keep working. There are lots of opportunities for us here in Freguesia do o. The work is exciting and the weeks are starting to fly by! I was reading in Doctrine and Covenants somewhere this week and started reading about how God w...