Elder Gurksnis Goes to Brazil

I had been praying a lot recently just to see all of our hard work pay off. This week we were definitely blessed with that! We had been working with Junior for about 3-4 weeks and this week he decided to be baptized. He truly has shown such a sincere repentance and has put his life on a new track. Its been awesome to see his growth through the doubts he has had and the testimony he has now of the Book of Mormon. So the crazy story of how we found him was actually through his brother. A member felt impressed to talk with his brother at the gym after seeing him many times there but never conversing. The brother ended up telling him a story about a dream he had. He said that 2 angels came to his house to share a message about the gospel to him. The member told him that we arent exactly angels but that he knew exactly what that dream was about haha. We were able to go and teach this brother and through him were able to find Junior as well. The brother, Elson, is a little tougher right ...

This transfer is flying by! Less than two weeks left seems so crazy. The work hasn't gone exactly how we have wanted it (and it never will) but we've been praying to see our hard work pay off with time. I know the Lord will bless us with continued dedication. We still arent where we want to be with Ari, but we will try one more time this week. But the good news is, we have a super promising guy named Junior. He has had tons of questions, and we've helped him realize that the Book of Mormon is truly another testament of Jesus Christ. It has been awesome to see his conversion which is actually an awesome story that I will tell you guys next week if it continues to work out with him. He has been at church with us 2 times already! But today (this is why my Pday is different) we went to the temple and also had a multizona last week with tons of missionaries in our mission. Through these experiences Ive been able to learn a lot. I continue to have such a strong testimony of t...

This week was a week of good food (one of the families took us to Burger King) and much learning! We faced some challenges finding new investigators, but its been cool being more creative out here in the interior to find new people to teach. We planned to baptize Ari yesterday, but he was still smoking when we went to visit him. He has shown tons of progress but needs to make that final step to stop. We will work with him more this week to help show him how much the step of baptism would help him.  This week we had a cool experience with one of my companions recent converts. She was having lots of doubts, and even one that we struggled to answer a little. We gave her our best answer but told her we would continue to help her. At home, with only a few minutes of study we encountered the right response and were able to share it with her. As a missionary, you almost feel like you can be attacked at times by doubts of others, but in this time I've had here, I've learned that th...

Well I'll start by saying my new companion is pretty awesome. After learning to live with a tougher companion last transfer, I am glad to be with Alvarenga now. He is a cool guy from Manaus (the amazon) and although has just 3 months on the mission is such a good teacher! He teaches with lots of power and truly helps each person individually come closer to Christ. He told me that where he lives, if you want to travel its by boat through the rivers in the Amazon. I thought that was awesome! He said he took a 36 hour boat ride to visit his mom, lol.  Well I went from being in New York City to Prosper, Texas practically. The interior of our mission is much much different. There is no one on the street here! It is definitely a new challenge, but I am ready to be creative and find new ways to find people. Life is a little slower here and people give you more time so that has been cool. Its not as much of a concrete jungle here. We actually passed a real jungle on the bus here which ...