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...

It was a fast week in Brazil! honestly my first week here that felt like it flew by. but i know pretty soon most weeks will feel like that. i felt like my speaking improved a lot this week. me and my companion contacted a lot on the streets. we recieved cards this week to give to people about seja a luz do mundo (light the world). the church always has a message for christmas and this year its pretty much how we can bring the light of christ into the lives of other people this Christmas season! i would invite you guys to check it out on  mormon.org ! through this we were able to talk with lotssss of people and teach lots of lessons. We also had a reference this week that we went to teach. His name is Daniel. We had one of those AWESOME lessons with him  on Saturday  and he came to church  on Sunday ! A cool experience happened to: so we sat with Daniel and we were close to this family with two little kids. they were so loud the whole sacrament meeting and the par...

Pouring and pouring rain this week...luckily we only got stuck in it once, but it just comes down so hard here. even hailed one time! ill attatch the picture from when we got stuck in the rain, we were a solid 5 miles from our house haha. i also played the beloved game of soccer here for the first time today.....geez these brazilians just showed me up... this week we were able to continue teaching a lot of investigators. after this week. we taught alexandre and his family again and it went so well. he knows the bible super well and every time we bring out a verse he knows exactly what we are gonna say. the gospel just seems to make sense to him which is such an exciting feeling as a missionary. i walk out of lessons with them so so excited and happy. we teach him again on tuesday and i think he will be at church this week! we are teaching another lady that has 16 cats, no joke. she also has like 5 kids and her husband passed away last year. she has her hands full and they dont ...

Another week down here in Brazil! The work was a little tough this week. We lost some time cause I had to go to the Policia Federal again for a day because it didn't work last time and then we had to pick up our stove and microwave for our house. But that was actually super nice cause it was a struggle without them for 4 weeks. Gabriel, the 12 year old that has been coming to church every week that we wanted to baptize, was awesome again this week! But sadly we went to his house to talk to his mom who isn't a member about baptism and she turned us down real quick. He still comes to church and all the activities but there just isn't much we can do at this point with him. Rafaela, the pregnant girl, was sick this week and in the hospital, but i think she is doing better now and we are planning on teaching her this week! We have a full week planned including lessons with a guy named Alexandre and 2 of his kids. He is super solid and already sounds like a member of our chur...