Elder Gurksnis Goes to Brazil

Well the sad news from this week was that Gabriel's mom didnt allow his baptism for this week. She said she fully supports him finding his path in this life, but just wants him to go to church a few more times. Its difficult because she is Espírito and has a totallllly different set of beliefs. She said here in about a month everything should be fine. It was a little bit of a bummer but I trust in the Lord's timing! I should still be here still to have the opportunity to baptize him. Good news is that Marcia came to church! A couple weeks ago, we were walking in the street and I had a really strong impression to talk to this woman. She told us that she was baptized in our church in 1997, but only stayed active only a few months before getting caught up in the wrong world. She told us that she would walk to the other side of the street to avoid the missionaries many times so im so glad I chose to talk to her that day. After 20 years, we brought her and her little girl bac...

This week we had a zone conference and I loved the training that Sister Ribeiro (mish presidents wife) gave. She read the scripture in Matthew  5:48  that says, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." I love the way she talked about perfection on the mission. Our perfection will never come all at once, but with small steps every day, we can get to places unimaginable before! I've taken her challenge to find little things to focus on as a person and as a missionary that I can improve. I know that with consistency, the Lord will help fight our battles and help us improve every day. She said that our Heavenly Father has high expectations of us and would never give us a commandment without providing a path to fulfill that commandent! So our main investigator Gabriel wasn't baptized this week. He honestly told us with sadness that he had to go to a wedding over the weekend. But everything seems to be good for this sunday. He said a...

To start off, this week we received money for lunch one day and finally got to try out the first Pizza buffet I've seen here. Its pretty nice and the pizza was sooo good. Then at the end they brought out chocolate pizza with strawberries...  The next day a family in our ward prepared a BBQ for us! Different than my Texas BBQ but still very good. Im so grateful for the members here in Brazil that take such good care of missionaries. So in respect to the work, this week was a tough one. I heard lots of "no's". I was on my knees a lot this week searching for ways I could improve our work. I know its how we respond to our trials that really matters. I have seen in so many ways why this mission is perfect for me. I always have something to learn or someone to talk to here. The bright spot of our week was marking a baptismal date with Gabriel for this weekend! We found him at such a great time when he was already looking for something that we could bring to him.  I ...

Well I recieved my new son here on the mish last tuesday! His name is Elder Jairo. He is from Fortaleza, Ceará and only was baptized in the church less than 4 years ago. He is the only member in his whole family and I have such respect for him because of that and his decision to serve a mission. We ate lunch at President Ribeiro's apartment afterwards. Chiquesãoooooo! it was a sick apartment in a high rise in São Paulo. It was a pretty crazy experience and amazing lunch as i watched the Range Rovers roll by 22 floors below. We found an awesome kid in the street this week named Gabriel! He came to church with us and we literally lost him. The ward here took him in (especially the teens) and they had an awesome time already building friendships. He loved church and we will be working with him this week to try and set a baptismal date. The other girl we are working with is a girlfriend of a member. She is suiper awesome and already has a desire to be baptized! Well this week a...

Nothing but good news this week! First, I have been called to be a trainer in the mission for one of the new guys that is just entering the mission field. Im super humbled by the opportunity that i definitely was not expecting. But im very excited to have a big effect on the mission of this Elder. I wont know who he is until tomorrow but i think the mission facebook page will post the videos of the reactions and pictures and im sure my mom will repost. Ill also stay here in Jardim Simus! The other great news is the baptism of Ari this week. From an outside view I've been able to see The Lord giving Ari many trials for a while now. The company he works for owes him lots of money and he was hospitalized last week with a heart problem. We went to visit him this week and made it clear that we wanted whats best for him because tomorrow is never guaranteed. He told us the desire he had to be baptized and thats why he quit smoking. He was almost forced to live on the street and told...

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...