Elder Gurksnis Goes to Brazil

So the best news of this week was Tiago and Fabiola were baptized! The worst news was that sadly I wasn't there to see it./: But either way i could not be happier for them and their progress. They were the couple I found a few weeks ago during splits in another area. I think I already told the story, but it's so crazy I'm gonna tell it again. 10 days before we showed up Tiago left his job working in a bar because he saw the effect it was having on his family and he wanted to stop drinking. Then while at a job meeting at a bakery on the other side of the church, his wife Fabiola waited outside. She told me she saw the church's sign and thought to herself "I've already been in so many churches but never to the Church of Jesus Christ." She and her husband both became curious on the drive home as they were talking about it. 30 minutes later, out of all the houses in the city, we knocked on their door. The missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ. We taught t...

This week we had a ton of cool experiences and the Lord is really blessing us because of our efforts. We are throwing our trust in him as we move to a different focus area and leave the current one where missionaries have always worked.  Claudio when I arrived here had already been an investigator for a while. In my first lesson with him, I taught him simply about the promise of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands after his baptism in water. I felt that really caught his attention, but felt that he didn't feel worthy of the Holy Ghost. I felt inspired to do something different with him. Instead of being baptized on a Sunday and waiting a whole week to receive the Holy Ghost, I told him that we wanted to baptize him on Saturday night and already the next morning he would receive the Holy Ghost. I knew it would help him knowing he has the Holy Ghost with him during the week as he recently has stopped drinking alcohol. Turns out the promise worked, he accepted, and said he ha...

What a week! The crazyness hasnt stopped and i dont think it will. But my first real week here in Perus was great. We baptized Gilmara and Aline yesterday! I cant describe the feelings i have when i see the happiness on the faces of people who are coming unto Christ. The baptism was definitely a memorable one.  Also I have an incredible experience from a splits I went on this week with another missionary in a sick area here on the mission. Its one of the missions literally in the mountains and forest. It reminds me of Colorado and made me miss my Jeep lol. But in the morning we were going after a few addresses of people that were contacted a while back. We werent having any success and I was feeling a little down and questioning why we were going after these people, but i went anyway. In the last door we knocked at, a man came out and immediately opened the gate for us and told us to come in. He told us that he and his wife had passed by the church just 30 minutes before and ha...

Well big news from this week is that I was emergency transferred to an area called Perus. Its still here in the capital technically. My new companion is Elder Packer (my FIRST AMERICAN companion!!) SO for this reason I will finally be able to relearn English. This first week I have really seen how bad my English has gotten haha. But im not too worried about it. My new area is a great area and I know we will have lots of success. Im excited to lead another zone and get to know more of these missionaries.  Yesterday we truly had a miracle Sunday. The results at church werent the greatest because we only worked in our area a couple days this week, but after church we went to work again and were blessed. We received an elect referal and went to visit them. Turns out the mom and her daughter were being taught by 2 sisters in another area in sao paulo. The first thing she told us is that she wished we could have found them on Saturday so they could have gone to church on Sunday...

Im sorry I havent been able to send anything these past weeks. I'll send a good email next week with tons of pictures cause we will finally be on better computers.  Love you all. Happy 2019!] Elder G

This week São Paulo started to heat up. My favorite days are when before lunch I can already feel sweat dripping.  Its been a good 95 degrees which isnt terribly bad compared to Texas, but its much different when you walk in the sun all day haha.  The weeks are really only getting crazier and crazier for me. I havent had weeks so busy in my whole mission. Its a bummer, cause sometimes we dont get the time I would like in our area, but I know the Lord has a plan for everything. Lately, we've been crazy with meetings, baptismal interviews, splits, etc. We havent been able to follow up with our best investigators like we've wanted, but I know we will get there with time.  One highlight from this week was another wedding!! Manoel and Cyntia! It was kinda a crazy week for them and it was a miracle what ended up happening. We saw sooo much how the devil is working with them as he sees them progressing. But I know after everything, the Lord has much more power for those ...

Another day, anotha dolla (well real) in BRAZIL.  I'll start with a funny thing that I always forget to mention. So the drug dealers here have a tendency to buy horses and then ride around in carriages with sound systems. hahah i honestly couldnt tell you why, but i think they wanna stand out so bad they do crazy stuff like that. I love when we are working and out of nowhere you just start to hear horse hooves running down the street lol.  We continued working with Alfredo this week. Honestly, we thought he was kinda ignoring us, but we showed up at his house on Saturday and we taught a super super spiritual and cool lesson. We explained to him why he needed to be baptized again by the right authority. He told us he was praying about everything that we had taught him and felt like he received an answer. I kinda got a little nervous not knowing what he would say, but then he started talking about how big his testimony had become of the Plan of Salvation and how he knew th...