April 11, 2011 letter

Dear Family,

We only went to the Sunday morning session, but we had 2 investigators with us.  That was the only session that the ward got to watch also.  If we had a male investigator we could have gone to priesthood session, but we didn't.  The branch covers the town and the surrounding villages.  I don't know how well they do hometeaching.  I would say that there is about an equal balance of motorcylces and cars.  I saw 2 parents and 3 little kids all riding on the same scooter.  There isn't a central market here.  There are stores that have everything, but there are also stores that only sell one thing (meat store, fruit store, tortilla store, bread store).  I don't know at what time I'll be writing.  It all depends on whether we do laundry in the morning or afternoon.  Today we are washing with a member, so we go in the afternoon. 

This past Monday and Tuesday were really great.  We went to Merida so we could get our visas finalized.  We got to spend the night in the same house that we slept in the first night of my mission.  I saw several of the Elders that were in my travel group, and also one of my companions.  We spent the next day going to Walmart for visa photos (and eating and visiting while they got developed), going to the government building for our visas, and after that we got to relax in the mission office.  We got pizza and then headed back to our area.  While I was there, I met another Elder Gubler (in the photo)  He has been out for 14 months.  He's from Las Vegas.  His grandpa is Ronald Gubler (not sure of the relation). 

This Saturday we should be having a baptism for a mother and her daughter.  The son was our original investigator but he's drinking and can't attend the lessons or church because of his job.  A mother and her 4 children also attended church yesterday.  She was baptized when she was 9 or 10.  Just her friends were members.  She hasn't been to church in years.  We contacted her one day and we invited her to attend.  We're also working with a Catholic family.  They are a really interesting family.  The dad is 72.  He talks really really loudly.  He's always asking when we are coming to visit, isn't there when we show up, and when we come back a few hours later asks us why we didn't come to visit.  He has a ranch that he works on.  He gives us fruit from his ranch, and this week he gave us about a gallon of milk from one of his cows.    The daughter and her husband live by the church and we taught the daughter last week and she accepted to be baptized.  She also talks somewhat loudly, but not like the dad.  The first time we taught them together.  It was really loud, especially when the dad, his wife, and his daughter all were talking at the same time. 

Well that's it for this week

Love,

Elder Gubler