October 31, 2011 letter

Dear Family,

I think this Monday I`ll be going to Costco to celebrate my birthday. Halloween here isn`t celebrated. Day of the Dead starts on the 2nd of November and I think it lasts about a week. The name of the girl we baptized is Pascualla (Pas). We have a father and a daughter from a part member family preparing for baptism this Saturday. The daughter will be ready, and if the husband can commit to stop drinking (he drinks once or twice a month), we will baptize him also. We found out that the couple in the picture I sent last week isn`t married, so we will have to wait on that. We`ve been asking the members in Telchaquillo to talk to our investigators, because we haven`t had any contact with them for over a week. Hopefully we can get a hold of them. All they need is 1 more lesson and an interview. We have another lady that we have planned for the 18th. I took out 1200 pesos from the birthday money and another 800 for extra expenditures that I have made (food, transport, more white clothing). Normally the mission money covers everything else. Every 2 weeks they pass around a list in R.S. and they sign up for the days that they want to give us lunch. I`ve been making a lot of pancakes for breakfast lately. This month I`ll be planning out what to do for breakfast and dinner. I only have $13 to spend, and I am going to try to find something that is inexpensive and sufficient. I`m not going to do anything about the glasses. The red lines have gone away and there isn`t as much sun this time of year. I`ll be in a different area by the time the sun gets stronger. To protect Elders from the hurricane, they took out all of the zones in Quintana Roo and sent them to live with us for a few days. We got 2 elders from a pueblo in Yucatan called Tizimin. 1 of them had served in Kanasin before and the other had done several divisions in this area. My companion and I divided with them and worked with them from Wednesday to Friday. There was a cold wind that came from the north, and I think that stopped the hurricane. I don`t think there was very much damage. It was supposed to be raining a lot here, but we hardly got anything.

Love,
Elder Gubler

New baptism on right, Pascualla

Elder Velasco, Elder Gubler and new investigatores

Shared lunch

October 24, 2011 letter

Dear Family,

Today I didn`t get much of a chance to celebrate my 20th birthday.  I think I`ll go to Costco in a week or 2.  Today I went to the mission offices where I picked up my 3rd DVD player from them.  When I first got to Kanasin the DVD player worked, but after a week it stopped working.  After a month and a half I went to the offices to exchange it.  I opened up the new one, turned it on,  but of course it didn`t work.  It only worked if I put a Book of Mormon on top of the player.  After watching it 2 times, the Book of Mormon trick didn't work anymore, and so I asked the offices to send another.  I got it, turned it on, put in the DVD, and it doesn`t read the DVD.  Today I went back the the offices, gave them the 2 DVD players that don`t work, and finally got one that works.  When we finish writing today we are going to eat pizza and I'm going to watch Legacy.  After we got back from the offices I cleaned the bathroom while my companion washed his clothes in a bucket.  We have interviews this week so we are trying to get the house looking nice.  This morning my companion and I chopped down the weeds in the front yard with a machete.  I`m going to buy a new hammock for my birthday.  My companion from the MTC knows a member that has connections with the prison.  That's where the best hammocks are made.  I might even be able to get my name weaved into the hammock.  Elder Spencer Gubler is going to buy ice cream tonight for district meeting.  I bought myself a nice fry pan a few weeks ago as an early birthday present.  I think I might also buy a small extension cord to use in the house.  In the house we are in right now, all of the outlets only have 1 plug in.  Elder Gubler goes home in the first week of February.  I invited him to the house and told him about the deal that you can fly from Vegas to Visalia.  I also told him he could go to the beach house.  He got sick from drinking some water that wasn`t purified.  The loss of fluids while he was sick caused dehydration.  I sent a few pictures.  The picture at night is with our convert that we baptized in September.  She is on the right.  The indoor picture is of the family that we are teaching right now.  The husband is the one that we helped dump out his beer.  The other picture is of our lunch yesterday.  Chicken, pork, beef, lamb, chicken wings, and 3 types of sausages.  We had tons of food left over.  They were going to throw it out but I took it to some members that don`t have very much.  We aren't going to have our baptisms tomorrow.  We haven`t been able to teach our investigatores so they have to wait.  Hopefully it will be soon.  Can you check how much I have in my account?  I took out 2000 pesos, and I think the exchange rate is really good right now. 


Love,
Elder Gubler

October 17, 2011 letter

Dear Family,

There isn´t any course to be a trainer.  They just talked with us an hour before we got our companions and afterwards told us a little bit about the new training program.  The picture of the 4 of us in suits is from that day.  All of us started the mission at the same time.  The one farthest to my right is my companion from the MTC.  The picture of the 7 of us sitting on the floor was taken at a district meeting.  The district was taking pictures and I jumped in on one of them.  The majority of the people here sleep in hammocks, and I think we use them also because it's easier than having beds in all of the missionary houses. 

On Wednesday I called Elder Gubler in the morning.  He told me he wasn´t feeling good and wouldn´t be working that day.  Later on at around 5:00 p.m. I got a call from the President´s wife telling me to go take Elder Gubler to the hospital.  We went over to the church and met up with him and his companion.  We gave our companions the keys and a phone and sent them on their way while I waited with Elder Gubler for a taxi.  He had passed out twice that day and really wasn´t feeling well.  We got in a taxi and went to the hospital.  We got there around 7:00.  The doctor checked him out.  Elder Gubler had strep throat and was also dehydrated.  They hooked him up to an I.V. around 8:15.  They said he would be there for 6-8 hours.  I notified the President and his wife, and stayed there with Elder Gubler.  I asked the nurses if I could use the bed next to Elder Gubler.  They said it would be fine.  Around 10:30 the mission president and his wife came to visit.  They had just gotten back from some meetings in Cancun.  They visited with us for a little bit and then left.  I went to sleep in the hospital bed around 11:00.  It was the first time I had used a bed since the MTC.  At 12:45 they woke me up and told me to wait in the lobby.  Elder Gubler came out at about 1:20 a.m.  We called the financial secretary and he and the AP came, paid the bill (about $150), and drove us back to Kanasin where we dropped off Elder Gubler and picked up my companion from the other house, and then they drove us to our house.  We got back at 3:00 a.m.  Elder Gubler is fine now.  I asked him about Bruce Gubler, Dad's friend from Dixie College days.  He said he´s his great uncle. I don´t think you should mention the hospital story to Elder Gubler´s family because he doesn´t want them to worry. 

We have 2 baptisms planned for my birthday.  We also have 2 other families that we are working with.  The drunk guy I told you about last week is reading the Book of Mormon, but he has trouble with going to church because he is military.  Next Monday I´m going to Costco for my birthday and we are going to eat there.  Ask Brother Elmer how much Jordan weighs.  I bet we are about the same.

Love,

Elder Gubler

Elder Gubler with new companion, Elder Velasco

Hanging out with another district

Old MTC district

October 10, 2011 letter

Dear Family,

The training is going pretty well. One of the pictures I'm sending is of 4 of us that came here at the same time (the one on the left was my companion from the MTC). He is also a DL and trainer. The red head was called as a sr. companion after 2 transferes and is training his 2nd missionary. His first trainee has less than 4 months in the mission and is already training. He`s one of the guinea pigs for this program. The goal is that after 12 weeks the new missionaries can be trainers. We have a booklet that tells us what to study as a companionship. We have 2 hours everyday of companionship study except Monday and Thursday. Elder Velasco is 18. He got baptized at age 9. His dad was a member. He studies the English booklet from the MTC everyday. Well, it was a little different for the first 2 days, but I`ve adjusted to being sr. companion. Now I can decide where to go and what to do. We should be having district exchanges every month. It's just me, my new companion, Elder Gubler, and his new companion. Pretty soon I am going to arrange things so I have more time on Pday. I bought more clothes so I only have to wash every 2 weeks, and there is a member close by that washes for us when we ask, so I`ll only have to wash about once a month. We can`t travel to the pueblos on pday. I only see the pyramid as we pass by on the bus to Telchaquillo. Well we should be seeing a few baptisms at the end of the month. We have 3 investigadores in Telchaquillo that want to get baptized and we have a few new families here in Kanasin. We got a reference from a member to go visit a part member family. The husband and daughter aren`t members. They went to church on Sunday and he had a great experience there. We also found a really great family. We contacted a guy that turned out to be drunk. We went with him back to his house, and after a little bit of talking, convinced him to pour out his beer. As we were leaving we noticed that the neighbors were watching. We went and contacted them and taught them. They liked what we did with their neighbor. The husband is reading the Book of Mormon but couldn`t go to church, but says that this Sunday he will go. Well thats it for this week.

Love,

Elder Gubler

October 4, 2011 letter

Dear Family,

The pictures from last week were from Telchaquillo.  The blurry picture was of a Mayan pyramid in one of the pueblos along the way.   The bus passed by and I got a picture.  I´ll have to get a better picture next time.  The picture of the house is the chapel in Telchaquillo.  Its still not officially a branch, but I think it's in the process.  When we were going to visit the references there, I had a member take pictures of us as we were walking.  And the other picture is of a cebu (from veggie tales).  We are still in the same house here.  The owner came by and replaced some pipes, but we still don´t have water.  I think the problem now is that the water isn´t making it to the tank on the roof.  I'm going to check it today.  We got to see the Sunday morning session.  Our investigators from Telchaquillo went to the session also.  We could have gone to priesthood session also, but we were in Telchaquillo that day.  We start all of the lessons with hymns, unless we are in a hurry.  We also start companion study with a hymn.  Well as I said yesterday, I'm now a trainer.  I would have gotten my companion yesterday, but they had Americans arriving in the evening so they held off the new missionary training until both groups were together.  Yesterday we got a tempory Elder from Mexico.  Today we dropped him off at the offices, and later got our permanent companions.  I got a companion from Veracruz, and the other Elder Gubler got a companion from Monterey that was with me yesterday.  I´m also a district leader, and our district has been shrunk to just the 4 of us in Kanasin.

Love, Elder Gubler