Monday, February 27, 2012

February 27, 2012 letter

Dear Family,

Elder Lima is a great companion.  He is always happy.  He had to get shots on Saturday and the lady that gave them tried to teach me how to do them, but I didn`t want to learn, especially because of the place where they are administered.  Today Sister Salinas called to ask if I could do them, and my companion said no.  The other missionaries in my district are great.  2 from Mexico, 1 from the Dominican Republic, and 1 from Lehi (future date for Kimi at BYU).  I forgot to take pictures this week.  I`ll get them next week. 

It´s great that Kimi is going to BYU summer term.  I think she can take that extra class.  I had biology (3), mission prep (2) dance 180 (.5) 2 classes of raquetball (.5 each).  My biology class was super easy, but I think sociology will be a little bit harder.  Mission prep was only difficult when I had tests.  She may want to consider not taking dance 180 or just auditing it, because it is difficult to get an A, especially for the girls because I recall that for the final they get a partner for their test that they have never danced with before that do the steps a little bit differently.  With her schedule, make sure that the classes don`t spread out all day.  Get them over with before the afternoon.  And don`t take classes Monday evening, because thats FHE. 

This week was pretty uneventful.  These last 2 weeks we haven`t had too much success.  If our investigator prays and gets an answer, we will be having a baptism this week.  We´ve got a few kids that have been going to church, and if they go this Sunday, we can have their baptisms next week.  Their names are Gaspar, Oscar, and Francisco.  This Wednesday I`m going to get my Visa renewed so I can stay here.

Have  a great week.

Love,
Elder Gubler

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

February 20, 2012 letter

Dear Family, 

My throat was hurting for most of the week, but the hurt is gone now.  I have 1 more bottle of medicine to take and then I`m done.  We might be having a baptism this Sunday.  It could have been Thursday, but the kid didn`t go to church so we might do it after church this Sunday.  This Sunday is stake conference.  My first Sunday in Kanasin was also stake conference.  We have some good people we are teaching, and we are going to try and find more.  All of the people that we had been visiting since January haven`t been progressing, so we are going to be dropping a lot of people.  There is one great family that we are teaching.  They live in an older house that has subdivision all around it.  We were walking by in the evening 3 weeks ago and saw the grandpa outside.  We started talking to him through the gate   but he didn`t want anything, but we kept talking until his daughter came out.   We set up an appointment and came back the following week. This week we taught a few more members of the family.  Yesterday the grandpa and 2 grandsons went to church.  The mom and daughter are the ones with the most interest, but they have to work on Sundays.  They invited us for pizza, and we`ll see if tomorrow we eat it.  
With the study program, we study chapters and priciples from Preach My Gospel.  They give us so much time because we are supposed to sit down one on one and do roll plays of investigators.  Our DVD player stopped working this week, and I don`t know if we`ll get another one soon.  We also watch a lot of segments on them for the study.  The weather reports are kind of accurate, but I havn`t seen any rain recently.
Rachel told me about the baby.  I´m sure the other grandchildren have some great names picked out.  Oi.  Tee-hee.

There are a couple of Elders here that can marry Kimi. The former assistant goes home in 4 weeks.  I´ll send his picture next week.  He lives in Lehi and is going to BYU summer term.  Also, there is another Elder here that Kimi could marry and join his band.  He has the most amazing voice I have ever heard.  They literally could make millions making CD`s of the hymns.  His band was going to be the opener for Camila, one of the most popular bands in Mexico.  The only problem is that he doesn`t speak very much English, but he did tell me in English that he wants to sing for the Tabernacle Choir.  

This year, do they have the rule about the seniors in Seminary only being able to miss 11 days, or did they get rid of that?  I tried to open the video that you sent me, but it didn`t work.  Maybe it will work with a different computer.  

Well that`s all for this week.  

Love, 
Elder Gubler.  

Monday, February 13, 2012

February 13, 2012 letter

Dear Family,
 
Elder Lima is 18, but he looks a lot younger.  The 2 hours of companionship study is for every new missionary for their first 12 weeks in the field.  I think this is for pretty much every mission.  We have a booklet that tells us what to study for every week 1-12.  We combine this program with our normal companionship study.  The picture I sent is with Elder Rupp.  He is about 2 months ahead of me.  I saw him in the bus station when I dropped off Elder Velasco.  He is heading to my old district in Escarcega.  Our district right now consists of Kanasin 1 and 2, and Izamal.  Elder Garcia is from Utah, and his companion is from the Dominican Republic.  The other 3 are from Mexico.  Our areas have more baptisms than in Merida.  This week there were 7 relatives of Elder Gubler´s converts that got baptized in Kanasin 2.  Our next baptism will be arround the 24th, and after that we should be seeing more baptisms.  When we do divisions, the Sr. goes with the Sr. and the Jr. with the Jr.  On Thursday we had a zone conference in the central stake center.  In the end they acted out the story of Ammon and the sheep and cutting off the arms.  Near the end of the zone conference I started feeling sick, and I´ve been sick since then.  I´ve been feeling well enough to work, but hopefully I get better soon.  During the zone conference the family of an Elder that was finishing his mission came in to watch it.  President Salinas said some words to the family in english.  The dad, who is about  6'5 or 6'6 was crying uncontrollably for a few minutes.   A few hours later the missionary got released by his dad and the family spent a few days in Merida and Cancun and Tulum.   
 
Love,
Elder Gubler 

Monday, February 6, 2012

Two missionaries

February 6, 2012 letter

Dear Family,

We got the transfer call at 9:46 last night. The Zone Leader asked me to pass the phone to Elder Velasco. He got transfered to a zone in northern Merida and he is training a new Elder from Honduras. I dropped him off at the bus station in Merida this morning and met up with Elder Lima from Mexico City. He has 6 weeks in the mission and his area in our zone got closed. His companion went to Playa del Carmen and he came here. I´ll be starting up the training program with him again and will be having 2 hours of companionship study. He looks like a pretty good compaion. When we got back to the house we went to wash our clothes. We were with Brother Canul (a member of the ward).   He showed us a pamphlet with all of the misionaries in his mission. I saw the name Crockett and realized that it was Brother Crockett in our ward. Be sure to email him the pictures. I also included a picture of the old agenda that they used.
When Elder Garcia, the former AP, got to his area and saw the pyramids, he called President Salinas and was told "to take a picture."  I did divisions with him so I figured that it was ok to take one also. What they don`t want is for missionaries to leave their areas and go visit tourist sites. The rule for missionaries to not go and visit pyramids is still in place. On Saturday President Salinas drove out there with an investigator and read the Book of Mormon with him on top of the pyramid. Elder Garcia went with him too because he taught the investigator when he was an AP. The picture of us on the bikes is with Elder Garcia. His helmet has a face shield on it. It helps if there are bugs. There are still some areas with bikes. It was only in Champoton where we had to leave the bikes. I actually have permission here in Kanasin to use bikes because of my feet. I just have to find members to let us use their bikes.
My Spanish is going pretty well. There are a few times when the people don`t understand. When I finish the Book of Mormon in Spanish it should get better. I´m almost done with Alma. Did you ever get the letters for Grandma and Grandpa Gubler and Greg Peterson?

Love,
Elder Gubler