June 4, 2012 letter

Dear Family,

The Brother that we baptized last week is Jaime David Balam Carrillo.  The couple there is the brother of the wife.  They were being taught by the other missionaries.  The wife invited them to the baptism.  We invite our investigators to the baptisms.  The 2 kids of the mechanic showed up.  There is a statistic that the majority of the people that attend a baptism will eventually get baptized.  I don`t know what the name of the fruit is.  I don`t think it`s bread fruit.  Inside it looks like a pineapple, but its a lot tougher.  The one in the picture is about 1/3 the size of the normal ones.  The missionaries that bought it said that for the full sized ones you have to use your knee also to hold it up.  Elder Taylor is from Georgia.  He went to a few years of college.  He sold pest control.  He played college soccer.  His sister comes home from her mission in Brazil next week.  He is the middle of 5 kids also.  The only thing stopping the investigators from getting baptized is their blood tests.  Hopefully today Miguel and his wife will get it taken.  Other than that we don`t have any investigators that are going to church, so we are going to see if we can find some more this week.  

When we had the baptism last week, we didn`t think that David would be back for another 2-3 weeks.  He showed up to church, so he was able to get confirmed.  That worked out nicely.  Miguel isn`t as much of a mechanic as he is a body worker for the cars.  This week they were painting, and I noticed that they were doing the same things that I was doing when I worked for Valley Pacific.  They were painting a VW bug, and first had to remove the paint with acid goo and scrape it off.  I`m sure glad I`m not doing that anymore.  That was my least favorite part.  

Can you call BYU to find out when I should register for my classes and housing for winter 2013? 

Love,

Elder Gubler

Baptism of Jaime David Balam Carillo (Marcos' uncle)

Mayan architecture

Breadfruit for lunch again?

Mayan staircase

Polly Want a Cracker?

May 28, 2012 letter

Dear Family,

 

This week went by well.  We didn`t have the 6 baptisms because nobody got their blood tests, but we did have a baptism.  It's the uncle of Marcos that I baptized in Kanasin.  His wife and kids are all members and his daughter is on her mission.  He had been taught by the missionaries before, but he never showed up for his baptismal interview.  He is only here about 1 or 2 days every 3 weeks.  We taught him 3 weeks ago and put a date for the 26th, thinking that he would be coming by on weekends, but he never showed up.  Yesterday after church his daughter came up to us to tell us that he was home.  I talked to the branch president and he went with us to go see him.  We invited him to be baptized that day.  He was planning on leaving again at 6:00 p.m., but he said he could wait.  We made some calls to plan the baptism, and we tried to find some white pants, but nobody had the right size.  The only member in the district with some pants was traveling and couldn`t get back until 9:30.  We borrowed a belt and gave him some pants a size too small.  It worked out.   Hopefully this week the other 6 baptisms should happen. 

The rain here stopped.  It was only a storm that was passing through.  The rain should start again in June. Last Monday we went to a store that sells Maya art.  They have some pretty cool structures outside so we took some pictures and looked around.  I sent some pictures of that.  My group is going home at the scheduled time on Nov. 26th.  They only end early if it's Christmas.  We are all done with the temple, interviews, and dinner on the 29th.  I`ll let you know in the next week or 2 when to meet up with me. 

 

Love,

Elder Gubler