photo from Elder Titus

Year One, Letter Four

HEY FAMILY!

So i am taking advice from...everyone and just writing one long email instead of a ton. But don´t worry, I am just splendid on computers so I type so fast. So Elder Yuma didn´t have to sit around waiting for me. Just to start...Morgan - thank you for the blog. It´s awesome. Some of the missionaries here have had Moms look at it and all of their moms have decided to let their technologically advanced kids set up blogs for their elders.

Yeah, I am pretty lucky for the language to be coming along so well. I have been praying for that a lot and i have been picking up really quick. We just had two Brazilian elders added to our room and Elder Jensen and Elder Gibbons were kicked out. So now we have Elder Tomocene from Mozambique and Elder Noaves from Londrina. I have been trying to talk with them as much as possible. They are so funny and so helpful. They made a deal with us that if we help them learn English, they will make us fluent in Portuguese. I figured that was a good enough deal. Elder Tomocene spent quite some time last time describing his pet monkey to me. And also noted that it is, in fact, a common misconception that monkeys throw their...bodily excretions. (He was very determined to make me understand that his monkey is well trained.) Elder Yuma and I taught the Medium Lesson of the Restoration in Portuguese for the first time in Portuguese. I thought we did really well.

Elder Johnston is pretty tight. I have become pretty tight with him. He is going to the Ciuaba mission. I am pretty sure...

Week four was supposed to be the really tough week for most missionaries. It went pretty well I thought. One elder in my district had a mental breakdown and kinda flipped out in class. He started yelling at everyone. But other than that I think it was fine. I signed up for teaching experience for tomorrow so Elder Yuma and I can get some more practice in.

So, overall the lessons and language are coming along really well. And I have been trying to follow the rules mom so don´t worry!

Well I am running out of time and there are a lot of people waiting to email so I am going to go and grab some lunch! I love you all and I hope you are all doing great. Oh and congratulations to Blake for that employee of the month. that covered parking spot must have been wonderful haha

I love you guys! OH YEAH! as a P.S. There is a mail strike going on so mail coming in and mail going out takes a super long time and some of it might not be delivered to me or to you guys. so i got a few letters and i have sent out a bunch but let me know if you guys have been getting them!

Love, Elder Ghormley

Year One, Letter Three

This is my travel group and district at the CTM

Hey family!

So I am sorry I didn´t get to email last week. The weather was going crazy. It went off and on all day and the internet was gone from the very first lightning strike. But this week I have some time!

First order of business, here are my updates:

The flight was ridiculous. Ten and a half hours on the plane! It was huge though. Definitely bigger than any other plane I have seen close up. It was awesome getting to take the flight with 30 other guys! Having so many missionaries go my area with me was awesome. When I met everyone in Dallas it made it so much easier for the flight to Brazil. We all became great friends before we even got here. I was a little too excited to sleep I think - I got maybe one or two hours in. The jet lag was awful. It took a couple days to get past that. Or maybe I was just tired because of the 6:30 alarm . . . we´ll never know. But, YES, I am loving it here!

When we got to Sao Paulo it was like walking out and taking a breath of water. SO humid! And the bus trip to the CTM was crazy. I have never seen people drive as out of control as these people. I swear I have almost been hit 5 times.

My companion is Elder Yuma, as I am sure you already know. I was once again blessed - I am positive that our companionship was inspired. We are so similar that I can´t see how it couldn´t be. We have the same type personality, we love golf, are both athletic, have the same sense of humor, we love the same movies and music. Basically if you saw us together you would think we have known each other forever - Quite possibly the best companionship here. haha We get along so well. I honestly think our companionship was meant to be. He is already determined to come to AZ after we get home . . . but that is thinking a little far in advance. I am kinda bummed that at the end of 9 weeks we have to split. Oh and I am actually going to leave after 8 weeks. Kinda lucky I guess, because the mission president of Londrina will be at a conference for the week we should have arrived there, so we will leave here on the 23rd of October.

I will let you know the new address when I am leaving. I have become so close with some of the guys here and it is tough when they leave. But we all know that we are here for the Lord and we know that even though we are leaving, we are all fighting the same battle. The Assistant to the President and I started talking a couple nights ago and before I realized it we had talked for over two hours! He is absolutely brilliant. His name is Elder Johnston . . . and by brilliant I mean a 35 out of 36 on the ACT. . . and a 2400 out of 2400 on the SAT. He gave up Harvard for his mission. He was talking to me about why I was here and he said something that I really took to heart. He said ´On average every American here will have a 15-hour flight home. What do you want to remember on your flight? Do you want to remember the opportunities you didn´t take? Or do you want to remember that you gave the Lord everything you had? That you left it all on the field? What will you do to make sure you go home with no regrets?´ For some reason, that really impressed me and I am focusing on what I can do to make sure I give the Lord my all, that I consecrate my performance in every way to him.

Oh, Londrina will be amazing. I have heard more about it here. It is the most technologically advanced and educated city in Brazil. Or so everyone says. All of the best colleges are there. A lot of the people are very educated. It might make it a little tougher. I don´t really know. The language is coming along well. Thank you all for your prayers for me to be blessed with the gift of tongues. I think that I am being blessed to understand. I have learned more Portuguese in 3 weeks than Spanish in 3 years. It is crazy what the Spirit...and 7 hours in a classroom can do. I am doing well and trying to help others in my district. Everything has been going great.

Oh, and favorite scripture of the week and also the one I would like on my plaque is Alma 37:6-7, “Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.”

I love the story you told me. It reminds me of how blessed we are with the Atonement. That scripture that I gave you is a personal favorite, particularly for my mission. It talks about how, even though we are only one person and we seem so small and insignificant, God will use us to bring about his great and eternal purposes and salvation to his children.

The avocado shakes are amazing! Blake and I share that opinion. Also something called an Acai shake. SOOOOOO good. My schedule is nuts! Maybe that’s why I haven´t had the major homesickness yet.

I got that email from TJ today! I emailed him back and I am glad I get to keep in contact with him. He sounds like he is doing great in Pocatello. How are things going at home? and at work? How are you doing? I don´t exactly have a cell phone anymore so it is hard to keep up with all the updates. It took a while for the phantom vibration in my pocket to go away. I had to make my hand look like a phone so that I could pretend to text message.

Thanks for the sports updates! It’s fun to hear. My mission president, President Woodward, gives us updates from BYU football and Brazil soccer at every devotional or fireside. It really is funny to hear. He will come and say BYU beat so-and-so 54 to 3 and every American elder will start cheering and then he will say Brazil beat Argentina or whoever 3 to 1 and all the Brazilian elders start cheering. When BYU beat Oklahoma, everyone was flippin’ out. It was great. As always, I hope Tiger wins EVERY tournament that he plays. : ) He owes me that because he lost the last major that I got to see him play in.

What else? So my first two prep days I went to the Campinas temple. It is so beautiful and amazing. I loved it there. I think we are going to the Sao Paulo temple next week. Tomorrow we are going to the Federal Police station to get finger printed for our Brazilian IDs and papers. Technically, we can´t legally be in this country yet because they took our passports. haha

It has been such an amazing experience here. I have felt the Spirit so strongly. I haven´t had too many difficulties. There have been a couple times where I have wondered or thought about different things and how they could be true. However, I was lucky enough to be able to go to the temple for prep day the next day. In the celestial room, I sat by myself and really thought about my concerns and then I said a prayer asking God for understanding. Within just a few moments I had my answer. Everything I was wondering about made sense and I had such a wonderful feeling of comfort and peace. The power of prayer is amazing.

Thank you so much for your example to me. I know that everything you ever did you did it for my good and the good of our family. I am sorry it took me so long to figure that out and I am sorry that I caused you so much stress just because I didn´t understand at the time. But your example to me has been absolutely crucial in who I am and I want to thank you for that. I know that I am here in Brazil, serving the Lord, because you set that example for me. I know that I am able to devote the next two years of my life solely to this work because of the love that you guys have for our Father in Heaven and his son. Your example taught me to love my Savior and my Heavenly Father. I know that without your example to me I would not be who I am today.

Thank you for everything. I love you and I miss you. And I miss friends and the comforts of home (like cereal...oh what I would do for some cereal...). I am glad that you don´t have to waste so much money on cereal and milk now!! haha I wish you could send me some of that in a package! But I know that this is where the Lord wants me to be. I was blessed to have such an amazing life at home and now it is my turn to share the blessings that the gospel gave me with the people in Brazil. These people are amazing. They are so humble and loving. I can´t wait to get out of the CTM and actually start teaching! I know that I am doing the work of the Lord. In two years, I will make sure that I can look back on my last two years, and know that I gave the Lord everything I had.

Love you!

Elder Ghormley

Year One, Letter Two

*If you click on the pictures it will make them bigger so you can read them!!

Year One, Letter One

Sao Paulo CTM

Ola Familia!

This is my first letter to home! That means I have been here for exactly one week. It has seemed so much longer than that! Getting used to the schedule has definitely been...a challenge. I am not gunna lie, that 6:15 AM wake up call is just not working for me! But I have gotten used to it and it is getting a lot easier. Just for the update: Portuguese is confusing as heck, I am still trying to memorize Lesson 1 of Preach my Gospel, I am currently working on memorizing my testimony and my prayer in Portuguese, and on top of that I am memorizing My Purpose as a Missionary in Preach my Gospel and Joseph Smith´s First Vision in Portguese. I guess there is a lot to do right now, huh? But I have succeeded in writing in my journal every night so that is a plus.

I sent a letter home a couple days ago so you guys should get it soon. My companion is a guy named Elder Yuma. He is from Roseburg, Oregon. I am also rooming with a guy named Elder Gibbons, Elder Castellanos, and Elder Jensen. We are all getting along pretty well. We are having a fun time. The food is nothing close to mom´s cooking. Or to American food in general. I would actually LOVE a bowl of cereal right now. The beds are far from comfy haha. But overall...I love it here. It is amazing. When i got to the airport, I was expecting maybe 6 or 7 other guys there; but there were actually a few more...try 25 other missionaries going to Brazil. It was awesome. The 10 hour flight was delayed two hours so we got to Brazil late. It was definitely not my favorite flight. But when I got here, we went straight to lunch and surprise...Elder Ruiz was right there. He gave me a huge hug and we talked for a few minutes. I know why he and Blake got along so well. I also saw Elder Denver Lane! He left to Salvador this morning but we got to see each other quite a bit over the last week. He was so excited when he saw me. I also met up with 3 other guys that I was friends with from Mountain View. It has been absolutely crazy. I am trying so hard and I think I am doing above average so I am just helping my companion out with his studies. The schedule has kept me so busy but I love being able to study the Preach My Gospel manual and all my scriptures.

This morning for our first P-day, we went to the Campinas Temple. It was amazing. It is set up on this hill overlooking all of the city. The view was beautiful and the temple itself was amazing. It was crazy doing everything in Portuguese but really cool at the same time. It was an amazing experience.

Well, I am running out of time and my companion is waiting on me, but I love all of you and I miss you all! I will write you next week and I will hopefully have a little more time! I definitely wanna tell you guys about some more stuff. Love you!