Year One, Letter Nine

Hey everyone!!

I am glad I still have the ability and the touch to create an enjoyable letter. It is tough to get that emotion into it via email...ya know?

That is great that Troy won. 900K for one tournament? Yeah i would say that is pretty spectacular.

I didn´t see Connor today, meaning I won´t get to see him. That´s rough. I really wanted to see him before i took off. but he gets to enjoy a lot more cereal and real ice cream in provo. so i guess he can enjoy that while he gets the chance. Jackson must be pretty psyched...learning Estonian? are you kidding me? i couldn´t handle the CTM for more than 9 weeks, but he is there so much longer! Good Luck to him. I will have to send a few emails his way when i can get his address.

Yeahhhhh about the pictures. I didn´t really realize that I had that option for red eyes. I will have to set that up. I can´t believe that it got there that fast though. that is awesome. and i didn´t mark delievery confirmation. they just did that themselves. and the color swirls were semi on purpose. i just put my camera on a really high exposure rate and set the lens to stay open for 5 seconds. just night mode. so those were supposed to be there lol. and i guess i will have to actually look at the pictures i send home rather than just send every single one of them home haha. i am gunna get more pictures with my whole district tonight. and one with elder ruiz. oh and there is an irmão severo here who has a pic of blake and elder ameida or almeida? one of blake´s comps. anyway. he flipped when he saw me...i guess GHORMLEY isn´t a very common brazilian name....who woulda known?

Elder Scott´s fireside was great. Just talking about how we can make our missions the best we can and what it is that we need to do to make sure we give ourselves that chance. I did in fact shake his hand. I was a lot taller than him though. That was odd. I pictured all of the apostles looking like President Monson. But he had such a strong testimony. It was amazing to hear him speak. But yeah, his testimony was so strong and it just testified that to me. It was awesome.

That stake conference for you guys actually tied in with a talk i gave on Sunday. I spoke about how we can draw closer to God through the 9 attirbutes of christ and one that i added. it was pretty dang good surprisingly. You see, i prepared a talk every week and never had to give it. I just bore my testimony a couple times on fast sunday. so i was like ok i am not gunna prepare a talk this week because it is just pointless. and go figure, i get called. along with half of my district. so everyone talks about an attribute of Christ and i just went with the idea of the spirit guiding me. so i got up and talked about something that elder eyring said and went off of that. it went very well. but i know that as we follow those attributes, we will be able to forgive others and rid ourselves of the hate that is in our hearts. as we do this, we will hear the spirit so much stronger. President Monson said two things in conference that come to mind now. He said that the Spirit has never, and will never dwell in an environment of contention and hate. And he also said that anger doesn´t solve anything, it builds nothing, but it destroys everything. When i was thinking about that i realized how true it is. whenever i was really mad or annoyed at someone or something, it always coinicides with a time i didn´t have the spirit with me. and that led to rash and stupid decisions. so i know that as we do our best to follow those attributes and follow Christ´s example, we will be so much happier and successful in all we do.

I know that life won´t always be easy, especially here. I just heard that Londrina is one of the harder baptizing missions in Brazil because it is a lot more affluent and people don´t think they need humility so much. But I know that as i follow those attributes and have patience and love, everything works out. I heard a pretty cool quote this week. It said: "The Lord doesn´t require anything you don´t have - He just requires everything you´ve got. Give Him everything you have, and He will give you what you lack." So I know that even as I struggle, if I give Him my all, He will help me to overcome all. So if I get upset or if something bad happens during my mission, I can overcome it.

Thank you so much for all your love and support. I can´t wait to take off and get to Londrina. We leave at 4 AM on Friday morning. We will have a flight from 6:25 till 7:30. We will have all of our meetings and then lunch and then we might be meeting our trainers and teaching later that night. I am so psyched. Terrified. Absolutely scared out of my mind. But SO stoked.

I love you all so much! Next time you hear from me, I will be in Londrina. Pretty tight, huh?

Love you!
Elder Ghormley

Year One, Letter Eight

Hey!

I have used that scripture (2 Nephi 31:14) in a lot of practice lessons and also while proselyting and I love it.

I couldn´t believe that Wads and Yuma know each other. It was just crazy. It was so random! We were just talking in church and I mentioned Adam Wadsworth and Yuma was like WHAT?! It was nuts. I hope I can get a trainer like Wads. Him and Blake were such awesome comps! Buttttt I think Yuma and I are a little better :)

I have some bad news and some good news. Ok so the whole group that I arrived with leaves Friday Morning, the 23rd. Elder Scott gets here Friday afternoon. Therefore the group I got here with doesn´t get to see him. However, we aren´t part of that group. Every missionary that got here with us will leave, including two guys from our district going to Porto Alegre North. But the 10 of us that are going to Londrina have to stay till the 30th. They screwed up on the planning. So, even though we have to stay longer, we still get to see Elder Scott.

I got the package! Oh my goodness it was amazing. Those vitamins will save my life...oh and the oreos, peanut butter, twix, and butterfingers were nothing short of amazing. haha but i wouldn´t try milk duds again...you see they kinda just solidified and used the caramel as some kind of super glue. so now i have a huge chunk of milk dud instead of milk dudS. thanks for Jesus the Christ. I needed it. Unfortunately, i already had a missionary pal and a true to the faith. but i think i might give the missionary pal to elder yuma. he doesn´t have one. thank you so so so so much though. i love it. and so does yuma. he is rather fond of candy...who woulda known? oh and for future reference...tape a pass along card to the outside of the box or put jesus and mary stickers all over boxes...that way they won´t get searched. it says it was sent on the 15th of september and it got here the 19th of october. but if it doesn´t get searched, it can get here quicker.

the last few days yuma was pretty sick and i was getting a bit of a cold. i think it was something from when we went proselyting and shaking so many hands. we went to the doctor and he may need antibiotics. i spent most of saturday and monday just helping him out and he slept a lot. the doctor told me that the amoxicillin that i have been taking every day is probably what saved me from getting way sick. so, if it is at all possible to get a large prescription from doctor shockey of amoxicillin (500mg, twice a day) then that may be something that keeps me healthy for the time that i am here. otherwise, i will just keep taking vitamins. but i figure if it was at all possible to send that if you send another package, then that would be awesome.

i hope those pictures are good...i will send some better ones via email when i get to the field. and I AM technologically advanced. but you see, the technology has to BE advanced in order for that talent to be useful. when i am working with something that Benjamin Franklin designed it is kinda tough..

proselyting was amazing. i wish i had brought my journal so i could just give you a word for word copy of how i felt and everything that happened but i will do my best now. we went into the middle of Centro São Paulo. the city is HUGE! i guess it is the 3rd biggest city in the world, so that makes sense. anyway. they just dropped us off in this huge park in the middle of the city and said be back by 3:45. oh, and they forgot to mention that the day we were going proselyting happened to be "Dia da Universidade" or "University Day." This is apparently their equivalent of our thanksgiving day. oh, and i almost forgot to tell you...their University Day parade is bigger than our Thanksgiving day parade. so that was splendid. anyway. we were only given 2 books of mormon. we said a prayer in a pretty quiet part and then started. about 10 minutes in, i placed my BoM with this girl who was sitting on these big stone steps. i was a little cold on the portuguese, but she understood everything i said and that was what mattered. as we were walking away i looked back and she was just sitting on the steps reading. that was really tight. so then we go into the middle of this huge courtyard looking area. We sat down so Yuma could write his testimony in his BoM. this bum came up to us and started talking to me while yuma was writing. he smelled nothing short of disgusting. i was struggling not to cover my nose...or push him away. but he kept going on about something but we couldn´t understand him because he was mumbling a lot. i told him we had to go. on our way towards the other end of the courtyard, this skater shouted out to us. at first we were just gunna say hi and keep going, but we both had a feeling that we should keep talking to him. so i was talking to him about religion and just asking what kinda background he had and stuff and then we basically just headed into the first lesson. i was talking about how we believe that we are God´s children and that he loves all of us and how Christ died for us and he seemed really into it. then i went into prophets and i thought for a moment we were going to lose him because i was talking to him about prophets in the bible and taking it towards Joseph Smith and modern prophets and he told me he thought he was a prophet. so i was like ummmm uh oh. but i told him that we believe we can all receive revelation for our personal lives from God, normally through the Holy Ghost. and after i explained that, he agreed and he seemed to be back into it! so that was awesome. then we took it to the book of mormon. we had him read the first paragraph and then the eighth paragraph in the introduction. and he seemed way into it. then yuma bore his testimony and he was way excited. we told him to read in Moroni chapter 10 and then james 1:5 and to pray about what he read just like Joseph Smith did and he was writing it all down and saying how he was going to do it as soon as he could. after that, he told us how amazing we were. he said that he could see our peace and happiness as we were walking and that he could see and feel a spirit about us. he said that something told him that he needed to talk to us. it was so awesome. he said that he knew everyone had to hear what we had to say and that everyone needed to feel the spirit we had. it was way tight. after that, he rode over with his BoM and then just sat down with this lady in the courtyard and started talking to her about the BoM. it was so crazy. when we went back a little later, he was still talking to her about it but there was another kid on the ground just listening to him. we were so psyched! after that, we went and got another BoM because the people who gave out their books could come get one of the extra 3 we had. so we got one and went to work again. we saw this old guy who was walking really slow and off-balance, so we asked him if he needed help and he said yeah. he was kinda drunk. and by kinda i mean he couldn´t get one straight sentence out. so we helped him over to a bench and talked to him for a bit and i gave him a little card telling him about the church and that he could learn more about it if he followed the instructions. just as we were about to leave, two guys came up to us and asked us who we were and what we were doing. one of the guys was drunk. he was british and knew english. his name was kevin and, unfortuantely, he distracted yuma pretty bad. he wouldn´t shut up! he had gotten out of jail the day before because he had gotten caught dealing drugs. so he kept asking Yuma if he wanted to be rich and that he could make 50,000 dollars for delivering a kilo of cocaine for him. he kept telling him that he should want a ferrari, not a mission. so yuma was just kinda like uhhhh?? that was interesting. it didn´t help that the guy had mastered the use of some wonderfully awful language. it was pretty bad. but while yuma was being held up by this guy, i was talking to the other guy. his name was christiano. he had a pretty religious background and he was telling me about how he was christian and believed in God and Jesus Christ and that he read and believed the Bible. So that was just perfect for me. I took basically the same route as before. I explained that God loves us all and that because of that, he gave us prophets. i told him about the Bible prophets and he knew all about them. but then i went into Joseph Smith and modern prophets. he was really interested. I asked him if he ever heard of the Book of Mormon. He said no. So i described it and had him read the 1st, 8th, and 9th paragraphs of the Intro. he was way into it. i kept talking to him about it and then i asked him to read 3rd Nephi about Christ coming to the Americas. after that i didn´t really know what to say and so i just kinda had an impression to bear my testimony to him. even though his british friend kevin was over to the side cussing up a storm and going on about drug dealing, i could just feel something change. he just went quiet reading in 3rd nephi. after a minute or so i showed him Moroni´s promise in chapter 10. he told me that he would read the BoM and pray about it. it was such an awesome feeling and experience. I can´t believe that I was able to do that after only 7 weeks here. i was so blessed during proselyting, because now that i think back, i realize that i understood everything, even though i didn´t even really know some of the words and stuff. such an awesome experience.

after that we were just feeling awesome. this is when the whole parade thing came into play. we had finished proselyting and were waiting for the bus, but the bus passed us because apparently 12 missionaries on the sidewalk is a very common thing, so he didn´t see us. he drove around and got caught in the parade. while we were waiting for the bus to come back around, a 50 year old gay guy comes up to us. and this wasn´t something we could handle. you see, he kinda waddled up, throwing his butt in every direction that could be considered possible. oh, and he also didn´t have a shirt on; he was wearing skin tight, shiny silver pants; he was sporting a dennis rodman hair style; and he happened to be pulling his nipples out about 6 inches from his body. Do you have that image in your head yet? anyway, so he comes up and starts rubbing up on elder jensen. literally. like he rubbed his nipples on the back of elder jensen´s shirt. we all kinda freaked. then he did the same thing to Burt. i am pretty sure the only reason the guy isn´t in the hospital right now is because we all had our elder tags on and we aren´t supposed to become involved in legal matters. and i dunno what you guys thing, but attempting to kill this guy could have put a damper on our day/mission. but we kinda just ignored this...thing/person...as best as we could until he gave up. anyway. after waiting to see if the bus would make it through for about 30 minutes, we had to book it across the park to see if we could run into him. on our way, there were 4 girls (2 very cute ones, surprisingly) that stopped yuma and i and asked who we were and what we were doing. we told them that we were missionaries and that we were in the city to teach and stuff. they asked us why we weren´t joining in the party and the parade and then asked us if we wanted some of their beers. naturally, we accepted and got absolutely hammered...or maybe we just said we don´t drink alcohol because we believe we aren´t supposed to. you can draw your own conclusion on that one. after running through a lot more of the parade and seeing a lot of things that i would have preferred not to see, we ran into the other district´s van. so, we had to force 25 guys into this 15 person van. that was spectacular, believe me. we drove for about 10 or 15 minutes that way until we ran into our van that was just parked on the side of some random street. then we just went back to the CTM. basically, it was an awesome day. times a million.

When did Jackson report to Provo?! and why didn´t they send out an email or something to all the families?? oh and what about connors email? can you send that with jacksons? i think i got hyrums already. but i will need his myldsmail one. is connor so psyched to get here? it is seriously so awesome. if he gets to report on the 27th or 28th then i would probably get to see him before i left!! i hope his visa comes through! but if he gets stuck in provo for a week or two, at least he would get all the cereal he wanted...and ice cream...and extra name tags. haha. but i definitely hope he gets to come here! i am glad hyrum is having a great time at ASU. i hope he will be able to last all the way until january!! but he is going to australia...so he has something pretty tight to look forward to!

Thanks for the lesson about the atonement. i can add those to my missionary pal set. after teaching about the atonement so much, i realize how amazing and powerful it really is. it is something that we build our faith around, yet so many people don´t even know what it means and what it provides us with. it really is amazing what Christ did for us.

well thank you all so much. it is amazing here. i can hardly describe it. we went to the temple again today. a few pictures were sent home. i love being a missionary. i love you all and miss you!

Elder Ghormley

Year One, Letter Seven

Olá Familia,

Um favorite scripture...let´s go with 2 Nephi 30:8.

Yes, conference was amazing. thank you for reminding me of the wonderful hours of sleep that i used to enjoy. but i guess listening to the speakers was a fair substitute. lol

Mom, i think you are incredibly good at family history. and i´m not making fun of you. i admire that ability of yours. i am just saying that i may or may not have a time in my life where i am interested in it. but i probably won´t. haha but that is because you will have it all done by the time i get home from my mission. i don´t think i can trace anyway back beyond 20 AD. just sayin...

Oh and that Survivor Man is a personal favorite. they did it as a promotion for Will Ferrell´s movie Land of the Lost. and also to kinda make him seem real about it. but it was hilarious. i loved that one. he is quite possibly the least like Survivor Man out of anyone i will ever see.

Anyway. So I have just over one week left!! They are considering having us leave on the 21st now. If not, the 23rd. And if they decide to just totally fail at planning, the 27th. I am so psyched to finally get out into the field. I am going to just start pounding the Portuguese into my head here pretty soon. Maybe i won´t sleep and just study instead? We kinda accidentally had that situation in our room a few nights ago. Elder Ellis, Elder Yuma, and I ended up reading the Book of Mormon for like 3 hours. and none of us seemed to realize it. But it was pretty cool. I really hope i get a bomb trainer. that would be pretty splendid. Speaking of trainers...remember that one guy who trained Blake? I think his name was Adam Wadsworth? Yeah that seems right...guess where he is from? Roseburg, Oregon. Oh yeah that one kid who is my companion...also from Roseburg, Oregon. Elder Yuma was friends with Adam Wadsworth and his younger brother Clayton Wadsworth (who is on a mission in Germany). There is a little fun fact for you! I am pretty sure that there is a reason that Yuma and I are companions.

I can´t wait for the field. I know that it is going to be so hard and that it will probably be the hardest work of my life so far, but it will also be the most amazing two years of my life. I know that i haven´t really been met with many challenges growing up in our little bubble of Mesa, AZ. I mean when Organic Chemistry is on my top 5 list of hardest things ever, i think that is kinda lucky. So, i know that i have incredibly hard work ahead of me. but we did this thing in our district where we all told each other something we noticed about each person and something we learned or hoped to adopt into our lives. and i was told by about half of my district how hard of a worker i am and how i can be so powerful and spiritual but still have the ability to have fun and not be overwhelmed. which is something that i never really took the time to notice, but i am glad that they pointed it out to me. Irmão Ruiz told me that he sees so much of Blake in me and that is something that I really was proud of because he said what a powerful missionary Blake was and told me that Blake left a lasting effect on so many people here and that they will never forget him. If that is something that people see in me, then maybe i will be able to be that amazing missionary that can change the lives of so many people.

Anyway, so i went to this photo place today and got all of my pictures put onto a cd for 6 reais. i will be sending it home today. ummmm oh and also, Elder RIchard G. Scott will be coming to the CTM. he is going to give a devotional. here is the problem: he will probably come on either the 24th, or 25th. soooo if we leave early i don´t get to see him. how awful right? that is the only reason i kinda wanna stay. but whatever happens, happens. what else? um OH! we go proselyting in the middle of São Paulo this Friday. like, big city. kinda scared. but super stoked. it is going to be so bomb. The district that left this morning told us how tight it was. It sucked that they had to leave because they were the district that we were all really good friends with. They are going to João Pessoa. it is super hot there. they told us that the white shirts and garments don´t keep out the sun, so they still get tan but they will have a tan line from where their tie hangs. what lucky guys. lol at least it doesn´t get to -2 degrees Celsius in their area. Oh and along with that district were the other two remaining Mountain View guys. so i am the only one representing Mesa, AZ now. lol at least until Connor gets here. Could you PLEASE send me connor, jackson, and hyrum´s information? like emails and stuff like that. that would be awesome.

well i haven´t got my package yet, and i am really hoping it gets here soon. do you remember what day you sent it?? and as a reminder!!

DO NOT SEND LETTERS TO THE CTM ANYMORE

my mission home is:

Elder Scott Cleland Ghormley
Brazil Londrina Mission
Av. Higienópolis, 1100, Sala 61
Centro
86001-970 Londrina, PR
Brasil

Telephone # - 55 43 3324 9346

and for the return addresses of anything you send, put the mission home address. i will give you the address of the first place i stay asap.

i love you guys so much and i miss you! i can´t believe it has been 2 months. how crazy is that. and this is supposed to be the slow part of the mission. anyway! love you guys! tchau!

- Elder Ghormley

Year One, Letter Six

HEY EVERYONE!!

I have just finished reading First and Second Nephi again and I am probably going to finish

Jacob and Enos real quick tonight. Elder Yuma and I are going to be reading as much as possible in Portuguese so that we can learn faster.

I am glad that the family history is coming along and that you found some obscure

names from the 1400's and 1500's. haha

I guess I haven´t found the joy in that yet but maybe in time I will...

TRC was really cool. Yeah, the kids who we taught were all just members who volunteered to come to the CTM that day. The ages were just scattered. There were some that were probably only 12 or 13 and others that were getting ready for their own missions. It really helps to try and teach Brazilians instead of just the same kids in your district over and over again. Oh and for my Portguese scriptures...I got some cheap cases, and I am hoping to find someone out in the field that can make a set like Blake´s. There is a lady at the CTM that does it but it would be like 70 Reais or something so I think I will wait.

That story about Dusty was crazy!! I told you that house was haunted. I probably would have just kinda frozen there. Or maybe I would have tried to talk to him? I mean that might be an interesting convo right there. I am not surprised that he couldn´t sleep after that...talk about creepy!!

Anyway what are the updates...

My two brazilian roommates left today. I was teaching them english but I guess english is a little too hard to learn in the 19 days that they are here. one of them is getting on a 10 hour flight back to Mozambique where he will serve his mission. Talk about awful, but at least he will only be a few hours from home.

We went to the São Paulo temple again today. It was amazing. I absolutely loved it. That temple is so beautiful. The stained glass is amazing. The feeling there is awesome.

Conference weekend!! I can´t believe I never watched all 5 sessions before. I took 18 pages of notes and I still don´t think that was enough. It was amazing. The priesthood session was so awesome and I don´t think I have ever heard a testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon like the one Elder Holland gave. I am pretty sure the entire auditorium went completely silent when he finished. The spirit was so ridiculously amazing after that. Well, before that, too. I thought my testimony was strong, but after his talk, I could never deny what it is that I know. It is unbelieveable how amazing conference was. I keep going over my notes and I am using them in lessons and stuff when I can.

We went proselyting for our first time on Friday. It was so crazy. Sorry, I use the word "crazy" a lot. But it was. I gave out the first Book of Mormon to this guy who was sitting on the sidewalk selling honey...or maybe alcohol? We aren´t really sure, but he was selling a golden substance in an un-labelled bottle. Erego, we decided that it was one of those two. And then we gave one to this lady at a bus stop. I never thought I would be able to communicate with these people after only...how many weeks? 6 or so? But we could. It was amazing. And we also gave one to this guy on his smoke break. I just really wish I could find out what ever will happen to those people. I already love the people here so much.

I can´t wait to get out into the field.

Elders Johnston, Jeffrey, Steadman, and Christensen left this morning.

We will be getting out of here pretty dang soon!

I am still loving it here. Not enjoying all of the rules....but we still follow them, so don´t worry. We have heard about some of the pretty big disasters lately...it is getting pretty crazy in the world.

I think I got a sense of a little more warning in this last conference.

Not so much about food storage as it was to get ready and buckle up...

Elder Yuma and I are still getting along great and the lessons and language are going great.

I love you guys all so much and thank you so much for the love and support.

I gotta go!!

Love,

Elder Ghormley

Year One, Letter Five

PICTURES: I am going to have Elder Titus show me what I need to do to make these ancient computers upload pictures.

LETTER STRIKE: Still haven´t got word to know if the strike is over but I am so glad to know my letters finally got through after only 20 days.

VACCINATIONS: I will be getting my 2nd Hep A shot on October 8th. That is the next available date. It was 35 dollars. But yeah that might be kidna sorta important to have...ya know?

GOLF WORLD: Tiger rocks. The end. He told me that he was going to send me half of that 10 mil by the way...in case you didn´t know. He said my support was paramount in his victory. do you want me to forward you that email?

HOME: You guys sound like you have been SO busy!! How long did it take you to get your projects done? is the basement still staying halfway clean now that i am not there to clean it all up?! how are the living situations with lauren and blake? have they attempted to kill one another yet?

QUESTION ON EVERY MISSIONARY´S MIND: Did America invade Iran with 40,000 troops because we found out they had nuclear warheads? Just curious.

ATTEMPTED PORTUGUESE TO BLAKE:

Como vai, mano?! Eu vou tentar te escrever esta carta em Português sem ajuda das professoras. Então, se esta carta está errada ou se eu uso palavras estranhas, eu acho que você tem para desferir. Hoje foi muito legal. Meu distríto fomos ao templo de São Paulo e ele é brilhante. (Oh and Blake, Moroni Barbosa wanted me to give you a huge hug. He is from Passo Fundo (spelling?) and said that you served in his area and that you were one of his favorite and one of the craziest missioanries he knew.)

As you can see, my ´´letter´´ to Blake wasn´t very long. It was definitely a busy week. I translated his letter perfectly, because i can read Portuguese without a problem. However, speaking and writing is apparently harder. Who knew, right? Since it is harder, i never had time to write a full letter.

Tuesday night we had a devotional about the Atonement. It was amazing. Elder Brinton was the speaker and he was great. He asked us to pray and ask for blessings to understand the Atonement more fully and try to understand the love it must have taken to make that sacrifice.

On Wednesday, we had Milestones so Elder Yuma and I gave Lesson 1 about the Restoration in Portuguese to our teacher and also a Brazilian missionary. Then we had Teaching Experience with one of the teachers where we also taught the Restoration. that was interesting. he gave us a lot of help and pointers and it was great.

Friday we had some interesting situations. Specific elders in our district have been having a difficult time and our district has had some trouble with obedience and reverence as you know. (that was why elder yuma and I were assigned to give a lesson on reverence and obedience a couple sundays ago). Anyway so the AP Elder Johnston, his comp Elder Steadman, their DL Elder Jeffrey, and his comp Elder Christiensen had a little ´´sit down´´ with our district. during MDT and comp study time, they had a meeting with our district. put bluntly, they told us that if we desired to do things our way, and not to follow the rules, then go home. That is not to say the spirit wasn´t there. It was quite possibly one of the most spiritual experiences so far hearing them all bear their testimonies to us about what our purpose is here and what it is that we should be desiring to accomplish. We were given goals as companionships to sit down and see what we could improve on. That was hard because Elder Yuma and I are close friends and so we had to be rather blunt to each other on our faults. but basically it was completely fine. we didn´t have a lot that we really needed to change. However, they were still considering breaking up companionships and ours was a definite possibility because they were afraid we were too good of friends and that we weren´t pushing each other to work hard enough. On Monday, we were all told which companionships were getting changed and ours stayed together. But that was making us pretty nervous and i didn´t like the added stress. That night, though, Elder Yuma and I were just talkign after having our companionship ´´intervention´´ and we were discussing our purposes here and basically had our own little testimony meeting to each other. it was so awesome. it was a really spiritual experience for me at least.

Saturday was awesome. We had TRC (Teaching Resource Center) which means that we got to go and teach actual people, not missionaries. Elder Yuma and I taught three 16-year-old kids. It was crazy. I never thought that i would be able to do that in portuguese. good thing they were members though...i think if their opinion on the church depended on the lesson that elder yuma and i gave...they would probably think american missionaries should stay in America. but i still think it went pretty well. especially after only 4 and a half or 5 weeks here...i kinda lost track of time. I honestly don´t know how long I have been here. But we get to go proselyting this Friday!! It is going to be nuts. We are going to be practicing street contacting and all that this week. I can´t wait. it is going to be so crazy. We also had an awesome devotional on Saturday night! It was given by an Elder Van Orman. It was about how we can find people to teach and how we can know they are ready. it was really good.

Sunday was amazing. Fast and testimony meeting was crazy. Elder Yuma and I along with 7 other guys in our district bore our testimonies. 9 out of 12 for our district! It was amazing to hear the testimonies of so many missionaries. no one in the world would ever imagine how spiritually mature a 19-year-old missionary can be until hearing them. Not that i am mature or anything like that...but i will let you guys think that if you want. but it was so amazing. when elder yuma and i bore our testimonies one after the other, i think that was one of the main factors that our AP and DL took into consideration when deciding if we should remain together.

Overall everything is going great. I love it here. despite the constant rain and the feeling of walking around in water. i am learning to love the cold even more. Londrina can apparently get to about - 2 degrees celsius. My roommates are awesome. The one from Mozambique is so cool and speaks english well enough. The one from Londrina has been telling us as much about it as he knows. When the borders were changed, our mission was moved to incldue Iguacua (spelling?) Falls. I think i might devote a P-day to going there. However, it is a mission rule that we can´t play soccer. We went to the São Paulo temple today. It was so amazing. We had to get up at 5:15 but it was so worth it. I got a set of Portuguese scriptures for 36.50 reais...i don't know what that is exactly in dollars. but i am going to get a scripture case for them. i paid with a credit card mom. i hope that isn´t a bad thing.

Elder yuma and i are great, as always. i will work on getting some pictures sent home! i will send you the address to the Londrina mission home next week! because after this week you will probably have to start sending stuff there...

I love you guys! My time is running out! I think I got all the updates i needed. Ummmm i will let you know when i get the package. how is everything going selling the computer/printer/ipod? the printer had a brand new cartridge of ink by the way. just in case you were wondering. did you get all the passwords you needed? anything you need from me?

let me know! i miss you all and i love you all so much. butttttttttt even though i miss everyone i know this is where i am supposed to be. well i think i am going to get an avocado smoothie now. so splendid.

love you all

Elder Ghormley