Year One, Letter Twenty-six

EEEEE AI! what up everyone????

scripture: D&C 100: 5 - 8
favorite hymn of the week (this isn´t a weekly thing - just a this week thing i think): I Believe in Christ

wooooooooowzers. so this week was...just nuts.

alright so i got everything worked out with my protocol. i just went to the international police department and got a paper that says i can travel without that authorized paper. i also had the secretaries send me a copy of my passport that had been certified again. so it is all good. at least until the one year mark. after that, i dunno what i will do. so anyway. i left that night and enjoyed 14 hours of buses. i got to my new area. dad...I GOT THE ADDRESS THE FIRST TIME. i am a quick-learner. so my new address is:

Para 316
Centro
19911 - 700
OURINHOS, SÃO PAULO

so, my new area is ourinhos. meaning "little gold city." it is far from little. my feet are sure of that. and it is not golden. it is so dirty compared to Foz. it is kinda a health hazard. you see, there was or is some big fire close by. so we have ash floating around all day every day. i don´t exactly know what we need to do about that. the house is bigger, but kinda disgusting. like most other mission houses, it has an infestation of ants. but i do have a closet for clothes this time. so there is a plus. um the washing machine broke, so it fails at washing clothes. someone broke one of the water lines, so you have to put the water in to start and at the rinse cycles. but it doesn´t wash clothes very well. this place isn´t as hot as Foz, but it is humid and still very warm. we only have one fan, so that sucks for sleeping. but no big deal. just mission life. but i will probably be here until some time in june. let´s discover why!!! you see, my comp is elder josé marcos da silva. i prefer SILVA. it is easier. anywho. so he is going home May 18th. but odds are, i will be here one more transfer after him. this area is ridiculously confusing. SO MANY STREETS. he has only been here for one month. so he doesn´t know the area very well yet. and i definitely don´t know the area. but anyway. he is FAR from trunky. we have been working our tails off. for example, on P-day, you are supposed to rest and prepare and stuff and then at 6:00 you are supposed to start working. but he marked an appointment at 8:00 this morning and then another one...at 9:00. so much for P-day. but whateverrrr.

we are doing work in this area. we are kinda just white washing. we have a bunch of crap from other elders that we are going through to see what is good and what isn´t. but for the most part, we are starting over. we marked 9 baptisms this last week. one - Márcia - for this sunday. 6 - Eva, Lucianna, Yasmin, Edna, Daiane, and Alander - for next sunday. and two teenagers - Sergio and Fabio - for the week after. the first 7 are pretty strong. Sergio and Fabio...well we will see. they have a good friend that is a member, but she is moving so she won´t be there to help. but we will see. We found most of these people the day that i got here and the day after. Lucianna has had a pretty tough life. she has some money problems, but we have members of the ward that are helping her with some relief. when we went there the first time, she said she recognized me from somewhere and that we got there about 15 minutes after she had prayed to god to let her know that she wasn´t alone and that someone actually loved her. we taught the plan of salvation. and because of you guys, i started crying. you see, i was bearing my testimony about my family and my future family and how i can live with my family forever and i cried. yeah, first time on the mission. but whatever. at least it was because of the spirit and not because of like, home-sickness or some wussy type thing. i am still way manly...

anywho. well i am still getting used to the new comp. it has been tough. he is way...different. but i am doing my best.

i gotta go. time is up. but thank you all for your support and for your testimonies. i know i don´t always get to write specifically to each and everyone of you. but i love when i get to read about what everyone is up to and what is going on in everyone´s lives. so even if i don´t write back to you specifically, i love reading your emails and i am interested :) so thank you for writing. i hope you all enjoy your week.

love you all so much!! you all are in my prayers constantly :)

tchau!

elder scott ghormley

p.s. mom - when you send that memory card, a little english hymn book would be cool. and um...m&ms (peanut butter, plain)? lol that would be excellent. um but i think i am good. OH! more Anti - Itch cream. i can´t find any cheap kind here. it is all like prescription type. way expensive. but that would be great.

P.P.S i sent grandpa and grandma bruce and jackie a letter. can you tell them?? and is it true that girls can serve missions at 18-years-old now? just wondering! someone in the ward said so.

OK! love you all!! have an awesome week!

Year One, Letter Twenty Five

Opa.

Favorite Scripture: D&C 19: 15 - 24

Ok so i have got some bad news and some worse news. And some good news. And probably some great news. In all reality, I have no idea what kind of news i have. But here we go...

So Elder Guerrette and I were eating lunch yesterday and our Secretaries called wanting to talk to me about my protocol. The protocol is like the little legal paper that allows you to be in the country because our passports are at the mission home. It is also the thing that allows you to travel and such. So I lost my protocol in my first transfer and i told the secretaries, and they said they would send an email with instructions on what i needed to do. But they never did. And then the Secretaries were switched and a new secretary came in and told me that we didn´t have to worry about it. Great. SO anyway they called and were talking about what i needed to do to get a new one. But yesterday was carnaval, so all the police stations were closed and stuff. So he calls me back and says that he would find one and i could go there today or tomorrow. So all was good. Then after 2 more minutes he calls back and says i don´t need to worry about it. Why? Because i would be emergency transferred to Marilea last night. We have a bunch of new missionaries coming in that just got there visas from provo. so now they are showing up in week 4 of this transfer. so elder miller (the secretary) tells me to go home, pack my bags, and be on the bus to Marílea, São Paulo at 9:30. Great. So i was wanting so bad to stay one more transfer after this one. Instead, i get transferred without even getting to finish this transfer!! But now it gets interesting. We went to the Bus Station at 8:30 to figure everything out and guess what...Elder Ghormley can´t travel without a protocol. Awesome. So, we had the ticket reserved for tonight and I have to go to the Federal and International Police Station to get my protocol or to get a paper that allows me to travel without protocol. But now it gets better. Since Carnaval was yesterday, everywhere is closed until 2:00 PM at the earliest. Some places won´t open today at all. So now we will be praying that it won´t take like 2 days or something to get this worked out. Awesome. But yeah, I am being transferred. To a ridiculously small city in Marílea. I don´t know who my comp is going to be. But I don´t know why. Elder Guerrette and I were just killing it in Três Lagoas. We led the mission in lessons taught last week and we have 8 baptisms marked before the end of February. And I won´t be here for any of it. But that is mission life, I guess.

But I guess this is good news for you guys. For one, I will not be living in an apartment with that girl above us. So mom and dad, take a deep breath. Two, maybe my next area won´t be so ridiculously hot. Maybe it will. I don´t know. But I will probably have to wear my suit to church now. How sad. But yeah, we will see what my next area is like. I am already missing the people in this area. But the new Greenie that gets here will be blown away. He will see a ton of lessons and a ton of baptisms before his first month in the field is over. Haha lucky him.

Um what elseeeee

PLEASE GET ME CONNOR´S EMAIL ADDRESS. Or the address to the Knoles´ house.

I am sorry that I wasn´t there to help with the strip down of the yard. that sounds pretty rough. and i hope dad doesn´t have any problems with his back...that would be bad. have you figured out anything about it yet?? as for the movie you were thinking about...it is called "Failure to Launch." But PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make blake´s room be your naked fish room. Not mine. :-D

Mom, thank you for your testimony. it was awesome. i love to hear everyone´s testimonies. it always strengthens mine to know what it is that my family thinks and feels about this gospel.

Dad, as always thank you for all the advice and help. I know that you are always helping me to be a better missionary. So thank you.

Ok i am running out of time! I don´t have a lot of baptisms or investigators to report seeing as how i don´t know how my new area is. But, here in Foz and Três Lagoas is going to be awesome. Keep praying for elder guerrette and his new comp.

I love you all so much! thank you for all your support and help! keep strong. trust in the Lord. He always does His part when we do ours. love you guys, tchau!

Elder Scott Ghormley

Year One, Letter Twenty-Four

HEY! OPA FAMÍLIA!

favorite scripture - Mosiah 3:19

so today is thursday. we had zone conference yesterday and it was in our chapel so we didn´t really get a p-day so we are having a short one today and then getting to work. but the zone conference was pretty awesome. way spiritual. president leal was kinda talking about how we need to "ressucitar" our zone. it means resurrect. i am sure you knew that. but anyway. so we finished 2009 strong in our zone. but then january was super weak. my companionship and the sisters companionship in our district and then two other companionships out of 13 baptized. but that was it. only 4 companionships baptized. so president was concerned. but the zone conference was way inspiring. it kinda got everyone back into working mode i think. elder guerrette and i were one of the companionships that gave a teaching demonstration. it was about Christ´s life, His baptism, and the Atonement. elder guerrette is an awesome missionary. he´s got a powerful testimony. despite the american accents, i think that the people will feel that more then anything.

um things in Três Lagoas are...going. we organized a ward activity where we had 20 members of our ward along with the 4 missionaries in our district go to T.L. We had a lot of return missionaries and such, so everyone just took an area and started making references and teaching and contacting people. it gave us a jump start. i was with this 18 year old kid named Luan. He is basically going to be a bomb missionary. we were walking down this street and i saw this house with two ladies out front and i felt like i needed to talk to them. but it was getting a little later, so i ignored it. then after we had walked about 15 or 20 more seconds past the house i heard something say, "turn around, you need to talk with them." so we went back and i just started talking to this lady about who we were. turns out she is an inactive member and she said that she was thinking about going back to church, but it seemed like no one cared enough to worry about it so she didn´t. Her friend wasn´t a member, but has visited the church and said that she felt something very different there, and was considering going back, but didn´t know what she had to do. talk about awesome right? Luan took it away a little bit and bore his testimony about this work and this church. i bore my testimony about our savior and His church. they both said that they will be more than happy to have us come back because they felt something different when we were there. can someone play the drums for me? as for our investigators, we have cida who is still really strong. but we need to prepare her a little more. we don´t have a branch set up yet, but we have members of the ward who drive to T.L. every sunday to pick up the people there, but it is still tough to be able to go there more then 2 times per week, so we still need to teach her. then we have a guy named edson who is really interested and his sister Zele. they both told us that they have been looking for a true church but it seems so pointless to think that one exists in our days. psh. golden. we got it covered, don´t you worry. i think the prayers for the two americans with funny accents are helping. i think we should baptize cida and this girl named suziana who is a reference from a return missionary in our ward next sunday the 21st. that should be cool. but it isn´t firm. so keep the prayers going, please.

as for the random questions and comments that i can remember:

lauren, calma (calm down)! the assassin was caught. and if i happen to see him, i can share with him the message of the gospel. then he wouldn´t wanna have anything to do with killing people anymore. right...?

the langauge is doing well. i think having a brazilian comp in the beginning is a necessity - blake was just a weird case. lol i am assuming that wads spoke lots of portuguese to him. because the guys in my district from the ctm that had american trainers were hurtin pretty bad with the language. and for the second transfer, i am glad that it was a brazilian. but now it is cool to have an american. because i still do my language study, but we understand each other´s sense of humor...and we understand that soccer really isn´t even close to the best sport in the world. so we can throw my little nerf vortex football around and we actually THROW it. we don´t kick it.

yes, i did get my suit cleaned. and i have only had to wear it to the christmas conference and to zone conference since then. it isn´t a rule to wear it to church during summer in my area because it is so hot.

yeah that gift card from grandma was spectacular. it was worth like 85 or 90 reais from 50 dollars. so that was spectacular.

keep the book of mormon reading going. i am finishing 3rd nephi for the second time right now. it was just so awesome so i started over after i finished the first time. and i am also reading Jesus the Christ. but it is old and doesn´t have all the notes. but it is still awesome. i am pretty sure i will need a dictionary though. haha. and the missionary stories are my favorites too. blake was talking to me about the sons of mosiah and so i re-read that part. it is one of my favorite missionary stories in the BoM.

i haven´t received the package with those gloves in it. i probably will in the beginning of march. hey did you guys ever write back to yuma? he asked me if you guys said anything about his letter. and he also asked if lauren received his letter. so yeah. his address is laytay@myldsmail.net. if you wanna write him something quick.

i will be waiting for the news that you won the lottery so that we can go to hawaii and play golf. lol.

we were using a jig saw and swiss army knife because we needed to install our sink. you see, we have a crazy plumbing system. so we had to cut a hole in the bottom for the water to leave. but we also had to cut a hole in the back piece because we had another water line that was already draining to that area. basically, it is great that we are eagle scouts. :) and that we are incredibly creative. i will have to take a picture of our work. it looks like something that would get a plumber sued in the states.

we took a bed sheet and taped it over our door. but we don´t have curtains. kinda awkward. the other day it was raining cold rain! so we opened the door and windows to let some cold breezes in. so while we are there studying, this girl walks by staring at us and walked past our door. then 10 seconds later she is back in front of our door asking us who we were and all this stuff. so that night we were back in the apartment after working and we hear this tap, tap, tap on the door. you guessed it. this girl was back. with a plate of food. so if you were curious, her name is bruna, she is 18-years-old, she lives above us, she lives alone, and she wanted us to know that she knows it is hard to be so far away from family and friends and that if we ever needed anything she was the apartment right above us. yikes. don´t worry, we won´t let anything happen. but i guess that is why we need curtains. oh, and we don´t have air conditioning. we talked with our bishop because he owns an air conditioning business. for the cheapest unit he has, it would be over 900 reais. cool, huh? so, no AC and no curtains. but we will work on curtains.

i am so glad that you guys got my memory card. the video at the end is the new house that we live in. i will be taking another one to show the improvements, lol.

so far, i agree with mom. i have learned so much during my time here. it is crazy. but mom...i live with someone 24/7/365 TWICE. lol so 24/7/730. but this is such an amazing experience. it will be crazy to hit the 6 month point this month. i mean it doesn´t seem like it has been that long at all. but i still have a lot of time. so don´t get too excited :P

well i gotta head out. i love you guys so much.

tchau!

elder scott ghormley

P.S. blake, do me a favor please. get your PMG and look at pg 7. there are 4 points about the first lesson. in zone conference, we were talking about how our family´s testimonies about those 4 points can strengthen us, as well as our families. so if you guys can find the time, can you guys look at those and send me your thoughts on them. it doesn´t have to be this week, just soon. thanks! love you guys!

Year One, Letter Twenty Three

heyyyyy everyone!

so how is everyone doing?? oh but before you answer....if you are currently in hawai´i, i don´t need an answer. i am more than 100% sure that anyone who is there is having more fun than they can describe. haha i can´t even imagine what hawaii must be like. i think the heat here has fried my brain. i woke up this morning and it was 89 degrees in our bedroom. and we are the only house in foz do iguaçu that doesn´t have air conditioning. BUT as of yesterday, we have a functioning kitchen sink and a clean apartment thanks to the skills of elder guerrette and i. and the jig saw that we borrowed from a member. and the 2 inch saw on the swiss army knife. but somehow, we made it work and now we have a semi-working apartment. we still need curtains, because everyone can see into our house in the morning and at night...you know...the only times that we are IN our house. but when you receive that memory card, it has a video that will be sufficient to describe the situation.

anywho! scripture. Jacob 2:18. probably be good to remember this one.

oh yeah!!! so what is this with the new batman? with johnny depp? and charlize theron? the penguin and the catwoman and stuff right?? i saw a preview and then a magazine about this. so what is going on there?

i am glad that mom and dad were able to take that laptop...but dad...that backpack should probably stay in my room...for another 19 months...haha. you see...that is my school backpack. pretty cool though, huh? (mom...make sure that dad doesn´t steal that, okay? thanks).

so the hawaii news sounds...like paradise. lol i am going to go there when i get home. i just will. i can swim there if i have to. but that just sounds so ridiculously fun so i am pretty sure i gotta go. ziplining and the hiking (hiking for RECREATION is key here) and of course...the golfing. but i won´t be able to golf those courses until about a year after i get back. but yeah i am sure you both are missing the office pretty bad.

oh and dad...i wish i had been there for the flip flops that you wore to church with your suit. that is almost as bad as me wearing a black suit jacket with brown pants. haha! did anyone say anything??

oh and if i had a choice to go anywhere in the mission right now, it would be to the catartas (the waterfalls) at Iguaçu National Park. haha but i don´t have that option. i think i wanna stay here one more transfer after this one to try and see where we get with Três Lagoas. We have one lady right now who we are probably going to baptize on the 13th or 14th of february. her name is cida. she is pretty cool and she has gone to church with us once. so she will be ready relatively soon. but afterwards, i don´t know where i would wanna go. somewhere where i won´t melt? but i have heard this is probably going to be my best area during my mission. it is definitely going to be the richest area i will serve in unless i go to the middle of londrina. but this is a pretty awesome area in centro. Três Lagoas is different. it is way dangerous. there was this guy there and he was an assassin (no joke - he is an assassin for hire) that killed 46 people before he got caught. he got caught a week and a half ago. so we will probably avoid the area where he was.

but me and guerrette are pretty cool now. he didn´t talk very much, but i talked a lot to kinda just to get to know him more and such. and, despite the fact that he is a boston celtics fan, a new england patriots fan, and a boston red sox fan, i think we will make it as friends. haha no we are having a really good time now. we ate at SUBWAY yesterday! talk about a change from the usual rice and beans. it was delicious. thanks to grandma and that gift card she sent! lol thanks g-ma! but yeah that was delicious.

it is pretty tough to teach a lot, though. you see, no one wants to listen to two americans talk about something they have never heard of with accents that are pretty...different. ya know?

um i haven´t got the glove package yet. and i really really really hope that you guys get that memory card. OH AND THIS IS IMPORTANT! change the address on that blog. it needs to be the address of the mission home. otherwise stuff will arrive at the house after i leave if someone sends a letter and i get transferred. so just leave it as the mission home address. oh and the place i live doesn´t have an apartment number. we are just "condominium." so if you send a letter here, make sure you clarify that. but i think it would be better right now to just leave that as the mission home address.

oh and morgan and stuart...i am glad that you guys are enjoying american idol so much. haha when i read that comment about randy i busted up laughing...but i don´t think the brazilian guy next to me understood why...

oh and lauren! i haven´t heard from you lately. i have an impression it is because you are too busy dating guys. i have a feeling that i need to tell you that it is important to make friends with girls, as well. actually...what i am saying? you don´t need to have anything to do with guys. just make friends with girls and you can go back to dating when i get home. you can hold off for a year and a half right? oh...no? alright then. but you still need to make friends with girls. that is my advice...use it wisely. morgan will be visiting you at the end of this month to see how well you are applying this advice in your life...

ummmmmmmm anyway. this week was pretty awesome. we are going to beg sister leal for air conditioning...and some curtains. i will have updates on that next week. haha. odds are the curtains will pass...not the AC.

anyway! i love all of you so much! i miss you all and i hope everything is going great. you are always in my prayers! andddd until next wednesday! TCHAU!

elder scott ghormley!