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!