Year Two, Letter Thirteen

Hey everyone! What´s up?? how is everyone doing?? i hope you are all
doin great. it seems from the emails that everyone is chillin and
enjoying jackson´s ability to be amused at very little things. i am
good. mais ou menos. this week will mark my second and last
thanksgiving in Brazil. wowzers. next time will be my first
thanksgiving back at home! but i have so much to be grateful for.

Scripture: Mosiah 28: 1 - 3 the importance of spreading the gospel..

this week was another roller coaster. turns out that how i was saying
last week that it was kinda annoying to have fernandes as my comp was
more serious than i thought. he got all pissed because on Sunday night
(last week) we got home and i was talking with loftus and van orden a
little bit instead of going directly to our study room to close out
the week and plan for the next day. so then when we were closing the
numbers for the week, he said the wrong number and i told him the
right number without thinking anything of it and he stormed out of the
room all pissed off. turns out that because of this, he called
President Tavares and complained for about 10 minutes. he was
complaining and saying he wanted to leave. yeah....freaking weird. so
he was all pissed last p-day and on tuesday and then on wednesday,
President called and wanted to talk to us both. so that was great. we
talked with him and he asked what it was that we needed to change and
stuff and i just said well...i guess i can not talk with the other
elders until after planning? and President was happy with that and
then Fernandes was like well...i can try and love my comp more. and
President asked him what he could improve on more specifically and he
couldn´t think of anything so President told him to stop being so
prideful. then i explained how confused i was at the situation and how
i really had no clue what the deal was and President kinda started
burning Fernandes for not having spoken with me about anything. talk
about weird. but President just said everything was good and told me
sorry for having to deal with all that. he also told me that i have
been here for 3 transfers...and to not let the fire burn out because i
can still help this area. i think he is saying that i might get
transferred. i dunno. but now i had a long conversation with Fernandes
and we are okay. i am just focusing on the work and the results right
now. i won´t lose time thinking about his complaints.

but the fire is still going. we have sérgio lined up for baptism on
the 3rd after the marriage :) we got 72 people to our branch
yesterday. 9 of them were our investigators. it is pretty crazy to
think that when i got here, the average was right around 40. we are
teaching some great families. we are teaching Cicero, Angela, Mônia,
and Ana Maria. and they just got a pair of twins. it is funny to keep
the girl twin amused with a car mirror. kinda like with jackson. but
Cicero and the two daughters went to church yesterday and the young
women totally won the daughters over. they loved the girls in our
branch. Robson and Wanda are great. they need to get married. but they
are asking me to be the godfather (i think it is godfather? padrinho?
it is the one who can be responsible if anything were to happen.) i
can´t accept, i don´t think. but it was cool. they went back because
Wanda kept saying that she wanted to go to church and if he wouldn´t
go with her, she would go alone. and they are about to have their
first child. so he was like, "alright, well then we are going to the
true church." talk about tight. we are also teaching Adilson and
Andreia. they are not married. their two daughters are already members
and are firm. they are waiting for the divorce to be finalized for
Adilson and then they will get married and baptized. they are way
cool. they need to start going to church again. we are teaching a
bunch of amazing people.

José has gone to church 4 times, but he still needs to stop smoking.
it is difficult for him. but we are helping as much as possible. we
are also teaching a kid named Guilherme and his 2 brothers and 1
sister. He and his sister went to church yesterday. they are cool but
they don´t have a 3 hour attention span. lol

Dad, i am sorry to hear about Mickey. I didn´t know him, but that is
very unfortunate. Did he have a family? i hope that you are doing okay
and that his friends and family can cope with the changes. what do you
think will happen with the project?

i am sorry to hear about sports as well. haha it is awful. but whatev.
i guess it is nice to not have to focus so much. i wish i could go
golf with you again. that is something that me and van orden miss a
lot and end up talking about all the time.

i am definitely gunna miss you guys at thanksgiving this year. we are
gunna eat with Bia and Guy!! but that just won´t compare to GHORMLEY
Thanksgiving. i am gunna miss it a lot.

the english idea was...a huge hit. there are several english schools
(professional schools) that have already showed interest.. the owner
of one is a lady that has already gone to utah, has already seen the
temple, has already gone to church, and LOVES that we are LDS and
from the States. she wants to set up a class, we are just waiting for
her to confirm. i will keep you updated.

I AM SO JEALOUS. i had forced myself to forget about Harry Potter. but
then i heard some people talking about the midnight showing. i don´t
wanna say anything else.

i am going to keep focusing. i am good. i am healthy. goiaba juice
gives people bad gas. that is a fun fact. i didn´t have to suffer the
side effects yet, but certain other missionaries have.

I AM SO GRATEFUL FOR THIS GOSPEL. I LOVE IT.
I KNOW THAT JESUS CHRIST IS OUR SAVIOR.
HIS IS THE ONLY TRUE GOSPEL, AND THIS GOSPEL WAS
RESTORED THROUGH A PROPHET, JOSPEH SMITH.
I KNOW THIS IS TRUE. I FEEL IT.
EVERY TIME I TEACH IT, I FEEL IT.
I KNOW GOD LOVES US.
I THANK HIM EVERYDAY FOR THE FAMILY HE GAVE ME.
I LOVE YOU GUYS AND I AM SO GRATEFUL FOR EACH ONE OF YOU.
HAPPY THANSKGIVING TO YOU ALL!!!!

blake, eat TWO pieces of pie for me. :)

peace and tchau! have a great week! love you all!!

elder scott ghormley

Year Two, Letter Twelve

hey again

what´s up everyone? how is everyone liking the nice, cool weather in
Arizona? and the snow storms in Utah? are those fun lauren?? :) it is
kinda hot here. thank goodness i still have gold bond powders and
stuff like that. it is such an amazing invention. i still have plenty,
too. it might last me until the end of the mish. we´ll see. i will
keep you informed if there should be any necessity.

hey morgan...that is kinda crazy that Jackson is 2 months old. i would
like to see this smile that you are talking about. you need a picture
before he starts smiling in a normal way. you have to get him in his
cheesy stage so that i can see it :)

the stake conference that you guys had seems like a great one. that is
the biggest concern that i have right now. the attendance at our
branch is dangerously low. we have been busting our butts to bump the
average up. when we started counting, we had an average of 45 people
in total on sunday. yesterday, we had 61. we have been doing
everything in our power, but 2 people isn´t the best ratio against
however many are in our area. but we all have to do our part to bring
back the people who have wandered and strayed.

sérgio and sandra are way excited! we went with them last week to sign
everything. the marriage will be the 3rd :) it will be cool. i am way
psyched for them. Hélio and Nalva are difficult to get at home now and
they kinda cut us. they said that it wasn´t their time right now. i
was way sad. Diogines cried when he told me that his parents were
giving up. their time will still come. we found this great family last
night. they went to church yesterday and the wife isn´t a member. the
husband had left the church and now he came back and we are teaching
his wife now. their names are Robson and Wanda. they are awesome.

that is awesome that Tyson was announced. where is he going again?
Russia? that will be NUTS. he is gunna love it.

are the sister missionaries just for our ward? or for the stake? how
are they progressing? are they asking for help with certain things?
are they teaching any other people who are interested?

your thanksgiving will be quiet?? haha imagine the thanksgiving in the
country that it doesn´t exist. we are actually talking with bia and
guy and maybe we will have a thanksgiving lunch at their house!! that
would be spectacular. oh and i am super psyched for that package to
get here! thank you so much for helping me to feel a little bit of
home in Brazil lol

i think i might start teaching an english class with the other two
americans here or i might teach alone. it depends on how our schedules
work out.

me and fernandes are...bleh. it is kinda annoying to be his comp right
now. but i am just working and being his friend.

i dunno what is going on in my mind right now. i am tired. and fried.
i don´t know what else to say. lol this area is killin me. but we will
be able to see some fruits here...soonish.

hey lauren! what is your address in Utah??

ummmm yeah anywho. so i guess that is all for the week. i love all you
guys so much. i hope that you all have an EXCELLENT week!! beijinhos e
abraçinhos to all of you. TCHAU

elder scott ghormley

Year Two, Letter Eleven

hey everyone. what´s up? there have been some changes lately in the mission.

scripture: James 4: 6 - 10 i think the translation in Portuguese is better.

so anywho. how is everyone doin? it has been a long week. elder
fernandes and I weren´t getting along very well the last transfer,
especially towards the end. it was just getting way annoying and i
wasn´t sure if i wanted to stay here or go to a different area. i love the people and certain
members; but at the same time, it is way difficult to have a companion
who doesn´t concern himself with the most important aspects of
missionary work. but i ended up staying one more transfer here with him. i had
a long conversation with him and talked about certain problems in our
companionship and changes that had to be made and we've had a good
start....so far. at least i have been forcing myself to stay a little
happier.

we both got sick this week, so that was interesting, as well. he got
the flu. he was stuck in bed for a good amount of time with a headache
and way bad sinuses. he was pretty sick for sure. i have just been
suffering since last Tuesday night with diarrhea. it has been pretty
bad. i don´t feel the necessity to explain the sensations to you guys.
but i mean whatever i eat is just on a one-way ticket on that one
bullet train in Japan. we can call it the "Porcelain Pony." but we
still worked as much as possible. we worked every day.

so last night, on the way home, we didn´t have time to go to Sandra
and Sérgio´s to teach them. so i called them to let them know and
Sérgio is doing great. then Sandra wanted to talk to me. i asked if
there was something that they were needing or if there was something
we could do to help them out and Sandra was like, "Yeah, Elder
Ghormley, we need your help with something on Thursday." So obviously
I was like, "okay cool, what do you guys need?" And she was like,
"well now that we found out that you are going to be here one more
transfer, Sérgio and I were talking today and we decided to move the
wedding forward so you can still be here. So on thursday we need you
and your comp to come to the cartório (notary´s office? that is the
translation) and be witnesses for our marriage." SO AWESOME. it will
still delay a little bit. they will sign the papers and they will have
to be approved. so in like 20 or 30 days, the marriage will be legal
:) i was so psyched. i believe that when i hung up and literally
shouted for joy, some people got scared. but that is great.

other investigators...well. we are still working, but it looks like
there isn´t very much progress. several started giving up. they didn´t
want to make certain changes in their lives or certain sacrifices. we
are still finding some great people, but at the same time it is sad to
see others giving up. i really want Alex and Jonathan to progress but
it is tough. we´ll see what happens there.

as for the house...alright. the house i found was great. loftus and
van orden liked it a lot and were saying there was no way we could get
it because missionary houses in Brazil can´t be that good. it is just
an unwritten law. but after talking with president, we proceeded with
all the documents. we did EVERYTHING in our power and then passed it
to the mission secretaries. i called about 4 or 5 times reminding them
that they needed to send the documents to the real estate office. they
just said, "we are working on it." every call, same reponse. we only
had a 2 day reserve. the secretaries didn´t send any of the documents.
they took 5 days and still hadn´t sent anything. the lady from the
real estate called me and told me that she needed something to be able
to hold the house. i called the secretaries and told them to send the
documents immediately. the lady called me that same day and told me
that the proprietor had taken the house of the market because she
didn´t have any documents to hold the house on reserve. i was so
ticked with the secretaries. after calling and lightly chewing them
out, we have decided that we will no longer look for other houses. we
will continue living in this apartment. we talked with the landlord
and explained and he said we can continue living here if we behave
ourselves. and he likes us now. so whatev.

other news? we have received a missionary daily checklist. meaning
that every single day we have to check off rules that we are keeping.
so when i wake up at 6:30 (which i still hate) i mark that i woke up
on time. then i do my personal study and my comp study and mark each
one of those. we have to eat in less than 1 hour and if we do, we mark
that off. i am doing the stuff, obviously. but it is
so dumb. you can´t have any form of peace or tranquility. your life
has to literally be an open book for the president. any little thing
that you do, he has to know. i am really sick of this kinda stuff. it
is just so lame to me.

mom, we don´t have a good branch mission leader. he is a recent return
missionary and he has 3 things on his mind. girlfriend, relax, and
girlfriend. and he works on the side and will start studying soon. but
i am glad that you guys are being great examples of missionaries. the
Lord knows everyone´s needs and will be able to use us in the ways
that He needs to fulfill His designs. i really do like the basic
principles of the gospel. it is so important to always remember those
simple, basic feelings when the spirit testifies of simple truths. it´s
like what you were saying, dad, about faith. faith is the first
principle of the gospel. without faith, we don´t have any destination.
we just remain confused and lost in an increasingly dangerous world.
we lose ourselves in what the world calls happiness. we become
addicted to the short-lived moments and falsifed joys of the natural
man.

that is great that Scott S is progressing so well. the spirit that he
feels will help him stay strong, but his wife will be desperately
needing that spirit soon.

dad, i don´t really hear much from...anyone. it has been a while since
i have heard from any other missionaries. TJ, Jackson, Hyrum, Sam, and
the other friends who are serving missions have kinda fallen off the
radar. As for friends at home? Well I occasionally get an email or a
letter every now and again.

morgan - i hate money, too :) i just want a lot. and halloween kinda
sucked. and i bet jackson looks like a baller in that suns jersey. i
am gunna play with him one day alright?

funny story! elder loftus locked himself in the bathroom this morning.
that little piece that clicks in place to keep the door shut was held
open by a little cardboard piece and the GENIUS (he is my friend,
don´t worry) took it out. so the door closed and that piece clicked in
place and couldn´t open again. so, he got locked in for 35 minutes. we
were trying to open it and everything, but it wouldn´t give. we ended
up throwing him a hammer and a screwdriver from one balcony to the
bathroom window (we live on the 4th floor) and he popped the pins out
of the hinges. then i had to slam on the door about 25 times to get it
busted out of place. we called the landlord to inform him that there
would be lots of noise....but anyway. that was our p-day morning
experience. you can all laugh in unison now. :)

um if it is possible, can you send me some deodorant in a package?

i don´t know what else i have to report. love you guys a ton. i hope
you are all doing great and have an awesome week. tchau!

elder scott ghormley

Year Two, Letter Ten

hey guys...what´s up?

alright everyone? i am doin alright. it has been an interesting
transfer with fernandes. it officially ended last night. seemed to go
by pretty quick, huh? now we are gunna find out about transfers
soonish. i don´t have any idea what will happen. i don´t know what i
really thought of this transfer. i did my part and i know i did what i
could to help people. fernandes and i ended up arguing again though.
he is SO concerned about numbers. our ward mission leader (for our
branch) told me that he wanted fernandes to get transferred because it
is annoying to have the "just-numbers" missionary. we´ll find out
soon.

APARTMENT: we have found a new house and i talked with president and
he approved the house. it is a fairly nice house for missionaries. it
was the one that he didn´t approve but then i talked with the realtor
(is this right?) and got a discount! woohoo! so president is gunna let
us move there. we are just waiting for the contract to pass. and we
got kicked out because of certain things that the owner of the
apartment didn´t like. for example, playing soccer at midnight, noise,
etc. it happened when i wasn´t here. but they decided to kick us out
now. i think they just wanted to increase the monthly payments and so
we need to move.

that is really cool how involved you guys are able to be with the
mission work. are the porters not members?! i thought they were. and i
am glad the halloween party was a success. we didn´t celebrate at all.
lol we are kinda boring because we are in brazil. are the missionaries
teaching anyone that lives close? and that is cool that you had a
missionary meeting with the seventies!! that would be so great to have
that here. i think we might have a conference with a seventy on
like...the 10th?? maybe. i dunno.

that is awesome that dad and jake are home teaching comps now! that
would be a lot of fun. i bet you guys will be able to help a lot of
people.

the sports updates are great. well...kinda. i can´t see anything. but
that is good that the giants will probably win. and that the suns
aren´t being destroyed without amare...yet. that is sad that golf is
basically done. i want to golf SO bad.

i hope the house stays as beautiful as it is now so that you guys
don´t have to continue working your butts off non-stop. but i am glad
that the reunion was a success.

i am firmly convinced that everyone believes in God. deep down
sometimes...but it is there. people have the desire to have something
more in life. that is why they need God. they are just confused. that
is why we are here. that is what we help people understand before
anything else.

as for our branch and investigators. President Mario is
still...himself. annoying and pessimistic. he isn´t helping. but
whatever. our investigators...hmmm. alex and jonathan told me that
they don´t know if they will be able to continue going to church and
stuff if i leave because they haven´t created any kind of friendship
with elder fernandes. they basically just said, "no offense man, but
if he leaves i won´t really have any reason to go to church." that
hurt. i don´t know what to do to help them if i were to get
transferred. sérgio won´t be baptized....until december. he proposed
to sandra. they will be getting married in december. yep :) i am happy
with that. fernandes is just pissed because now another set of
missionaries might get to baptize Sérgio instead of us. I am just
happy because he is progressing :)

i can´t believe that David Hamblin is already home. Daniel Forrest
will be getting home pretty soon, too, right? dang.

i am sorry that i can´t stay long, i am hurrying. but morgan...jackson
can totally protect you. but you have a good point...that book is
creepy. and lauren...it is definitely not time for christmas music
yet! come on!! morgan, thank you for the pictures :) i wish i had
those krispy kremes!! lauren, keep being a good example to your
friend. maybe she won´t change instantly, but she will remember you.
always try and take her away from the bad influences. and no...we find
the apartments. lol. blake...stop getting bigger. i am going to look
ridiculous compared to you when i get home. and i like your
sunglasses. you should send me a pair. not that i could use them. but
just hypothetical, ya know? cara...meu companheiro (biscoitinho) tá me
deixando louco com os números. eu quuaaase bati na cara dele quando
ele falou que a transferência foi estragado porque nao teve um
batismo. chatão cara.

anyway. sorry i am running this week. amo vocês. you guys are
spectacular. i miss you guys a ton and i love you all. have a
spectacular week. keep being missionaries. let the miracle of the
gospel bless everyone´s lives. até maisss.

elder scott ghormley