Year One, Letter Thirty Three

hey what up

scripture: 2 Nephi 9. yes, the whole chapter. that was what i spent
basically all of my personal study on last friday. it was tight.

ummmm so what is new?? morgan i loved your description of
the...uh...maternal changes that you are going through. i am sorry
that you are buying fat clothes lol. my guess is...a boy or a girl.
but there is one thing that i am sure of...i will be an UNCLE. not an
aunt. that will be blake and lauren. um but if i have to guess i will
go with girl. i won´t meet this baby for a long time.

dad - on p days we aren´t allowed to play soccer competitively.
whatever that means. but i am pretty sure we will next p day with the
elders quorum. so ummmmm i dunno haha. today we went to a place called
FAPI. it is where all the concerts and parties and such are in
ourinhos. but there weren´t any parties. or any concerts. i am quite
positive that there were lots of bugs there. but that is all. it
wasn´t too exciting. we also taught rafael today. it is our p day but
we went there at 8 and taught him. that was nice. we are getting him
prepared for baptism. so hopefully the 25th he will be baptized. we
didn´t have easter dinner. we had easter lunch. that was...nothing
special. rice. beans. spaghetti. anything outside the usual? when i
get grandma´s card, i will buy something good to eat. when i get
it...but yeah there are places called casa de carne where you can just
go buy a nice big slab of meat. but the problem is that we don´t have
any way or any time to cook it. we are in the house to study, take
showers, and sleep. i bet blake was able to do that because he was in
an area where there weren´t lots of lunches with the members. and
thanks for the sports updates. so i guess tiger isn´t gunna be moving
towards the top of the leaderboard anytime soon? in the golf world or
the public eye? congrats to him.

mom - you probably don´t need to send a sweater. if i need to, i will
buy one. as for the ingrown nails, i dunno if you need to worry about
it. i mean if you could put one of those things in a package, cool.
but you don´t need to send a package right away with that stuff i
don´t think. it is expensive to send packages. so if you are going to
send a package, you can just stick those in with it. i hope you are
excited for your new calling :) that should be...fun. and the things
with the business are great. shows you the power of prayer huh? and
thanks for the advice, too. i know that what you said is true...it is
just tough. i am just trying to make it through this transfer. i will
just work. and forget about the negativity.

lauren - i love that you learned to love reading, lol. it is about
time :P um as for the sleep - or in your case, the lack of - i have a
little advice....SLEEP. alright? kay good. and the Fellowship of the
Unashamed is cool. i like it, yes. the next time you have fast and
testimony meeting, bear your testimony. you won´t be so nervous if you
just get into the habit now. and then you will be able to teach your
kids and such. :)

blake - tenho um amigo que está servindo em porto alegre norte. ele
quer saber quais áreas você passou! e também se você é por grêmio ou
internacional?? e também, eu quero saber se você está TÃO ocupado que
você não pode mandar um email para mim :) haha mas eu não vou te
quemar, não. te amo, cara. escreva meu mano :)

we are waiting on some investigators. rafael is pretty strong.
cleverson is, too. he is way cool. but he didn´t go to church because
he had another commitment (i don´t know if this word choice is right,
but it is the translation that i can remember). i tried to mark a
baptismal date with him, but he got spooked. he wasn´t ever very
religious, so he is learning a lot. but he is still a great
investigator. cibele, cleiton, vitor, and igor are one family. cibele
- the mom - said she wasn´t ready to be baptized. so, she changed her
mind. but she is still...investigating. juliano and ana paula and
their daughter eduarda are my favorites right about now. they are
elects. they want to be baptized, but they have to get married. and
juliano travels a LOT for his work. he is a truck driver. so it tough.
but they have already gone to church a bunch and ana paula and eduarda
go even when juliano is traveling. so that is great. we have to teach
the law of chastity and then ask them if they are willing to get
married or live in spearate houses. i am NOT excited for that. i am
praying a lot. please pray that they will be able to accept the
commitment and convenant. this week has been lots of knocking doors
and making contacts because we don´t have a lot of good references. we
have a lot of people who are just way lazy and don´t want to change.
we taught this lady and she said she believed everything we said and
that she prayed and received an answer. then she asked if we believed
in "saints." we explained that saints just meant the members of the
church and that the other churches distorted the meaning of "saint."
she looked a little perplexed and asked about santa maria (mary).
yeah...that was great. we explained that we only worship god and
christ and that mary was just...a good woman that happened to be the
mother of jesus christ and we respect her for that. the lady freaked,
recited/screamed the catholic prayer to mary at us, and then told us
to leave. when we passed there again, she had thrown the book of
mormon out. we picked it up and saw that she had glued pictures of
mary and written the prayer all over the book and inside it. what an
awesome experience.

um we have zone conference tomorrow. it is odd to have it in the
beginning of the second week of the transfer. but whatev. elder da
silva will bear his testimony for the last time during a zone
conference. he already called the secretaries because they are
arranging his flight home. he was talking about airports, times,
flights, etc. yeah, that didn´t make me think about home at all. haha.

i don´t really have anything cool to say really. i had that
interesting experience, but it was more just a spiritual thing to me
that testified of the power of prayer to me. it has been tough,
because we have so many catholics and evangelicals in our area so we
are rejected a ton. i was very discouraged and i was feeling very
dejected...almost thinking that what we are doing every day was
pointless. i prayed that night and i felt comforted a little bit and i
felt the holy ghost...kinda telling me to calm down because god was
listening. then just kinda outta no where the scripture from doctrine
and convenants when joseph was in liberty jail (i think it is 122 or
123) came into my head. so i laid down and when i was sleeping i had a
dream. you know that poem "footsteps in the sand?" basically that same
thing happened. i just kept seeing things and people from my mission
and remembering feelings and i felt that everything was going to be
okay and i just heard a voice tell me to just calm down and relax and
that everything would happen in the time that god needs it to happen.
it just showed me the power of prayer and that we aren´t just talking
to ourselves but that there really is someone listening.

anyway. that´s what it is this week. sorry if it wasn´t too exciting.
i hope that you guys are all great and that you are all feeling and
following the spirit. i will uh...keep trying to make you guys proud.
sound good? i love all you guys! hoep you all have a great week. till
next wednesday! PAZ

elder scott ghormley

Year One, Letter Thirty Two

helllllllo family. what´s up? lots of news. let´s get started.

scripture: Mosiah 5: 13, 15

alright so i don´t know who to trust about this earthquake business.
dad said 6.8, morgan said 6.9, mom said 7.2, and i am gunna throw my guess out at a solid 9.0. so which was it? that doesn´t matter. as long as you are safe and morgan´s mixer didn´t break, we are good. i bet it didn´t hit our house because it was too smelly. it somehow protected the house. but morgan and stuart: what are you guys going to do now? because what happens when another earthquake hits and you guys aren´t in the house? and then everything falls?! think about it...s´all i´m saying. oh and morgan....you think you got enough talks about motherhood and parenthood? i would say yeah.

conference!!!! was spectacular. amazing. splendid. inspiring. anyone have any other suggestions? or did i get it covered? i can´t even choose a favorite talk. they were amazing. elder holland blew me away again. and i am pretty sure he indirectly burned tiger woods. elder anderson´s talk where he talked about the atonement and the forrest family was crazy. the theme that was way powerful to me was the atonement. and of course, families and raising the youth. elder uchtdorf gave several awesome talks as well. like i said, i can´t choose just one. they were amazing. the first session on sunday was amazing. the opening prayer (i can´t remember who gave it) was so spiritual and then they sang "This is the Christ" and i felt the spirit stronger than basically any other moment that i can remember in my life. there is no way that i could doubt that the propeht and apostles and church leaders are called of God. it is just impossible to imagine. my testimony was strengthened so much and i received answers to some things that i have been seriously wondering about and considering. amazing. i was able to work my magic, too. i watched all the sessions (saturday and sunday) in english. the only one i didn´t see in english was the priesthood session. but i was still able to understand almost 100 percent. we had one investigator go on saturday. his name is cleverson. he is way cool. he was there for saturday and when one of the seventy was giving a talk, he started praying. afterwards, he told us that he felt something different when that seventy was giving his talk and that it reminded him of his own life. he believes what we have taught him and now we just have to teach him a little more...word of wisdom will be hard and law of chastity, too. but he has a testimony in prophets and apostles now. and in the church. which is cool. what else. um we are just working our butts off to get people to go to church and fulfill commitments. we have a good set of investigators. i don´t want to get too far ahead of myself, but if everything went well, there are about 15 or 16 that have already said that they want to be baptized. so we will just have to see if they are willing to take the necessary steps. anywho. back tracking a little bit to coference...dad, i am sorry that mom only makes waffles for the kids. but i bet that granola bar was tastier than my breakfast on conference morning...i was fasting. ha!

how is tiger doing in the masters? that sucks that the spurs made playoffs. when do the suns play and who? that is cool that the baseball season started. remember when i left? and the yankees had won the world series? now a new season is starting. crazy. dbacks won? congrats. i don´t know how many times i will be saying that during this season.

it is starting to cool off big time. it went from 45 degrees celsius to 31 today. and i think it was in the low 20´s last night. too bad i didn´t bring any kind of sweater to wear. i don´t know if i can use my sweatshirt while proselyting. probably not. um president leal will be leaving in july. i don´t know much about the new president. just that he is brazilian.

transfer ended today. i will be staying one more with elder da silva and killing him. he goes home after this transfer, so that is why i am staying with him. president leal wants him to stay focused and working the last transfer. i am not too thrilled about staying here, to be honest. but what can ya do? god knows better than i do, so i just gotta trust him on this one. it will be tough to go 6 more weeks with da silva. so i have been in ourinhos for one transfer plus an extra 2 and a half weeks because i was transferred in the middle of the third transfer. now i will be here for this transfer and then i will have to stay AT LEAST one more because i will have to stay to train the next elder in the area. staying with da silva also means that i don´t become senior, but i might be training next transfer. speaking of training, elder yuma got called to train! he called me last night because he was just a little nervous, lol. so he will be training a brazilian. but yeah, i am not thrilled about staying in ourinhos. but i am working. that is all i can do. i got here on february 18, 2010. i don´t know when i will leave. probably in june sometime.

um i have 2 more ingrown nails. not because i am tearing them off. in fact, i stopped doing that. but somehow i have one more on my right foot. and on my freaking thumb on my right hand! an ingrown nail on the THUMB of my right HAND! what? does that even happen? but it makes...everything hurt. showering, dressing, buttoning buttons, tieing ties, tieing shoelaces, writing, taking notes at conference, typing, you get the point. it´s like the achilles heel...but it is the "ingrown nail" that destroyed the missionary. but on a bright side, i got a flu shot. the H1N1 vaccine. so i am safe from the flu...hopefully.

mom that package got here safely. they didn´t open it. and i will write sister skousen a thank you letter.

anything else? um lauren, i have an interesting story for you. but i don´t really have time. i have to go like, now. so when you write next week, remind me to tell you my interesting story :) as for your hair...i would probably just say whichever you feel looks better :) lol but if you send a picture, i will give my honest opinion, yes.

and morgan...i would avoid bees if i were you. especially if they are THAT determined to sting you.

um well nothing else that i can think of. i hope you are all awesome.
and healthy. and safe. and that you are on a spiritual high because of conference. i love you all. you are all beautiful, words can´t bring you down (thanks Mariah Carey). LOVE YOU ALL! i hope you have a great week and i miss you all!

elder scott ghormley

Year One, Letter Thirty-one

heyyyy, everyone

alright let´s see

favorite scripture: John 11: 25 - 26 Hymn: I know that My Redeemer Lives

alright so just to respond to a few things

dad i read alma 42. yeah it is amazing. i don´t know how someone could

deny the truth and divinity of the Book of Mormon. one chapter alone

can prove it. the chapter is teeming with spiritual and literal

complexity. but an unlearned 14-year-old kid just decided to create it

one day? come on.

um my interview was good. president leal said that my language is

"extraordinário" and that i am a great missionary. apparently he

really trusts me? don´t know how cuz i didn´t know that he knew me so

well. he told me that ourinhos is almost the size of all of foz do

iguaçu. foz had 14 missionaries in the city. ourinhos has 2. he said

that the Lord would only put me there because i am capable of handling

it. so that was cool.

i will not be able to watch all of conference. i think we have to work

on saturday. and i will not be able to watch in english. i have to

call president to authorize it. ourinhos only has it in portuguese and

i would have to go to marília to watch in english. so i am praying

that he will let me. that would be so dumb if i couldn´t. elder

richard scott said that we need to watch conference in our native

language. so i might pull that quote out on him if i need to.

that golf trip sounds amazing. congrats on the 74. it might make it a

little tough to beat you if you keep playing like that. and i wanna

play pebble beach. i don´t know what to think about tiger. if he wins,

everyone will love him again. he is still the most exciting player in

the game, regardless of what he does in his personal life. so that is

that. and let´s see if the suns can make something in their run in the

playoffs this year. are the cavs just destroying everyone with the

lebron and shaq combo?

blake´s car? any news? that sucks that everything was trashed. i hope

that he can find a way to replace everything.

um lauren...that scripture is pretty bomb. i may or may not have used

that as a favorite scripture. i am not sure. but yeah. it is way cool.

ummmmmmmmmm what else is new?? just working my butt off. OH! i got the

package that you sent. with the FIVE itch creams? lol that should keep

me covered for a while. and the oreos :) and the other candy. yeah. i

was happy. lol and i should be getting fat again.

ummmm that is cool that jessica got baptized. bummer about her

parents. that is so annoying when parents do that. they can´t just let

their kid be happy? is it really that difficult? way annoying. but she

will stay strong as long as she has a support system. so blake can

play a big part in that.

um not much to report here. we might have a few baptisms soonish. a

family (mom and 3 kids) and a few others. eva is way strong. she is

the assistant in the young women´s. she is asking me about patriarchal

blessings because she wants one. she is way cool. just keep praying. i

will let you know about any progression. love you guys lots! thanks

for everything you all do for me. enjoy conference!!!!!!

tchau!

elder scott ghormley

Year One, Letter Thirty

yo what up everyone

alright favorite scripture D&C 6: 29 - 34

um alright well i got lots of news from you guys today

blake got his car stolen?? that blows so bad. dude, i am sorry. if i
see anyone rolling around in a black honda civic with an arizona
license plate i will be sure to stop them. but for real...any news
yet? or is it just done? cuz that sucks way hard. just stay calm.
should you find the person who stole it, remember...WWJD!! well...i
don´t know what he would do. just don´t kill anyone. that would be bad
from an ETERNAL perspective blake...love ya man :)

um mom and dad...why are you always SO ridiculously busy?? i mean you
guys are always doing projects. and then you go to work to escape the
physical labor?? noooossssssa. that means "wow" just in case you were
wondering. um so congratulations on being amazing? superhero status?
oh and it has been raining here too. imagine that. who was surprised??

OH GOOD NEWS!!!!! i received a package and some letters on March
22nd!!! guess which package...the one with the testimony gloves and
candied pretzels from christmas. mom remember when you sent that? if
you said December 16, you would be correct!!!! just 3 months to
receive it is all. i dunno when i will receive other things. MOM i
will NEVER need chapstick again. ever. lol.

um dad i have an interview with president leal on friday. i have to go
to marília to interview with him. my companion said that only i will
be going. i think he is wrong. i am pretty sure my whole zone will be
going. so that is when i will know all your questions. but no, i won´t
be a trainer anytime soon...i hope. lol senior companion maybe in may
when elder da silva goes home. but trainer? i doubt it.

i heard from hyrum today. he seems to be doing great in australia. he
sent me a package, too. i receieved it when i got yours! lol i didn´t
even know. please say thank you to sister allen, too. i sent hyrum an
email. can i get jackson´s email?? i think you already gave it to me.
could you find it in one of your older emails?? because i can´t find
it.

my toes and butt are alright. my right toe is still ingrown...but on
the other side of the nail now?? i don´t even know what that is about.
i need to have a talk with my feet. maybe they can tell me what i am
doing wrong? my shoes are still...in one piece to say the least. i
have already told myself that 2 pairs of shoes will last my entire
mission. so that is that.

no i have not received grandma´s card yet.

morgan, i hope that everything is going spectacularly with the baby.
it is actually moving and such?? talk about WEIRD. i loved stuart´s
email. hahaha " i even called Skyler and talked for like 15 minutes
about how bellybuttons move." i was laughing so hard in the lan house.
people probably just thought that i was that crazy american guy that
they see walking around the city. your life really isn´t boring you
know. i mean...you are pregnant. how...crazy is that. and odd from the
perspective of your little brother who just realized that he really
isn´t that young afterall.

dad and mom...enjoy the vacation and the golf. i will be jealous, as
always. lol.

lauren it is good to know you are keeping busy at work and learning
quickly. i mean you blew me away there with some technical terms. and
i am glad to see your testimony is growing :)

ummm as for the work?? stagnant. we teach and teach and teach and no
one goes to church. one of our best investigators that was progressing
incredibly was dropped. we went to her house and her mom came out
yelling to never come back, to take our "stupid book" with us, and
that she would not allow her daughter to participate with this church.
that is awesome huh? we are teaching a lady named Maria and she is
pretty firm. she wants to be baptized, but she needs to go to church.
so we are waiting. we are also waiting on Lucianna to go to church.
and everyone else. i don´t know. maybe my job here is just to plant
the seeds. maybe i won´t be here to watch them grow?? we are working
hard. so i can only assume that the reason nothing is changing is
because the people are just being prepared for other missionaries. but
we will keep doing work. maybe the results are just a few days away?
just have faith i guess. keep doing our part and helping people build
a relationship with christ. most people that are baptized go through 7
sets of missionaries beforehand. so i guess i will just keep that in
mind.

well i love all of you. i miss you all a bunch. i hope everything is
going well at home. i better get going. my companion is getting his
panties in a twist. he might start causing a scene if i don´t leave
now...i mean it has been an hour and 3 minutes. what in the world
would happen if i stayed a little longer?!?!?!

i love you all. till next week. tchau!

elder scott ghormley

Year One, Letter Twenty Nine

hey what´s up everybodyyyy?!

hmm ok favorite scripture. Romans 8: 18, 24 - 25, 31 - 39. it is pretty cool. just found it sometime during personal study. liked it.

alright so not much to report on investigator-wise. we had like 16 or so people promise to go to church on sunday. it sprinkled from 6 till 8:30. church starts at 9. já feito. we had 1 investigator come. and that was because we went to her house to pick her up. so much for all the work we did during the week. oh well. we´ll see what will happen this week. i think we have one lady who is going to be baptized next week. maybe. but other than that, basically everyone else fell through.

ummm so we went on a trade with another companionship in our district. elder gibbons from my ctm district and his comp. so i was senior comp for a day because gibbons and i stayed in my area. yeah. that was great. two americans who have been in brasil for 6 months. lol but i managed to guide us through the maze of streets and crap here and we taught a bunch. the highlight was this guy that we ended up teaching at the end of the day. we were trying to contact a reference but she wasn´t in her apartment so when we were about to leave, the guy was like hey...so what is it that you guys preach? so i kinda explained the 30 second restoration. and then he said that he had just separated with his wife and that he was having a really tough time. so the two 19 year old americans who have been in brasil for 6 months became therapists? or something along that line. basically, we taught the atonement of jesus christ to him and all kinds of jazz. he ended up crying and giving me a big hug and thanking us. we gave him a book of mormon and he said that he would read it all and that he would see us in church on sunday. to me, it would be great if he went to church. awesome. but in all reality, i am just gald i was there to help him. but if something more comes from it, how great.

um let me see. it isn´t cooling down, no. the toes are hurting. but no big. i am using neosporin. i am hoping you enjoyed that irish dinner. it sounded splendid. i am looking forward to some more rice and beans! yeah, who is luckier? i hope wendy and bob will have the chance to hear more about this gospel now. that would be so great. i will be looking for bug bombs now. i will see if they have any here. i haven´t heard from jackson, connor, or hyrum. i dunno if they have my email address. i included it in my letter to connor i think. have you gotten that yet?

we are working our butts off to reactivate members but most of them know that we are wanting to do that, so they just lie and say they don´t have time when we go to their houses. i went to an inactive lady´s house on sunday with a priest in the ward. we taught her and her son. it was good, but i need to see them in church to believe that it made any kind of effect. we also taught two other inactive ladies who stopped going to church because their visiting teacher told them the bible wasn´t true. GREAT! we have visiting teachers that aren´t aware that we believe the bible. how cool!

yes, i know brian hatfield! haha they live in our ward now?? how cool. we had seminary together. we were way tight. he told me that he got his call a few days before i left. that is awesome. and no. i am still waiting on packages and letters. they are supposed to bring them every transfer AT LEAST. and then generally in the middle of transfers at interviews with president or zone conferences. but they just don´t do it because...well i dunno. they work in the office. so they get their packages and letters the day they arrive. they don´t really care if the other missionaries get their stuff on time. so they "forgot" this transfer and now a bunch of stuff is in Marília in the zone leaders´ house.

i am looking forward to those packages and letters...if they ever get here. i am not quite sure if they will. but i will keep my hopes up and let you guys know. thank you all for the love and support and updates and such. who is super psyched for conference?! i am! even though i will probably be forced to watch in portuguese. i think i will go to a different zone or something to watch it in english. because you learn so much more and feel the spirit so much more if you hear it in your own native language. otherwise, you have to struggle to understand some big words or some examples and such. so i will have to find a way to watch in english.

anywho. love you guys so much! till next week!

tchau!

elder scott ghormley

Year One, Letter Twenty Eight

HEYYY! lots to report.

favorite scripture - D&C 1: 19 - 23 and 28 i started doctrine and covenants this week.

ummmmm ok. good news. Elder Webb stayed. i was just misinformed by an elder in his zone. but yeah. elder webb is currently in my zone now. so that is cool.

other good news. we baptized Eva this last saturday and she received the holy ghost on sunday. basically awesome :) she is amazing. she is a teacher in the brazilian equivalent to preschool. she is way firm already in the church. nothing more i can say about that. she is just the perfect convert at this point. lol

not so good news. i got to visit our local podiatrist this last week. i had a fungus in the big toenail on my left foot. and an ingrown toenail in the big toe on my right foot. gross. and yikes. so she did some brazilian toe surgery. which means she didn´t use any type of pain killer. which was probably for my benefit in reality. because a shot here would probably give me some new kind of AIDS. but anyway. so she took some "scissors" and cut about a quarter of the nail off on my left foot. which apparently was the infected part? and then she gave me some medicine to put on in twice a day. so if all is well, i do not have a fungus in the toenail in my left foot. then she went to work on the ingrown nail. she took some scissors again and cut off some of the skin next to the edge and then (keep in mind this is without pain killer) cut from the front of the nail to the back to "remove" the ingrown portion. i was squeezing the chair harder then...something that squeezes really hard. and then she told me that was all i needed. i guess the fact that it still hurts ridiculously bad is normal?? so that was a fun experience.

um as for the work right now...we are the first companionship in 5 months to baptize in this area. and we have a few more people who are pretty firm possibilities. so keep praying. the members in the ward are pretty psyched though. i guess the last few sets of missionaries were big time slackers. so when we baptized eva they were pretty psyched. now if we can have a few more this month that would be spectacular. i gave a talk about the difference between baptizing someone and converting someone. i am hoping it hit home. because the members are a big part of the conversion. we need their help. i will keep you guys updated. president leal said that he wants 150 baptisms this month. between 2 and 3 per companionship. that is tough. but we will see.

ummmm i sent a letter to connor via our house because i don´t have the address. i am hoping it gets there before he gets back out into the field. that would be great. i am so psyched that he is going to get back out here. that is so awesome. how is hyrum doing? and any news about jackson? TJ seems to be doing great. he is gunna be the assistant to the president. just watch. i called it. when he hits the year mark he will become assistant lol.

so what else is there to report?? um OH YEAH! i have exactly 14 bug bites on my right butt cheek. just the right one! i guess spiders like...american butt cheeks? but yeah he got me good when i was asleep. i wish i had filmed it. i wonder how i reacted when he bit me the first time?? i must have freaked out to make him go nuts and bite me 13 more times. and then i guess a few of his friends were watching too? because i got bit in lots of other places too. most of which i can´t take pictures.

i am way jealous that i missed elder oaks. i am so psyched for general conference. president leal said that if we do our best and give our best effort, that we would receive revelations in the conference that we had never received before. i am way psyched. i have been preparing big time. i have the ensigns from the last 5 conferences. i have been studying them each morning in preparation for the conference. it is crazy how much i have learned just reading old talks.

anyway. time to go! love you all! i hope that you all have great weeks. i pray for you constantly, and i know you are all praying for me. so thank you :) hope to hear from everyone next week. tchau!

elder scott ghormley

Year One, Letter Twenty Seven

HI EVERYONE.

favorite scripture - D&C 115:5. Relate to Matthew 5: 14 - 16.

so not a lot to report this week. just getting tired of the same old thing over and over again. Here is the pattern: 1 - we teach, 2 - investigator says they will do something, 3 - they don´t. Repeat. For two years. I will stop there. I don´t want to be a pessimistic peter over here. but it is just annoying. I have some good news, but i will get to that in a minute. Anyway. So. Ourinhos. Ourinhos has 550 members. We have an attendance rate of 65 people. Like 12%. 12 PERCENT. I guess that is what can be expected in a country with an INactivity rate of 86%. So it looks like we are above average! Alright. Forget it. Lucianna, Yasmin, Edna, Daiane, Márcia, and Alander all had baptism dates marked. Márcia´s daughter started the catholic version of seminary. so Márcia said she will get baptized when her daughter finishes that. Next year. The other 5 didn´t go to church and aren´t showing any signs of progression. So we just told them that we would go back when they can come to church. but whateverrr.

good news. Eva is progressing. Perfectly. She is probably going to be baptized this saturday. if she can stop drinking coffee. She is probably the best investigator i have seen up to this point in the mission. she is great. so keep the prayers coming :)

um on the slightly dangerous side, we live in the second most dangerous neighborhood in ourinhos. we have prostitutes and drug dealers on basically every corner. several prostitutes follow us home several nights per week. it is...nothing good. we had a homicide/suicide in our neighborhood last week. cops everywhere. whatev. um what else. we were trying to contact some less active and inactive members on Sunday and we found ourselves in this favelle type area. silva wanted to turn around but i just said we needed to keep going. we found this inactive lady and she said she was waiting for a sign that she was supposed to go back to the church. she was definitely doing her part, right? but anyway. we talked with her and we are going to try to re-activate her and baptize her husband. the second she turned around, i got a feeling and a voice in my head that said, "turn around and get out of here right now." yeah, we booked it outta there. but i am still safe. no reason to fret.

um on the slightly sad side, we lost one more elder from the 35A district. we have lost 3 out of 13 by the 6 month point. Elder Webb went home a couple weeks ago. way sad.

ummm what else? things are going ok. i am getting along better with silva. i still don´t like his way of working, but he is senior comp and i am still learning the area. so i gotta just follow him. but whatever. ummm i have been pretty sick with diarrhea and headaches lately. probably just dehydration. no big.

testimony?? never been stronger. i have learned so much and grown so much spiritually. i don´t know about intellectually. i have forgotten a lot of things from the academic point of view. but spiritually, i am all good.

sorry that this email isn´t very long. i didn´t get a lot of questions or anything, lol. but my p day is NOT changing. it is still wednesdays. it was changed today. anyway. i gotta go. i love you all so much! tchau!

elder scott ghormley