after christmas email!

hey mom and everyone!
so this week was pretty crazy, lots of stuff went down! but the most exciting was christmas when i got to talk to my family for the first time on the phone since august 26th! the time for that phone call went by too quickly, but it was soo awesome to get to hear everyone´s voices and to hear about all thats been goin on. i love all ya guys soo much!
alright, soo, shae made me a blog for my christmas present and it is the bee´s knees! everyone´s gotta check it out! www.elderleightonyuma.blogspot.com it´s totally legit, and once my fam gets some more pics from me in the mail, they´ll be able to show ya what bauru, Brazil is like and what my life is like and stuff. lol. cool beans!
so we had our Christmas conferance this week, the 23rd, where i got to see all my friends from the mtc and that used to be in my area and stuff! it was soo rad, ate lots of food, did a service project for a hospital, heard some good talks, and hung out with elder ghormley the entire time! haha, it was in londrina, so we got up at 3am that morning for the 4 hour bus ride there! got back after the conferance at 2am. i was very tired this whole week!
my Christmas was good, but very different, it was like 85-90 degrees and pretty humid. i ate lots of good bbq and other homemade treats and pie type stuff tho. probably gained some weight, but i´ll walk it off soon. well guys, hope everyone had a wonderful christmas, i´m soo thankful for all the gifts that everyone sent, and for all your love, prayers, and support. I love all ya guys soooooooo much! Feliz Ano Novo!
-Elder Yuma
oh, and dad, those pics that ya sent of disneyland were way cool! bonita!
someone should try sending me a videoclip soon, maybe of sheldon bustin´some sick beatz! lol, tchau!

Week 17 December 21, 2009

hey everyone! this week flew bye like crazy, i got everyone´s packages and cards last tuesday tho! it was soo exciting! 3 packages filled with delicious and awesome things! thanks sooo much everyone! enjoyed reading all the cards from everyone too!
soo the rest of the week flew bye super fast, i had my first baptism on wednesday with Guilherme, it was soo awesome, everything went perfect with the baptism! then we had the wedding for that other family on saturday, then a lunch with them, then the baptism that night with them, such a crazy day! but i baptized both of them too! everything went perfect with that baptism too! we even had some awesome pineapple/docé de leite cake afterwards! super good. we had some christmas activity at the church on friday night that we got to go to, it was absolutely nuts, the brazilians know how to throw a church party! tons of food, lots of members dancing, and they were bumpin like american music, soo funny, i heard a couple songs i recognized like poker face by lady gaga and that new song by the black eyed peas, boom boom boom. lol, it was rad, i got to talk to a bunch of members and i felt comfortable with all my portugues and how much i understood them and stuff. it was rad! sooo this week was pretty tight, i´ve been enjoying lots of sweets and treats and oreos and stuff from my packages and also killin it at the same time out here on my mish. i look forward to talkin to my fam this christmas morning! and our zone conferance is the 23rd! so i get to see Elder Ghormley and all my friends from the mtc and stuff! and eat alot! i´m soo stoked! well guys, i´m doing well, hope you guys all are too! i want everyone to have a VERRRY MERRRRY CHRISTMAS!!! i love ya all sooo much! Feliz Natal, com amor, Elder Yuma

Mon. Dec 14, 2009 week 16

hello everyone! things are gettin better now, the language especially, i already have had some dreams in portuguese, haha, one dream i had in 3 languages, pretty wierd, it involved, a mall, torey, subway, and some other stuff. lol, anyway, i get all my packages and letters tomorrow so i´m super stoked about that. this month should be pretty rad for baptisms if everything goes well. we got like 3 families we´ve been teaching and all of them have more or less gone to church. i´m like 87.9 percent sure i´m gonna have my first baptism this wednesday with our 11yr old guilherme! we have givin him all the lessons and we just need the interview tomorrow or the before the baptism on wednesday, its been a lil tough working with his mom tho, she´s very worried. all the other families are doing well too. we got 2 families that need to be married first. one wedding is set the day of the baptism this saturday. so i really hope that goes well. lets see, a story, haha, kinda funny. i woke up i think it was tuesday or wednesday morning to start working out, and when i took the key to open the door, it got jammed, so i tried to force it and it snapped in the key hole, soo,... after lots of waiting, we finally got a locksmith called and he came to the scene. he fixed it, and i had to pay 30 reais for the job, that 30 was supposed to last me til this coming saturday, instead i had 8 leftover, so i´ve been livin on bread, cheese, milk, and cereal. and eatin tons of food at members houses. lol. the reason i didnt have a whole lot of extra money is cuz i used 70 of it to mail that package and i had to save some to email and some for busses and groceries. oh, and i had the most delicious burger in maybe my entire life last pday. it was the most expensive at the place we went to, (9.80), and was loaded with steak, chicken, bacon, potato curlz, tomato, and stuff. sooo delish, it would only cost like 5 or 6 bucks in american currency. anyway, the mish is getting better despite the transfer. i´m just trying to joke and laugh about all the stuff that i get annoyed at. its working. and of course all the love, care, and prayers and support from you guys helps a ton too! keep on with that stuff! well, i love ya guys all sooo much, take care, and have a good holiday season! peace!
-elder yuma

December 7, 2009 Week 15

olá todas!
soo this week just went amazingly better, and it might of had something to do with my last pday, where we went to the stake center and had a bbq and got authorization to play some soccer in an enclosed concrete court. SOCCER! during soccer i really got to release alot of built up frustration and stuff in the game. we played to games and i was against my comp both times, i was the only american that played, probably the only one that knew how to play, so we played 3v3. i tried my best to show my love for my companion by playing very aggressive and physical against him. scored lots of goals and it all felt soo good. there was one brazilian that was a bit better than me. haha, oh, and during that bbq i tried chicken hearts for my first time, they´re actually quite good, i´m sure thier wicked good when cooked by someone more experienced and with some seasonings. so that pday kinda set the tone for the rest of my week.
lots happended this week and i dont have time to write about it all, but we had this cool lil thing one day in another area with the 6 elders in my district where we set up a presentation of the 1st lesson in the park and got peoples info for references, pretty neat. we were gonna do like a chalk art thing, but i guess it takes like a month to get authorization to do that. so i didnt get to bust out my mad art skillz. oh well.
my comp and i had a few discussions this week and i was finally able to give him my opinion about some things in portuguese so i think he respects me a bit more and stuff. things went alot better this week. we have a couple amazing fams that we´re teaching right now. one guy named benajito we taught his family last sat, good lesson, invited them to church and they came. benajito is way excited about the gospel and our lessons and stuff, just awesome, on our 3rd lesson with him this week, while i was bearing my testimony, i invited him to be baptized! and he said yes! haha, crazy! wasn´t really planned or anything, and that was the first person i´ve ever asked to be baptized. so we´re hoping to get him and his wife married soon so he can be baptized the 26th of this month.
the other awesome fam that we have is a mom and her 2 sons. the mom used to be a member, served a mish in brasilia, got ex-communicated somehow, is now less active, but she has a strong testimony for the church and she wants her sons to be baptized in it. so we´ve been giving lessons to thier fam and her 11 yr old son Guilerme who is just super super cool, love the kid, and he really like me too, they came to church this sunday, which was bomb. during our first lesson with them, the mom asked us afterwards to offer a blessing for her 5yr old sone davi who has stomach problems and stuff. so we did, and i did gave my first blessing of the sick, dont really remember what i said, but it was way cool and i felt super good afterward!
bore my testimony in church yesterday, got lots of compliments.
oh, we had a service project this last friday! it was awesome! never in my life have i wanted to do physical labor soo bad! we moved a huge pile of clay roofing into a large dumpster with like 100 wheelbarrow trips. i worked like crazy and my comp probably thought i was insane cuz i was sweating profusely, had several large blisters on my hands, and was doing most the work, yet had a smile on my face the whole time and a happy spirit. it was awesome, probably worked for like 3 and a half hours or so. then they made us like the best lunch i´ve had so far, some italian like dish, reminded me of mom´s cookin. soo good, like these cheese, meat wraps in a red sauce, then some awesome potatoes, salad, other random good things and icecream for dessert.
great week and i´m starting to be able to handle my comp better. hopefully things will continue getting better if transfers keep us together.
well some more good news, we´re in the city today for pday, and i went to the bulk store and got 1200 grams of various cereals for 9 reais! way better deal and it is cereal that is like fruit loops and chocolate and strawberry kix balls type stuff. hope its good!
well, christmas is deff gonna be different this year, hope all ya guys are feeling the christmas spirit and cheer, i´d say enjoy the cold weather cuz i miss it! even tho it has been pretty tolerable lately. i love all ya guys soo much and think about ya all often. peace, love, and merry christmas!
-elder yuma

Week 14! November 30, 2009

hey everyone!
thanks for all your concern and stuff about my sickness, it did suck, but its over now,and i´m doin fine.
soo thats pretty cool that clayton is home, sounds like he had a good but tough mish. tell him i said hi, or hallo. so, this week was alright, we went to the zoo last pday with another companionship and a member about our age named weverton. the zoo was alright, not as cool as the portland zoo or wildlife safari, but it was alright. took some pics, funny thing was, it was only 2 reais to get in. so about a 1.25 american dollars. lol. afterwards we ate some good food at some restaurant in bauru, these mini pizza/pita things, pretty good. then we went to walmart! lol, walmart is way different here, pretty much just like a huge normal brazilian store, but with more stuff. i did get some cereal there cuz it was cheaper than the store in our town, but i found out when i ate it, that it sucks just as much. the cereal here is seriously like eating twigs and dry leaves with milk. gosh.
well thanksgiving was a downer, missed eating lots of food with the company of family and all that good stuff. tday lunch was at this all ya can eat place in bauru cuz our family that day bailed on us and just gave us some cash. so onofre wanted to go to this place. idk why, cuz all the other mishies hav a joke about this place and i guess its known to be pretty mediocre but cheap. anyway, so you have to get some meat in order to have an all you can eat other food, so i got some stuff that looked like fried chicken. then got my plate of other normal brazilian food, and when i went to eat the meat, i found out it was some sort of fried fish. ughhh, and i ate it too cuz i payed for it. so i just loaded it with a bunch of sauce and yeah, that was my tday meal. no delish dinner :(
my birthday, didn´t get to have breakfast cuz we were fasting, but for lunch we had another lunch cancelation, but this time we just bought food at the store, so i didnt have to eat beans and rice! so i got one of my favorites at the store. bread cheese and butter, and tang, went home and made a bunch of grilled chee sandwiches and delish tang. and had some wafers for dessert. still havent rewarded myself with some icecream, but i will soon. that night, our neighbors, who are members, invited us over for birthday brownies and soda. so that was nice of them. then, that night, i woke up in the wee hours with a bad pain in my stomach and stuff, soo i went to the bathroom, had some diarhea, then, surprise! barffed all over the bathroom! i aimed the projectile vomit as best i could at the drain for the shower water, but, most the barf just went everywhere else, and the best part was, i got to clean it all up right after. i thought to myself, at this time at home i´d normally be eating ice-cream cake with family and friends, just wonderful. lol. oh, the reason i got sick, btw, is cuz during lunch that day, my companion made french toast, and he gave me a couple peices. and i ate them to be nice. he later got pains in his stomach and went to the bathroom several times, i guess my system just isnt as accustomed to badly prepped food. oh, the reason for us getting sick was cuz he made the french toast with eggs that have been sitting in the fridge for who knows how long, cuz they were there when i arrived here my first week in marechal rondon. i did go on a couple comp exchanges this week. once for around 24 hours with elder bower in his area, he´s american and is from virginia, went to byu, and we got quite a bit in common. music wise and everything, both play drums. anywho, learned and practiced alot of portuguese with him and celebrated my birthday early with him by getting a pizza that night delivered to his place for only 10 reais! it was good too, and about 14´´ in diameter. made really good mango smoothies in the morning too. that was tuesday to wednes day btw. then on saturday, while my comp had to do some baptismal interviews in the bauru inter-city area for some elders, i got to go with elder souza, a brazilian, teaching and stuff for about an hour or so. it was way fun and the way he taught was far more enjoyable and i learned quite a bit in that little bit of time.
well, had a good lunch with a family after church yesterday, they made a whole chicken, so i´m countin that has my tday dinner. she also made this good pudding like dessert with prunes on top called Manja, i really liked it, 2nd time i´ve had it on my mish, guess its popular around the holidays here. oh, it also rained a ton here the other day, had a gnarly lightning and thunderstorm. the lightning was soo close that when the thunder hit, it set off a car alarm once, we took shelter in a members home. well guys, my companion is making wierd sounds while doing nothing, which probably means he wants to leave, so, i´ll talk to ya guys later.
thanks for all your care and support, i appreciate it soo much! cant wait to open those packages! take care, i love you all! bye<3333333333

-Elder Yuma

Week 13! November 23, 2009

Ola todas!
i´m hopefully going to baptize a 9yr old in a family where only his lil sis and older sis and mom are active by this weekend or next. his name is anderson. then we have a guy that we´ve been teaching named odir, and i think onofre is gonna baptize him this weekend. then we´re teachin two other kids that are both in their young teens with a catholic mother and innactive member father. thier way cool, hopefully i´ll be able to baptize them this weekend or next. i seem to be able to connect with the younger kids and people with what little personality i can show thru my language and actions. lol. anyway, hopefully this week goes better with my birthday and thanksgiving and all. i´ve been writin all my happenings thru out these days in my journal daily, so i´ll have a pretty funny/spectacular account of my mish when i get back home. well, love ya all and to all a happy thanksgiving. peace!!!!! :)
-Elder Yuma

November 19, 2009

IN BRAZIL...
-It is common TO HAVE RICE, BEANS, & MEAT DAILY.
-It is common TO CLAP INSTEAD OF KNOCK.
-It is common TO HAVE STREET NAMES 3 & 4 NAMES LONG.
-It is common TO SEE PEOPLE BEING DRAWN BY HORSES IN SMALL CARTS THROUGH CITY STREETS.
-It is common TO ALWAYS HAVE A GATE OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE.
-It is common TO SEE LIGHTNING VERY OFTEN.
-It is common TO BE VERY HOT AND SUNNY AND HUMID.
-It is common TO HAVE RANDOM DOWNPOURS OF RAIN.
-It is common TO SEE PEOPLE USING MOTORCYCLE TAXI'S.
-It is common TO HAVE COCKROACHES THAT ARE ATLEAST 3 or 4 TIMES LARGER THAN NORMAL, IN YOUR HOUSE!
-It is common FOR A MOTHER TO NURSE HER CHILD IN PUBLIC.
-It is common FOR PEOPLE TO THROW THEIR TRASH WHEREVER.
-It is common FOR PEOPLE TO START DRINKING IN BARS AT 11am.
-It is common TO BUY MILK WARM, & THEN REFRIGERATE IT.
-It is common FOR ALMOST ALL BRAZILIANS TO BELIEVE IN CHRIST.
-It is common FOR WILD DOGS TO ROAM THE STREETS.
-It is common TO HAVE GRAFFITI ON EVERY WALL.
-It is common TO HAVE A PROPANE POWERED OVEN/STOVE.
-It is common FOR VEHICLES W/ ANNOYING LOUDSPEARS TO DRIVE THRU YORU NEIGHBORHOOD TRYING TO SELL STUFF.
-It is common FOR MOST EVERYONE TO HAVE A FAVORITE SOCCER TEAM.
-It is common FOR MISSIONARIES TO GO WITHOUT DINNER.
-It is common FOR PEOPLE TO POWER THEIR CARS W/ ETHANOL.
-It is common FOR THE CEREAL TO SUCK, YET BE EXPENSIVE.
-It is common WHEN ASKED HOW ONE IS DOING TO RESPOND W/ "VERY GOOD" OR "ALL WELL".
-It is common FOR MISSIONARIE'S MOODS TO CHANGE RAPIDLY.
-It is common FOR AMERICAN MISSIONARIES TO MISS AMERICAN FOOD, SPORTS, ACTIVITIES AND THEIR FAMILIES!!!

Hope ya guys enjoyed this! love ya! -Elder Yuma

November 2, 2009 LEAVING THE MTC(week 9)

hola todas!
soo, this week has been absolutely loco! our last week at the mtc was pretty good. we all said bye to our teachers and friends. on thursday night, i stayed up packing and talking til like 2:45ish or so. ghormley didn´t even go to sleep! then we had to wake up at like 3:15 or so to get ready by 4 when we caught our vans for the airport. so i got tons of rest lol. the flight was good, a little over an hour long. Londrina is beautiful! everything is much more spread out here compared to são paulo. its more like a normal big city in america, except lots of brazilian stuff. lol. the air quality is much better, and you could really notice a difference from it and the air in são paulo.
we met our companions, mine is elder Galdino, and jensen´s is e. Azevedo. then we went to our apt. our apt is alright. kinda run down, but it has a living room, kitchen, and 3 bedrooms, and a bathroom. oh, and gecko´s. and bugs for the geckos to eat. lol. our companions are super nice and help us out soo much. during a day i probably speak about 80% português now. the language is tough, but i´m startin to understand more and more about it. we walk soo much! i street contact everyday and invite them to hear our message, i´ve helped teach like 3 lessons so far. pretty crazy!
oh, yesterday was our first sunday so we got to go to church. the churches here are a little different, no a/c, just windows. we had priesthood meeting first, then a gospel class, then we had testimony meeting. i went up and bore my testimony, it was super exciting! :) i did pretty well i believe cuz several people complimented me and thanked me. lol. elder jensen bore his too, i guess we were the first americans to ever bear our testimonies on our first week there!
soo, i´ve found out that i love eating at members houses! they cook some dang good meals and always seem to make soooo much food. i eat soo much food during lunch, because thats the main meal here and the members provide us with lunch everyday but p-days. so i just eat lots during lunch and moderate breakfasts and light dinners or snacks at night. we were teaching the 2nd lesson at an investigator´s house and after the lesson they offered us some food to eat. it was the BEST FOOD i´ve had in brazil yet, it seemed like gourmet, idk, maybe i was just super hungry. but it was like this delicious bread wrap thing with delish meats, cheeses, tomatoes and herbs all wrapped into like a cinnamon roll type thing. it was sooo good, then they had us eat this like choclate cheescake like large brownie type things for dessert. i love brazilian people, they´re soo nice, they like kept telling us to eat more food, and i was like, this stuff is really good, i dont want to eat it all. she ended up sending us home with like the rest of the sandwich roll thing because they said it´d probably go to waste anyway. soo bomb!
did i mention it is FREAKIN HOT here?!!! gosh, it´s probably been in the upper 80´s F. plus lots of humidity. it sucks! my clothes are soo sticky and gross by the end of the day. lol. but, i´m handling the weather just fine i think. i was told that the worst part of the year is january, so i just can´t wait for that. oh, today, (monday) is now the day of our p-days for the rest of my mission. so everyone right me on sunday nights and keep me updated on exciting things, and i´ll do the same back! ;)
alright, well, i get transfered tonight or tomorrow morning depending on where i go, if its tonight, i guess you go to iguacu falls area, which would be super tight. but, i´m just stoked to get my real trainer and my own area where i can dominate and work like crazy and then speak fluently. well, wish me luck! i love all ya guys!
-love elder Yuma :)

Oct 20, 2009 Week 7- proselyting in Sao Paulo!

olá todas!
so this week has been like super amazing and super sucky at the same time. and by this week, i mean the last week.
soo... with the good stuff.
We went proselyting last friday in downtown são paulo and it was just absolutely amazing/nutz! first off, our large van got stuck in traffic on the way there cuz there was some parade goin thru all the streets. we saw several crazy people all dressed all funny, one guy was wearin cardboard boxes for clothes! when we finally made it to like what i think was kinda like the city square, we went out and started lookin for people to talk to. after we prayed, seriously w/in like 2 minutes we saw this girl about our age sittin by herself on a ledge. and i was just like "Lets go talk to her!" so we did, and after we explained who we were and why we can barely talk we started talkin about the gospel to her. she was pretty interested so we coninued talkin to her and brought up the book of mormon and talked about prophets and stuff. after E. Ghormley bore his testimony i think she really felt thru the spirit that we were preaching the truth to her. she took the bom (book of mormon)and we said bye to her, and then later as we were walkin around, we saw her still sittin there, reading the bom! we were soo happy. so then i went to go write my testimony in my bom and this stinky old bum sat next to ghormz and started ramblin on about who knows what, long story short, he basically changed his entire wardrobe right there next to us. wierd. then he got into an argument with these teenagers that walked by, so we were like caught in the middle of this really awdward situation and we just casually slipped off. lol. this next experience was just simply awesome. we were walkin around in the park, away from that crazy bum argument, just talkin and smilin and stuff, and this skateboarder that looked about 22 or so just yells a hello to us, so we went to go talk to him, i said hello and how are ya doin and stuff to him, not expecting to get into much of a gospel oriented convo and he just started askin us what we were doin. we told him that we were missionaries for our church, and then asked if he´d like to hear a message from us. he gladly accepted and we just got into this awesome very mutual conversation. he was soo cool. he would ask us questions, and we would explain them the best we could and he would understand. and what else was crazy is that i was able to understand like at least 90% of what he said! soo... i then shared my testimony with him after talkin to him for about 10 to 15 minutes or so and then i gave him the book of mormon and some stuff to read in it, including moroni 10:3-5 and told him to pray about it and what we said to konw if it was true. he agreed to and then told us that when he first saw us, he recognized a spirit about us, he actually said he "saw our spirits" and that we just seemed soo happy and stuff. he said that he really felt something in his heart while talking to us and he kept looking to the sky and thanking God during our convo with him. he said "God bless you!" to us and we said the same to him, then he skated off as we said bye. then we watched him, and immediately he started sharing the bom with a girl that he went and sat by. ghormley and i just looked at eachother and were like, WHAT!!!??? so stoked, so we decided to go talk to him again and get his name. his name was jusei or something like that, and before we left he made sure to get out his backpack and show us his very marked up bible. it was soo cool. later, we look back at him again, and he had another skateboarder dude there along with the girl, and was still sharin the book of mormon. how incredible, we created a missionary! lol
then these two guys came up to us and started talking to us. the first guys name was kevin, and he happended to be a drug-runner from london that just got out of prison the day before and it happened to be his birthday too! and he was drunk, lol, para bens! i being the lucky one, got to talk to him, while ghormley got to talk to the friend he had just met and was supposedly going to go buy some food for. the friends name was Crisiano. and ghormley got to have an awesome in-depth convo with him. basically gave him the entire first lesson. cristiano was really feelin the spirit and askin lots of good questions and ghormley was really able to help him out. he gave cristiano our last bom and some stuff to read and he was immediately happy and started reading it.
soo, let me now tell ya the next chain of intersting events. while we were waitin for our van to come pick us up, elder burt and i joined 2 random guys juggling a soccer ball. it was way cool, our entire district and some random onlookers just kinda circled around us while we, and two like 40 yr old dudes all just juggled a soccerball. it was soo sick. first time i´ve juggled with a real ball since i´ve been here. anywho, as we were juggling, our teacher wasnt able to flag down our van so we had to wait there while he tried to make a loop around the block. so we waited there for many more minutes. as we were waiting there we saw 2 sets of drunk dudes both go up to a wall, different times, and starting to pee all over it. both times some street police saw them and tried to go up and talk to them. the first group did get caught and talked to and even got poked by some nightsticks. the second group saw the po po´s coming and just whip´d and zipped and ran away! haha. soo funny.
we ended up havin to walk about 2 km´s away to another point to meet the van cause he could not make it to us due to the parade. as we were walking there, ghormley and i being in the back of the line, a brazilian girl with a group of 3 other friends, all about our age approached me and asked me what we were doin and if i spoke portuguese. i responded that we were missionaries and that i could speak a little. another girl in the group that could speak english then asked us if we knew what was going on and if we wanted some beer. we responded with a no thank you and that we really had no clue what was going on. another girl told us that it was basically the equivalent to the thanksgiving in america. sooo... we finally made it to the meeting spot of the van and piled in. then the other district made it there too. however, there was a problem. their van was not able to make it there due to getting stuck in traffic. soo, another long story short, we piled 25 people into a van about the size of like a dodge sprinter. it was absolutely nuts, the vehicle is only meant to hold about 14 or 15. that trip kinda sucked back to the mtc.
soo, that was proselyting! what an experience!

so, what i failed to write in last weeks lack of an email is that we had lots of class. ladadadada, i got a hairwreck by the barber, ended up taking elder ellis´s trimmers and cutting and trimming it up myself to make it look better. cant really remember anything else distinct from 2 weeks ago. however, i think i caught the swine flu. i started feelin crappy saturday morning and have felt like that since then. our doctor wasnt in due to a heart-attack he suffered so our mish pres.´s wife checked out my throat and found that i had some pustules back there and said that i probably should take some antibiotics. i had a fever on monday morning and skipped class and slept for like 5 and a half hours thru lunch and all. we went to the são paulo temple today. and Elder Richard G. Scott is going to talk to us this friday. our departure date got bumped to next friday, so we´re here another week. lots of people were kinda complaining, but i´m alright with it. i get to hear and see an apostle talk, shake his hand. and hang with ghormley for another week. oh, one last thing. last sunday, ghormley was talking about his bro´s mish, and was talking about his bro´s training companion, and guess what his name was! Adam Wadsworth! i was like, No way dude! thats crazy, i know him, he was from roseburg, went to my ward, and i´m friends with his younger bro clayton who is serving in germany! small world.
anyway, love ya all! faça a diferença! paz ;)

-Elder Yuma

Leighton's First Week September 1, 2009

big news: i did my own laundry last night, it went well, didnt ruin anything, and i bought a throwoff nike watch today for 20 heias, which is equivilant to like 12 or 13 bucks, now i can tell time, and not rely on others to wake me up in the morning. ehh... i have a super cool companion named elder scott ghormley from mesa az. we got like everything in common and we get along super good, he reminds me a bit of eric saylor if he was a mormon. lol. anywho. love ya guys again and tell shae and sheldon to give my email and mtc address to everyone, i´m not supposed to email peeps back, but i can write back, cuz i got like 100 envelopes today, now i just need stamps. lol. alrighty peace out homies! <333333333333333333