"I love living in another country:" September 19, 2012

Dear Everyone,

I'm glad you continue to like my letters! J  And, no, I'm not homesick, I just wanted to let you guys know that I think about you. I'm glad that my letters have started to show up more and more!!  I am so glad you got the group letter I sent, and thank you for the extra MissionTies letter!!

Jason, I know you don't really know where you want to go to college, but now is the time to get a top 5 list started and at least find out what standards you need to shoot for so you can prepare. And BTW I would bet a lot of money that you will go Chinese-speaking which could be stateside or foreign because my companion knows a kid who took one year of Chinese and went Chinese speaking. It is pretty much a 99% probability!! J

I am not dreaming in Portuguese yet but I am starting to think in it a little bit sometimes! Yes, it is true that we cannot take pictures outside of the CTM because they don't want 200 missionaries all taking photos of the same neighborhood and look like a ton of tourists. So the photos that I send home are about 90 to 95% of the photos I’ve taken so I won't need to upload a memory stick or anything like that. (BTW Stan is still going strong!)

I love living in another country even though the CTM is almost like the US. Brazil isn't better or worse than the US it is just such a different experience and a different culture! It is a blast!

For our meals we have a lot of rice and beans and chicken and pretty much "normal" food. There is this one dish though called fejuada. It is all the leftover meat thrown in with some beans and that is really interesting. You have to be careful of bones when you eat it. Hopefully real fejuada out in the field will be better than the CTM fejuada.

I got a new tie this week from a Brazilian and it is a little bit ugly.  My goal now is to come home with maybe two of my favorite Missionary Mall ties and the rest to be the ugliest ties that I can find! It will be really fun!!!

The singing group video won't be sent out but I will try and get a copy of it on a memory card so we can watch it when I get home. Sorry L But I was in another singing group this past week. We sung a rendition of I Need Thee Every Hour. It was so good that while we were walking back to our seats President Degn called us back up to the front to have us sing the song again!!! So, our first musical number got to be recorded against every rule and the second musical number got an encore which I have not heard of that happening at the CTM before. (And the only people who were in both singing groups were me and Elder S.!! Yeah, we pretty much are all-stars!!)

The fun fact for the week is that Brazilians love Halls cough drops!! They eat them as candy or right before dates and they even make Halls gum here because everyone loves it so much!!

Yesterday for Chile's Independence Day, we got popcorn with lunch and our district decked it out!! We took the plain popcorn that they gave us and put melted butter and salt on it, and then we even put dulce de leche on top (that is “candy of the milk”), which is almost like caramel but better!  It was super good!! And then because the kitchen staff all love me and my companion so much we got an extra bag of unpopped popcorn and some extra dulce de leche so on Sunday for the weekly Mormon video, we will feast once again!! J

At the temple today, we had a really cool and unique experience...well, multiple experiences. First off, (this happened last) we ran into Elder K. who was in District 26-A (they were our best friends here) so that was really good to talk with him, hear how his first 3 weeks in the field have been, and give him a nice big hug!! But the main event that happened at the temple was near the end of our session the power went out for about a minute, but then the backup generator kicked in only to have the generator fail a little time later.  We got to be in the Celestial Room with very limited lighting, and it was the coolest experience ever!! There was no humming from the lights, there was no rumbling of the air conditioning. It was just total peaceful, blissful, silence!! It was so cool! The spirit was so strong! I am so grateful for this experience to get to know my Father in Heaven better than I did before!! It is amazing what can happen when all electronics shut off and how it can make even the temple seem more peaceful!! It was awesome!! (Fun fact: the chandelier alone cost $300,000 US! WOW!!!)

I hope I didn't forget too much because I know I will think of something as soon as I leave the computer lab. But I do love you guys! Hopefully I can share some more exciting news and pictures once I get out into the field!! I only have one more P-day here at the CTM after this week! And supposedly, I get a P‑day on the Wednesday that I get into the field and then again on the regular Monday p-day, so double P-day to start off the field will be nice. Also when I get into the field I am guaranteed to be with the same trainer in the same area for my first 2 transfers at least. So whoever my trainer is, I will be with him until the new year at the least! I hope he is cool and not a fubecka (slacker)!!

Well, I'm out of time once again, big surprise! I love you guys!! Send my love to everyone!

Love,

Elder Cummings