More Londrina Missionaries: September 12, 2012

Dear Everyone,

I leave on October 2nd (a Tuesday) and they just asked us yesterday to notify our families to change our addresses to the mission home for our missions. So from now on you should mail to the mission home and I will get them on that Tuesday when I show up!  J  The address is:

Elder Eldon Ray Cummings

Brazil Londrina Mission

Rua Higienópolis, 1100, Sala 61

Centro

86020-911 Londrina – PR

Brazil

(The package mailing address is slightly different, and is listed in the sidebar below the letter mailing address.)

Also on a letter-related subject, once I get into the field, go ahead and stop using MissionTies to send letters to me. It won't be all that much faster. And getting more handwritten letters will be nice. Also I should have more time for email out in the field (possibly), more time to write letters to family, and more stuff to talk about. So once I get into the field I will start writing other family members like the Las Vegas bunch and cousins.

To answer your question, here everyone goes by Elder and Sister, even the Brazilians, just it is pronounced a little differently in Portuguese but it is the same since it is a title.

That was nice of my teachers to say hi! For sure tell them thanks and keep them updated on all my shenanigans! I'm glad that Jason is enjoying school! Keep it up, little bro!! Make sure that you set goals and have a goal in mind as to where you want to go to college and HOW you are going to get there! This is KEY!!! Also, Jason, keep working with dad at Crunch. Try and get him there at least twice a week!!

On the weight subject how is dad doing? I want to stay updated on that so I can brag about him!! Also on the weight subject, I now use the smallest hole on my belt which is one size smaller than when I started but yet I weight like 3 lbs. more than when I arrived here.

So a cool story from here at the CTM that shows how videogames can be a good thing:  There is an elder here who is really cool; he just left yesterday and he is Brazilian and almost fluent in English and he learned to speak English by playing Battlefield 3 on x-box live! Crazy!

September 7th is Brazil's Independence Day, so that was cool.  There were fireworks going off all over the city all day and all night! And, we got ice cream here for the first time since we arrived!! It was so good! Elder Schenewark and I had been craving ice cream for so long and we each ate like 3 massive bowls!!

On Sunday our district snuck down to our classroom with candy and food and watched the CES devotional by Jeffrey R. Holland! It was so amazing!! If you have not watched it, get on the computer on LDS.org and watch it (right after you are done with my letter, of course)! It was soooooo good! We are pretty sure that this talk will start a whole new era and standing of the church! It was monumental!

On Monday... well to set up the story... The only good place to set my little travel alarm clock is on the windowsill, and I usually move it off in the morning when we get up. But this Monday I forgot to and when Elder S. threw the window open, the alarm clock went tumbling out six stories to land flat on the cement at the bottom. The amazing part is when we went down to pick up the rubble (the case exploded on impact) is that the alarm clock still works!!! The swinging door cover shattered pretty much (it is put back together with duct tape) but the main clock part has only one tiny, tiny scratch on it!! Not bad for a six story fall onto the cement, hitting at terminal velocity!!!

…So what else new happened this week...We FINALLY got some new missionaries going to Londrina!!! Now Elder S. and I are no longer all alone! There are 8 new North American missionaries going there, I believe, maybe one or two more!!! And we might get some Brazilians tomorrow!! We are super excited!!

Portuguese has been coming good this past week. I’ve been making lots of friends with the Brazilians across the hall and speaking Portuguese with them all the time and I am also teaching them English which is helping me with my Portuguese. I will send photos of me with them, probably next week.

Both Elder S. and I are getting cabin fever being here at the CTM. I am grateful that I get to stay here for another 3 weeks and get even more comfortable with Portuguese but at the same time both of us want to get out into the field sooooo bad!!! We are so excited for the field!!

The temple trip today was so awesome! I am trying to read my patriarchal blessing every Tuesday night before the temple trip the next day and that has been an amazing experience! I am getting so much new insight every time I read and I am put in the perfect mindset that evening to prepare me for the temple!

It is almost hard to type in English because for certain phrases my mind just wants to do it in Portuguese now. I will try on the next email (because I don't have a lot of time left this week) to put a paragraph in Portuguese for you guys to either translate (or copy and paste into Google Translate—haha)!! So that will be fun and hopefully I won't forget to do that. I will have to write it down in my planner.

So, in closing, I just want to say how much I love you guys and miss you guys! But I love being here in Brazil!! Even though being in the CTM doesn't really feel like Brazil, I still love it! I can only imagine how awesome it will be to get into the field!!! So, once again, I love you guys!! Even you, Jason! (BTW your shirts in the most recent photos have actually been pretty stylish!! I'm still worried though about that fedora though!! haha) I can't wait for you guys' letter. One thing that would be nice, like I know it is a group project to make the letters and everything but it would also be nice to have a couple paragraphs typed up by Jason or Dad in addition to the letters you already make! I love getting your letters, though!! Oh, also it would be nice (I know you are already kind of doing this but keep it up) if you guys kept keeping me up to date on a few current events every week.

I love you guys so much!!! Can't wait to hear from you!!

Love, Elder Eldon Ray Cummings