Feast and Famine: November 26, 2012

Dear Family and Everyone:

1. CHRISTMAS CALL—we need to know what to plan on, Skype or phone call, so we can figure out the timing.  I know you have transfers on Christmas Day, does that mean you will be at the mission office that day??  The Christmas call will be Skype from a member’s house. I don’t know the time yet. (Transfers are a week early, so the 18th of December!)
2. On Sunday, do you have a Gospel Essentials class during Sunday School?  Do you teach any classes during the block?  Have you had to give a talk in sacrament meeting yet??  Yes, we have Gospel Essentials during the second hour of the block, and, no, we don’t regularly teach any classes, and, no, I have not talked yet in church!

 On to the rest of the week!!

I sent a package (envelope) home for Jason and one more envelope for C., F., and A. (I probably won’t be able to do this again because it was crazy expensive to send these 2 super light padded envelopes, well, crazy expensive for a missionary!) Jason can open the package on Christmas Eve (nothing is wrapped inside) and C., F., and A. need to wait until Christmas to open theirs! J

Some lighter news first. Music here is interesting and often really funny because Brazilians like American music but don’t understand the words. Two examples:

1. Jason, look this song up on Spotify, it is really funny.  It is called “Gummy Bear” and all the words are: “I’m a gummy bear” over and over again.
2. This big tough guy in a big truck (really rare here in Brasil to see a big truck), and he had on big giant sunglasses looking all tough and was listening to “Man, I Feel Like a Woman” by Shania Twain... me and Elder W. were busting up laughing!!!!

So, interesting facts about missionaries/missions in Brasil (I don’t know how many new missionaries will be added to our mission but it sounds like a good amount, close to how many are going to be added to the Seattle Mission):

• 2 years ago the Brasil Londrina Mission was the lowest baptizing mission in South America, but now it is 15th in Brasil!
• The average missionary in Brazil walks enough to walk from São Paulo to Salt Lake and back during the 2 years!!! Crazy, huh?

I saw my first chicken get killed in real life. We were teaching this girl (baptized her this week!!!) and the mom was right there (we were teaching outside) and she cut the throat of the chicken and was plucking it during our lesson...it was interesting...

One thing about Brasil is that you get to see a lot of new types of bugs and you don’t have to look hard to find them. All you have to do is wait a few minutes and then look down at your shirt and you will see a cool bug!!! I am getting a lot more used to bugs landing all over me and getting bitten all the time so it doesn’t even itch really anymore, which is good.

Dad, a member had this beautiful dog. It was a border collie and was about 2 years old! It was gorgeous, and he looked a lot like Dusty (only bigger). I was going to take a photo this week, but in the 3 weeks in between our lunch appointments the dog died… L he ate something really bad. Sorry I couldn’t send a picture of him! L

And, thus we arrive at the day of food, both for the belly and finding lots of new investigators!!!! So to start it all off, the member who had the dog took us to this all-you-can eat buffet and Brasilian-style grill!! It was soooooooo good. I ate more than I ever have in my life! (I’m slowly starting to get Brasilian recipes, too!!) And then we went to Vila Reis and while we were still super full from lunch, a member gave us 2 glasses of chocolate milk and a thick slice of homemade bread with butter and 2 bananas and 2 apples each!! Holy cow, I was so full... Then we were spiritually fed with investigators, first by this lady that stopped us in the street and said: “Please stop by my house! My son has some new friends that are bad and he really needs God in his life right now. Please stop by later this week!” (we will stop by tomorrow!!! J).  And then that night we found this really big family (about 7 or 8 people) and after about 15 minutes of just talking about who we are and where we are from, they gave us dinner... (I wasn’t even close to being hungry this whole day!!! Holy cow!) And then on Sunday we found 7 more new investigators in another big family!! Blessings galore (which is good because we have no money for food, it is feast AND famine here in Apucarana)!

And now, what you have been waiting patiently for!! The baptism story!!  We baptized a 16-year-old girl this week. We found her knocking doors last Saturday and the next day she went to church with her dad and she brought 2 friends too. We taught her this week and baptized her yesterday!! An 8-day turnaround! Not bad! Hopefully we can baptize her friends this week and some from our new giant families in the week after!!! A pretty uncomplicated story, thank goodness!!

That’s it for news from Brasil today!!

·              Yay, Choke is finally gone from the Mariners!! 

·              Ravens are representing really good!! (Elder D. from Eastern Washington is a Ravens fan too, what are the odds?!!)

·              Interesting about Hostess, “That’s not the stuff!”

·              Wow, crazy about all the people talking about seceding (even if they are not serious!!!)

·              Congrats DAD!! I´m proud of you!! Keep me posted on how it goes setting up the testing department!!! (How’s the weight coming off???)

I probably forgot something but oh well, I don’t have much time left!!  I love you guys! This church is so true! Jesus Christ is amazing!! He was the only person to live a sinless life and without him we cannot return to live with our Father in Heaven. He is a boss! (with the utmost respect of course!:) I am so blessed to know for certain that he knows and loves me individually!! Jesus is the Christ!!!

Lots of love!!

Elder Eldon Ray Cummings J

Eu Sou Um Tigre!!!  (I’m a Tiger)

P.S.  I don’t have a baptism photo, but I had a lot of other photos I wanted to send, but the security on this computer is weird and won’t let me get to the files to send them home! Sorry... L I´ll try again next week cause I’m out of time (I might have gotten a virus from the other more shady cybercafe.) L

Hard to Read the Difficult Smart Words: November 19, 2012

Dear Everyone,

So answers to the questions first:

1. On P-Day, do you still go out to Vila Reis, or do you stay closer to your apartment?  We end p-day an hour early (5:00) so we can make it out to Vila Reis by 6 to start proselyting.
2. How many lessons do you generally teach before you invite an investigator to be baptized? We always invite them to be baptized on the first visit and if they say no we don’t go back.

B. and K. are the only members of the family and we are trying to baptize more in the family though things are a little rocky right now with the family of B. but we are still trying our best.

The new missionary is also Elder W., he is from Alaska and he has one more transfer than Elder W. (my trainer, so just over a year) and he is cool. He is a good missionary. I think we have a good relationship so far. So in short we still have a pretty awesome apartment full of elders!! YAY!

I got package number 2 this past week!!!! Thank you so much!!! It is perfect! The missionary stocking is too cool!!! I also got a package from C., F., and A.!! That family is so awesome!! It had all kinds of snacks and CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!!!! It was perfect! Of course I will be sending out thank you letters and all that stuff.  J It was also a big letter day! I got a letter from you guys and 3 from Grandma and Grandpa and one from Aunt Paula. I will try to write everyone back today.

Elder W. and I decided to deck out the house for Christmas a little early since no one celebrates Thanksgiving here!! (using the lights from C., F., and A.!!!)

We didn´t have any baptisms this past week but we have some really good potential! One investigator (didn't go to church this week so she is potential for two weeks from now) is the sister of a less active young man and she has almost finished reading the entire Book of Mormon!!!!!! Another possibility that we have for this coming week is this young woman that we met on Saturday. She cried in the middle of our lesson and she came to church yesterday with her dad and she brought two of her friends with her too!!!!! Maybe we will baptize her and all of her friends this next week (the dad isn't married so we can't baptize him) But she might be a little bit of a “snake,” or a person who only gets baptized because they have a crush on the missionary, because she asked if missionaries are allowed to date on the mission. But she is nice and her family is always there, so I don’t think it will be a problem and she has a strong testimony at the same time!! So Batiza!!! (just baptize!!!)

So back to the packages. Those water bottles came just in the nick of time!! We got them on Thursday and on Tuesday they banned all the mission water bottles they people got at the CTM so Elder W. was out of luck just like me. I gave him one of the water bottles of course, so now we are cruising!!! The water bottles are fantastic!!! Also the deodorant is GOLD!!!! (literally!) I hope you don’t mind but since I had so much deodorant I traded it for stuff, and I gave one to Elder W. ‘cause he desperately needed it (and because we are buds), and traded 2 others and got 4 ties and other goodies in return!! (And I still have enough that I should make it through the 2 years, hopefully... But yeah, they are gold!

Did Morty (the family gecko) sneak into my package!!??
Haha…the night that I opened my package from you guys we had this little guy
in our study room; he was hanging out for about 2 and a half days and then he left!!

(this is Morty, looking longingly at his dinner container...notice the resemblance?)

On a lighter note we saw this sign at the drinking fountain at the bus terminal that read (translated into English of course by me and Elder W.): It is prohibited to wash your dentures in the fountain... It was really funny and we got a good kick about that!

We got some major help yesterday with the bus. Our bus that we take home each night was late getting to Vila Reis so we were thinking: “Great, now we are going to miss our second bus from the terminal to our apartment, and we’ll have to walk another 30 minutes.” But we said a little prayer on the bus and even though we got to the terminal late, we made every green light and made it just in time to barely catch the next bus!! I’m glad that heavenly father looks out for his missionaries!!!

Hiking back from a lunch appointment!
(It took us about 45 minutes to walk there and another 45 to walk back!!)

I am still loving the mish!! Those packages and letters really were awesome!! Hopefully I can send you photos of another baptism next week!! The mission is so awesome! It really is the best start to your life! The gospel of Jesus Christ is so true and this Church is so true!! The gospel of Jesus Christ is so simple but yet at the same time infinitely complex! It is just purely awesome!! I love being a missionary and being able to study⁽¹⁾ and learn and to teach every day the gospel of Jesus Christ!! Love you guys so much!!!

Sorry my letters are getting a little shorter but things are becoming a little more of the same each day! I will try and keep finding new experiences and details to share to keep my emails from becoming too short like some missionaries, I really do enjoy emailing you and trying to share the most possible with you from my mission and hope to always continue to share the news in my life with you even after the mission! Love you so much!

Lots of love!!

Elder Eldon Ray Cummings

⁽¹⁾ Elder W. and I are currently reading Jesus the Christ (by James E. Talmage) together in English out loud and it is so hard to read the difficult smart words in English! All the time I substitute an English word for a word in Portuguese or pronounce a word with a Portuguese pronunciation!! Right now it is easier to read PME Pregar Meu Envangelho (Preach My Gospel) in Portuguese than Jesus the Christ in English.  It will be interesting to see how much English I lose by the end of my two years here! I am really excited that Portuguese is coming more and more naturally every day!

Obrigado, Sister Tavares: November 15, 2012

Para você Sister Cummings. Conferência de Distrito em Apucarana !!

For you, Sister Cummings. District Conference in Apucarana!

I love being friends with Sister Tavares on Facebook!!

Dressed in White: November 12, 2012

Dear Everyone,

Yeah, sorry about being negative last week. But, luckily things are looking up!!!

So first off, a fun fact for Dad:  you can get 7 DVDs here for mais o menos (more or less) 5 dollars. They are pirated, though. Just thought about you when I saw this (when I saw the DVD part, not the pirated part J)!

Q and A time

1. Looking back at your growing-up years, what was the one thing that best prepared you for missionary service?  There wasn't really one thing that really prepared me for missionary work. Everything helped, but a couple things that really helped was reading the scriptures, and camping.
2. Do you miss the cold, or are you getting used to the heat? Yes I miss the cold, I am used to being wet and sweaty but I am not used to the heat, from talking with everyone else you never really get used to the heat.

So this week we mixed things up a lot and did a lot of tracting and finding new people to teach and cutting A LOT of investigators that have not been progressing. It is really hard to find addresses because in some streets half or more of the houses have a number but it is not displayed, so when we get a reference it is almost impossible to find the house (and a lot of times they give you an address to a house that doesn't exist!!!)

Our area in Vila Reis

Some other interesting things that happened this week:

1. I learned to wear my dirtiest tie in the rain so that way you can wash it.
2. We had 8 missionaries in our apartment this week because their apartment was being painted. It was crazy having the whole district in our apartment. It was tons of fun, but a little annoying because the other elders are not as tidy as us. It was still a blast, but it will be nice when they go back to their apartment this week!

 We had a really weird encounter this week with a guy named J. He was pleasant and nice with his words and was respectful but the spirit in his house was EVIL!!! Holy Smokes!! It was so weird the whole time, he was asking really weird questions. He only believed in the Old Testament, he had this gigantic German shepherd, which had this weird feeling about him as well. It was creepy, and a little bit into our conversation with him the phone buzzes and we look down and the screen says Pres. Monson... and it rings three times and then stops (we checked our phone afterwards and we didn’t receive any phone calls during the lesson...??). Weird, and then when I was trying to say something to wrap things up with him (I had been silent this whole time, letting Elder W. talk), I could not say a single word! My words were stuck in my throat. My tongue would not work...so we got the heck out of Dodge.

On a related note it is weird to see gypsies and witches on the streets sometimes and they always say pew pew when we walk past, I try not to look at them and I haven’t stopped to ask them why they go pew pew, and I don’t plan on doing so.

Parrots at the bird park we visited last week

The peanut butter was heavenly!!! My favorite thing to put my peanut butter on was a spoon!! (I say “was” because it is already all gone! A missionary has got to eat!)

So before I forget, today we found out the transfer schedule! Elder W. and I are staying here and staying together (he will have 6 months in this area by the end of the transfer which means that he will leave after this transfer and I will stay here for at least one if not 2 more transfers, which means 4.5 to 6 months for me in Vila Reis!) Elder D. in our house will leave to be a zone leader in another zone, and he will be replaced by another missionary that we don’t know much about, so we will see how that goes.

And now the part you have been waiting for!!!! BAPTISMS!!!!! We had our first 2 baptisms this week, B. (who Elder W. baptized and is next to him in the photo) and K. (who I baptized and is next to me in the photo). B. is 11 and K. is 9, and it helps that they are next-door neighbors and good friends. We are working on baptizing the brother and sister of B. and the brother of K., but it is a long and confusing story so I will write a snail mail letter with all the details and the story behind this baptism because it is a pretty crazy story!! But we finally both got to baptize!!! It felt so good to enter into the waters of baptism with K. and perform the ordinance (and I said the prayer correctly on the first try which always helps)! It was such a cool experience, one that I will never forget! It is so amazing to see them change in that one second that they are underwater, and then emerge a completely different person!! It was really awesome and has us more excited and a little re-energized to try and get more and more!! J

We look good in white!

Don’t know what else to add, like I said I will put all the baptism details in a snail mail letter to you guys!! Sorry it is kind of short this week, I probably forgot a lot of what I was going to say but I guess this will have to do until next week! Things are really hectic at this point. I am learning so much Portuguese it is really cool! I looked back to the beginning of the transfer and how little I knew back then and it is amazing how much more I know now and how much more confident I am now!! The mission is the longest, shortest, hardest, most rewarding experience of my life so far and it is only just beginning!! Love you guys so much! I know that this is the one and only true church of our Heavenly Father here on the face of the earth and that Jesus Christ is at the head guiding and speaking to us through his prophet! I know the gospel is true and I love it!!

A tree that did not survive our wind and rain storm last week

Hope you like the photos!

Have a great week!

Keep me posted!

Lots of love!

Elder Eldon Ray Cummings!!

P.S. It is already getting a little tough to talk and write in English at times. I still dream in English, but I sometimes think in Portuguese now, which is cool!!

CTM Flashback: November 7, 2012

On a week when Elder Cummings did not include any pictures in his letter, I was doubly thrilled to receive these pictures from his CTM companion's mother.  Us Missionary Moms gotta stick together!

Being a Missionary Is...Pretty DOPE!: November 4, 2012

Dear family,

Então... muito desculpa (so, very sorry…)  We forgot to bring Elder W.’s camera with us to the internet cafe so no photos this week, but we will send lots of photos next week (and I haven't sent a snail mail letter the past 2 weeks because of time constraints and a lack of other things to report now that my emails are longer and I can normally send photos in email).

Question and Answer Time:

1. What did you do for arts & crafts P-day??  So arts and crafts time on p day was making a really nice wallet with gospel pictures on it and waterproofing it as well, along with making a new cover for my daily planner. They are pretty dope!
2. Does your church building have a baptismal font?  Yes, our building has a baptismal font! J
3. Have you gotten your first package from us, or any snail mail since you got into the field?  Got the first package yesterday along with the letter with info from my other friends on missions (it was perfect timing but I’ll talk about that later). And if you could send me some more photos of the family, like grandma and grandpa and cousins, and photos of Seattle that I can share that would be awesome!!
4. Are you doing any work with reactivating inactive members of the branch, or are you spending most of your time with investigators?  We spend a lot of time teaching investigators but we have a lot of inactive members who can’t afford to take the bus to church every week so we teach them a lot as well! We set new personal records for lessons in one day twice this week! One day we taught 15 lessons and 2 days later we taught 16, and we had a new record for most in one week:  67!!  We’re doing the work, and hopefully our hard work will produce fruits this coming week.

 Dad/Jason:  what the heck is a Paragon in Diablo III???

This week was an interesting week. We got around 9 new mission rules because of habits that missionaries had regarding baptisms. These rules make is so we need more authorization to baptize younger kids, and addresses other issues that have been going on. It will be a good thing in the end because even though it is a pain to get the extra interviews and authorization for baptisms it will make them stronger members after baptism, which is good. And, it will help to prevent the “shady” baptisms that some missionaries get a reputation for. It is really hard to be a missionary when missionaries before you are a bad example, because even if they have never heard of the church they have heard about the bad things that the missionaries have done. These new rules will bless the mission a lot!

Elder W. has been a little sick this week but it isn’t anything serious he got some meds from Sister Tavares and has been improving every day! (Sister Tavares takes really great care of all the missionaries!!) The Vitamin C gummies are perfect, and I have been sharing them with Elder W. All the missionaries thank you for the tootsie rolls, especially Elder S., who loves them!! Ha ha! And great call on the peanut butter, it is just what I need! Pretty much in general the package was perfect! I am very blessed to have you as my mom! Love you so much!

Once, again no baptisms this week. L Once again, the adversary is working really hard to prevent us from doing our part. For example, the bus fare went up by 25 centavos this week which will cost us 4R every week, which is annoying. But I think we are handling the challenges well and should produce fruit this coming week!

We had three baptisms marked for this past Sunday. All were what we call firmies but they all fell through at the last moment AGAIN!

• Case 1, “L.”  We talked with him on Friday and he was excited to be interviewed the next day on Saturday (a new rule is that they have to be interviewed at least one day in advance) and that he was excited to be baptized on Sunday. But 2 hours after our conversation he left to visit family in another city and won’t get back until today actually.
• Case 2, “B.” She went to church this past week and loved it and was ready to be baptized but was at her dad’s house in the other part of Apucarana for the weekend because of the Day of the Dead which is November 2, but she was planning to go to church anyway to be baptized. And we called her the morning before church and she said she would come but then never showed up...
• Case 3, “K.”  She passed her interview Saturday morning (YAY!!!) but later on that night there was an emergency in the family in another city so she and her grandma left and didn’t go to church.

 Hopefully we can baptize all three this coming week. It was really depressing to have all our baptisms fall through for the 4th week in a row, and I was feeling kind of down, but then 30 minutes later Elder D. brought me the package, and the letter from you, and a letter from another missionary here in Brasil. Like I said, perfect timing. And today I am all better, ready to go out and work and teach even more lessons this next week and baptize those 3 and prepare at least 4 to be baptized in the week after!

We are still working strong here. We found 20 new people to teach and have lots of references left to contact! We are getting there but are not quite doing everything right yet, but we are working really hard every day and are planning to have better numbers this next week than the week before! (We have the best teaching numbers in the whole zone right now and possibly in the entire mission (excluding baptisms of course...) right now.) So we are working hard, but just need to figure out what we are doing wrong and fix it in order to help these wonderful people who we love enter into the waters of baptism!!

We had a crazy storm this week, not nearly as crazy as the storm in NY but it was my first real wind and rain and thunder and lightning storm Brasil-style! We had tons of wind and rain and of course it was really hot that morning so we left our umbrellas and jackets back at the house. Luckily, though, we only got soaking wet once (and things dry really fast in Brasil, thankfully). But after that initial crazy running through the streets with pouring rain coming at us almost completely sideways, we were fine! Because after the initial 30 minutes of extreme weather, it was off and on, and it was always off, maybe lightly sprinkling while we were in the street and as soon as we would go into a house to teach a lesson, it would pour rain and the wind would blow, and all that jazz.  Then, during the closing prayer it would stop again until we were in the next house! It was pretty amazing and a good testimony builder that our Heavenly Father is mindful of his missionaries!!

So, the damage that Vila Reis sustained in this storm was that a few trees fell over (I have one photo of me standing on a tree that fell over that I will send next week), the roof of the local school came off, the wall for the playground of the school fell over, and one shack collapsed (thankfully no one was hurt)! It was pretty crazy!

Thank you once again for all the updates and thank you Jason for your added part as well! I am really excited that you will serve at 18!!

That´s about it I think... (we got our new bunk beds which is cool!)

I love being a missionary! It is so hard but the Spirit guides us where ever we go. Our study time is especially inspiring! Whenever one of our investigators has an issue, or a member says they are going to leave the Church because of a passage in the Bible* or anything like that, we always find the perfect response in the scriptures and our understanding is constantly being enlarged, even about scriptures that we had already studied and thought that we knew! Pretty much in short being a missionary is...well it is pretty DOPE!! There is really no better way to describe it!

Lots of love,

Elder Eldon Ray Cummings

(Sorry it’s all jumbled.  I ran out of time again.) J

*The version of the Bible in Portuguese that is the “best” version is not very good.  It is sad to see written in the front of the Bible that it was translated, compiled, and altered by so-and-so.  The Word of God does not need to be compiled or altered by man!  We have already experienced many difficulties with those who are familiar with this Bible because there are scriptures in it that are nowhere close to the same verse in the King James Version of the Bible.  It is sad that other religions have changed the Word of God to try and make their church the correct church of God (and kind of embarrassing that they left in certain parts that prove that their church is still false... whoopsie)!! But our purpose here is not to Bible-bash or prove other churches wrong, it is to help others to realize that our church is the true church of Jesus Christ!! J