Two Weeks in a Row: January 28, 2013

Dear Everyone,

Wow. Izzy is super big now!!!

               

1. Have you gotten a Princess Leia towel head picture with Elder F. yet? No, but that’s on today’s to-do list
2. When are transfers? They are coming up soon, right? Do you think you and Elder F. will stay together in this transfer? Transfers are the 5th of February so we have one more Sunday to baptize before transfers. I hope that we stay together because we are working really well together and we are catching the baptism fever!! And, he is a good friend but this is already the 4th transfer for him in this area so it is pretty slim that we will stay together. But I hope we do!!

Here is a photo of the birthday feast I made for Elder F. (I found a New York Knicks hat!!!!) I’m getting a little fat... I'll have to watch out for gaining too much weight on the mission...

Yeah I know that Elder S. was transferred. I missed seeing him in person by 5 minutes L but since he is in the same zone I got to call him on the phone and talk to him a little bit!! I was so happy to see that he was in Bauru!!!

BAPTISM!!!!  2 weeks in a row!! My new record! This week we baptized D., the daughter of a less-active lady, who always went to church with her aunt but we didn’t know that she wasn’t baptized. We ran into the mom on the street and got her address to pass by (we didn’t even know she was a member at that point) and then we were surprised to get to her house and find out that that we see her kids at church every week!! So we got D. prepped for baptism and her mom went to church for the first time in 6 years to watch it, and she now wants to become active again to help her kids out!!!!! No one had passed by to visit her for 6 years before we stopped by... And, we will baptize her brother P. next week, because he wasn’t going to church regularly, but he went yesterday so he can be baptized next week!! Baptizing weekly is super good but really tiring (but it’s a good tired)!!! By the way M. was confirmed yesterday too!!!!! It was a good day.

Oh, and I forgot to say this last week but thank Aunt Paula for the package!! I am behind on my letter-writing so I will try to get a letter sent out to her either this week or next.

Mom, last week in the house of a member I saw a cross stitch of the São Paulo temple which was pretty cool.

I have a new hobby, because a lot of times at houses the people have really annoying dogs that bark and bark and bark from the other side of the gate so I like to poke at them with my shoe keeping it just out of reach but it is really funny to see them try and stretch through the gate to bite it!!! But once you enter, they run away scared. They are only brave when they have a gate protecting them!!! haha

A little more info about my area for you now. My area has 5 different climates, almost. It feels like 5 different areas. We have:

1. the desert area with tons of sand
2. the industrial district which is foggy and has almost zero houses
3. the concrete jungle which is only houses and roads and sidewalks and gates, no green
4. the favela (shanty town) which we can’t go into at night because it is too dangerous
5. the jungle (this is where we work the most) which is dirt roads and lots of trees and lots of tropical bird noises everywhere (that is when we don’t have loud blasting music, Brasilians love putting giant speakers in the back of their trucks!).

I think that’s about it for this week!!

Lots of love!

Elder Cummings

Are the pictures too big?

A question from your faithful editor, Eldon's mom. I adjusted the blog width and set the picture size to be Extra Large on the two posts directly below this one. What do you think? Are the pictures too big? 

I LOVE IT HERE: January 21, 2013

21 January 2013

Dear Everyone:

1. Mailing address? Did you find out your CEP? Not yet, I don’t mind them getting sent to the mission office and waiting longer because then I can focus better on the work and only have to worry about replying every now and then.
2. Have you encountered any other unusual critters or unusual fruits? Yeah but not very many, I’m pretty used to the critters and fruit here by now so it doesn’t feel strange anymore. And, no, I don´t think I have ever eaten these things.
3. How are your knees doing? Is it just from all the walking? My knees are doing great. The knee brace is wonderful. 

And, yes, the photos are perfect!

Thanks for the recipes, I also found a recipe book in the house that has the same recipes but it is good to know that they are right reading it form 2 sources, and for the syrup I just made white syrup by using vanilla instead of maple and it is really good, so no need to send the extract.

We had a baptism this week!!!! The first baptism here in the area in over 3 months!!!  We found him on the 11th as we were walking to another appointment and we felt prompted to knock on this random door so we did and he came out and he let us in. Later on we found out that he met the missionaries for the first time in Campinas but then he moved to Bauru, the missionaries passed by a couple of times but he never let them in but he felt prompted to let us in. We taught him the first vision and invited him to be baptized on the 20th and he accepted. We found out later that he cancelled his baptism in another church that would have been on the 27th. We kept teaching him and he accepted everything really easily, he has such a strong testimony of Joseph Smith that he would always accept what we told him (he would always ask why but after explaining he accepted everything really easily). And on the Friday before the baptism (the 18th) he had already set aside his tithing money for the money that he made during the week even though he didn’t have to yet!! And then he was baptized yesterday (the 20th).

He is one of my favorite people that I have met so far on the mission—he is an elect! I believe that he will remain active for a long time! He has gone to a Family Home Evening already and will go to another tonight. He was one of the 20 people to show up to the ward activity last Thursday! He is one of my best friends and proof that it is never too late to change!!!

Sister T. did a surprise inspection this week, and our house had a rep for being the worst house in the mission, but as you can see, Sister T. said it was the cleanest house in the mission and talked with us personally to congratulate us for our house!! The note reads as such: “I am very happy and proud of you two! This is the cleanest house that I´ve visited! Congratulations!! Sister Tavares.”  Yeah, we are pretty sweet! And, our house was in my opinion a lot more dirty than normal, and after our cleaning that we did today it is way cleaner than it was when she made her inspection.

After talking with a lot of elders that have also served in Apucarana, it turns out that Eldorado (the area we were starting to work in just before I was transferred here) was a really tough and trying area but I didn’t think it was too bad at all. But all of the missionaries that I know that served in Geisel (where I am now) said it was the toughest, most trying time of their mission with the worst area and the worst house they had on the mission, BUT I LOVE IT HERE!!

So as far as talks go, I’m glad your talk went well! And I also gave a talk in sacrament meeting this week (my first talk of the mission) and it just so happened that the two speakers in sacrament meeting were: yours truly and the Stake President. It wasn’t too bad at all and afterward everyone was asking how much time I had on the mission and how soon I was going home, everyone thought that I had at least a year on the mission so that was pretty cool!!

RAVENS!!!!! Can you guys PLEASE buy me a NFC champions Ravens t-shirt for me so I can have it when I get back??? And if/when the Ravens win the Super Bowl, please buy me a Super Bowl champions t-shirt too.  J

Me being goofy with a toy we found in the street. 

I think that’s all the time I have!!

Lots of Love,

Elder Cummings

Regret for the Lost: January 13, 2013

Dear Everyone,

1. What do you do for exercising or working out?  We do pushups, sit-ups, lunges, lots of knee exercises. I am having a little bit of knee problems but I am doing all the workouts that the mission has missionaries do for these problems and I bought a knee brace sleeve thingy today so all should be good. Working out in the morning, we really can’t do a whole ton because it is only 30 minutes and we don’t have anything to use so it is kind of what we feel like doing that day, really.
2. Do you have anything you want me to share with the ward on Sunday when I speak in Sacrament meeting? This kind of meshes with the conference address you have been assigned as your topic. It is a regret that I have after listening again to the conference address by David A. Bednar in the April 2012 priesthood session, about the rights and power of the priesthood. One of the things that I regret now that I am on the mission is that I didn’t help missionary efforts enough in the ward. We worked for 4 hours this week and 4 hours last week with our stake mission leader trying to find members that have fallen away from the church. I spent a ton of time calling old telephone numbers and finding out that people moved 20 years ago, died, changed telephone numbers 15 years ago, the number was disconnected, etc. It is really sad that these people moved to different stakes and no one in the Church knew about it for over 20 years, and now they are completely lost. I wish I had gone up to the Bishop and asked him: “How can I help?” or that I went up the missionaries and said: “Monday we will have a Family Home Evening, bring an investigator over!!” I wish I had been proactive in the church. I wish I had done more. (hope that helps)

I finally got my name tag for my suit!

Now, back to Bauru:

Me in front of a big hole in the middle of the street in our area
that was made after two days of rain

Awesome letter as always. It’s good to see the Ravens continue on!!

Squidward!

Can I have a photo of the front of our house, taken from the street? I want to show Elder F. that we don’t have a gate or wall or anything, or bars on our windows!

Some weird fruit that they have here.* It is really big.

* The world's largest edible fruit, the jackfruit (jaca in Portuguese), although not native to Brazil, is one of Brazil's most characteristic fruits, and is cultivated throughout the tropical regions of the country. This gigantic fruit has been known to reach a length of up to 3 ft (90 cm) weighing 80 lb (36 kg) or more. (http://flavorsofbrazil.blogspot.com/2012/01/fruits-of-brazil-jackfruit-jaca.html)

Can you send me a recipe for pancakes and, if you can, how to make your own maple syrup? It is Elder Faustino’s birthday next week and I want to make him an American breakfast!!!

Things are going great here in our area. Hopefully next week we can have a baptism and break the almost 4-month dry spell in our area!! We cut about 25 investigators who haven’t been progressing, so now it is time to get a ton of references and contact everyone!! It will be almost a fresh start (we only have about 10 people left that we are teaching). But, at least we have M.!! He is about 65 and he wants to change his life around. He had met with the missionaries in a different area of Brasil a few years back, but he had rejected visits from other missionaries in the more recent past. But, for some reason he let us talk with him. We invited him to be baptized on the 20th and he accepted, and cancelled his baptism at another church, because (and I quote) “I felt impressed by the Spirit to be baptized in the Mormons instead of (the other Church)!!!” He is progressing really fast, and really changing a lot! After reading the pamphlet on the Word of Wisdom (without us specifically asking him to), when we came back the next day he had thrown out his coffee!! We hope he is able to be baptized this Sunday; he is really special to us!!

 Me herding some geese/bird-like things.**

** Guinea Hens. In Brazil they are known as galinha d'Angola (Angolan hen), galinha-do-mato (forest hen), capote (caped), guiné (Guinea) or pintada (dotted). In NE Brazil, the capote is often used much as a turkey is used in North America. It can be substituted for chicken in almost any recipe. Some people consider it to have a slightly gamy taste, although others don't notice this at all. (http://flavorsofbrazil.blogspot.com/2010/09/poultry-guinea-fowl-from-africa-to.html)

I think that is about it for this week,

Lots of Love,

Elder Eldon Ray Cummings

Raining Like Crazy: January 7, 2013

Dear Everyone,

Answer time!

1. Where is Elder F. from? He is from São Vincente which is in São Paulo next to the beach.
2. What are his duties as District Leader, and does it change what the two of you do during the day compared to what you did when you were with Elder W.? His duties are mainly a lot of calling during the evening so it doesn’t affect our days at all, except on Saturday because he has to interview all the baptisms for our district. But really it doesn’t mess up our schedule at all.
3. What time does your ward meet? Do you have to go round up the members like you did in Vila Reis? Our ward meets at the same time as in Apucarana, 9 in the morning. We do a lot of calling to round up investigators and we visit the ones that are close by to the church. (We had 5 investigators at church yesterday!!!)
4. Do you walk as much as you did in Vila Reis? We walk WAY more than we did in Vila Reis. Vila Reis is so tiny that we hardly walked far at all. But here, our area of force is really far away so we walk a lot.

Great email like always. Thank you for the NFL updates!!! RAVENS!!!!!!!! And, thank you for your part, Dad! So now it’s time for the mission update!

This week was a good week—but not a super eventful week—here in Bauru. Portuguese is coming so much easier with a Brasilian companion because I don’t have the crutch to ask a question in English anymore!! And Elder F. is really good! I just need to now gain more confidence and be more active during our street contacts. I am really lacking in this aspect!

No baptisms this week, but we have good potential for next week. We had 5 investigators at sacrament meeting yesterday, which is really good. Now we just need to prep them for baptism which will be hard because a lot of them smoke A LOT!!! Our zone has a goal of 30 baptisms this month, which will break the old zone record of 28 and we have 5 as of yesterday. We have 4 more weeks to go, so we can do it! Elder F. and I have a goal of 6 for our companionship this week! Pray that we will have enough focus and diligence to meet this goal.

Friday night, walking back from Tangaras (our area of force), it was raining like crazy!!! I have stayed drier falling in the pool with my clothes on than I did on this night. While we were walking up hill (the whole way going home is uphill), we were walking literally in a river that used to be the street. At some points, we were walking in water up to our mid-calf!! It was pretty crazy, and there was lots of wind and thunder and lightning that was really loud and really close!!!! It was pretty fun, actually, splashing around in the water, but not so much fun drying off all of our stuff and our house. One of our walls leaks water so we always have big puddles on the floor after it rains, at least all of our floor is tile (tile floors and walls are really popular here).

Elder F. and me after the rainstorm (if you click on the picture, it is easier to see how Elder C.'s shirt is sticking to him because it is soaking wet)

All my stuff drying out after the rain...everything got wet even though I put it in plastic bags...

Me and Elder F. all pretty and dry!

We taught with members on two nights this week and it was amazing!!! The Spirit was so strong when they were with us. Other times that we had members, they never said anything, so it was like a normal visit, but with these two somewhat-recent returned missionaries, the Spirit was amazing!!! They always seemed to be able to relate with the investigator so well and when they taught or bore testimony, it was perfect for what that investigator really needed to hear. My testimony of having members teach with us is a lot stronger now than before. (Dad: challenge everyone in the ward to teach with the missionaries, not just go out with them, but to teach with them! Make a list for teaching with the missionaries like they have for feeding the missionaries, and I would even say have a backup ward member as well for the days and have the missionaries schedule teaching appointments for these times!!! This will help out the work a lot! I know that through member support, that the ward can baptize a lot of people even if it is the worst area in the mission. With member support it can become the best area in the mission!!!)

One more parting shot from Apucarana:
Elder S. and me taking a shortcut to an investigator's house!!

I think that is about it.

Lots of Love,

Elder Cummings