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