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