New Missions: February 25, 2013

Dear Everyone:

Before I answer the questions, here is some amazing news:  http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/list-of-58-additional-missions-created. Yeah that’s right, 58 new missions and 7 of them are in Brazil!!! The Brazil missions will open up in July and we don’t know the new boundaries or anything, or how it is going to all work out, but the Brazil Londrina Mission will be split up, so that will be super exciting!!! I just about had a heart attack when I found this out!!!! A lot of missionaries are speculating that they will cut all of the state of São Paulo from the Brazil Londrina Mission to give to the São Paulo West Mission and maybe get rid of Cascavel and Foz de Iguaçu to give to the Curitiba South Mission and just open up a ton of currently closed cities in our area, but this is all just crazy missionaries talking about crazy stuff that we have no idea about!! But one thing is for sure that they will need to take more experienced missionaries from the current mission to help open up the new missions so there is a good chance that a bunch of people will be transferring missions. (I think this would be super cool!!!!) But again we don’t really know anything, we are just super, super excited!!!!

So, Q&A time, here we go!

1. Are we allowed to see the mission website that you referred to in your letter last week (even if it is probably all in Portuguese)? I don’t think so because you need to choose your name and enter in your mission password to get to the mission website! Sorry!
2. How are your shoes holding up? My shoes are holding up great!! I wear one pair pretty much every day except when they get really wet and the other pair only on Sundays and my everyday pair is just starting to get a hole in it but not like a hole all the way through but like there is a outer layer, then a gap that has supports and air, and then even more shoe, and right now I am almost through the outer layer on that pair in some spots. But the 2 pairs that I have will EASILY last the whole two years.
3. Did you get a hammock? No, because you have to buy them from the hippies that walk around in the street and we didn’t see any, but we are going to the zoo today so maybe I will see one!! J
4. Is this current transfer only 5 weeks long? Our elders say they are currently on a 5-week transfer, and that will cut one week off of everyone’s time at the end of the mission. Yes, this is true that this transfer is only 5 weeks long. Transfers will be the 11th and 12th of March.

By the way, I bought one more jersey and plan on getting more (they are really cheap and we found this really cool guy that sells them and he always gets new jerseys!! I’m a little addicted... but there are worse things to be addicted to!!

Way cool on the coin find!!! I think that is a 5 centavo piece because they don’t make 1 centavo pieces anymore and you can’t use them in the stores so they are rare (and they are silver) (I have one and will try and find a second one for dad, I decided that cool coins will be my present for Dad (I have some cruzeros, the coins they used before the centavos that are not valid anymore and are also rare!!)

There are lots of food pictures this week:

 First McDonald’s in 7 months!!!! It was heavenly!!!

First Brownies and ice cream in 7 months!!It was super good!! 

Keep up the good work toward the Eagle badge, little bro!!! It will help a lot, especially if you want to go to BYU. ALL of my friends at BYU are Eagle Scouts, and it is hard to find any guy at BYU who is not an Eagle Scout. If you don’t get it, you will be at a big disadvantage when you apply. (If that’s where you want to go to school, which I think it would be super cool if we went to the same college!!!)

Barbeque at a member´s house!!! it was soooooooo good!!! 

 A little avocado that we foraged while out tracting one day!!

We had no baptisms this week, but we have a strong prospect for this coming Sunday. His name is Lucas and we brought him and a friend of his to church on Sunday and the friend didn't like it but he did and he said that he will continue to come even without his friend!!! He is really great!! So I expect that we should have another baptism this coming SUNDAY!!

Other than that, this week was another week of pounding the pavement to contact 88 more people!! A lot of the references from the area book are really bad!! But, like Elder G. (my friend on a mission in Taiwan) said, member referrals are key!!! Until now I have had ZERO baptisms from member referrals. ALL of them were found knocking on doors and talking with people in the street because we have had very little member help. This way is so much harder!! But at least the ward is much more excited lately because we have been having a lot more success than normal in this area (and Elder A. and I are pretty dope!!) Last week we went out with members 4 different nights and this week we have plans for 4 more nights. It really helps out!! One of the less-active people that we visited went to church on Sunday, so it is already bearing fruit!!!

I´m still here, still working hard, still sweating a lot, still loving every minute!!!

I think that is about it. There wasn’t a ton of new stuff this week besides the new missions.

Lots of Love!

Elder Cummings