Senior Companion: May 27, 2013

Dear Everyone:

1. Tell us about the activity where you served the popcorn. The picture was from the ward activity we put on this past Thursday called SHOW MORMON!!! It was really fun, it was like Jeopardy, with different categories of questions that people had to answer.
2. Are transfers this week? Yes, transfers are this week. I will stay here and Elder M. will go to Londrina. I will get a missionary named Elder F. from Rio who just finished being trained, so I will be the senior companion!! Whoo-hoo!! Elder F. (my old comp, who was living in the same apt. with me and Elder M.) is also going to Londrina, but Elder W. (my trainer) is staying. We did not have interviews with the President this week, maybe this coming week.

Me and Elder W. serving popcorn and juice at our SHOW MORMON! Ward activity.

New basketball shorts and goodies from the B. family! Gotta love mail day.

I got the package with the basketball shorts, and the package from the B. family!! Happy birthday to me all over again. I’ll try and send a thank you letter to them this week, but it may have to wait for next week since this is transfer week. But it was such a fun package to get! And, thanks for the BYU Men’s Chorus music that you sent on the USB with the basketball shorts. It’s really good! I am building up quite a missionary-approved music library that I will pass on to Jason when I get back!!

Wow lots of news this week!!! Crazy stuff!! I’m sorry to hear about the bridge and the tornado and the Boy Scouts decision.

Sorry, there’s not a lot new to talk about right now this week other than I got to teach the Gospel Principles Sunday School class this week for the first time ever, so that was cool!!

Recognize the tie?? Be sure to tag Mr. D. in this picture when you post it on Facebook.

I’ll try to document everything that happens on my first week as a senior to share with you guys in next week’s letter. Pray for me that I can lead well and follow the Spirit to help this ward and area grow and have a baptism here in 2 weeks!!!

com amor,

Elder Cummings

P.S. Are you guys planning on picking me up at the end of my mission?? Because as of right now, I don’t know about that. I will probably be more than ready to come right back home and get ready for school/swimming, but if you guys really, really want to we can (it is going to be expencive de mais). We can talk about this more another day, we still have lots of time!! Love you guys a lot!!

The Refiner's Fire: May 20, 2013

Hey, gang!!

1. How is the elder with the heart condition doing? The elder got released as a missionary and is living in São Paulo with his aunt while he is waiting for another heart (he right now has an heart of an 80 year old...) but he should be fine. He is way at the top on the waiting list for young heart because he is young.
2. How are your two investigator sisters and G.A.’s uncle doing? We haven’t gotten to talk with the girls at all and G.A.’s uncle smokes and promised his 7 year old daughter a long time ago that he would be baptized when she is, so only in April of 2014... but we have a lot of other investigators finally, the only problem now will be accompanying (?) them all!! 
3. How was your actual birthday? Also, did you enjoy your cake?  Yes, my birthday was pretty great!!  Elder W. bought a pizza and Elder F. and Elder M. bought a cake with sparklers!!! It was super legit!!

Pizza from Elder W.

The cake with sparklers.

WAY TO GO ON THE BOSS EAGLE PROJECT LITTLE BRO!!!!!!!!!! It sounds like the project was a huge hit and really helped give Jason a well-deserved confidence boost!! Yeah, it definitely looks like it went better than my project did!! Ha ha.

The space heater is pretty standard, we hooked it up to an actual plug now.

This week was full of finding new investigators and then not checking up on them so no one went to church. I just want to work, I just want to baptize!!! It’s been almost 2 transfers without a baptism!! 

Me and Elder W. chilling out eating some brownies with ice cream!!! It was super good!!

Me pondering the meaning of life in my hoodie and beanie before going to bed.

Also this week we finally ate Schwarma, which is the sandwich/wrap/bbq thingy. It’s pretty darn good, too. Go, Avengers!!

One more random food picture.

This is definitely my hardest and area but it is also where I have grown the most!! The Lord is definitely putting me deeper and deeper in the refining fire. I know that He will never give me anything that I cannot handle, so I say: BRING IT ON!!!

com amor!!

(I’m so proud of you little bro!!)

Elder Cummings

Short but Sweet: May 13, 2013

Dear Everyone,

It was so good to see you guys on Skype yesterday!! Because of that, though, I don’t have much to write today.

This week, we got to do a division (splits) with our district leader, the thing is though that he lives in a city called Palotina which is 2 hours away by bus, so we traded off when they traveled here to do the district meeting like they do every week. I stayed here in my area with Elder B., a greenie American. It was really good to take the lead and be forced to talk with everyone, not having the option to hide behind the senior/Brasilian companion. When we went to trade back the next day, we had to get up at 4:30 a.m. (ugh) and we traveled to Palotina where I picked up Elder M. and then we turned right around to come back, so I got to look at corn fields for 4 hours on dirt roads on what was basically a city bus, so it was bumpy and uncomfortable. but I really liked it!! I like traveling and don’t mind anymore about not being comfortable. It was really, really fun!!

Our state-of-the-art-heater where you just shove the wires into the socket!!

The graffiti says, “Die, devil!”

Like I said, short! That’s about it for the week that I didn’t share in the Skype. I am much more energized and ready to work super hard this week!! Pray for baptisms please!! We have some good possibilities, but we are definitely going to need some help from up above!! (Those 2 new Facebook friends are friends that a member brought to church to visit. We are going to do a FHE with them this week and try to baptize them this week or the next, but I hope this week!!!)

Lots of love!!

com amor,

Elder Cummings!!

Flu Shots: May 6, 2013

6 May 2013

Dear Everyone,

Tell M. and K. congratulations for me!!! She’s a cutie pie. That’s awesome. I can’t believe “big sister” C. is 2 already.

1. Have you gotten our package with the basketball shorts yet (I haven’t been able to track it since it left the US)? Any other packages besides ours and P.’s? No, I haven´t gotten the basketball shorts yet, just the stuff from P.! I’ll be sure to write her a letter this week.
2. How long does Elder M. have left on his mission? Elder M. has this transfer right now and then one more and then he is going home. It is so crazy that the transfer is already almost half way over (it is only a 5-week transfer!)
3. What is “LMA” from last week’s letter? About all I could guess was less-active members? LMA means leader da missão da ala, and in English it means the ward mission leader.
4. What has strengthened your testimony this week? (In honor of Fast Sunday) What has strengthened my testimony this week is that we had 8 investigators at church this week!! We have been really needing new people to teach, and right now we are teaching a ton of couples, just some of them are not married... L Also, a member brought 2 friends to church. So, my testimony is really being strengthened that when you work hard, the ward helps you out a lot. I have never gotten so many member references up until now!! I have never had a baptism up until now that has come from a member referral, so it would be nice to be able to baptize these two that a member brought to church for us.
5.  Are you thinking about swimming for BYU when you get back? Yes! I am really considering swimming for BYU when I get back. It is something that I really want to do,and I want to start talking with the coaches now because I know that they have a training programs for missionaries to help them out when they get back! So, yeah, I really want to. I think I have a better than good shot of making it now because I am actually gaining muscle out here, which is what the old coach wanted me to do…strange, I am now up to 165...whoa! Also this probably means that I will go back to school right away instead of waiting, but I don´t know for sure yet! I’m glad that H. is really excited!!! Can you ask her what she thinks I could do to be in tip- top shape when I get back, keeping in mind I get about 30 to 45 minutes of workout time per day?

BTW, we have an elder who is in need of a heart transplant, so pray that they can find a heart that will match with his body, please!!

So thank you for the letter! It was really great! The letter really helped me out, not that I was depressed or anything just that it was for some reason an extra good letter! I’m sorry to hear that Uncle M. and Brother B. died this week. I hope Grandma and Grandpa are ok. How is Grandpa anyway, I hear a little from Grandma, but how is he doing? Do you think he will make it to see me get back home?

(I got a quick little thank you email from the L.’s, are they reading? interested? not really?) Probably how I am going to write Grammie and Aunt P. and S.G. and everyone, is to hand-write a letter on p-day, take a photo of it, and send them the photo of my letter, otherwise I will not have time at all to write everyone. :-)

Me with great hair, a great tie and a great backdrop!!

I got a present from D. and C.!! It is super sweet!!
It is a Brasil national team jersey for my favorite Brasilian player, Neymar!!

So what new happened this week?...umm...well, we got the swine flu shots this past week like you already know, so we don’t have enough money to go eat schawarma this week like we had planned, I think we are going to just sleep all day today. It is finally starting to get cold here, and on Saturday we all got soaking wet because all of our appointments fell through so we were in the street the whole day! At night now (because I didn’t bring like any cold weather gear, and by “cold here” I mean like 70 or 65 degrees during the day), I sleep in my towel shorts, a sweatshirt, a beanie, gloves, and socks. Yeah, I feel like a pansy. It’s going to be rough when I go back to Provo. Elder W. and I run almost every morning, and this morning it was so cold (for us at least) that it felt like what could normally be a normal fall day, and we are almost in the middle of winter... let’s just say that my new sweater will be getting a lot of use here pretty soon!

We had to get swine flu shots this week!! 80R later and in 3 weeks, we will be immune to swine flu!!!

Here is my leg after I fell last p-day, it is already almost completely healed up now.

Umm... what else? I left my cheat sheet with notes from the week in our house today so I’ll just tell you guys about some more stuff when we Skype on Sunday (which probably means that this next week’s email will be really tiny because I’ll have shared it all on Sunday).

Com amor,

Elder Cummings