Unseen Baptism: August 26, 2013

Dear Everyone:

1. What is the street address of your house in Londrina (so I can try to scope it out on Google Earth)? I don´t know my street address, I’ll get that for you guys for next week!
2. What is your house like? Nice? Hopefully it did not need a good cleaning when you arrived. The house is all right, I live with the zone leaders again, so once again when I got here it was a pigsty! But, it’s passable now after our morning cleaning today.
3. Where is Elder F. B. from? Who are your housemates? Elder F. B. is from João Pessoa (where D.S. served his mission)!! The other 2 elders in the house are Elder M. from São Paulo and Elder D. from eastern Washington once again!!

A moth I found under the wardrobe when I was cleaning today (he was already long dead and dry!)

Me and Elder W. leaving Cascavel (I forgot my suit jacket in Cascavel, but the elders will bring it to Londrina at the beginning of the month when the zone leaders have a conference!)

Me and Elder F. B.!

My area is the southernmost tip of Londrina, and half of the area is closed, which means that we cannot work there because missionaries were already robbed, had guns put in their faces, or in the case of Elder F. B., backpacks stabbed!! They had been working in a ghetto that was closed, but they went there anyway and two weeks ago a drunk guy ran after them with a knife and stabbed his backpack!!! Yeah, our area is pretty dope!! (We are surprised that there wasn't an emergency transfer this week—still can happen—but whatever). It does feel super different to be back in the big city again!! Like super strange! It is a lot hotter here as well!

The ward seems good, I don’t know anyone yet because this past week was stake conference, which made it hard to bring anyone to church. We are basically opening a new area since we are now strictly forbidden to go back to the ghetto. (President G. was very unhappy with the elders that were here before me for working in that ghetto, but they were doing it because they were baptizing a lot of people.) No one knows any other part of our area, but it will be fun to open it up.

So I’m still district leader, as I said last week, and my district consists of me and my comp, the zone leaders, the secretaries, and two sisters (almost as big as the zone in Cascavel!! Ha ha). That’s weird having sisters in my district for the first time. When I call to check in on them on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, they talk a lot more than the elders, which is good and bad at the same time! Another one of differences is that we have district meeting in the mission office, and guess who likes to watch and participate in all the district meetings?... President G... it is a little intimidating, to tell the truth.

Yeah the investigator from Cascavel who got baptized yesterday counts as my baptism!! Also this week we had a baptism here in Londrina, the only thing is that I never taught him, I have never even seen his face. He was taught by the elders before I got here, and was at a friend’s house all this week and was baptized in another ward at the same time as two of his friends but he is part of our ward, but he still counts as my baptism... woo hoo!...

Thanks for the great letter as always, sorry I didn’t respond to everything but I always read everything and am grateful for all of the input!! Now I’m re-focused on baptism for this next week; pray that we can receive guidance as to where we need to work and as to who we can baptize this week!!

lots of love!!

Elder Cummings