10 Companions in 9 Transfers: September 2, 2013

Dear Everyone,

1. Why was it possible that an emergency transfer might happen? Did it happen? Elder F. B. was emergency transferred because he didn’t feel safe after the stabbing of his backpack, and he wanted to leave the area. He went to my old area in Bauru (where he was stung by a scorpion and went to the hospital but now he is fine). My new comp is Elder S. from São Paulo. I now have had 10 different companions in these first 9 transfers, including two companions I only had for a week apiece due to emergency transfers. Crazy!!! Elder S. is really cool. He taught me how to mend and thin ties which is really handy!! I took some ties that I found in the house that were huge and ugly and thinned them to half their size, so now they are normal width!!
2. Is all of Londrina in the same zone? There are 2 zones in Londrina. I am in the south, called Zone Londrina and the north zone where Elder S. (his CTM companion) is called Zone Tiradentes. I did get to see Elder S. this week when we both had to go to the national police station (FBI) to get our overdue visas renewed, or else we would have been deported!! That was “fun” to sit in a government building all morning doing paperwork.

Elder S. and Elder Cummings

Now on to the new news from the week:

First off we found this great man. He lived in Florida for 8 years and has a wife (legally married!!!) and two girls, one who is 11 and the other who will turn 8 this month. We have only taught him, and not his wife or daughters, but he is really interested, so please pray that we can find him at home and help him and his family go to church this week.

We also met this cool, druggy, street “Dude” that is always saying and writing his own scriptures on cardboard boxes!! He is really funny and he likes the missionaries. He is really funny, dancing in the street and everything!! Ha ha!

So here in this ward, it is really different than my other areas, we eat lunch in very few member homes, but we do get lots of money for lunch. Because of this, I think the 20 lbs I gained in Cascavel will come off here pretty soon once it starts to heat up more!!!

This week was a really tough week for me, the new area is really morto (dead). Everyone works during the day, it is hard to find people at home and we got lost a lot this first week. Hopefully now that we know the area a lot better, the work can pick up some more and we can teach some more people this week and bring someone to church. Just to give you an idea of morto, we taught 11 lessons last week and we should be teaching around 40, but that’s OK, this week we are going to go all out in the work!!

And I think that is about it for this week,

ate mais (lots of love),

Elder Cummings