Slow but Steady: September 16, 2013

Dear Everyone:

1. Is this your street? I think that is my street!! Here is a photo of our house!
2. What is your ward like? Do you have support for your efforts? The ward is good. We have good member support, just that they are so accustomed with baptisms that they are not super animated about baptisms, but overall it is a good functioning ward!!
3. Have we snail-mailed you any of Jason’s senior pictures? No, I don´t think you sent me any of Jason’s senior photos yet!
4. How did your investigators do this week? We have kept them in our prayers. Unfortunately, two investigators that I thought were promising were not progressing so we had to cut them both, but we brought these 2 guys to church this week so that was good to finally have investigators at church this week!!! Hopefully they can be baptized. They have problems with the Word of Wisdom, but they are really good. We found one Saturday night and the other Sunday morning and they both went to church and really liked it so that is at least a start!!! The work is going slowly but steady.

And now, on to the other news of the week!!!

I got a really nice package and a really nice tie from C., F., and A. I will try to get a thank you letter out to them this week!!

This week, I spent almost 3 days with Elder D. (zone leader, who lives in our house) while our companions (Elders M. and S. were helping out another area of the zone) so that was really fun!! We took this short-cut through the woods at night to save an hour of walking time!! Good thing I had my super-bright flashlight or else crossing the river would have been much more difficult!!!

União, the neighborhood that we can´t go into any more because Elder F.B. was almost stabbed there

Looking into Londrina from my area

  

This week, we learned how to play this game called tako or bats. You play it with two 2- liter bottles, 2 pieces of wood, a tennis ball, and some chalk/a rock to mark the street. You make a little box to put the water bottle in, and draw a circle that you have to keep your stick in when you are not trying to hit the ball. You have 2 people on each team, 2 batters against 2 pitchers. The batters are trying to hit the ball, of course, but when they hit the ball far they run and trade places with their teammate to score a point (first to 12 wins), and the pitchers are trying to knock over the water bottles, when the bottle is knocked over the teams switch!! It is actually pretty fun, the only problem is that the tennis balls here are garbage (we broke 6 in 1 hour) but luckily we got 2 real tennis balls from a member this week so, all is good! 

Also, I learned how to play a different version of tic-tac-toe, but you have to get 5 in a row to win!! it is much more intense!!!

Hey Jason! Have you started thinking yet about getting your patriarchal blessing?? If not I would start thinking about it if I were you!!

This Saturday the house on the other side of the street had a party all night long playing really dirty Brasilian rap. Luckily I don’t understand a word of Portuguese when it is in that type of music because it is all squished together, so that was good for me, but Elder S. said it was really bad!

Here are a couple more pictures to close the letter this week:

Elder S. with his now-illegal money!!

My study sheet from this week!!

love you a lot,

Elder Cummings