Zone Conference in Foz do Iguacu! June 18, 2013

Dear Everyone,

Sorry this is a day late, but as you know, yesterday our zone went to Foz do Iguaçu! It was AMAZING!!! I sent some of the best photos that showed the widest views, but I took over 100 photos, so there will be a lot more to share when I get back home!!!

To answer your questions here really quickly before I get to the pictures:

1. Jason is sitting at his computer working on his dictator research paper that is not due until Wednesday, but his goal is to have it ready to submit to turnitin.com after the essay final tomorrow. He wants to know what dictator you did your research paper on when you were in Oliveira’s class? I don’t know who I did my dictator paper on to tell the truth!  
2. How many companions are in your district? Where do they all live/serve? There are 3 companionships in my district: me and Elder F., Elder W. and Elder S., (the zone leaders) (we work here in the 3rd Ward), and Elder B. and Elder A. who work in Palotina which is a city 2 1/2 hours from Cascavel.
3. How many baptismal interviews did you do this week? And on a related note, who interview your baptismal candidates? I hope that at least some of your 8 good candidates were ready and able to be baptized this week.  I did only 1 interview this week. The zone leaders do my interviews for my baptismal candidates!! We baptized only one of the 8, this week. Her name is P., and she is 15 and my first baptism from a member reference. The older brother of her member friend baptized her, and Elders S. & W. baptized the lady on the left in the picture. We are going to baptize P.’s sister this coming Sunday and their parents soon as well (they are married—Yes!)

 Now without further ado, this week’s pictures! (Sorry this is so short…)

 This is the color change that has come to pass because of the sun on my backpack!! (from gray to pink)

P.’s baptism. The man between her and me is the friend who baptized her.

FOZ DO IGUAÇU, one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World!

The van that was supposed to pick us up at 5 in the morning was late, so we passed the time by chronicling our awesomeness by taking photos in the foggy street!!!

Me and Elder W. in front of the sign before going into the park.

Me with the little tiny waterfalls in the background!! The big ones are yet to come!

Some more of our missionaries in front of the medium sized waterfalls!!!

The Devil´s Throat!!! The giant waterfalls!!

Me, Elder S., and Elder W. in front of the medium falls. You get a little bit wet because of all the spray!!

Sister T., me, and President T. The sun was bright!

Top view of the waterfalls from the observation tower.

Com amor,

Elder Cummings

Life of a District Leader: June 3, 2013

Dear Everyone,

1. Are any Londrina missionaries going to the new missions? No Londrina missionaries will go to other missions.
2. Will there be any sort of mission conference(s) when President T. leaves and the new mission president arrives? We should have a zone conference with President T. this coming week (week of June 10).

Nice shirt, little bro (it doesn't have a pocket…mind is blown…)!!! Congrats on the seminary pin and everything!!! Great job on the gym, Dad, keep it up!!

So on to the week’s news (I actually have a bunch to report today which is nice!!):  first off... happy 50th birthday old man!!! J (Speaking of birthdays, when is Elder S.´s birthday? He sent me a birthday card and I want to be sure not to miss sending him a birthday card!!)

I was called this week as district leader here in Cascavel!! Wow!! This means that I need to accompany(?) everyone on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and get their weekly numbers on Sunday by telephone. Also I do all the baptismal interviews for everyone in my district, so this past Saturday I traveled with my companion 2 1/2 hours to Palotina to do a baptismal interview. He passed and was baptized yesterday, so that was great. He was super ready and I had done a practice with the zone leaders earlier that day (talk about pressure doing a fake baptismal interview with your trainer and one of the old assistants to the president watching and critiquing every move!!) so the real interview was smooth as butter!!! And I will probably need to go out there again this Friday to interview one more and the zone leaders have already marked an interview for them this Saturday!! We are starting to catch fire here as a district, the only thing now is that we need to baptize, we almost had a baptism but he didn´t feel ready and we tried to help him out but he was firm that he will get baptized just not today, (hopefully this week will be better!!) This is the “Month of 200,” where our goal as a mission is to baptize 200 people. With the month having 5 Sundays it gives us a better chance to reach the goal. It is President T.’s last month, and all stops are out to try and finally reach 200 baptisms in a month in his honor. When President T. first started as mission president, the mission was baptizing 20 to 25 people per month. That is like a stateside mission!!! He is the best, and it will be so different without him here.

Me and my companion waiting for the 8:20 bus back to Cascavel.

When we were coming back from the interview on Saturday night, we had to get the 8:20 bus, which is the last bus of the day, and we got the last 2 seats!!! We got back home in bed around 11:15 but it is all good because we got permission from the APs to be out later in order to do the interview.

Can you scan and send me a photo of dad on his mission??!!!!

Some other fun facts from this week:

• Elder F. is from Rio and is super energetic... like a little ball of energy!! He is awesome.
• We tried ordering pizza from Foz do Iguaçu by accident. Didn’t get it.

One of Elder W.’s investigators who is friends with some of the YM in the ward was caught with a bunch of marijuana and went to jail this week. (I don´t think he will be baptized on his baptismal date...)

When we ate lunch with the Bishop this week, he invited us to eat in the house of another member with him, we thought it would be perfect “tranquilo,” but when we get there what was going on? It was a lunch activity for the YSA sisters from the ward...ha ha, we ate outside by ourselves!!! It was pretty funny, actually!

Pray that we can baptize someone this week and that we can bring lots of people to church this coming Sunday. I don´t know why, but Fast Sunday is the day when everything goes wrong, baptisms fall through, investigators don´t come to church, members bear their testimony about baptisms for the dead (which just confuses any investigators who do come to church), LUNCH FALLS THROUGH!!! I don't like Fast Sundays at all... I am trying my best to gain a testimony about fasting, I always pray so hard and fast with a purpose but nothing right ever happens, it kind of stinks!!

Love you guys!!

Vamos Para 200!!! (go to 200, or get 200)

com amor,

Elder Cummings

A Crazy Week/Day in Apucarana: December 24, 2012

A CRAZY WEEK/DAY IN APUCARANA

FHE the night before my new comp arrived at the house of President N. and his family with our LMA (ward mission leader) in back with us, and a family of investigators of the other elders. It was really fun. (I had 7 different companions that day and was in 3 different trios...)

I will Skype home at 3 Brasil time which is 9 your time (I will explain why here in a little bit!!)

So here we go...

 My new comp Elder R. fresh in from Foz de Iguasu!!!

It was a tough week with the new comp. His name is Elder R. and he is from Elko originally but lived the past two years in Montana. He is a cowboy and is a really good guy. But, like Elder W. warned me is that it was hard to adjust to anyone else who is different than my old companion, and it was a rough week because our teaching styles are so different and he had about a little 5 minute fight thingy and an hour of silence yesterday and now we are golden and ready to work well together. Also I opened my Christmas presents today a day early (will explain here in a little bit) and am wearing one of Grandpa’s ties right now! They are sooooooo DOPE!!! Thank you so much for everything!! It is perfect. (Speaking of packages, I got a package from the Bosens yesterday, so thank them a bunch for me!! And the tie that they gave me is really dope too! I got a lot of compliments from strangers on the street for that tie!! Thank them a lot from me!!!) And from my packages I gave Elder R. about half of the black socks that I got (I hope you don’t mind because all of his socks don’t have heals left in them. Also, I am glad I didn’t get the mission shoe, he has them and says that they are pretty much garbage, he is about half way done with his second pair already and has just over one year on the mission.) 

Apucarana at sunset from out new area here in Eldorado

But other than that, it was a normal week with introducing Elder R. to all the ward leaders and our investigators and exploring our next area even more here in Apucarana, the only thing was that we were not finding any new investigators and it was hard to teach. But, we had a lot of support from the ward and we worked A LOT with lots of less active members in the ward (we have about 400 people in our branch on the books but only between 60 to 80 come to church each week...).

So it was a pretty normal week, that is, until this morning...

So at 8 this morning I received a phone call from President T. in the flesh, and I was thinking “oh no, what did I do wrong??” (He was in Apucarana doing interviews with the leaders here yesterday, and I saw him at the Christmas conference two weeks ago, and he was at the district conference 2 weeks ago as well, so I had seen him an awful lot over this past month...I was a little scared.) He started off the story like this: Elder Cummings how’s it going, how are things in Apucarana? How is Elder R. doing? So we have a little problem here...one of our new elders decided to go home instead of going to his area. And now we have a missionary all by himself, and this is a problem. So we are going to have an emergency transfer to give him a new companion and I was praying a lot about who should be his new companion and I feel as though it should be you...

So I am being transferred to Bauru São Paulo in the area called President Geisel (which is supposedly if not the hardest area in the mission it is in the top five hardest area in the mission) and will be companions with Elder F. who is a Brasilian. I leave tomorrow around 6 in the evening and will travel to Londrina and most likely spend the night in Londrina and then travel the 5 more hours to Bauru the day after Christmas... so because of this I opened the presents early and why I need to Skype earlier in the day, so let Grandma and Grandpa know so they can go to bed early to make it there in time to Skype with me as well. Sorry it is so early but I can’t control it. I hope they can make it! I’ve already got plans made to Skype at a member’s house and everything and we are going over tonight to help him make sure that everything will work. J

I still don’t believe that I am being transferred...but I know that it is the right move for me. I know that because of this that I was not made to train because the Lord had a different plan for me. And I am ready for the challenge of going to a tough area! I am really excited to go but I still don’t believe it!!...

Crazy stuff!! 

Sorry it is a little short, but I´ve got lots to do today. Skype you guys tomorrow at 3 p.m. my time so about 9 a.m. your time so be ready by about 8:30 because maybe we will start a little early!!

Love you guys so much!!!

Até tomorrow!!! (until tomorrow!)

Love,

Elder Cummings

I got up early this morning (on my first day of break—talk about devotion) to be sure I could be online when Eldon wrote, in case I had any questions about the Skype plans.  Below is the exchange back and forth that we had via email.

Mom

WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW.  We’ll talk tomorrow at 9 a.m. and get all the details.  Skype will be on early, and I will be sure Grandma & Grandpa are here on time. I HOPE you got your package from Paula, too!  WOW!!!

Love,

MOM

P.S.  This was so totally worth getting up at 6 a.m. on my first day off…

Eldon

HAHA!!! So I haven´t gotten my package from Paula yet but maybe I will get it in Londrina tomorrow or here soon once I’m in Bauru!!!

Merry Christmas Eve!!!

Love,

Elder Cummings

Mom

You laugh…but I wanted to be sure I had everything I needed to know for the Skype, and be able to ask any questions really quickly if I wasn’t clear.   And now I can’t go back to bed, I have to put your letter and pics up on the blog, and look up Bauru on a map, and everything.

Merry Christmas Eve!  SO proud of you!

Love

Mom

Eldon

Bauru is really, really hot... I’m going to melt there. Elder W. served in this same area a while back so that will help me out a lot!!  We are going to feast tonight on the 3 cakes we received from members and order a pizza and buy 4 liters of Fanta orange to celebrate!!

Talk with you tomorrow!!

Love,

Elder Cummings

p.s. Thanks for being proud of me!! :)

p.p.s. Bauru is in the north east part of the mission just to help you find it easier

Mom

J Thanks. 

Your cool water bottle should help in Bauru too.

And it is totally OK that you gave socks to Elder R.

We’d better stop now… J

Love love love love love,

Mom