More Time in Morangueira: April 28, 2014

Dear Everyone,

1.  Did your two investigators make progress toward baptism this week? Are you staying or leaving Morangueira zone? I’ll answer your two questions together: Still no baptisms this week but Elder B. and I are both staying here. There were only 4 people in the whole zone who were transferred (a lot of the missionaries in the zone were hoping and praying to be transferred because they have been here a long time, but they almost all stayed. By a “long time,” some have been here for 3 transfers with the same companion. I hope that this does not affect the work here in Morangueira. The zone managed to baptize 3 more people this week and I hope that we can continue to baptize every week!!

I think that the next transfer here in 5 WEEKS, people will move around a lot...

Yes, let’s Skype 3 o clock your time, 7 my time on the 11th!!

So the pictures are just of an accounting company in town that is LZ, which is also the abbreviation for Zone Leader in Portuguese.

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for the birthday present, that will help out a lot when I get back to school!!!!! You are the best!!! I love you!!

I’m glad to know that my driver’s license renewal finally got there, I was going to ask about that this week!!

Hey, Jason, What is your UVU schedule?? Way to go at MoPro little bro!!! Ohhhhh. How’s it going with C? (Parabéns [congratulations]!!! she is the cutest in the group, you’ve done well!!)? Hey, when are you going to get your driver’s license?? You need to be able to drive the girls around, not them driving you around... ha ha…it’s all good, just kidding. But seriously, when are you going to get your license? You have some sweet ties by the way, i am jealous!! I’ll have to give you some old ugly ties to take on your mission! 

So the work is going a little slow here this past week. It is always a little slow the week before transfers, but we are going to catch fire this week!! It seemed as though Elder B. really wanted to leave the area, and a tiny part of me wanted to go too, but our relationship is still good and we are both ready and excited to work!!! We have a lady that has gone to church 2 times now, and the only thing that is impeding her to be baptized is that she smokes, so pray that she can stop and that we can baptize her and her older brother too!! I made a giant baptismal card so we are going to catch "fogo do batismo" (fire of baptisms) this week!!

By the way, now there are 11 zones here in the mission, they divided some zones and made a zone in Tupã.

That’s it for this week!!!

Love you guys a lot!!

Elder Cummings

Returning to Maringa: March 17, 2014

Dear Everyone,

The big news of the day is I am being transferred back to Maringá, to the Moranguera zone, which is different from the zone I was in when I was in Maringá before. My area is Alvorada A and my new companion is Elder B. (a new Elder B. who Elder C. has not served with before—Marie) I was totally shocked by the transfer! I thought that I was going to stay, but so here we go!!! Elder B. (housemate) will take my spot as zone leader here in Apucarana and Elder S. my former comp will finish the other Elder B.’s training (confused yet?). Those were the only moves in the whole zone, a lot different from last transfer when I was the only one who was not transferred!!!

1. How many transfers are left after this one? If you count the transfer that started today, I have 3 transfers, this one and 2 more. Unfortunately, it is coming down to the end. At the end of this transfer, if you want to you can send me a list of some Brazilian souvenirs that you want me to get and I can start picking that stuff up.
2. Did you ever get your Valentine package? Some of the moms on the Missionary Moms email list were talking about postal strikes in other parts of Brazil, so I did not know if you had a strike going on in your area or not. I might get my package this week or the next one with the transfers and maybe if we have zone conference??? So I’ll let you know when I get it.

I sent my drivers’ license extension to you this week. There is no postal strike here in Apuca, at least not yet.

In my last week in Apucarana, we ALMOST baptized this week. We found this 67 year old man who was an ELECT!!! But, his daughter showed up on Saturday and took him away to live with her in Sarandi (a different city) so it was a bummer to not baptize with Elder P., but I am leaving the area way better than I found it and I did manage to help the zone become one of the best baptizing zones in the mission so that was good!!! Elder P. is a good friend. I’ll be sure to keep in touch with him!!

So here are a bunch of photos!! First off are the two Elder B.’s after sprinting home one night because an appointment ran long. Also we found some puppies abandoned in the street and we took them over to a member who will take care of them so that was cool, also here are some other random photos from the week!!

I don’t know if you already translated the message that you forwarded from P.S., but the last part was for you, Mom:

eu e minha familia somos gratos por seu filho ter nos ensinado sobre a igreja, porque agora eu realmente sei que a igreja é verdadeira. Obrigada novamente

My family and I are grateful for your son teaching us about the Church because now I really know that the church is true. Thank you again!

So that’s pretty much it, I don’t have much news from this week other than I’m going to baptize até o pó in Maringá de novo (until the powder in Maringá again???) so, next week’s letter should be full of events from opening the area!!!!

Love you guys a lot!!!

Elder Cummings

Working Hard in Apucarana: February 10, 2014

Dear Everyone,

1. Who is your new companion, and where is he from? My companion is Elder P. from Idaho, he was trained by Elder A. in Bauru/Presidente Geisel right after I left there.
2. Is Elder Z. in your zone? His mom mentioned that he was being transferred to Apucarana, but I didn’t know if there is more than one zone in Apucarana or not. Elder Z. is in my zone, there is only one zone in Apucarana.
3. How was ZL training? From reading Elder Schenewark’s letter, it sounds like the APs had a lot of “surprises” and new ideas to share. Yes there were lots of surprises at the zone leader training--for me the only surprise was who would be my companion! (My “son” Elder I. is in my zone now!)

On Monday I went to Londrina and stayed in my old area in Ouro Branco until Wednesday when Elder P. and I went back to Apucarana. It was good to be back in Londrina and it helped the Ouro Branco elders out a lot because they were all new there and didn’t know where anything was. Other than that it was a pretty basic week.

There are now 6 Americans in the zone so I’m not the only one anymore. 4 of the 6 live in our apartment. 

This week the sisters baptized this 54 year old man that I found for them so that was super cool to go there Friday so Elder P. could do his first-ever baptismal interview and I got to chat with him. I couldn’t interview him because I had already taught him one time, but it was so cool to see the change that happened in the 3 weeks since I last saw him. When we see them every day we don’t notice the difference as much, but after a long time it is so much easier to see. When we found him he was sad and depressed and just miserable, but now he is super happy and jokes around and is enjoying life. He even has a girlfriend in the branch now and he wants to get married here in 2 weeks!!!! YEAH!!! It was super cool to see him.

N. made great progress this week the only thing now is to get the permission of her mom to baptize her. She went to church again, but this time she wore a skirt, she went to seminary this week and the Young Women’s activity on Saturday and she wants to go to the FSY activity that will be in March in Curitiba!!! She is super "firme" in the Gospel and the church!!!!

And that is pretty much it. The week passed by like a blur!!! Lots of helping new missionaries get to know their areas, lots of picking people up from the bus station, and lots of crazy busy-ness!! Sorry, there will not be any photos today. I took some really cool ones but left my camera at home. D’OH!!! But next week you will get a double dose of photos!! (lucky for me, I found some pictures of him at zone leader conference…)

love you guys!!

Elder Cummings

Staying Put in Londrina: September 30, 2013

Hey everyone!!

1. How are your shoes holding up? I have seen lots of pictures on Facebook of friends’ missionary sons’ hole-y shoes, which made me wonder. My shoes are holding up fine, I have one pair that is still almost brand new and the other has holes in it, but they are still perfect as long as it does not rain!!!
2. Transfer news? Staying? Going? New companion? The transfer news is that I am staying here with the same companion... but ELDER S. (CTM companion) WAS CALLED AS A ZONE LEADER!!! I’m so used to always getting a new companion at transfer time that it was a little disappointing not to have a change this time around. Also I found out right now that my district doubled in size!! (My district is bigger than some zones!!!) CRAZY!! Pray a lot for me this week, I am motivated because of the baptism that we had yesterday but I am really discouraged about staying the same... this will be a rough transfer...

Since I happened to be online when his email came in, I emailed back quickly and asked if it was the area or his companion that he was not happy about: It is both that have me discouraged!! Also no matter what I do, no matter how much I clean, the house is always a pigsty!! So I have stopped cleaning anything, I only clean the stuff that I use now!!

I wrote back, and said: “I'm so sorry this is a challenging area and companionship for you. Love and serve your companion as much as you can and good things will happen. Praying, praying, praying,” to which he responded:  I’m all better now, sorry for the freak out, I was thinking about all the bad things but now I am focusing on all the good blessings I am receiving!!! I still think the transfer will be difficult, but it will be really good as well!!

This is my district, minus the zone leaders who are also part of my district, but they were visiting another district when we took the picture.

I got the senior pictures this week. They turned out great! Jason has changed so much in his facial structure! And the tie is pretty darn amazing!!

This week I did another division with the secretaries and I was with Elder B. this time, it was good, a nice normal division. It was pretty torturous, though, because he knew all the information about transfers and would not tell me, but also I didn’t ask much because I know how much they get pestered by everyone!

Yesterday we went to the sister missionaries’ baptismal service to help them out and at the baptism was this 8 year old named C., whose parents are inactive but the mom is starting to be reactivated. C. wanted his dad (who is not currently worthy) to baptize him so he had originally said he was going to wait (I don’t know if his dad will ever actually be worthy again...) but while we were there he came up to me, even though I had never even said a word to him before, and asked me to baptize him! So I put on a jumpsuit and we went to work!! It was so good to get back in the water again! Photos will come later, I didn´t have my camera since I wasn’t planning on baptizing anyone.  I will get them from another missionary.

sorry it´s short, lots to do!!

love you all,

Elder Cummings