December 11, 2016

When training is kind of anti climatic

This week wasn't as exciting as others, but that's okay, because things are still going great! Spent the first few days of the week in Cairns waiting for Elder Bullock, my son (missionary lingo for the missionary I'm training). We drove up to this area called Port Douglas. It was an awesome drive because the road ran right along the ocean but since I was driving I didn't get any pictures :( Elder Hausia flew out on Monday and Elder Bullock flew in on Wednesday, and we drove back to our area Thursday morning. Elder Bullock is pretty cool, he's a farm boy from Alberta, Canada. We get along well, which I'm really glad about because otherwise it would be a long 12 weeks. It's weird though because I honestly thought I was going to get a Filipino companion. That's okay, though, I'm really glad I have someone who speaks English. Most of the week we just went around making visits to people. We found a couple new investigators, which hasn't happened in a while but it's a Fijian guy and his cousin. We taught about the Restoration and gave them a Book of Mormon, and as we were walking out the door the cousin had already picked it up and began reading it. So that was cool. Saturday I got a spiritual prompting to visit this former investigator family I found in the area book, and we talked to the dad for a while and found out the rest of the family lived in another house in town but they were still married and together and all that but they just wanted space. The dad was really glad to see us and we talked with him for a while but from the teaching record it was the wife and kids were the ones who got really close to baptism but the dad shut them down because he got anti-mormon bombed...he was a nice enough guy though but no matter what we tried we couldn't get the rest of the family's address out of him :( Hopefully one of these days we'll come across them. Sunday at church I gave a talk about how the Savior made people better because of the things he taught. We taught the Gospel Principles class off the cuff which happens every week but it was still a decent lesson. Other than that, I don't have much else. 

Elder Cummings

December 4, 2016

I don't normally include on his blog my personal emails to him and his responses.  But this one was too funny not to include.  I guess I should be more careful!

Here's my email:

Dear Elder Critter,

I have some sad news to report this week. I hope you'll be able to stay strong. 

Training Table restaurants closed this week. It's a sad day for Utah. Sad day for the country. 

Apparently the founder and his daughter have joint ownership and each are suing each other for various things. 

I will make you a plate of homemade cheese fries when you get home in their memory. 

Remember who loves you the most!

Love,
Mom

And here is his response:  Here's his regular group email:
My heart DROPPED when you said you had sad news. In my inbox all I saw was "Dear Elder Critter,

I have some sad news to report this week. I hope you'll be able to stay strong." In the split second before I opened the email I remembered this superstition that they have in the Pacific Islands that my companion Elder Hausia told me about where basically if there's a fly that follows you everywhere and won't leave you alone that means someone you know died. And that happened to me this week! So I PANICKED for a second there, I'm still waiting for my heart to resume normal BPM. That's still a bummer though! Figures it would happen on my mission. Dang. They will be missed.

Here's his regular group email:

Transfers Episode 7: Attack of the Transfers
Man, well, it's been a really fun week this week and really interesting. Last p-day we went out to Lake Tinaroo with the Innisfail and Cairns elders and had a barbeque, played rugby and basketball, it was really fun. That night Elder Hausia and Acevedo the district leader went to Mareeba while me and Elder Vea stayed in Atherton to go to a FHE at our neighbor's. Her and her son were going to the states for a few weeks for holidays but they wanted to have a family home evening with a couple families in the branch and any investigators we wanted to invite. We had two investigators lined up to come, but both of them cancelled the day of. It happens, but we were still able to go through with it and had the branch mission leader's family and a single mom and her kids join us. Meanwhile, some serious stuff went down in Mareeba with the other two elders. 

Our investigator Kaysan, is on baptismal date, she has been our most solid investigator, and surprisingly we door knocked into here. She's the one who has just been so prepared to receive the gospel it's blown us away. She's already recognized the influence of the Holy Ghost, especially when we talked about the Book of Mormon and later when we talked about the Spirit World, because she has had a lot of family pass away so it really comforted her to know her family could still learn and accept the gospel in the afterlife. That being said, a couple weeks ago we met with her, her boyfriend, and the branch president to start getting marriage stuff ready so she could get baptized, because they were going to go to Normanton, a tiny town about 6 or 7 hours away by car for a funeral for her uncle. So we hadn't gone by her house in a couple weeks when we had used to see her every couple of days. But when Elder Hausia and Acevedo dropped by that fateful Monday night, a compelling story revealed itself.

As turns out, her and her partner had never actually gone to Normanton. But about a week before they were going to Kaysan was visited by a Jehovah's Witness, and started to "study the Bible" with them ("Bible study" with Jehovah's Witnesses basically means investigating their church). We had noticed in the week leading up to her supposed departure that she had been reading the Bible more and more and the Book of Mormon not as much, but back then she had told us it was just because she wanted to read as much scripture as possible since she didn't grow up with religion, so it was fine by us. But as she explained to Elder Hausia and Acevedo, she began to become more interested in their beliefs as she continued to be visited by them while we assumed she was in Normanton. In fact, she began to consider going that direction, when something held her up. First, the Jehovah's Witness told her there was no afterlife, no spirit world, once you were dead that was it. She recognized she did not feel the Holy Ghost when they talked about that. Secondly, they said she should reconsider getting married since she should only get married to another Jehovah's Witness. But seeing as how she already had a daughter with her current partner, she found it hard to accept. Lastly, they told her it was too soon for her to be baptized. These things really confused Kaysan and overwhelmed her. But Hausia and Acevedo dropped by and she laid out the whole story. In response, rather than attack the Jehovah's Witnesses, they boldly testified of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, the Restoration, and the Plan of Salvation. Elder Hausia said the Bible had been translated many different times and many doctrines had been lost or distorted. In response, Kaysan was overcome with the Spirit and broke down and cried, confessing that she knew the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, the Plan of Salvation, the Church, that it was all true, but she had forgotten because she had stopped coming to church for a couple weeks, hadn't read the Book of Mormon, and hadn't been saying her prayers as much. There's an important principle here to learn. But she of her own choice tossed out the JW material and committed to get back on track with the restored true gospel. As Elder Hausia and Elder Acevedo told us at the flat that night I felt huge gratitude for the power of the Holy Ghost that had allowed Kaysan to discern truth from untruth. I also felt grateful for her willing and humble heart to follow what the Spirit said, not what her own logic or reasoning said. 

Moving on, the next day we had trade-offs as well and me and Elder Vea had a few visits up in Mareeba and the other two stayed in Atherton. Wednesday was the kick off worldwide day of service for the Light the World Christmas initiative for the church. I don't know if the other missions are stressing it as hard, but here, it's almost all we've been talking about to nonmembers and members alike, inviting everyone to visit the mormon.org website and stuff. It's our current door approach to give people pass along cards to the site and our main topic when visiting members. Anyways Wednesday the Zone gathered in Cairns and we did a free car wash. There were actually quite a few cars that came through and it was a lot of fun. Thursday we helped a single mom move an entertainment center from her mom's house to her's. Her mom's house overlooked a swamp that apparently National Geographic comes for every year during the bird breeding season or something. I'll include a couple pictures, it's basically the dark green round spot in the center. Friday we helped a member start digging a hole for his pool, it's too bad we won't get to swim in it. 

Saturday was the fateful transfer conference call. Half of our zone is leaving, including my companion for 3 transfers, Elder Hausia. I don't know about other missions, but having the same companion for 3 transfers is really rare, but I'm glad I got to spend it with Elder Hausia. We had a lot of fun, and he got called to serve as a district leader for the last couple months of his mission. My new companion will be...a golden. Or greenie. In this mission they're called goldens. But yeah, I'm training. What the heck. I know we're supposed to be prepared to train as soon as we're done training, but man it's been months since I finished my training and I'll still don't feel like I have enough down to train a new missionary. Yikes! Don't know who it is yet, we'll find out Wednesday. For the time being, I'll be spending a couple days with the Zone Leaders in Cairns. That's where I'm at now. We're waiting for Elder Hausia and Elder Moncur, one of the zone leaders, to fly out, and their replacements (except for my missionary) to arrive. Elder Moncur's replacement is...you'll never believe it, but my OWN trainer. That's right, Elder Smith, who I haven't seen since I finished my training, is now my Zone leader. What the heck. It'll be an interesting transfer for sure. Sorry for the long email, but there you go. :)

Elder Cummings

November 27, 2016

what's a thanksgiving?

So first off: Yeah, they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here, so actually forgot about it existing until Friday or Saturday and it hit me suddenly that I could have been having a big feed on Thursday but missed out! Oh well. I did get my Christmas package though so that's pretty cool! Got here waaaaay earlier than I thought it would, though. I had shipped a couple packages from Australia to Utah before and it had taken a month and a half or so. Not complaining though! Got some slacks in a bigger size and some candy, stuff like that. Monday we didn't do much for p-day, like usual. But today we're doing p-day with the Innisfail missionaries for a district p-day! Noice! Tuesday we watched the videos of zone conference. Since we live so far away from the rest of the mission (a 2 1/2 hour plane flight away) they just recorded the trainings and things and sent the videos to us. They were good though, and President McSwain gave a training about the Church's Christmas initiative this year, which I am SO excited for. They gave us heaps of pass along cards to hand out for it and basically every day in December they have a different suggestion on how to serve somebody else. After watching those we helped a guy in our ward paint a gazebo for a couple hours. Wednesday we had service as well but the investigator we were doing it for wouldn't answer his door because he was sleeping so we just found something to do and left, haha. That night we had a BBQ with the Clarks, the family with the son we baptized recently and the mom's investigating the church and the dad's a returning member, had some delicious meat and a good lesson about prophets. So Wednesday and Thursday we had really productive days but Friday and Saturday really slowed down because no one was around. But we continued to be diligent and things. Overall good week. The music organizer sister asked me to play for sacrament meeting next week because the normal lady is in New Zealand for a few weeks. Yikes! But yeah we're doing well and hope all is well on your end as well! 

Elder Cummings

November 20, 2016

A story about waiting

I enjoyed this week a lot. Monday we went with our branch president to talk to one of our investigators and her partner about marriage! So they got the forms and everything, now we just have to wait at least 30 days for them to be able to tie the knot as the saying goes. After that we had an awesome FHE with a member family, the Tokarahis, and the Clarks, (the family whose son we baptized a few weeks ago, the dad is a returning member and the mom is investigating the church). Brother Akee, our branch missionary was there too. We (the missionaries) did a lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, confirmation, endure, etc) and then the Tokarahi's pulled out a game board and some skittles and said we were going to play "Don't eat ice cream" but then Sister Tokarahi said it's the same thing as Don't Eat Pete, but since she had to draw the game board herself she just changed it to ice cream. But as soon as she said the words "Don't eat pete" it was like a locked chest of memories in my head was unlocked and I suddenly got all these memories about playing that game with the family and things. I didn't even know I remembered about that game. But yeah, crazy.

Wednesday we had trade offs with the Zone Leaders so I was with Elder Moncur from Boise for the day. Did some good work, and after we traded back me and Elder Hausia were able to get a new investigator. 

Thursday Elder Hausia had some really bad pain in his side, and so we called the medical senior missionary and he said it might be appendicitis, so we went to the doctor, waited for a long time, got in and they did some tests, it was funny though because Elder Hausia's never been to the hospital before (so I don't know how he got his papers in) but it was funny to watch his face and his reactions to the tests and all the stuff the doctor made him do. Funny guy. The next morning he had to get an ultrasound but by that time the pain had gone away, but we had to wait for the results for a few hours and when they finished they said they couldn't actually find his appendix in the ultrasound, but since the pain was gone and they couldn't find anything wrong they figured he was good to go. Saturday we did some service for a less active family, and yeah overall it's been good. 

Elder Cummings

ps I'll attach a picture of all our Christmas decorations  

November 13, 2016

Like that one Bananarama song
It wasn't too much of a cruel summer but it has been SCALDING hot. The last few days of the week it got up to 40 degress Celsius (which I think is 100 degrees farenheit or something. So we tried to avoid door knocking when we could but in consequence we didn't have any new investigators! That's how it goes I guess. This week we're just gonna have to sweat it out if it continues to be this hot. But Sunday started out pretty out but got really cloudy and rained HARD for the rest of the day. Apparently Mareeba had lightning bolts everywhere and wind blowing trees down. But we didn't get over there until most of the storm had subsided. Wednesday we had interviews with President McSwain. He is just the coolest. 
We found out Billy Jo, one of our investigators, can get sealed to her boyfriend Tony and their kids in the temple even though they weren't married and stuff. We thought she was going to go head over heels to learn that, but when we went by Sunday to teach their family she just kind of sat there. We asked her if she believed us but she wasn't sure, and we asked her if she wanted to know, and she still wasn't sure. So she's still got some obstacles, as is evidenced by the fact that she's been investigating for over 2 years now but we were able to get her permission for her son Cody to get put on baptismal date again. A couple of our other investigators Xanthe and Kaysan are progressing well though, they just need to get married. It's a long process in Australia but it'll be worth it! We also set a baptismal date with our investigator Paul, because he really wants the priesthood to bless his home and family, and eventually he wants his family sealed in the temple , however the major roadblock there is that his wife is a super devout SDA, which is a very popular religion among the island people and very traditional, kind of like Catholicism in other cultures. We'll see how that goes. All is going well. President McSwain advised me to study HARDER which I have no problems with. Good deal.

Elder Cummings

November 6, 2016

Admittedly a tough week

Not that I was homesick or unmotivated to do the work or anything like that, it was just tough because a lot of things fell through, a couple of our investigators are losing their desire to get baptized, we had a funeral on Friday, and a few other things. We stayed diligent, obedient, and focused, but man, things just didn't happen. Often on the mission they say the Lord challenges us with less effective days (in this case, a week) but I find that hard to believe because this IS His work, and I don't think He's any happier about it than we are, since we only have 2 years to serve, each and every day is crucial. But yeah, we still have a couple investigators who are awesome and on track to get baptized. In both cases though they have to get married to their boyfriends they're living with to get baptized. In one case the partner is already a member (oh yeah, the father of the kid we baptized a few weeks ago) but he wants the priesthood to be able to baptize his partner (girlfriend) but again they need to get married first! 

Thursday Elder Hausia was sick so we stayed in the flat all that day. First time that's happened on my mission. Man in can get pretty boring. While he slept I spent most of the time either studying the New Testament or listening to John Bytheway talks :P.

Wednesday we had trade offs with the Innisfail elders again, this time I stayed in our area with Elder Vea. He's from Tonga too. Friday we had the funeral for the branch president's wife. Apparently her whole life she suffered from this spinal disease that caused her a lot of pain and she was forced to hunch over a little bit. She's been on oxygen and in and out of hospital for years but she was a pretty strong lady. We had dinner with them a couple of times and had a good sense of humor and sarcasm. First funeral I'd been to in years but there was a lot of people there and we got to help bury her casket. 

We thought we'd catch a break by having some investigators at sacrament meeting but within the hour before church started all 3 of the ones who planned on coming fell through for different reasons. Bleh. But yeah this week will be a lot better now that it's done. Sunday we had our first official branch missionary corrleation meeting with the auxiliary presidents and a district councilor there as well so it was really effective. But yeah. Halloween we had dinner at a member's and talked to them about how they went from being Pentecostal to Mormon. On the drive home we maybe saw 2 or 3 kids trick or treating but like I said, it's not really a thing here. Cool. Well I'm trying to learn some Tongan so that'll be cool. 

Elder Cummings

October 30, 2016

Well this is our first week back to just me and Elder Hausia. We taught Kaysan, one of our investigators who's on baptismal date a couple times about tithing and fasting. She's almost got all the lessons so we've just been trying to figure out how her and her partner are going to get married by the branch president and stuff. Trying to organize that. In Australia there's this weird law where once you fill out all the paperwork for getting married called an "Intent to Marry" and then you have to wait 30 days to actually get legally married. I guess it probably gives the couple time to figure out if they're related or if they don't actually want to get married. So no Vegas weddings in Australia, haha. But it makes it kind of annoying for investigators who want to get baptized and stuff but they have to get married first. It's a pretty common thing here. People don't like going through the hassle of getting married. Ezias's mom (we baptized him last week) started taking the lessons and she has to get married as well to her partner Joey. Joey's really cool, he's a less active member but he's really excited about coming back to church and their family has attended for the last couple weeks. He's a bodybuilder and stuff so he's really big. We set Ezias's mom on baptismal date so that was awesome though. We tried contacting one of our other investigators on baptismal date, Greg, but he disappeared for a few days. Luckily we got back in contact with him yesterday and committed him to stop smoking completely for a week.

 Friday was rough. We had weekly planning, then we watched the recording of a mission conference they had back down south (since we're too far away they don't want to fly us down). We had an appointment with the investigator who told us he'd get baptized into the baptist church when we invited him to be baptized, but he dropped us when we went to his door. He said he didn't want to read the Book of Mormon in case it was full of lies, and he didn't want to risk being deceived with the Second Coming being so close. Of course we testified that we prayed and learned the BoM was true but he said no one could know until we get to heaven. We had an appointment with our branch mission leader, had dinner with some members, and our last appointment of the day was with Greg and he wasn't there, so we literally didn't get any lessons taught or contacting people done that day, and then the nonmember wife of one of our part member families said she didn't want the lessons anymore because our beliefs "aren't for her." Saturday we learned the branch president's wife passed away. 

It wasn't too much of a surprise because she's been ill and on oxygen and stuff for years but it's still kind of weird that we had dinner at their house a few times and got to know her pretty well. She was originally from England and she was converted to the Church when she saw a couple missionaries at a bus stop and she ran over to them and basically asked them to teach her because she had so many questions.

That night the Innisfail branch hosted an activity called the Variety show, basically they did a bunch of singing and dancing. The Innisfail and Cairns branches had stuff, but for some reason our branch didn't participate this year. It was really fun though. And really well organized. They did it at a school and they had mics and a volunteer sound and lights crew so it was actually pretty impressive. 

Sunday Ezias got confirmed (Elder Hausia did it) and we took a member with us on a couple lessons. Then we dropped him off and went to an young couple's house who've been investigating the church and the husband said he didn't want to see us around anymore. Random. But yeah I don't want to sound like a debbie downer but this week had some good highs but some pretty bummer lows. I haven't had 4 investigators drop us in a single week before. Plus Sister Bell's death hit the branch pretty hard. The closing hymn at church was "God be With You Till We Meet Again" and I looked up after the prayer and everyone excpet for us was in tears. They announced the funeral in sacrament meeting and I was wondering if it would be appropriate for us to attend (and if President Bell was even okay with us being there) because I haven't been to a funeral in years and years, but after church he asked us if we were allowed to attend funerals because his wife wanted missionaries to be the ones to carry her casket to the grave since they didn't have any sons. So that was pretty shocking and a pretty unique experience to have on a mission. 

So yeah, that's our week. How was yours? Hopefully Halloween is fun. They don't really celebrate it here for some reason. I'll attach a clip from the Variety Show

Elder Cummings

October 23, 2016

Happy days
Oh man, my head is all over the place right now, mostly because I'm so excited for my brother Conrad to serve a mission in Russia! Wow, did not expect that. But we had a great last week of transfers. Unfortunately Elder Rossi, our third companion, ended up going back down south to Brisbane. Because of the incoming/departing missionary ratio they don't have the man power to send up here, so we're gonna have to wait til next transfer to have 4 missionaries in the area. But me and Elder Hausia are both staying, which makes it the first time I've had the same companion for 3 transfers. He's fun so I don't mind. The Zone Leaders told me they recommended me to be District Leader (which means they would move the DL area to Atherton) and train but it didn't end up happening, because the district leader Elder Acevedo ended up staying in Innisfail. Whew. 

Last Monday we went to a resevoir called Lake Tinaroo, apparently it's only at 40% or something because there's a drought but it was nice. Found a couple of big dead fish washed up on shore.

The week as a whole went really well, I think we did maybe only an hour or two of door knocking the whole week because we were teaching a lot of lessons. Plus we were preparing our young investigator Ezias to be baptized on Sunday. Saturday we had a district missionary training conference where the branch mission team and auxiliary presidents in each branch came and received training from the Zone Leaders and President Houser (who's a senior missionary but also 2nd counselor in the mission presidency and 2nd counselor in the district presidency). It was pretty good. 

Sunday we had Ezias' baptism. We had to organize things pretty quickly because the family was gone for the dad's bodybuilding competition in Gold Coast. So we had to organize everything within a week of the baptism. Plus, we weren't even sure if the baptism was going to be on Sunday because the dad (who's a returning member) needed to be interviewed to have an okay to baptize his son. But then we found out he's only a deacon, so he needed to get the priesthood, and then a few days later we learned that he's not married to his partner so he couldn't get ordained and things in time for the baptism. In spite of all that, heaps of people came to the baptism and it went really good. I played the piano for the hymns and Elder Rossi and Elder Hausia gave the talks. One of the brothers in the ward who's good friends with the family baptized Ezias. Because he's an investigator, he won't get confirmed until next week but we still need to ask him who he wants to give him the gift of the Holy Ghost. 

Today we drove down to Cairns to drop off Elder Rossi. We went to the Houser's flat for a little while and talked to them, they're pretty cool. Senior couples always are, though. Apparently next week our zone has permission to have a p-day together and a full p-day which means we don't have to start proselyting at 6 like most p-days, we can go all the way to 9. So yeah, that's our week. Hope your's was good as well. 

Elder Cummings

October 16, 2016

Actually a pretty crazy week

Bear with me, this is probably going to be a long email. There is MUCH to discuss. First off, we ate the pig head. It was pretty good. We tried breaking the skull open to get to the brain and stuff but broke a metal butcher knife and a plate trying to do it, so we gave it up. We were blessed this week because we had not 1, not 2, not 3, but 5 baptismal dates at one point this week. I haven't had that many at one time in my mission. Unfortunately one of them was dropped midway through the week because his mom decided she didn't want him to get baptized. This is like the second time it's happened since I've been here and she's gone back and forth several times in the last 2 years but we'll keep nourishing the seed and all that. 

We visited a part-member family where the mom isn't a member and the dad is less active, we taught the plan of salvation, thinking she had been taught the Restoration already by past missionaries (Because I thought it said so on the teaching record) but at the end of the lesson we asked her if she had any questions and her only one was "So are you saying I have to be Mormon to get to heaven?" Which is a hard question but that's why we need to teach the restoration first, to show that we're just not another interpretation of the Bible or Joseph Smith created the church, but that God Himself has officially declared this church to be HIS church, and that only by following His gospel can we return to live with Him. That gospel, in it's true form, is only found in His church. Unfortunately our answer sounded a little flustered but she's still a nice lady and things. 

We found the MOST prepared person EVER last week. Holy cow, seriously, I wasn't sure it was possible to find people as accepting and progressive as this lady. Almost every lesson we've gone by has shocked me with how willingly she accepts everything. We actually door knocked into here a few weeks ago but she was busy, then she moved, but we were finally able to catch up with her. Her name is Kaysan, she's a young mother who didn't really have any religious background but she's recently started making big changes in her life and trying to find God. On Tuesday, we taught her the Restoration. She committed to a baptismal date of Nov 12 which was shocking. She said she got a nice warm feeling when we were teaching her. Wednesday we taught the Plan of Salvation, and at the beginning of the lesson she started by saying how we were an answer to her prayers. At the end of the lesson, we were talking about the role of the Holy Ghost, and she said again that she felt a warm feeling inside and wanted to cry when she told us we were the answer to her prayers. Then she volunteered to say the closing prayer. Keep in mind, she has pretty much no religious background, so that was shocking. Friday we were able to bring a sister in the branch with us to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we first sat down Kaysan asked how she could get to church on Sundays. We hadn't even invited her to church yet! The lesson was full of the Holy Ghost thanks to the sister we brought with us. She has a really strong testimony. At the close of the lessons Kaysan said the prayer and started crying when she said she knew what we were teaching was true! What the heck, the next day we had a child of record baptism so she was able to attend that and she came to church on Sunday as well. Honestly, we would be so lost if it wasn't for the sisters in the branch who are so friendly and supportive. The priesthood needs to get more on it with helping us fellowship, haha. 

We have another investigator who's YSA age and he doesn't have a religious background either, but he believes everything we teach. Plus he really doesn't like the Jehovah's Witnesses because one of the first things they told him was that he would go to hell if he wasnt a JW. So every lesson we have a "what can you do" chuckle about some of the darndest things the JWs say. Power to them, though, our church could learn quite a few things about member missionary work and scripture study from them.

I can't remember what day it was, but we were doing personal study when suddenly, the phone rang. It was the mission office. I answered it and Elder Bean, the vehicle coordinator, said he needed to talk to Elder Cummings. That was me. He asked to confirm our car's vehicle number. It was ours. He said I got a SPEEDING TICKET on October 1. The way those work here, basically cameras will just click a picture of your car when you're speeding and send the bill to your house or in our case the mission office. Elder Bean said our car had been caught speeding at 89 km/h in a 80 k/h zone! Ach! I started looking at my planner to see what we were doing October 1st that I would be so careless! And then as I started reading our plans for the day, I made a staggering realization. And because I really got into court dramas and this video game called Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney before my mission, I felt like I was in an intense courtroom scene. Here goes:

THE HONORABLE ELDER BEAN (the judge): Elder Cummings, it appears you have been accused of speeding on October 1st, to the amount of $162. Will the prosecution please proceed with opening the case.

THE PROSECUTION: Elder Cummings, you are the sole driver of the Atherton vehicle, correct?

ELDER CUMMINGS: Correct.

THE P: And is the Atherton vehicle, pray tell, the same one pictured in this photo, taken by a speeding camera in Walkamin? 

ELDER CUMMINGS: Yes, but there must be some mistake! You can't even tell who's in the car!

THE P: There is no need for further discussion. Your Honor, the defendant is the only driver of the Atherton car, and as such there is no one else who could have been driving at this time. I rest my case.

THE HONORABLE ELDER BEAN: Well, Elder Cummings, it appears this is quite an open and shut case. You are hereby demanded to-

MR. CUMMINGS (the defense attorney): HOLD IT! The prosecution seems to have ignored one critical question: does the defendant-my client- have an alibi?

THE P: Impossible! Everyone knows missionaries aren't allowed to leave their assigned area!

MR. CUMMINGS: Let's look at the evidence, shall we? According to Elder Cummings' planner, on the day of October 1st, there are plans made for people who would NOT be familiar to anyone working in the Atherton area! 

THE P: What? Where did you get that? 

THE HONORABLE ELDER BEAN: What's this?

MR. CUMMINGS: Additionally, if we look at the "notes" section of his planner, we can see that Elder Cummings wrote "trade-offs with INNISFAIL Elders" Therefore, I claim that Elder Cummings was NOT in Atherton that day, driving the car, because he was in INNISFAIL on trade-offs!"

THE P: No!

THE HONORABLE ELDER BEAN: Incredible! Who would have thought!

ELDER CUMMINGS: That's right! I was in Innisfail! Ask Elder Acevedo-Crespo! He was in Atherton that day!

THE P: Wait, are you insinuating...

MR. CUMMINGS: Yes! It was Elder Acevedo, not Elder Cummings, who was driving the Atherton vehicle that day! 

THE HONORABLE ELDER BEAN: My my! I have never seen such a strange turn of events! Tell me, Mr. Cummings, do you have any evidence that it was indeed Elder Acevedo was driving the Atherton vehicle that day?

MR. CUMMINGS: Indeed! We can call in Elder Acevedo, and get his testimony regarding his whereabouts on October 1st!

THE HONORABLE ELDER BEAN: Well, in this case, I see no further need to accuse Elder Cummings of speeding, seeing as he was in Innisfail that day. Whether or not Elder Acevedo was driving the Atherton vehicle remains to be seen, but for now, I declare Elder Cummings... NOT GUILTY. Case dismissed. 

Okay, sorry for that, yeah basically I just looked at my planner and thought "what the...none of these names are familiar..." and then I saw "Innisfail for the day" written in there and remembered I was in Innisfail on trade-offs and Elder Acevedo from Innisfail was driving our car in Atherton. I kind of felt bad telling Elder Bean that and pinning the blame on Elder Acevedo but man, $162 for going 4-5 miles over the speed limit is OBSCENE. Luckily the mission has a policy where the passenger in the car at the time has to pay 40% of the ticket. Sorry, Elder Hausia! Good deal.

Elder Cummings

October 9, 2016

"How was your week?" It was a week.

Pretty average week this week. Besides General Conference. That's always fun. Last p-day we didn't do anything special like most p-days. Just sat around the flat. We've been pretty blessed though, we have 4 investigators on baptismal date. So a lot of the week we spent running around and visiting them as often as possible to make sure they're still on track. Thursday we went to do service with a member to mow her lawn, but her lawn mower wasn't working and she was gone, so we mowed the whole thing with a weed wacker. I guess the yard wasn't that big but it took a little longer. Oh yeah, here they call them whipper snippers. 

On Friday we went to visit a potential investigator we had door knocked into the day before. He was pretty friendly and things. The zone leaders want us to start focusing on baptism while were teaching, so that every principle that we teach talks about baptism in some way. So we taught the Restoration, we talked about how Heavenly Father loves us and wants us to return to Him through baptism (he told us he had been baptized into the Baptist church), how priesthood authority to perform baptism was restored, etc. etc., And I was so excited about this new initiative the zone leaders were encouraging, so I invite him to be baptized, and he said he's already been baptized a few times, but he'd pray about it, we talked about how reading the Book of Mormon and praying would give him an answer, he said he had no problems believing the Book of Mormon was true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, then I went for the home run and tried committing him to baptized November 12 or something, he said he'd pray about it, and I was so excited we were gonna set another baptismal date, and then he says "But if I do decide I need to get baptized again, it'll be into the baptist church." NYEH!  UGH Well we'll have to try again because we could've covered some stuff a bit better. 

Saturday was General Conference. We set up a projector and stuff in the chapel. The only people there besides us missionaries were the President Bells. There's President Bell the Elder, who serves in the district presidency, and his son, President Bell the Younger, who's the Atherton Branch President. Priesthood session a couple other brothers from the branch came but overall pretty much everyone watched it at home (I hope). That night we visited a couple investigators. During the day there was this big birthday party that all the Islanders in the area went to, so that's where a few of the members were, and they had killed and cooked up a couple pigs to eat. One of our investigators that we visited somehow ended up with the head of one of them so he gave it to us to eat. Pretty crazy. 

Sunday there was maybe 4 or 5 people besides us for the General Conference sessions. I really liked David A Bednar's talk about how we come to know Christ and Russell M Nelsons talk about having joy. I also really liked Elder Cornish's talk on Saturday about how we shouldn't compare our spiritual progress with others, but that where we are in the gospel should be between us and the Lord. That helped me a lot because I often get overwhelmed with confusion over whether I'm doing good enough to get into the celestial kingdom. Besides that all is well. I'll attach some pics of the pig head. Cheers.

October 3, 2016

Long week!

Didn't get to email until Tuesday this week, because Monday was a public holiday so they wanted us to spend the whole day proselyting. Technically, it was the Queen's birthday, but it wasn't actually the Queen's birthday. What I mean is, the day the Queen was born is earlier in the year, but the "powers that be" or the "establishment" or whatever decided that there were too many public holidays during that time of year, so they moved it to October. Aussies, man. Or woman, depending on who's reading this. If you're a robot, an object, or an alien, I'm sorry. Okay, bad jokes aside, it was a great week. 

Just some short highlights, we set another baptismal date with our investigator Greg. He's a former investigator but he had a controlling girlfriend who scared the previous missionaries away but she's out of the picture now, fortunately. Now we just need to help him quit smoking. Haven't had to help an investigator with addiction recovery yet, so it'll be interesting! I'm just glad I don't get as nervous about doing new things as much, mostly because I know the Spirit will guide and Heavenly Father will give us what we need!

Besides that, we had another trade off with Innisfail, the other area in our district. Me and Elder Rossi went to Innisfail for the day with Elder Vea. It was pretty good, we went to this small town with a big sugar mill and spent most of the day there. 

Sunday was great, one of the part member families that we're teaching came, and even stayed for Sunday School. The dad is less active but the mom and son aren't baptized, but they're both really keen on learning more about the church! Luckily the dad is really determined to start coming back to church too, so that helps. So yeah, hope you're all doing well. I'm excited for general conference this weekend. (we watch the broadcasts a week after because of the time difference). Never really been excited for general conference before, in the strictest sense of the word, but I'm almost hoping one of these days they'll announce all the saints need to gather to Missouri or something. Ofa atu!

Elder Cummings

September 25, 2016

Action jam packed week

Well we're out of hot water. I was just casually taking a shower when suddenly the water went FREEZING COLD and that's all it takes for me to nope right on into my clothes to check the gas tanks outside the flat that I assume are the culprits for depriving me of a good start to my morning. I looked at them a little bit, squinted even, and poked a valve or two before deciding I had no idea what I was doing, so I called the mission office and gave them some info before they told me it would most likely take a couple of days to get the gas refilled. And that's fantastic, because it's only the last couple of days that it's started to get really hot outside, so NOT taking a shower isn't really an option. But it was considered.

Besides that it was a good week. Last p-day we went to the branch mission leaders house and played games and stuff. He and Elder Rossi played that Magic: The Gathering card game and me and his daughter played a super watered-down version of Dungeons and Dragons called Hero Quest, I got through one mission but the next one she gave me the hardest quest in the manual so I didn't last very long because I was playing by myself, as a wizard, which was the worst character for combat because he's supposed to sit in the back and cast spells and stuff. Bummer. 

Tuesday we helped a member in the ward paint a fence for a couple of hours. The next day we polished a car for a less active member who's pretty old and can't do much himself. Thursday we went to our investigator's house, and she was doing some house cleaning and showed us a long bow and an accordion she had found among some junk. I wish I had a picture but I didn't have my camera :(. Friday we went to dedicate the home of the old lady who was seeing...things in her home, that I was talking about last week. Then we went and gave a member a blessing because she's got all kinds of medical problems the doctors are only just starting to diagnose. That night we had a baptism for a little girl, not one of our investigators or anything, just a member of the branch already. The parents invited some non members to come, a few of which happen to be a couple of our investigators, so overall we had 6 nonmembers come, 2 of which are part of a part-member family with a less active dad that we've been teaching and set a BD with the son and plan to with the wife this week, and 2 were a couple of our keenest investigators and and the other 2 were a couple former investigators previous missionaries had taught.

It went really well,  even the former investigators invited us to come around sometime. They were dropped because the husband does a lot of stuff with the youth for the SDA church, so simply because of his ties to that church he couldn't commit to joining a different one. But we're excited and our investigators who were there liked it a lot and the spirit was really strong. 

Saturday we set a baptismal date with a YSA age investigator. We had a discussion about the 10 commandments, and he asked about the 1st and 2nd commandments, about only worshiping one God and not worshiping idols, and what happens to all those people who didn't know about God and only worshiped what they had been taught or had done with what they knew. So we told him about how those without the law can't be condemned by it since they're not aware of it. Then it evolved into a discussion about "truth" and what is "truth" and how truth is eternal, unchanging, and isn't subjective to people just because they're from a different religion, country, etc.

Then Elder Hausia is super bold and asks "Do you believe what we teach you is true?" And our investigator only takes a couple seconds before saying "I do." Thing is, he's never read much of the Book of Mormon (on his own, at least), he's never been to church and he hasn't really prayed but somehow he knows what we teach is true. We committed him to baptismal date, but he doesn't have a religious background so he's still unsure of baptism is something he should do, so we told him he needs to read the Book of Mormon and to pray about it and that's how he'll come to feel baptism is right. That night we were supposed to do service for some less active members but they just ended up having a BBQ and feeding us. Then we went to a SDA-run activity and played volleyball with heaps of Polynesians. Me and Elder Rossi were the only palangi (tongan for white people) there. But it was really fun, and don't worry, we had permission to go. 

Sunday was good, I gave a talk about how Christ has made me the person today, and talked about how three things Christ did (and does) shaped me into who I am, and that is 1. He established a church, restored it through a prophet, and blessed the world with the priesthood, 2. He taught His gospel, which, as I've followed has always improved the quality of my life, and 3. He accomplished the Atonement, through which I have felt it's healing and strengthening power and has helped me feel the love the Savior has towards me, which has affected my desire to serve Him. I started by saying I wasn't giving my talk to them as Elder Cummings, the missionary to give a happy-go-lucky rosy talk about how great the gospel is, but Brother Calvin Cummings, someone who grew up in the gospel and has his own personal experiences in the gospel so that people wouldn't feel I was obligated to say certain things just because I'm a missionary, but because I have a personal testimony. Overall I think it went pretty good. So yeah, that's our week, I'll attach a couple pictures we took from this lookout in Atherton.

September 18, 2016

Big changes in Atherton area

I take it back about getting two new elders in our area. Sort of. We got one of them, Elder Rossi, who I served in the same zone with in Bracken Ridge. Within meeting him for the first time at a zone meeting I pegged him as a band kid and sure enough that's exactly what he did in high school. He's just got that...personality that a lot of band kids have, you know where they don't have a lot of inhibitions and they just kind of say things out loud that maybe shouldn't be. Really into Lord of the Rings and movie scores, just like me, so we get along fine. But a couple days later on Wednesday I think it was we got a call from the new ZLs and they said the other elder isn't coming anymore. Apparently when the ZLs had asked the Assistants why not, they had said it "wasn't for [them] to know." So yeah automatically speculation starts running wild because the new elder was going to be a brand new missionary, and we have no idea why he's not coming.

Tri companionships are interesting but I think we'll survive. They're giving us a couple of weeks before they decide whether they're going to keep Elder Rossi up here for the entire transfer or do something else. 

We started teaching a couple different kids in the ward who are getting ready for their baptisms. Neither of them are technically investigators because they're parents are members but they still want their kids to get the missionary lessons. Wednesday we also had lunch with the Alofis, one of our really keen investigator families that we taught last week. Friday we did service for the Wodes, a member family work on a gazebo they have to get done pretty soon. We were able to find a few solid potential investigators this week, so I'm really excited for that, it seems like the Spirit is starting to work on people to guide them towards the church. 

The branch mission leader, Brother McPherson came up with this huge master plan with a flowchart and everything for how his vision for missionary work in the branch is going to go, and it looks awesome. Lots of cool ideas at work. 

Sunday the district president, President Gardner, from Hazelton Idaho and an area seventy from Melbourne and his family visited our branch, not on assignment, but because they're on vacation in Cairns. After church we had a sandwich potluck and I felt an impression to go talk to one of the seventy's sons who was talking with the district President's son. I just got talking with them a little bit and I mentioned one of my good friends from high school, Jed Duke is serving in the Melbourne mission, and it turns out he served in their ward! The area seventy's son (didn't catch his name) apparently worked with him quite a bit because he was the ward mission leader. Glad I followed up on that impression because it made my day! At least until we went to visit a recent convert we had an appointment later that day and he said he was sleepy but my companion thinks he was high. And I guess he would know, because he'd been around a lot of high people in his day before he repented, haha.

We visited another recent convert Virginia earlier in the week, who's apparently the oldest to be baptized in Queensland, at 85 years old, and she was telling us about over the last few weeks these two little kids who at random times came into her house, watch the tv for a little bit, joke and laugh with each other for a while, and then she'd turn around and they'd be gone. I thought it was a little bizarre but I figured it was just a couple of kids visiting a nice old grandma for a little bit, until the Relief Society President pulled us aside on Sunday and told us Virginia had told her about it as well, and she thinks it could be spirits or something, and it's not like I leap at the chance to speculate about ghosts and things, but things did start to click, because Virginia had also told us that the kids would never talk directly to her, just to each other, they wouldn't eat or drink anything, they wouldn't even touch anything except to sit on the couch, and they would appear suddenly, stick around for a little bit, and then vanish while Virginia would be turned around or not looking or something. So yeah the RSP asked us to bless her house this week, so that'll be fun. 

Cheers!

Elder Cummings

[This is a letter he sent to his little brother but I loved the picture so wanted to include it on the blog.]

Hey Rex thanks for the email! Sounds like you're having a lot of fun. One morning this week when we were having lunch a dog was wandering outside our flat so we tied it to our pole and called the number on it's collar until the owner came and picked him up, so we had a dog for like half an hour. Here's a picture!

September 11, 2016

T-t-t-transfers!

Well today we're in Cairns, a city about an hour and a half drive from Atherton waiting for a new elder to fly in. Yeah things are definitely about to change, because our tiny branch of Atherton is getting two whole elders because President McSwain really wants the Cairns district (of which Atherton is a part) to become a stake. So there's a big movement to get member missionary work going, so they changed the meal policy to where we can have dinner with members any night of the week, but we have to teach them a full discussion and they have to critique our teaching to improve our teaching skills and get them excited for missionary work. So they kind of divided up our area into Atherton and Mareeba, and they gave the other elders Mareeba, but me and Elder Hausia are going to see if we can switch because all our best work is happening in Mareeba because the members and investigators really like and trust us. 

Honestly I can't remember a whole lot of what happened last week. Hm. Well, I remember we had a really good lesson on Wednesday with a young family who has really good fellowship in the branch. The husband is Pentecostal and he's really interested in learning about the priesthood, the wife grew up Seventh day adventist and isn't as accepting as the husband but they both love the missionaries and are loving the lessons so far. We plan on setting a baptismal date with them this week, but they're in Mareeba, so I really hope we can get that figured out. 

Friday night we were in Cairns as well for the senior couple's farwell, the Boyces. We did a skit about this hike the district had done before I got here. 

Oh yeah, and it was my companions birthday. He turned twenty. We got like 3 cakes from members. I think that's about it. Sorry I didn't have any opportunities to embarrass myself so I would have a funny story to tell, haha. Have a great week!

Elder Cummings