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.
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
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