Sunday, February 18, 2018

January 31, 2018

new transfer, last transfer

That's right, you read that subject line correctly. I really lost track of my group email there because of how busy week 6 and week 1 of the transfer are. Some pretty crazy stuff has been going on. 
Previously, on Elder Cummings' mission:
-Columbian man shows up to church and asks to be taught
I think that's where I left off. Much of that week was spent preparing every needful thing for transfers. We did get to go to district meeting, which only happens once every couple weeks. On Thursday morning President and the APs finished deliberations, and so the transfer board was revealed to our eyes. First off, we have a new companion, which we all knew was going to happen since I was going to have to train a new office elder before going home. But it's who our new comp turned out to be that surprised us. His name is Elder Weed, from Virginia. We were shocked for many reasons, including:
1. He's only been out 6 months, which is unheard of to call in an office elder that young
2. The APs never even mentioned he was one they were considering, when they had mentioned several other elders they were thinking about.
But we were excited. He was in the first group of goldens that came in with me being the office elder, so I was there picking him up from the airport and now he's my companion. Missions are full of coincidences like that.
The other major surprise that happened is that even though we are office elders, we do cover a ward, which for the last year or two has been Enoggera. But this transfer, since there have been sisters in the ward as well the last couple transfers, they decided we would cover a new ward, which if you can believe it...is Bunya Forest. 
No, I don't expect you to remember that name. But Bunya Forest is the area I served in back in May-June 2017. Elder Sharma, my Fijian Indian companion, is the missionary who replaced me there. So now we're both serving in an area we've served in before. I was kind of bummed, because the Enoggera ward is so cool and Bunya Forest was the hardest area of my mission, but it is kind of exciting to get to see the members again and possibly some old investigators too. 
We "paid a visit" to that Columbian guy and "taught him a lesson". And that's not mafia talk, like we literally taught him at his home about the gospel. But what about the quotation marks, you say? I don't know. 
The next day was mission leadership council, and the night before we had picked up our new comp, Elder Weed, to show him the ropes.
Saturday we went to baptisms. I split off with Elder Pugsley, one of the APs. I was super lucky because I got to go to a baptism in one of my previous areas, Park Ridge, and they were baptizing a few kids that me and my comp had started teaching after we found that they were unbaptized on the ward list. When we visited them they hadn't seen missionaries or been to church in a few years, and this last Saturday those kids finally got baptized. I was so happy.
We had spare time between baptisms so we door knocked in a random area with the Elders covering it. 
Sunday was our last church meeting in Enoggera. People were as shocked as we were that we were going. We visited the Mahns afterwards, the Burmese kids we baptized back in October, and encouraged them to keep going to church and reading the scriptures and praying. 
Monday was crazy transfers, and thus began my final transfer.
It's now my 17th transfer.
My companions are Elder Sharma (third transfer with him)
and Elder Weed (first transfer with him, although he came in a few days early)
It's now my 5th transfer in the office, but my 1st covering Bunya Forest (although I served in Bunya Forest for 1 transfer back last year, so 2nd overall)
We spent a lot of time at the mission home later that day with the departing missionaries, and had a good dinner and had the departing devotional afterwards.
Tuesday morning we had to go bail some sisters out because they locked themselves out of their flat, but it was mostly office work that day. 
Wednesday was golden intake, which was one of the most packed days of my mission. Lemme give you an idea of how crazy it was:
7:00 Take a car from KP to the mission home in preparation for a golden/trainer companionship that day
7:30 Meet APs and McSwains (and two new American missionaries) at mission home
7:30-8:30 Bake banana bread for the goldens since Sister McSwain had to go the office with President and the APs
8:30 Office work, met two new sisters from Thailand
10:30 go help pick up New Zealand MTC missionaries from airport, and take them to the office
12:30 Take a few of the goldens to the mission home
Little bit of a rest here, then we had lunch until
3:00 Golden transfer meeting starts
4:00 Leave golden transfer meeting early because one of the goldens (Elder Walker) had a flight to catch to fly up north. When we got there, the airline people said the ticket had been accidentally booked for the 28th of February for some reason. Wasn't me!
6:30 Get back to the mission home after a lot of phone calls and things at the airport trying to figure out the situation, with about half an hour of that being us trying to find our car
That night we had to keep 3 of the goldens from NZ at our flat overnight because they were flying up north the next day (Elder Latu, Elder Toluta'u, and Elder Fukofuka, the cousin of the Elder Fukofuka who was my ZL for several transfers and an AP when I was in the office but went home a month ago) but Elder Walker had to stay with us as well since his flight was changed to the next day. We took them all out to wings for fun. It made me pretty sad because having them stay with us overnight was going to be the only time I would see them, because I'd be home before they came down, and office elders never go up north. President and the APs had a flight to catch up north right around 7 so we dropped them off there. 
I've gone on too long. I often forget that this isn't my journal! Anyways, Pictures are from that kids' baptism, a really good ice cream place, and with the three NZ blokes.






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