tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69416535194069212532024-03-13T00:04:46.550-07:00Elder Calvin Cummings—Australia, BrisbaneCatherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.comBlogger97125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-8553527118557304292018-03-11T20:06:00.003-07:002018-03-11T20:06:27.680-07:00March 10, 2018<span style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">This is it</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Well mates, here we are. The final email. I honestly can't believe I'm actually sitting here writing this. From various libraries to the family history computers in a small chapel up north to emailing here at the mission office. I couldn't really sum up what it's like to be at this point. But I guess it was meant to be. I don't know who still reads these, but the mission's been one heck of a ride. The reality that I'm going home just won't sink in. Being in the office, we're always working on things in preparation for the future, so it's hard for me to think going home is a real thing. Holy cow. </span><br />
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But just a quick summary of my final week, we went to a Cash Converters to trade in my bike for some cash. My companions were scouring the flat for things they could turn in as well to make a few bucks. We had a lesson with our recent new investigators/part member family, Kate and Emily. They are way too ready to be baptized and I'm really sad I can't be there to see it. Thursday was mostly office work. So was Friday. It was transfer deliberations this week so a lot of it was spent slowly working on different things we could find. Friday night we went to the Chinese branch's game night, which we did a lot when Elder Morris was in the office but just haven't had as much time. But we went for one last go to see a couple of the Chinese members that I've gotten to know really well. Surprisingly, some of my best memories from the mission were made in Sunnybank with the Chinese members. Today, Saturday, we went to play touch rugby down with a heap of Elders in Logan. Elder Sharma gave haircuts at the Chinese Zone Leaders' flat because they're both going home with me (Elder Morris, me ol' mate and Elder Westbrook). Later me and my old companion and now AP Elder Hymas went to a baptism in my son's area. Office stuff the rest of the day pretty much. </div>
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It's come to this. In a couple days I'll be flying out. Sunday will be church and preparing for transfers, but hopefully I'll be able to say bye to at least a couple people before going. Monday we'll go to the temple with President and all the departing missionaries and then hang out at the mission home and have dinner there, sleeping overnight and heading out Tuesday morn. </div>
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I'll take this time to say the gospel is so true. So true. I haven't been as spiritual in my emails but it's because the experiences I've had probably wouldn't mean much to anyone but me. There were lessons and things I needed to live through and see so that I could learn from it. I wasn't a perfect missionary, but I had a perfect mission. I saw repentance in action. I lived it. I studied from the Book of Mormon day in and day out and read it cover to cover at least a dozen times. I studied Preach My Gospel hard-out and came to understand it is THE book for missionary work, full-time or everyday member. I learned that God absolutely does hear and answer prayers. He really does. I saw people live the gospel, and I saw the change in them as they felt the joy and peace it brings. Unfortunately I also saw some of those same people go back to old habits and fall away from the gospel again. I can only hope they come back one day. It kills me but it's reality. It's hard to change ingrained ways of behaving. But there are only a couple that I know have found what they need and have no plans of giving it up, and for that at least I'm so thankful. Jesus Christ is the one who makes this all possible. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for His Atonement. None of us would be. Baptism, service, keeping the commandments, it would all mean nothing if He hadn't paid the price. But He did. He lives today and guides His people through prophets and apostles. The Book of Mormon can't be proved false. It's too true. I'll miss writing these emails. Hopefully I'll be able to save them all as it's kind of like a story, besides what's in my journal. So folks, this is Elder Cummings, signing off. For the last time. Cheers.</div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-35329410138209560072018-03-11T19:58:00.000-07:002018-03-11T19:58:00.749-07:00March 4, 2018<span style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">Night approaches</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Well folks this is just about it. My last week on the mission begins now. It honestly doesn't even feel real. All the preparations are being made but it still feels like it's not actually happening. Man oh man. Words can't really express how I feel, I'm looking forward to moving on at home but at the same time I want to keep staying on my mission. I don't believe this'll be my last email, I'll try to get one out on Saturday, a couple days before my departure, just to go through my last week. </span><br />
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Week 5 of the transfer was last week. Grabbed some lunch at the only Taco Bell in Australia on Monday. Tuesday was mission leadership council. We went to the kangaroo point chapel a little before 9 to set all the tables and technology up. It was my last MLC and that's just how it is, you can't help thinking "this my last this" or "this is my last that." I got really stressed out for a bit because the Wi-Fi kept dropping so the ZLs and STLs on Skype kept getting kicked out of the call but then Sister McSwain let us use her iPhone as a hotspot for the computer. No problems after that. Apple to the rescue! I gave a departing testimony along with all the other ZLs and STLs going home at the end of the meeting. It was funny because I was trying to figure out how I was going to put it, but I said "Don't be exactly obedient and don't work hard because you expect a reward or you expect miracles out of it. Do it because you love the Lord and do it because it's your duty, and it's what you agreed to do when you accepted your call." But I paused after "don't be exactly obedient and don't work hard because..." since I was thinking of how to put it, and I could see President's eyebrows go up and people afterwards were telling me they were wondering where the heck I was going during that pause. Oh well haha. Wednesday was heaps of driving around, picking up a senior couple from the airport, going to my companion's doctors appointment, getting some stuff at the store, etc. In the afternoon we had a couple lessons. One was with a guy named Patrick, he had concerns about the Trinity and polygamy and stuff but we just kept telling him to save his questions and to read the Book of Mormon because it's can only be of God. Unfortunately he's convinced Joseph Smith could have just been an unnaturally intelligent person. Our next lesson was with the Stokes family, a single mom and two girls who want to come back to church after the mom being less active for over ten years. Her teenage daughters are unbaptized as well but they're the ones who actually asked if they could go to church and they are super ready to be baptized. I don't think there'll be enough time before I go home for them to get baptized but that's okay, I know they'll get to it soon. </div>
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Thursday was a lot more driving around. We set up some stuff for the semi annual Senior missionary conference for the mission. We went to ward council that night too. On Friday, since all the seniors were going to be at the conference instead of the office, my companions held down the fort all day at the office while I was at the conference handling the technology for slideshows and mics and stuff. Seniors are so funny. You never know what they're gonna say. I enjoyed it a lot, plus it was cool because on the record President was my companion for the day. What missionary gets that opportunity? That night was had dinner at some cool members, the Scofields.</div>
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Saturday the seniors had a final devotional at the mission home in the morning. We went to set up for that as well and had breakfast with all the seniors. My companions and the APs got to be there for that as well, but the APs left soon after for baptisms. But me and my comps were there for the devotional part. Well, I was, but my comps conked out on the couches upstairs from all the running around and go go go action the last couple days. After the senior conference officially ended we did office work and later had dinner at Curry Heaven because Elder Sharma was craving some indian.</div>
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Sunday was good, the Stokes came to church, I bore my last testimony in sacrament meeting as a missionary but I still have one more Sunday on the mission. We got a call in the afternoon as we were proselyting that I was going to have my departing interview with President that night. Usually they're not as early as a week before departure but there's so many missionaries going home this transfer they've gotta spread them out around transfer deliberations. That night we showed up at the mission home and President talked to me about my goals and stuff. He gave me a blessing as well and it helped me a lot because it made me feel that although I wasn't a perfect missionary, I had a perfect mission. That's it for this week. One last email to come later. Cheers!</div>
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Elder Cummings</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 17px;"><br /></span>Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-23002496572920738492018-03-11T19:55:00.002-07:002018-03-11T19:55:27.634-07:00February 25, 2018<span style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 17px;">Guess I better</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #26282a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I actually wasn't planning on writing a group email today, but I looked in my sent mail and saw the last one was 10 days ago. So I should probably catch up! Time really gets away from ya when you don't have an established p-day to email. Starting from Saturday the 17th. There was a baptism in my first area, Bracken Ridge that I got to go to! Well the investigator wasn't someone I taught but me and Elder Weed, who also started there went with one of the assistants. We went to another baptism in a different zone and afterwards the Clyde senior couple invited us to have lunch with them. That was fun. That night was a baptism in Coomera. It's cool almost getting to tour the mission going to baptisms with the assistants.</span><br />
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Sunday was Coordinating Council Meeting, the meeting with all the stake presidents, the mission president, the temple president, and the area seventy. And us, of course. We ran the video broadcast for the district presidents up north. It's a five hour long meeting but surprisingly it's not too hard to stay awake because they talk about some pretty interesting stuff. Plus they announced the creation of a new stake - the Beenleigh stake! The last new stake created was right before I came into the mission, and now here I am about to go and another one is born! </div>
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The next week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were zone conferences. We set up all the tech for that and run microphones to people when they want to talk. They were great. President talked about solemn assemblies when a new prophet is sustained for the first time, plus the doctrine of prophets and apostles. We watched a missionary broadcast from Salt Lake about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon with investigators as well, that was really good. </div>
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Friday we did things like...pick up cars from the repair shop and take them to the temple parking lot...and some other things...but my planner page is blank because it was raining pretty hard that day, so I left it in the car and forgot to write what we did. Haha. Those are the highlights of this last little week and a half. We've done a bit more proselyting than we have in the past which is nice to squeeze in before I ship out. Cheers!</div>
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Elder Cummings</div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-1946172061591542212018-02-18T19:48:00.002-08:002018-02-18T19:48:53.429-08:00February 16, 2018<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">This week in the ABM</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I have to admit it's getting harder to find the motivation to email!! But this week has had some fun stuff. Last Friday my companions and I went souvenir shopping for a little bit, since I honestly don't think I'll have time to do it the rest of the transfer. That night we went to the Chinese branch's game night, which we haven't done in many a week but I got to see me old mate Elder Morris. He's doing awesome as the Chinese Zone zone leader. Plus Sue, a really cool member from China, got back from a long overseas trip so I hadn't seen her in a couple months, but she was there too. I should really get pictures of these kinds of things, but alas, I always seem to think the only time I need to take a picture is if it's my "last time" seeing whoever or doing whatever. Oh well!</span><br />
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Saturday was baptism day! We went to one at Park Ridge, one of my old areas! It wasn't a convert baptism, but the family of the girl who got baptized was a family I was really good friends with when I was in the area. The girl's cousin is Patrick, who was one of the youth who used to come out to teach with us a lot of weekends. He was there too, and he was a really good friend so it was nice to see him too. That night we ate at an oriental grill after a baptism in Coomera with the zone leaders. While we were eating some delicious noodles a Fijian guy was working in a tavern nearby came over and started talking to us. We got to know a bit about him, and he asked us to come and visit his family sometime. Obviously we couldn't but the zls set an appt with him, and a few days later set him and his wife on baptismal date! Eating at that grill was an inspired meal :)</div>
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Sunday was interesting, because there was a special broadcast for all the members in Australia and New Zealand broadcast from SLC. Elder Lynn G Robbins, Sister Bonnie Oscarson, Elder Kevin Pearson, and Elder Gary Stevenson all spoke. The speaker that stood out to me the most was Elder Stevenson's address, because he basically spent 20 or 30 minutes just talking about President Nelson. His character, his life, and his acheivements. It was really interesting to listen to.<br style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;" />That night we had dinner at the Smiths. At one point there were some seriously freaky storm clouds heading our way, and we stood outside to watch them blow over us, and it was kind of cool because their house was out in the bush, so as the storm came towards us we could see the wind blowing trees and stuff until it hit the house like a wall and things went flying everywhere. It was cool. It rained SUPER heavy for a little while before it was safe enough for us to go.</div>
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On Monday night we went to the Chinese branch FHE. That was cool. Tuesday was district meeting. The zone leaders asked me to give a "departing training." That night we had dinner with the Edwards, and as the sun set some clouds blew over and the clouds were flashing with lightning non stop for several minutes. But not much thunder, which is the interesting thing about storms in Australia.</div>
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Wednesday we had lunch at a Vietnamese place, played basketball with the Redland Bay elders (I used to serve in Redland Bay as well) and had wings with President, the assistants, and Jeff, a recent convert.</div>
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The last couple days, Thursday and Friday, were golden orientation for all the new missionaries. Sadly it was my last golden orientation. But it was still fun, we had trainings, we had role playing, we had KFC for dinner. So good times all around. Cheers!</div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-65468741860505024352018-02-18T19:44:00.001-08:002018-02-18T19:44:51.070-08:00February 8, 2018<h3 id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1519007094290_51550" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 35px; margin: 0px 70px 0px 37px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">
<span class="thread-subject" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1519007094290_51549" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; float: left; margin-right: 5px; max-width: 93%; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;" title-off="" title="time is dwindling">time is dwindling</span><span class="summary" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1519007094290_52139" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;">(2)</span></h3>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I don't know for sure where I left off on my last email, so i'll just start with the 3rd of Feb. That day was baptism day, since it was Saturday. We went to one down in Bellbird Park ward, and then came back to the office. Later that day we went to a couple baptisms in highly Polynesian wards. One of them had a huge feast and even a DJ. Sunday was our first day at church in Bunya Forest, the new ward we're covering. Lots of people were surprised to see Elder Sharma again, since he had served there before, but it took members a little longer to remember that I had served there before Elder Sharma. Welp, guess I just have a forgettable face, lol. Nah it's probably because Elder Sharma is dark, haha. We were joking about that afterwards.</span><br />
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We spent a large part of the day proselyting, going door knocking and trying to visit investigators and things. Unfortunately we didn't get any lessons in but we sure tried.</div>
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Monday we helped a member from the previous ward we covered move. As we were unloading the truck at the new place, me and Brother Jones were in the kitchen and Elder Sharma and Weed were carrying boxes in, suddenly we heard a huge crash and came outside to see Elder Sharma standing there with a box that </div>
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sorry, I meant to click the font button but accidentally clicked "send." Anyways, Elder Sharma was standing there with a box in his arms, but the bottom had split open and dishes and crashed and broken all over the ground. But the funny thing is not even 5 minutes later Elder Weed was carrying a box of pots and pans and the exact same thing happened. The only casualty from that box was a food scale. Later that day we had Thai food for lunch. It was pretty good. That night we sheltered Elder Stevens, an Elder who lives in our mission but has been serving in our mission for the last few months waiting for a visa to fly to Japan for his real mission. He had just gotten his visa so he stayed at our flat overnight and we dropped him off at the airport the next day.<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1519007094290_51504" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;">
Tuesday was Sister McSwains birthday, so us and the assistants made her a surprise breakfast. Wednesday we had a FHE at the mission home with Coomera zone, and yesterday we had our temple day. I only have one more session at the temple, and that'll be with President and the other missionaries going home this transfer. Oh my goodness. So hope everyone is doing well, I'm working on perfecting my Australian accent so prepare to be amazed. Cheers!</div>
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<span style="text-align: start;">At the most food filled baptism ever.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;">Pad Thai I ate.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;">Vanquishing a cockroach in our flat.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;">Coomera FHE</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;">After cooking up Sister McSwain some brekky</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;">When we caught Sister McSwain by surprise</span></div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-25172099705127794112018-02-18T18:40:00.000-08:002018-02-18T18:40:25.105-08:00January 31, 2018<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">new transfer, last transfer</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">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. </span><br />
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Previously, on Elder Cummings' mission:</div>
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-Columbian man shows up to church and asks to be taught</div>
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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:</div>
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1. He's only been out 6 months, which is unheard of to call in an office elder that young</div>
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2. The APs never even mentioned he was one they were considering, when they had mentioned several other elders they were thinking about.</div>
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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.</div>
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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. </div>
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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. </div>
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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. </div>
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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.</div>
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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.</div>
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We had spare time between baptisms so we door knocked in a random area with the Elders covering it. </div>
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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. </div>
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Monday was crazy transfers, and thus began my final transfer.</div>
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It's now my 17th transfer.</div>
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My companions are Elder Sharma (third transfer with him)</div>
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and Elder Weed (first transfer with him, although he came in a few days early)</div>
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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)</div>
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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.</div>
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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. </div>
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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:</div>
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7:00 Take a car from KP to the mission home in preparation for a golden/trainer companionship that day</div>
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7:30 Meet APs and McSwains (and two new American missionaries) at mission home</div>
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7:30-8:30 Bake banana bread for the goldens since Sister McSwain had to go the office with President and the APs</div>
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8:30 Office work, met two new sisters from Thailand</div>
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10:30 go help pick up New Zealand MTC missionaries from airport, and take them to the office</div>
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12:30 Take a few of the goldens to the mission home</div>
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Little bit of a rest here, then we had lunch until</div>
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3:00 Golden transfer meeting starts</div>
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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!</div>
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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</div>
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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. </div>
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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.</div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-74043411244363138092018-02-18T18:28:00.000-08:002018-02-18T18:28:45.196-08:00January 21, 2018<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">It's been a while</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">How do I start this off? I started an email a few days ago, but got caught up doing other things and suddenly it was Sunday night. Quick recap of things over the last week or so. First off, Brad Wilcox, LDS speaker extraordinaire, visited the mission. He was actually in Brisbane for FSY (For the Strength of Youth, like EFY) but agreed to do a conference for the missionaries. It was great, he spoke about the house of Israel and what it means to be a part of it, and the birthright that comes with it. All the zones got pictures with him, but he was already late for his next appointment, and since we (the office elders and the assistants) were the ones trying to herd all the zones one after another to get a picture with him as quickly as possible, we didn't actually get a picture with him :(((((( But earlier in the day, while he was meeting and greeting the missionaries I got some pictures OF him. I think if I keep my secret people picture taking skills up I could become a private investigator. Anyways, I sat waaaay in the back of the chapel serving as the Keeper of the Technology. We webcast(ed?) the conference up north so I was making sure everything ran smoothly. We had a quick zone conference after.</span><br />
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Last Saturday we had a couple baptisms to go to. The first was at Redcliffe chapel, and I name that specifically because the Redcliffe chapel was where I had my first zone meeting on the mission. All the ones after that for my zone (in that particular zone) were at Burpengery chapel. I hadn't been to Redcliffe chapel since my second or third week on the mission. Needless to say there was a very introspective moment for me being there. We also helped a member move from our area down to the south side of the city, to one of my old areas (Park Ridge) and he even moved to a street I had door knocked. He was living in a van before so he's living the high life now in a shared flat. </div>
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Monday we had dinner with the Amos', one of my favorite member families. Tuesday we went to district meeting, took the mission doctor to the airport for a medical emergency up north, we even got to go on splits with the Bunya Forest elders (one of my previous areas) and some members from that ward to go door knocking. We door knocked some streets me and my companion had knocked there. Ha! </div>
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But we got a call earlier in the day that the Gympie elders' phone stopped working, and the only solution, was for us to drive all the way up there to give them a new one since we wouldn't otherwise be seeing them anytime soon. Let me clarify, Gympie's a 2 hour drive north of Brisbane. So we drove alllll the way up, and allll the way back down. I was practically falling asleep at the wheel so when we stopped to fill up at the gas station I asked my companion to buy me a caffinated drink, I thought he'd buy a coke or pepsi or something but he walked out with a Rockstar. I'm so sorry mom, please don't kill me! Luckily I didn't get addicted, because I've only had like 4 cans a day since then, just a totally normal amount. Ha jk, I haven't had another one. I'm off the can. </div>
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Wednesday we had a FHE at the mission home with the Logan zone!</div>
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Thrusday we did some running around, taking supplies to interviews for the Chinese zone, buying some cables for the upcoming MLC, and that night we split with the Redland Bay elders (who cover two wards) for a meeting and a lesson since they didn't have anyone else to split with. I used to serve in Redland Bay but unfortunately I got roped into the meeting for the ward that the elders now cover but we didn't when I served in the area. Oh well, I got to spend time with Elder Santander who I've never known that well but he turned out to be really cool.</div>
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Friday I had to take me ol MTC mates, Elder Pierce and Elder Nemeth, to the police station to get fingerprinted for their visa extensions. Without those, they'd be going home a transfer before me. But now they'll be going home with me! MTC district mates to the end! (S/O to my MTC companion Elder Hanley in the Adelaide mission). </div>
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Saturday (yesterday) there were soooo many baptisms. I split with Elder Hymas (previous companion I served with in Redland Bay, now an assistant) and we went to Raceviews baptism, the missionaries serving there being Elder Bullock (me son) and Elder Pierce (me ol MTC mate). Elder Hymas got a haircut at the most Polynesian barber I've ever been to, but they give missionaries free haircuts so it was good. A big New Zealander guy sat next to me and said he was a less active member. We had a good yarn while my companion-for-the-day was getting a haircut. We drove to a baptism in Nerang, where a mom and 4 of her kids got baptized. Then drove to Marsden for another baptism of a family. </div>
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Today was good, normal church. A Columbian nonmember came to church out of the blue. He had a member friend back in Colombia who found our ward for him and told him over Facebook or something to come. We taught him a lesson and thank GOODNESS we have a couple native Spanish speakers in the ward from South America. We're not sure yet whether us or the sisters will teach him but we'll work that out. Oh yeah and I gave a talk in church about how the Savior changes us. Just a short 5 minute talk to fill some time. So maybe it wasn't actually "normal church." Yeah, there's my week. I need to take picures more often.</div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-27177666508474475182018-01-14T20:56:00.000-08:002018-01-14T20:56:00.705-08:00January 10, 2018<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">This week</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Ok well things have been pretty good the last week. We've been up to the same ol office stuff. A lot of helping senior missionaries with their computers. One bought a brand new Macbook Pro because her old one crashed and I was having heaps of fun setting it up for her. Every few minutes I'd find some new feature that I would get really excited about and forget what I was doing in the first place. We had a FHE at the mission home with the Eight Mile Plains zone, which was fun, and then the next couple of days were golden orientation. </span><br />
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Thursday morning we set everything up at Kangaroo Point chapel (the one next door to the temple) and the rest of the day kind of runs itself. The first several hours are just full of training and stuff. In the evening we normally GQ (street contact) on the way to this restaurant, but last g,o. the food was nasty so President just asked the senior missionaries to do it. It turned out to be really good! The next day, rather than doing it at KP like normal, we had to move everything to Chermside chapel, because they were having a funeral at KP. But we still got to stay in the hotel, which is fun and the rest of golden orientation went mostly well. The Chermside chapel didn't have an HDMI cord to connect the laptop to the tv so some of the senior missonaries could do their trainings, but President saved the day when he found one in his bag.</div>
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Right after golden orientation we had to take the McSwains and the assistants to the airport. Saturday we went to a baptism down in Coomera, in the morning, in the afternoon we were helping one of the new senior couples connect their computer to their printer (it turned out to be really difficult) and then went to a baptism at KP in the YSA ward, and had a sausage sizzle on the Kangaroo Point cliffs right across the street from the temple. They have a really nice view of downtown and the Brisbane river. Sunday we had to leave church early to pick up the crew from the airport from their trip up north and had dinner at the mission home. Monday our zone had a FHE at the mission home. For those we have a barbeque and play some games and we shared our thoughts about President Monson. We actually found out right as we walked in that night Sister McSwain told us he had passed away. Tuesday we had to take a bike to a missionary, had dinner with some cool members and we met a few of the Chinese program missionaries (including my previous comp Elder Morris) at KP to give them some supplies and we ended up GQing with them for a while. We talked to some Iranian people for a while, they were pretty interested and we also talked to some Samoans doing some exercise. Wednesday we spent hardly any time in the office because we were helping out at President's interviews with the Coomera zone at KP, and then right after they had a FHE at the mission home (though it was in the afternoon) and after that we had dinner at a members. So things have been going really good. Had a lot of fun times. But it's sad to see President Monson gone. I'll always remember his selfless sacrifices and his willingness to listen to spiritual promptings. Pictures of of the Brisbane FHE, the Coomera FHE, and me and my comp Elder Sharma at golden orientation.</div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-45555446856886501972018-01-14T20:47:00.002-08:002018-01-14T20:51:04.229-08:00January 1, 2018<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">It's been a while</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Wow, so it's been quite a while so there's a few things to catch up on. Last time I wrote we drove around the whole day getting videos of missionaries for a Christmas gift for the McSwains from us and the assistants. We just took clips of heaps of missionaries saying what they were thankful for in the McSwains. We just kind of travelled around to random areas we thought would be good to get the missionaries' input. It was kind of funny, the first area we went to was my first area, Bracken Ridge and we caught the Elders there sleeping in. </span><br />
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It's been a lot of office work over the last week and a half. A lot of crunching numbers for end of year stuff. Plus we've also got to submit an annual mission history to the church so we've been compiling stuff for that. On Sunday Christmas Eve we had just sacrament meeting with Bunya Forest, the other ward that meets in the same building. I used to serve in Bunya Forest so I got to see a few of the members there I was friends with. Later that day we were splitting off with the assistants for some reason (I can't remember why) and me and Elder Hymas (who used to be my companion) went door knocking to kill some time. It had been FOUR MONTHS since I had been door knocking. Previously I had never gone without door knocking for one or two days at the most. I was soooooo rusty at it. I wasn't nervous about getting back into it but when people would answer the door my mind went BLANK. I managed to clumsily ask a couple questions about Christmas Eve before lapsing into sounding like Elder Robot or something.</div>
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We had dinner at the mission home with the assistants and President and Sister McSwain, which was really fun. Had some New York steaks, then we watched the Christmas Devotional, and lastly we exchanged some gifts. President and Sister McSwain got us sweet as ties with kangaroos on them as well as a bag of jerky. We showed them the video we made with all the missionaries and they really liked it. </div>
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Christmas was super fun. We started with breakfast at the Amos', they're probably my favorite family in the ward. Sister Amos gave us socks with cool designs on them. Our bishop invited us for breakfast but we couldn't make it because we had to be at the office to call home. There were a couple other elders there and I had to help a Filipino elder figure out how to call internationally on the telephone since he couldn't skype. And then a couple of the elders who WERE skyping couldn't get their mics/cameras working so I can never catch a break from the tech support :) haha. </div>
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After calling home we had lunch/dinner at the Tilyards. The wife is Tongan but the husband is Australian. The husband actually just got baptized a couple weeks ago after investigating the church for 30+ years and he's awesome as a member. They had a huge Tongan feed. My companion was super excited because they had heaps of seafood, such as prawns, lobster, oysters, and even this octopus sauce stuff. I settle for the prawns and lobsters. Oysters are really slimy going down and I didn't even want to risk the octopus stuff.</div>
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Thursday was MLC. Oh yeah, on Monday this guy came in with a suitcase and he's like "hey, uh, this is missing baggage for sister so-and-so." A sister's suitcase had gotten lost on the flight over, and several days earlier we had gone to the airport to get it when they found it, so we were confused when this guy came in with another one for the same sister. My companion took it but it wasn't until the guy was long gone that we looked at the flip flop tag on the handle and realized there was a name on the other side. IT WAS NOT THE SISTERS NAME. The phone number was American too! So it sat in the office for a few days because we weren't sure what to do with it, and no one answered the phone number. But we decided to take it back to the same place we picked up the missing luggage from and hopefully they'll be able to get it to whoever's it was.</div>
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Friday was temple day! After that our zone had interviews, but being in the office we don't really have interviews since we see President all the time, but while they do interviews each transfer they have a senior couple pull the missionaries who are going home soon into a room to do a slideshow training about things like "life goals" and "careers" and "schooling," which are totally foreign concepts to missionaries, of course. And you guessed it, as I was trying to sneak away Sister McSwain was like "wait a minute, Elder Cummings! Aren't you going home soon? Why don't you go in with the Yates for their workshop." I tried getting out of it, but failed.</div>
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Sunday night, new years eve, we had dinner at the mission home again, with the assistants and also a couple of the best senior couples in the mission, the Clydes and the Bells. We had some awesome prime rib and baked potatoes for dinner and then played rummikub until midnight. There weren't that many fireworks (because they're illegal in Australia unless you have a really hard-to-get commercial license) but it was so fun spending time. The other missionaries in the mission had to be back at their flats at 5:30 but being in the mission office team has perks B)</div>
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Oh yeah, something that was really cool that happened was a baptism on Sunday. Our mission set a goal at the beginning of the year for 500 convert baptisms. We got to this weekend and we had 9 baptisms lined up, putting us exactly at 500. Unfortunately one of those 9 investigators' sisters got really sick and had to get emergency flown to the hopsital and wanted her sister to be with her. So there we were, Saturday night with 499 baptisms. But Sunday (last day of the year) the Logan stake president got word about it and visited a Tongan family with an unbaptized child who had been coming to church for the past year and challenged him to be baptized that night. It actually went through! The attendance and program went much better than many baptisms that have been in the works for weeks. We got to go, President and Sister McSwain came, the assistants were there, as well as the whole Logan zone. It's a mission miracle! Go Polys :D</div>
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Yeah, that's pretty much all caught up. It was the mission secretary's birthday so we surprised her by decorating her desk to surprise her when she came in. So that's one of the pictures. Another is at the Tilyard's when I was drinking a coconut. The one of the car dash was on Christmas day, it was 31 degrees celsius (88 farenheit) and that's not even the hottest it got. And then one Sister McSwain took of me and Elder Sharma after MLC finished. And yeah. Golden Orientation is this week so that'll be fun. Cheers mate!<br />
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-37446576121658071672018-01-14T19:18:00.001-08:002018-01-14T20:25:11.689-08:00December 20, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">Christmas in the ABM</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I won't write a super long email this time, I'll just highlight the couple biggest events- ah what the heck it'll probably end up being a super long email anyways. Major event of last week was the big mission Christmas conference. It was on Thursday, but you could also say it was also Monday-Wednesday since we were preparing for it all those days. I wish I had my planner with me so I could remember what else we did but honestly the conference just absorbs my whole memory of last week. It went really well. The night before we moved all the Christmas packages from the office to Karawatha chapel, about a half hour drive. We looked like Santa delivering Christmas presents, except it was a van instead of reindeer, a trailer instead of a sleigh, and garbage bags instead of a red velvet one. And missionaries instead of santa, but they're close enough. </span><br />
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Thursday morning we had to go to the chapel super early to set up, divide up the packages we had brought the previous night into zones. The first part of the conference was a devotional. There was a lot of singing Christmas hymns and readings of the Savior's birth. A couple musical performances too. Then we shared our favorite scriptures from the BoM reading challenge our mission has been doing the last couple months, which was to read the whole BOM highlighting all references to the Lord or to "the word." Then we had lunch in the cultural hall and more of the "fun" part of the conference. My companion Elder Morris played a fictional Elder Rudolf who would get "transferred" to different parts of the mission (different zones) and each zone had a Christmas song reflecting one of the cultures of that zone. So one was Aussie Jingle Bells, another was Christmas in the Islands, the Chinese zone sung "let it go" in Chinese, stuff like that. Mostly it went ok but none of the zones had much practice so the performances weren't stellar, but they were a lot of fun and made everyone laugh. And then....it was over. We were there til 6 or so cleaning everything up. I'll share a folder of vlogs I made throughout the day.</div>
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Friday/Saturday were sad days. Transfers arrived and a pretty big group of missionaries finished their missions, many of which were good friends I had made, a couple of which were ones I had known since the beginning of my mission. In fact now that I think about it, none of the missionaries I've known my whole mission (besides the ones who came out with me) are still in the field. They've all gone home with this last outtake. Elder Banks, who I was companions with twice, went home, as well as Elder Ray, who I had shared a flat with and we got to be really good friends, Elder Smoot (my distant cousin) and Fukofuka, who were both my ZLs at one point or another and then both were the assistants when I came into the office. Then there was Elder Tonga, who I've served in the same zone with a couple times, Elder Tenney who was one of my ZLs, Elder Campbell who was my DL up north and then later my ZL, Elder Foster who I served in the same district with my second and third transfers, anyways, a lot of good Elders went home. We had dinner with them at the mission home and we got to see them off at the airport the next morning. I'll share a folder with pictures of me and those I knew at the mission home combined with a picture of some other point of my mission. I don't have a picture with Elder Foster from the beginning of my mission and I didn't get a picture with Elder Fukofuka at the mission home but all the same, they were good friends.</div>
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We didn't get a break though because Monday was not only transfers, but the goldens also flew in, instead of Wednesday, I assume because of the Christmas season. Elder Morris, who I was companions with in the office for 3 transfers, got transferred to the Chinese zone as a ZL/Trainer for one of the goldens. So now it's just me and Elder Sharma. We tried a new thing President McSwain wanted to do where the Elders and Sisters would meet at the KP chapel at different times to transfer, to avoid things getting too loud and/or YSA. It worked out great, so much less chaotic although we inevitably had a few bikes left behind, like every transfer, haha. The new goldens are great. Everything's great. So just as a recap,</div>
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It's now my <u style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;">16th transfer.</u> My SIXTEENTH. SIXTEENTH OUT OF SEVENTEEN. I HAVE TWO TRANSFERS LEFT.</div>
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It's my 4th transfer in the Office/Enoggera ward. It's my 2nd transfer being companions with Elder Sharma (last transfer we were in a trio). </div>
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And would you look at that, it was a still a long email, lol. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night (even though it will be day here) and also a very hot Christmas. Cheers!</div>
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Elder Cummings</div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-10367214122721184402018-01-14T18:54:00.000-08:002018-01-14T20:41:11.825-08:00December 12, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">Christmas is coming</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Whew, I was afraid I wouldn't get around to emailing until a couple of weeks after my last one, but fortunately I have some free time right now to shoot one off. Since last time, we've done a lot at the office and a lot of driving around. We drove to the shopping center the last week or so a few times because we bought a pile of phones for missionaries, then we realized they sucked so we took them back to return them, plus we also went with the assistants because 2 of the 4 are going home in a few days and they wanted to buy some new clothes to fly home in. And I just think....wouldn't people be a lot more impressed if you came home from your mission all worn through? That's just my opinion but it</span><i style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">is</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> tempting to go home in a swaggin suit and arrive in style. </span><br />
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We had a few meals at the mission home the last week or so. I never would've thought that on my mission I would get to be so close to the mission president, so that's a blessing I don't take for granted. Who else gets to have dinner with the mission president once or twice a week??</div>
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The 2 of the 4 aps and the McSwains went up north for zone conferences for a few days. That was fun because 1 of the remaining assistants went on trade offs the whole time so the other assistant, Elder Smoot (the distant cousin) hung out with us since he had stuff to do in the office. </div>
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There's been a lot of preparation for transfers and the Christmas conference this Thursday. There's a lot of missionaries going home, including a couple of my favs Elder Ray and Elder Banks. But overall the whole outtake I've become good friends with. They've been having their departing interviews so we film their departing advice and post it on the mission blog. </div>
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Spent a lot of time organizing packages for the missionaries. We've been stocking them all in a room in the office and trying to keep track of who's gotten one and who hasn't, as the mission made gift bags for everyone who didn't. Plus we've got to send the ones up north for missionaries up there.</div>
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Thursday was fun because we went to the mission home and did some departing advice videos, tried helping Sister McSwain with her broken computer, and decorating a tree downstairs. You could say I'm ho ho ho-ed to the max. We had some authentic Indian food at a restaurant which was alright but not great. My companion Elder Sharma (who's Fijian-Indian) said the best way to know if an Indian restaurant is "authentic" or "westernized" is if they sell beef. If they sell anything with beef, it's not "real" Indian food. Fun fact for ya.</div>
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Friday had one of the highlights of our week, because we went to lunch at....TACO BELL AMIGOOOO🌮🌮🌮🌮🔔🔔🔔🔔</div>
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The reason that's so exciting is because there's ONE taco bell in Australia, and it only opened a few weeks ago. I had been anxiously awaiting an opportunity to go to lunch there and it came! After almost two years of no taco bell it was worth the wait. The menu was much smaller than America's and they didn't have Baja Blast BUT it was still good food, which is saying a lot because Australian Mexican food hasn't been great. Plus they had an open soda fountain with free refills which you never see at fast food restaurants here, but they're so common in the states.</div>
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Saturday was also a really good day because the mission had a lot of baptisms, two of which were investigators I was personally acquainted with. One was in our ward, but the Sisters did the teaching. Well, lots of missionaries have done the teaching because he had been an investigator for 30+ years since his wife is a member. Almost their whole married life he's been going to church and being involved with the ward but he only just gained a testimony that Joseph Smith was a true prophet! Super exciting. The other baptism was the in the assistants' ward (which had sisters as well to do full time teaching) but I got to know him pretty well because he would have wings with President and the assistants and us every wednesday. Actually it was more like <i style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;">we </i>were having wings with <i style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;">them</i> but regardless, he had been investigating since April or so and at last came to realize even though there were unanswered questions, baptism is only the beginning of the path to finding those answers. </div>
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It's been a while since we've had an actual p day I think. We definitely won't have one for another week or so because of all we've got going on. Christmas conference on Thursday, transfers on Monday, and the new missionaries fly in on Monday as well (usually they do on Wednesday) so we are flat out getting everything ready. Live mas.<br />
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-36564042511495695862018-01-14T18:50:00.000-08:002018-01-14T18:50:12.204-08:00December 3, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">Hard yakka</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">We have a catch phrase in our mission called "hard yakka." "yakka" apparently means "work" in Aussie slang but I've never heard anybody actually use it except in the mission culture. So it's one of those funny things where we THINK something is Aussie but in reality it's not. Haha. Man, this week was pretty busy. We didn't do much proselyting for reasons I will explain...right now, in fact:</span><br />
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Mission Leadership Council was this week, so Mon-Wed we spent a couple hours a day working on what President wanted to prepare for that. Mostly it was about the mission vision for 2018. The goal we have is 600+ convert baptisms, but the other part is we're going to start tracking families and individuals who are reactivated from less-activity. Our goal is 1200+ families/individuals. So in total, we're calling it "2018 in 2018." Yaaaaaay But on a side note do any of you have any actual suggestions on how to track what counts as someone being officially "active" again. We've discussed temple ordinances, consistent sacrament meeting attendance, but nothing really seems a concrete way we can do for everyone, since every situation is so different.</div>
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Tuesday I got an interview with President for the first time in a few transfers! In the normal world we have them every transfer but being in the office we don't get the chance since we're with him all the time. But we had a personal one and it was good. He asked me if I was okay with dying in the office since time is short to train a couple new office elders before I meself go home (yes I spelt it that way on purpose). </div>
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On Wednesday some mid transfer new missionaries came in. Two from the Phillipines, one from Samoa, and one from Tahiti. None of them speaks a lot of English but our mission has a 3 week English training school taught by one of the senior sisters. </div>
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Thursday: MLC. Long. But interesting. President talked about putting a stop to some of the disobediences in the mission, such as Elders OR Sisters "sleeping over" (not together of course) with other missionaries in their zone for unapproved reasons, zones emailing together at the same place, stuff like that. I didn't even know that stuff was going on but I guess it is. </div>
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Friday was TEMPLE DAY HOORAY. We didn't get a temple day last transfer because the temple was closed. But we returned to provide salvation for those across the veil. Good stuff. That night we went to a ramen place for dinner. Elder Sharma tried the "giant ramen" challenge, where you have to eat all the ramen out of a bowl the size of....a toilet bowl. Or maybe a mop bucket. A very large mixing bowl. It was big. He's a big boy but he hardly got through half of it because he said it tasted nasty. Fortunately he only threw up in his mouth a couple times so we didn't have a full on projectile vomit episode. </div>
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Saturday we went to a baptism in one of the Samoan wards and our ward had a Christmas activity, which was really fun. That's pretty much this week. No pictures. That's my fault, I oughta remember to carry my camera around more.</div>
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Cheers</div>
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Elder Cummings</div>
Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-63864535972999698202018-01-14T18:27:00.000-08:002018-01-14T18:27:47.904-08:00Pictures and Videos November 19-26, 2017<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-62985916068146250732018-01-05T14:49:00.000-08:002018-01-05T14:49:30.241-08:00November 26, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">SOLID week</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Plenty to write about this week. First off, we had a p day with President and Sister McSwain! It was our first official p day in...4 or 5 weeks I think?? Anyways it was our first this transfer (week 3). We went to Australia Zoo, it was sooooo fun. They also call it "the home of the crocodile hunter" because it's where Steve Irwin worked. His parents founded the zoo, but now his wife owns it, and their kids do a lot of stuff for it as well. While there I basically learned just how much Aussies revere Steve Irwin, and I don't blame them. That guy was a boss. We saw crocs and stuff but also other Australian animals like wombats and koalas, and I hadn't seen any of those before. Plus there was an area where you could go up to kangaroos in their natural habitat and pet them.</span><br />
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Tuesday and Wednesday were golden orientation. We had a HUGE group, like 15 or 16 new missionaries. That's always fun because we get to stay in a hotel overnight. </div>
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Thursday was thanksgiving, and probably the coolest senior couple in the mission, the Clydes, invited us over for lunch with President and Sister McSwain, the senior couple Briggs (the mission doctor), and the senior couple the Bells (who are also the cooliest). I didn't have a thanksgiving dinner last year (or the year before, now that I think about it) so it was really good to have some good ol turkey which I haven't had much here in Australia. We played two truths and a lie as well.</div>
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Saturday we went to baptisms. My first area, Bracken Ridge, had a baptism for the first time in months so I got to go to that. Unfortunately hardly anyone I knew was there and the investigator was one I never knew. But, yeah anyways! That night our Fijian-Indian companion Elder Sharma made us some sweeet Indian food.</div>
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Today we had coordinating council meeting which was like 5 hours long. But it's interesting to listen to the kind of topics the area seventy, the temple president, the mission president, and all the stake presidents discuss.</div>
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As for proselyting this week, we visited our recent converts the Mahns. Thaw, the oldest of the three that got baptized, got the priesthood this last Sunday and we're helping him get to the temple. Today we went to contact a couple member records move-ins and a referral and it was surprisingly successful. We got a commitment to come to church and a return appointment out of it. Hooray! Anyways. That was our week. Cheers!</div>
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Elder Cummings</div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-5713263732382845382018-01-05T14:33:00.001-08:002018-01-05T14:40:12.976-08:00November 17, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">This week's email</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I'm not totally sure when the last time I emailed was because for some reason by last group email isn't showing up in my "sent mail" folder. that's the hard thing about sporadic emailing, I can never remember when the last time was without checking!!</span><br />
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Guess I'll start from last Saturday? We had a church activity with all the ward mission teams in the stake...playing the epic game of LAWN BOWLS. How it works is your team tries to roll their 8 balls as close as possible to a ball on the other side of the field. The balls are slightly flattened on one side so they curve, which makes it harder to adjust for it. It was fun. Kind of like bocce ball. It's known as an old person's game here.</div>
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Monday was my birthday...yay! The mission president's wife made me a pile of cinnamon rolls and the office sung happy birthday while I wore the birthday crown. Sister McSwain took a video so I'll try to get it from her. Some sisters that used to be in my zone came by for their companion to take an English test.. One of them is Peruvian and she gave me a sweet alpaca wool tie and a tie pin. And a Peruvian cake. That night we went to a really good burger place called Burger Fuel.</div>
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Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday followed a pretty similar structure, because me and this Peruvian sister-k her name is Sister Robles-were chosen to do a musical number for our mission tour on Friday. Oh yeah. Monday night President got word that O. Vincent Haleck, the area president, and Elder Uceda (president of the seventy) were coming to tour the mission, so we had to do HEAPS of changes to our transfer schedule to accomodate it, since we were planning on having zone conferences, and we had to change that and combined the mission tour and zone conferences into one day for the whole mission. SO me and Sister Robles (who plays the cello) were selected to play a musical number.</div>
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Tues-Thurs was pretty much do office stuff for President 10-2, practice musical number with Sister Robles from 2-4:30 or so, then back to the office. Well Wednesday we also went to a mall to find cell phones for missionaries. You would not BELIEVE how hard it is nowadays just to find simple phones that only text and call, don't have any fancy features, and yet are functional. It seems like all the phones we can find are either smartphones or phones that break after a couple weeks. Hopefully those changes the church was talking about with more missions having smartphones will come here and I won't have to deal with this stress, haha. </div>
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Thursday night we had dinner with Sue, a really cool recent convert from China at a mongolian bbq place. I had this yougurt drink that tasted...really sour and yet sweet and yougurty at the same time. I would not have been surprised if it was yak milk yogurt or something but I don't know. After that we were at Karawatha chapel for a couple hours cleaning it for the big day.</div>
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So Friday (yesterday) was the mission tour itself. It took more preparation than usual because I thought "hey, we used to broadcast stake conferences back home to other chapels, maybe we can broadcast the mission tour to the missionaries up north who can't come." The office elders had tried to broadcast mission tours using skype before, but apparently it sucked. I wanted to try using the church's broadcast system. So I called a guy President referred me to, who referred me to a couple stake tech guys, who showed up Friday morning to help us set it all up. I was really nervous it wouldn't work because since the church's system asks that you reserve a broadcast event at least a week before, but since we didn't even know about the mission tour until just a couple days before, we weren't sure they were going to be able to get the servers ready for us. plus one of the stake tech guys waited until the night before to reveal the tiny little notice that they hadn't actually had a 100% successful broadcast before due to overheating of the equipment. HOWEVER I am glad to report it all went pretty well. The missionaries up north said the video got a bit dodgy sometimes but the audio was perfect. Yaaaaaaay</div>
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Elder Uceda gave some great lessons on baptizing converts by focusing on working with missionary minded members and not worrying about changing the attitudes of members that aren't as keen. Plus he talked about "establishing the church" and how we do that by focusing on prospective elders, older teens and ysa rather than focusing too much on 9 or 10 year old unbaptized kids. I can say he's really energetic. After the mission tour the general authorities left and we had a mission wide zone conference. Oh yeah guess I should say the musical number went really well, the practice paid off. Plus I wore my Peruvian tie and Elder Uceda and Sister Uceda pointed it out when we were shaking their hands. yeaaaaah I'm in with the brethren. We got to see him again later because we went to Chinese branch game night and he was at the same chapel for a meeting or something, so we got to have a bit of personal interaction with him because it was just him, Elder Walker (an area seventy) and 6 or 7 of us missonaries in the foyer. Cool stuff. Oh yeah. I'll attach a picture of a cover I made for my daily planner (since we don't have tablets we use physical planners :P) Points for each book of mormon hero you can guess correctly. Also a picture of the office crew (3 office elders and 4 assistants). Plus lawn bowls pictures. Plus me and Sister Robles. Catch you next time (I would say next <i style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;">week</i> but things might not work out that way lol)</div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-62178853054518027842017-11-16T15:51:00.000-08:002017-11-16T15:51:15.522-08:00November 8, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">A weekannahalf</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Well it's been a while, and for good reason. Last week was week 6 of the transfer, this was week 1, so us office blokes have been here there and everywhere.</span><br />
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Last week was kind of a blur. President was gone most of the week at a mission president's seminar in Fiji. But when he got back we had a quick MLC on Thursday. It was really frustrating because as usual we had the far north queensland zone leaders/sister training leaders skyping in but our internet connection kept dropping and annoying both them and us. But it worked out. One of the pictures is of me and Elder Bullock, my son (my trainee). He's been a zone leader for a couple transfers now but haven't gotten a picture with him. After the MLC we had a FHE with the Centenary and Ipswich zones. In our mission if a zone breaks their goals for baptisms they get a zone p-day and a FHE with President. So it's kind of like a full day p-day. This month we had HEAPS of zones break their baptismal goals so we had two zones on Thursday and two on Friday. Friday was Brisbane and Logan zones. That one we were officially a part of since we're in the Brisbane zone and we were responsible for 3 of the 5 baptisms our zone had a goal of for the month. </div>
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Saturday we picked up our new companion, Elder Sharma! Super rad missionary. He's from Fiji and now he's in a trio with me and Elder Morris as the office elders. Elder Morris will most likely be on his way out next transfer so he's training Elder Sharma as an office elder.</div>
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Monday (just a couple days ago) was the first day of the transfer, so we had all sorts of missionaries running around kangaroo point chapel parking lot. All went smoothly...for the most part. I'm not sure how but somehow like 5 missionaries forgot their bikes. It happens every transfer, but usually not this many bikes. So we're like..."what the heck do we do with these????" </div>
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Monday afternoon/evening was kind of fun/depressing (similar feelings I know) because we spend the rest of the day with the departing missionaries at the mission home. This transfer, two of my previous companions, Elder Rossi (who I was in a trio with way back in Atherton for one transfer about a year ago) and Elder Iufoni (who I was companions with just a few months ago, only for one transfer also) so it kind of sucks because it's like they're dying in your arms as you see them go through all the emotions of going home. Plus this one super cool Sister names Sister Costa from Brazil went home. She was serving in the same ward as us, and she's one of the coolest sisters I've met.</div>
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We had a departing devotional and stuff. Everyone goes around and bears their testimony at the end, and Elder Iufoni in his testimony said he learned how to "be loud" from me. Which is weird because he's a huge Tongan who's already loud enough but I think he was just being funny because I'm known as having a really loud voice, because the other missionaries laughed and a couple were like "ha, true." I think what he meant from it was teaching the gospel/bearing testimony in a loud and powerful voice or something. </div>
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We didn't actually take them to the airport (well, the first few because it was like 5 in the morning) but we took a group later in the morning. Super sad. But it gets followed up by days like TODAY, WEDNESDAY when all the new goldens come in. We had 7 sisters and 4 elders arrive. A few from the states, one from NZ, another from Papua New Guinea, another from China.</div>
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We have lots of fun picking them up from the airport, then to the office, then to the mission home, and sending them off with their trainers. By the end of the day we're so exhausted. Anyways, this email has gotten long enough even though I wish I could say more. Because there's a lot more. But I'll end it there. See ya!</div>
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Elder Cummings</div>
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PS the pics are mostly from the last week, but the two of me/Elder Iufoni in the suits and me/Elder Rossi/Elder Hausia/KFC are from when we were companions.</div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-20235830605512969662017-11-16T15:46:00.001-08:002017-11-16T15:46:27.294-08:00October 29, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">whoop de doo</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Wow, what a packed week and a half it's been! Some super cool stuff has been going on. First off, we had a baptism last weekend! We baptized three kids-two boys, Thaw and Su, and a girl, Sanda. They're three of the six kids of a family we've been teaching. I was really worried we wouldn't be able to work things out in time, but fortunately we have a ward mission leader who is SO on top of things, we sat down with him a few days prior and got everything for the program organized. Thank goodness! It was a super awesome baptism too, because half the ward came to support, since the ward hasn't seen a convert baptism in years. But it was all thanks to a member who reached out to a friend and asked if the missionaries could visit. See, people? It works! Go figure!</span><br />
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Most of this recent week was transfer deliberations, so we spent most of the time in the office while President and the assistants were holed up in President's office deliberating. They still haven't finished yet, because besides deliberating we (the office elders) were busy making a training presentation for President about Mission Leadership Councils which he has to give at a mission president's seminar in Fiji. Actually that's where he is right now. So it's up to the assistants to keep the mission running while President and Sister McSwain are gone for about a week. </div>
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One night one of the Chinese branch members took us to a Chinese "yum cha" place where people come around with food carts and you take whatever you want. I tried some chicken feet! I haven't had that many weird foods in Australia so when I have the opportunity I try to take it. </div>
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Wednesday was the ush-wings at Burrito Bar with President, the assistants, and an investigator Jeffrey.</div>
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Thursday we ran heaps of errands running desks to flats, buying paper, and of course my part time job lately has been repeatedly fixing errors on the printer/scanner in the office. Every time I come up with a solution, the solution stops working by the next day. Wahp. That night there was a serious hail storm warning so we did some emergency moving of cars around to take them under cover since there's various mission cars sitting around at the office and the mission home. That was fun.</div>
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Oh, of course something I should mention is that we got a new assistant. The two that are already here, Elder Smoot and Fukofuka, have both been my zone leaders at different points in my mission, but this last week they brought in a third assistant since the other two are going home soon-and it's Elder Hymas! Elder Hymas was my companion right before I myself came into the office! so that's really cool because it's almost like being companions again since we're with the assistants so much of the time.</div>
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Saturday was fun too, there was a stake Mormon Helping Hands project at a Buddhist temple. It was the first time I've been to a Buddhist temple so that was cool. One of the other Elders who was there is from China and he used to be buddhist so he filled us in on a lot of their beliefs, which are pretty cool. </div>
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So that's how things have been going, which I would say are very good! Transfers are a week from today, so even though they're not done yet, I'm safe because that's what being is the office is like-I've only been here for 2 transfers and office elders stick around a lot longer than that-but there's a very high chance we'll be getting a new companion to train him in the way of the office elder. Deuces.</div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-10857970554717754012017-11-16T15:41:00.001-08:002017-11-16T15:41:43.314-08:00October 19, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">Yay free time to email</span><br />
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If you thought office work has lightened up at all in the last week and a half....you're wrong! Haha, we've been especially busy this last week+ because not only did we have golden orientation for the new missionaries but we (us and the assistants) had to road trip up to Rockhampton to swap out some cars for the missionaries up there. Plus we did zone conference while we were there. <div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1510380380145_514816" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px;">
To start, the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday since I last wrote was mostly run-of-the-mill office work. Dropping off supplies and stuff. Tuesday we had to be at a chapel to help with interviews for a few of the zones. We were there from about 9 to 4 or 5. But president shouted us all KFC afterwards so it was alllll goods. Oh yeah, shouting someone means buying them food. Wednesday we were at interviews for a couple other zones.</div>
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Thursday was one of the things I look forward to...golden orientation! Where they take all the missionaries that came in this transfer and give them some trainings and experiences GQing and snapping gravity in the morning (snap gravity is just an ABM thing, it's the exercise we do in the morning). Really wish I would be smarter and take pictures, but oh well. </div>
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Friday we finished up Golden orientation (no one freaked out about me filming them this time) we helped president with some training he was going to be doing at Rockhampton's district conference over the weekend, and then waited at the mission home to take President and Sister McSwain to the airport for them to fly up there. Then we went to the Chinese branch game night! Luckily we played Uno so I knew what was going on for the most part until someone would play a wild card so I had to ask them to translate the color they were changing it to.</div>
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Saturday was one of the greatest weeks for baptisms this year in the mission. We had 17 in one day across the mission! That is INCREDIBLE, especially because the last few weeks we've only had 5 or 6 a week. But before we went to baptisms we visited our investigator family from Burma, the Mahns. 3 of the 5 kids of baptismal age are super ready to get baptized. We are so lucky to be teaching them!</div>
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For the rest of Saturday Elder Morris went with Elder Fukofuka and I went with Elder Smoot to go to baptisms. We went to one in Kuraby where I had to conduct last minute. I don't mind conducting but I'm the literal worst at singing. We went to a couple poly baptisms, we got to have a mighty feed after one of them. </div>
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That night we started upon our road trip to Rockhampton. We had to drive a total of 4 cars so each of us drove a car (yes, by ourselves, and yes, the mission president was well aware of it). Me and Elder Smoot drove to Hervey Bay, one of his previous areas, and Elder Morris and Fukofuka drove to Bundaberg, one of Elder Fukofuka's previous areas. We started upon our journey 9:45 at night. We had PLANNED to leave at 7 but good old Elder Smoot lost his wallet so we had to find that.</div>
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The road trip to Hervey Bay was about as fun as you would expect driving 3 1/2 hours in the middle of the night during pouring rain. It was bad. I had to stay awake by ringing Elder Smoot and drinking-please don't gasp-Coca Cola. It was a necessary sacrifice. We ended up getting to the Hervey Bay elders' flat about 2 am. Slept like a rock. I did get a picture with them so I'll attach it. We went to church in the Hervey Bay ward so Elder Smoot could see old recent converts and members. Then we embarked once more to finish our journey. This time though we left one of the cars in Hervey Bay (since that was one of the ones we were swapping) and just drove in one car up to Rocky. Meanwhile, Elder Fukofuka and Elder Morris went to church in Bundaberg and carpooled the rest of the way.</div>
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Actually I forgot, before we went the rest of the way to Rocky me and elder smoot drove to Bundaberg and met the other guys there and had lunch with an eternal investigator there. THEN we drove the rest of the way to Rockhampton which was about 4 or 5 hours. One way it's 616 km, or about 350 mi. That's about the distance from SLC to Las Vegas. The reason it takes so much longer is because </div>
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1. It was raining hard-out the entire drive and</div>
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2. The top speed limit here is only like 60-65 mi an hour, even on the loneliest highways. And you can't speed because they even go through the courtesy of installing speed cameras in the middle of nowhere.</div>
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That night we got to Rocky and met up with the Rockhampton/Gladstone Elders and the Emerald sisters at a setting apart of a missionary that President McSwain was doing. We had dinner there too. I'll attach a picture of us outside. </div>
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Monday was zone conference for Rockhampton. I had a bad headache the whole time. Then we swapped cars and headed back out as soon as conference was over. Took from about 3 to 1 in the morning. We split off again on the way down so that Elder Fukofuka and Elder Morris could grab the old Bundaberg car and me and Elder Smoot grabbed the old Hervey Bay car to drive it down. The drive down was actually much better, I drove for 2 1/2 hours of the leg to Hervey Bay and then obviously the full 3 1/2 hours down to Brisbane since I was driving alone. But I didn't get tired at all on the way down so it was cool. </div>
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Tuesday we got to go to district meeting for the first time in weeks. We saw the Mahns again to prepare them for their baptism this Saturday. Then Tuesday night we picked up a missionary from the airport who was returning to the field to Perth after spending a few months back home on medical release. He stayed with us over night after we smashed some KFC in the mission home. But also the assistants (Elder Fukofuka and Elder Smoot) and President and Sister McSwain all flew up to Cairns Tuesday morn.</div>
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Wednesday was a fun day, because we had three new missionaries come in mid transfer, and since everyone was up in Cairns, it fell on us to do everything! So after seeing Elder Oemcke off to Perth we picked up the new missionaries and took them back to the office for the senior missionaries to orient them on stuff. Then we did heaps of driving taking missionaries to their new areas. Ultimately that's what we spent the whole day doing. All three went to the Chines-speaking program so we went down to Sunnybank, which is basically mini-China in Brisbane, and ate some awesome dumplings. </div>
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Thursday (today) we did some hard office work for President's training that he's going to be giving at a mission president's seminar in Fiji in a couple weeks. Then we met with our WML to organize the Mahn's baptism and then went to the Mahn's to teach them the Word of Wisdom and get their parental permission for baptism. Unfortunately the only reason the parents' aren't getting baptized is because they don't speak any English and the Church doesn't really have any materials in their language, and their kids' translation abilities only go so far. But we're still super excited! Found out something cool: while we were filling out the baptismal records, I learned from the Mahn's that in Burma (or Myanmar) they don't have last names, so when they came to Australia they were assigned a last name. Interesting fun fact! That's pretty much catching you all up. I know it's heaps, and I wish I had more pictures, but that's the way the news goes. Cheers!</div>
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Elder Cummings</div>
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ps I attached a map of our road trip for your convenience. Also, on the way back down we actually had to take a couple detours because roads were closed due to flooding.</div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-27871095406423420372017-10-11T18:19:00.003-07:002017-10-11T18:19:41.969-07:00October 8, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">Sorry bout that</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">So I </span><i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1507092097219_408499" style="-webkit-padding-start: 0px; background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">planned </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">on sending an email a few days ago, but I was feeling so wrecked I put it off. And now it's been like a week and a half since my last email, soo...yeah.</span><br />
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The weekend after I emailed last we had a p-day for once in a couple weeks. We went to one of the biggest shopping centers in Australia, a place called Pacific Fair. At first I was pretty cool with going. Sounded like a fun adventure. But in my haste I forgot how expensive clothes are, and so after about half an hour of being there I was so bored. We were going from store to store just saying "oh, this hat is cool.....40 dollars." "hey check out this cool t-shirt....oh, 60 bucks" "man this suit is sweet...400 dollars okay we're out of here" But we ended up hanging around for a few hours. It wasn't all a waste though, because we got some lunch which was pretty delicious, so ha.</div>
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This last week I don´t have much to report besides having zone conferences. Monday was spent all day preparing for them, getting supplies together and printing stuff out and all that, then Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were all at conferences. I really should've taken pictures with my previous comps but I'm pretty useless, ha. This last couple of days, we watched general conference. A week late, per the norm here in Australia. I really liked a couple of the talks. I noticed a lot of them talked about how we should never look down on others, church leaders, fellow members, or non members, based on perceived shortcomings. It´s never our place to discount others based on race, economic or social background, age, etc etc. We got to watch the Saturday sessions with the assistants and President and Sister McSwain at the mission home, which was fun. Except for priesthood session, I guess. We went to Kangaroo Point to watch that with the rest of the priesthood in the stake. I will definitely try to find interesting things to do this week. Actually well now that I think about it we´re taking a 8 hour road trip up to Rockhampton to swap a couple cars with the elders up there, so that´ll be fun. Yay!</div>
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Elder Cummings</div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-21872190676140718192017-10-11T18:09:00.000-07:002017-10-11T18:15:51.782-07:00September 28, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">Okee doke</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Ok let me smash this out real fast. It's been longer than usual because this last week was week 6/week 1 of the transfer, so that comes with a looooot of work to do. Just last week we moved three flats, went to a couple baptisms, fun stuff. We didn't have time for a pday last week because we were also doing lots of office work getting ready to switch the mission over for transfers. Fun stuff! Because you are probably very interested, we do things like: update the contacts on the mission smartphones (only used by president and sister mcswain, the senior missionaries, us, the assistants, etc etc), update the "transfer board" or basically this document that has pictures of all the missionaries and what area they're in, make call sheets for all the zone leaders and sister training leaders, with the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all the missionaries, organize supplies (Book of Mormons, pamphlets, mail, etc) to give to missionaries at transfers on Monday, stuff like that. </span><br />
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Sunday was Elder Bank's last day as an office elder/being in the Enoggera area so we visited a few people for him to bid farewell to.</div>
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And then Monday, it all started. It was a big transfer this time around. Kangaroo Point (the chapel/temple where we meet) was swarming with missionaries. Luckily everything went well, there were no casualties and no missionaries that disappeared. The rest of the day we spent pretty much at the mission home with the departing missionaries. One of them, Elder Clawson, I served in the same district my first area so I've known him my entire mission, it's pretty weird to see him go. Elder Vea and I served in the same district for 5 transfers up north about a year ago, so we were pretty good friends. Tuesday was a relatively regular day in that we tried to cram as much office work as we could in a few hours since we weren't going to have any time Wednesday or Thursday to do it.</div>
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Wednesday was the big day when the new missionaries come in. This intake was a good size. A couple of Americans, a Canadian, an Australian, a couple Chinese, a couple Fijians. Good bunch. Basically how that works is we pick them all up from the airport, bring them to the mission office, take them to the bank to withdraw money for their bikes, they get oriented on driving and fill out heaps of paperwork at the office, we take them to the mission home, they have lunch, then a meeting with President and Sister McSwain, they meet their trainers, we take pictures, they get their bikes, take their cars, and go. By the time all was said and done it was about 5 or so. That night we had to prepare for MLC which was yesterday. We were up til two in the morning getting ready for it.</div>
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MLC was really good, we had it at Karawatha, the biggest chapel in the mission, as opposed to where we usually have it at Kangaroo Point, which is one of the smallest. There was a couple technical problems in that we forgot a soundboard which is something we really need for those but other than that it all went well. Going it alone without Elder Banks, who was an office elder for 10 months, just means it was inevitable something would go wrong at some point. Here is a video I made when I was bored </div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-3367047242824555352017-09-19T12:24:00.002-07:002017-09-19T12:24:27.186-07:00September 19, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">Anotha one</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Well in case you were wondering, we're still busy, haha. I don't have any pictures to send this time because I just figured I'd get pictures from my companions when I wanted them, and I haven't gotten around to it yet. For a quick summary, let me just say: </span><br />
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Moving. </div>
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So much moving. So moving missionary flats isn't an uncommon thing, but it just so happens that 4 or 5 moves have fallen in the same week. So a lot of it's been that. Another big part is that a Thursday-Saturday last week was a zone conference for all the senior missionaries in the ABM. Per the norm we helped out setting up tech and helping President prepare his presentations and things. Friday we gave a quick training on how to do some tech things senior missionaries are always asking us how to do, like downloading Mormon messages and using Gospel Library. Fun stuff. We also did some service washing one of the members' dogs. </div>
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Another fun errand we got to run: taking one of the mission vans to an auto auction place. Let me tell you a little bit about this van. It was basically a death machine before we turned it in. We needed to use it quite a bit to take bigger items that couldn't fit in our car like fold up tables and boxes of supplies and things. But this van was missing some rather necessary features, such as:</div>
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1. A rearview mirror.</div>
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2. Working headlights</div>
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3. Working turn signals</div>
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Besides that there were also a couple things that were missing like the door handle on the drivers side back door. Overall we're glad to be rid of it because pretty soon we'll be getting a new van. </div>
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We did actually get to do some teaching this week too! And it's with a totally solid family too! We got a referral from a member to visit a Burmese family her kids go to school with. We went last week and taught them the restoration and the whole family, both parents and six kids were there listening. Unfortunately the kids are the only ones who speak any English but it was such a good lesson. They even came to church on Sunday and stayed all three hours! The kids had a fun time and even though the mom and dad couldn't understand anything they told us they were just glad their kids could understand and enjoy it. Today we visited them again, and taught the plan of salvation but also tied a little bit of the gospel of Jesus Christ into it. It's hard teaching simply to kids, especially when we don't get to teach much in general, but the kids were really paying attention and asking questions. When we asked if they wanted to get baptized all the kids but one said yes and two of them even shot their hands into the air. Sadly one of them is only 7 but that's ok. We're really happy to be teaching this family and although the church doesn't have a Book of Mormon in their language we're hoping somehow we can involve the parents more as well. But that's it! thanks for reading hope you have a great week. :)</div>
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Elder Cummings</div>
Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-82663451667793229612017-09-19T12:20:00.001-07:002017-09-19T12:20:20.570-07:00September 12, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">Anotha one</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Ok so this last week, the main highlight was golden orientation. Which is when we take all the new missionaries (we call them goldens instead of greenies because of their "golden" missionary spirit) to Kangaroo Point, where there's the temple and a chapel and they get hours of training from President and the assistants, we do some GQing (street contacting) on the way to a restaurant, have dinner, sleep at a hotel, wake up in the morning and do some tough exercise, then do more trainings and role playing before going home. Thursday was when all the goldens came in. It was a lot of fun. I hadn't been to a golden orientation since my own, so it was really interesting because it's with a new mission president and everything. Well he's not new at this point but my golden orientation was with the last mission president a month or two before he went home. So yeah, around noon the trainers came and dropped off their goldens. We office elders gave a training on why we call them goldens but besides that most of the talking was done my President McSwain and the assistants. Then we street contacted on our way to dinner I gotta tell you this funny story though.</span><br />
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So one of our responsibilities is to film, among other things, the goldens GQing people on the way to dinner because we put them in a video. At one point the group has scattered throughout this big park talking to people. Now this was my first time doing anything like this so I probably wasn't as discreet as I should have been filming people with my camcorder. It was hard to make it pretty un-obvious. Anyways I'm filming this one group from a fair distance away, and then the guy the missionaries were talking to turns and looks right at me, turns back to the missionaries and says something, and then they all turn and look straight at the camera. I'm like "crap" and try to play it off by moving the camera and filming other things "wow, what a tree" and "look at those birds" like I was a nature cameraman or something. I talked to that group later and they said the guy was asking them why he was being filmed and they successfully played it off by telling him I was filming the sunset behind them. So-crisis averted. </div>
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I wasn't expecting to stay in the hotel but alas- we received that privilege. Not much to report there other than it was the place we slept for the night and had breakfast in the morning. Oh but before breakfast the assistant led the goldens in doing "snap gravity" (the mission's exercise program). The name comes from the last mission president. He wanted the missionaries' exercise to be so intense it would "snap gravity." Our last mission president was really into being healthy, so that definitely did a lot of good for me because before my mission I was pretty slack with exercise. Our job was to run around and film the missionaries running, jumping, doing push ups, stuff like that. Then after breakfast and everything it was back to the chapel for more training and role playing. We filmed them doing role plays. </div>
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The night after golden orientation we went to the Chinese branch's game night, which was fun because they always have heaps of investigators there that are fun to talk to. We had stake conference over the weekend. At the priesthood leadership session Saturday afternoon the pianist job was delegated to me when we arrived. I don't mind playing for stuff just as long as I play easy enough hymns. Fortunately they were ones that were easy enough except for one. That night was the adult session, and Sunday morning was the main session. It was interesting though, because the Kangaroo Point chapel is the Brisbane stake center but it's one of the smallest chapels ever (exaggerated, obviously, but anyways). So because they don't have enough room for everyone we had the general stake conference we met at the Brisbane city hall, which had plenty of space for everyone. We got to ride a catamaran boat down to it, which was fun (us and the assistants). I have a few pictures for that but it was really windy so that's why I have anime hair.</div>
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Yesterday we went outdoor laser tagging again, and that night had FHE at the mission home with President and Sister McSwain and the Eight Mile Plains Zone because they surpassed their baptisms goal last month. That was really fun. But why they have a place called Eight MILE Plains in a country that only uses kilometers is beyond me. Today we moved a flat, which was tough work. That's another one of the things we help out with and I'm surprised how often we have flats moving around. We're moving another one tomorrow. Wow, busy week.</div>
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Elder Cummings </div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-57973263768584239742017-09-19T12:15:00.001-07:002017-09-19T12:15:18.978-07:00September 6, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">a free minute</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">I just realized I have a free minute in the office, so...when that time comes, it´s a good time to shoot off an email! Since it´s been a while, I´ll just go over a couple of highlights. We had our mission leadership council last Tuesday, so that took up a large chunk of our day. I only went to one as a zone leader so it was interesting being on the other side, because rather than being a part of the council I was setting up mics, running presentations, etc etc. </span><br />
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Thursday was busy because the mission president / wife and the assistants went up to Cairns for zone conferences and district conferences with the branches. I was a little bummed I couldn´t go because Cairns was one of my previous zones, the one I spent 5 transfers in, so I would´ve been able to see lots of members I knew up there, but that´s okay. When they all flew back down yesterday they told me a few of the Atherton members wanted to pass on their love so that was enough. Anyways back to the reason Thursday was busy was because the president and the assistants´flights were at different times so it was a lot of running back and forth to the airport, which luckily is only 10 or 15 minutes away from the mission office. +</div>
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Friday night we went to the Chinese branch´s game night. One of my comps, Elder Morris, was called with a chinese speaking assignment so he was serving in that capacity before he came into the office. But he´s our link what the Chinese members/recent converts who we actually spend a decent amount of time with going and getting Chinese food for dinner and stuff like that. Game night was fun, we played a game basically like mafia but they called it werewolf. Luckily it was in English so I wasn´t completely lost.</div>
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Monday we helped move a sisters´ flat with a few other elders, so that took a couple hours. But then we went with some elders from a different zone to spend p day with them at an outdoor laser tag place. That was honestly one of the funnest things I´ve done on my mission. We played for like 4 hours at different game modes and things. We even wore camo jumpsuits and everything. The reason I´m not wearing one in one of the pictures is because we had just finished and I had already taken mine off. About the other picture, I have no idea why I look like I have a messed up jaw. Besides that, it´s been busy trying to fixing broken things like the mission website for ordering supplies and putting together videos, which is fun. So yeah! There´s my week. Until next time!</div>
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Elder Calvin Cummings</div>
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-49527638141729627622017-09-03T18:14:00.001-07:002017-09-03T19:38:55.430-07:00August 28, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">like a dream</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Lemme just tell ya, all the days here in the office just float by like they're nothing. But I'll just get right into what's happened since last time I emailed, which was like the 17th I think. Friday and Saturday we did our baptism rounds. It's super fun getting to go around the mission to support at baptisms. On Saturday me and one of the assistants, Elder Smoot (who was my zone leader for 2 transfers and we are distant cousins) went to Toowoomba, a small town a couple hours out of Brisbane to the west. The drive was nice. Elder Smoot came from a farm so he was so excited to see all the farms on the way out, he took like 50 pictures on my camera because his ran out of battery. </span><br />
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That night the assistant's ward had a cake auction ward activity that we went to as well. That was super fun. Elder Smoot was the auctioneer. But the coolest part was a member from Bracken Ridge (my first area) was there with his family! We would go to work out in his garage almost every morning when I was in the Bracken Ridge area and he would come out on lots of lessons with us. He was surprised to see that me and Elder Banks were companions again (since we were companions in Bracken Ridge over a year ago). </div>
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Sundays are busy because that's when call ins are, plus we update the baptismal records for the mission and things, so we were in the office most of the day besides church. I guess that would've been my first time to church in this area (Enoggera). It's in the same chapel as Bunya Forest (the ward I served in 3 or 4 months ago) so I saw a couple members during the crossover gap. The ward's really nice. </div>
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Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we had ZONE CONFERENCES. Busy busy busy. Each day was basically the same routine: show up to the chapel (it was a different one each day) about an hour before the conference, set up the laptop and projector, microphones, etc and get supplies (Book of Mormons, pamphlets, mail, etc) ready for the zones who needed them. The zone conferences themselves were great. They were focused on the Book of Mormon. We watched a devotional Elder Bednar gave at the MTC a couple months ago, which was awesome. He went into this super deep scripture discourse about how Alma compares the word to a seed, how Jesus Christ is the Word, and the Word (or seed) can grow in us, tying in the fact that as we follow the example of Jesus Christ, He grows in us. He also tied in the tree of life from Lehi's dream. Just overall a cool insight I had never thought of before. </div>
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Tuesday night we had dinner at the mission president's house. First time for that but I don't think it'll be the last. </div>
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On Thursday night we went to an Asian food court. The area of the city it's in has a very dense asian population so all the shops and stores and things are run by asians, all the signs are asian, etc etc, and one of my companions, Elder Morris, was assigned to the Chinese program (originally before he came into the office) so he's our in with the Chinese people. So I did this super embarrassing thing. Apparently it's super offensive to chefs in Chinese culture to stick your chopsticks straight up in the food they give you, but I didn't know that, so when we were about to bless the food after sitting down in the food court I just stuck them in my rice for convenience and Elder Morris, plus a couple of Chinese recent converts that were eating with us, panicked and were telling me "quick! quick! Take them out! take them out!" Oh man.</div>
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Friday we took a p-day since we hadn't had an official one in a couple weeks. We went to a coastal area called Noosa and went on a walk along the coast (but not along the beach, don't worry, it was kosher). It was sooooo cool. I'll attach pics.</div>
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Saturday was another round of baptisms, besides running a couple of errands since I traded off with Elder Fukofuka, the other assistant (who was my zone leader for 4 transfers). We had to drive a car to a senior couple, so while he drove our car I drove the car for them by myself for like half an hour. It was weird. Then we went to check out a flat with a rental agent that the mission might be moving missionaries into. One of the baptisms we went to later was one of my old companions, Elder Malobago. It wasn't in my old area but just one of my old companions. Sunday was church, coordination meeting and such, and SUnday office work. Today was a busy day as well, every monday morning we have staff meeting, we also had to organize some supplies we got in the mail, do weekly reports, and prepare for mission leadership council this week. Sorry for the long email, but hope it's somewhat entertaining! I'll attach some pictures of driving to toowoomba, noosa, Napa (the B-ridge member we came across), dolphins we saw at noosa, and a couple others. Since it's too big to attach them all, I'll put them in a drive folder which you might not be able to get access to. In that case I hope mom just posts the pictures somewhere. Ok bye!</div>
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Elder Cummings<br />
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Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941653519406921253.post-34838393316252794732017-09-03T18:02:00.000-07:002017-09-03T18:04:12.545-07:00August 18, 2017<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: nowrap;">big changes underway</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">So hey everyone this last week and a bit has been awesome. Unfortunately it was my last week in the Redland Bay area because Saturday I got transferred to the mission office as an "office elder." So there's already a few senior missionaries working at the office but they also have a couple full time missionaries serve as office elders to help with setting up technology for zone conferences and things like that, basically helping the mission run. My last week in Redland Bay wasn't too exciting. It was really sad to go though. I was only there for one transfer. I didn't even get to say goodbye to anyone because I got the call Friday night and transferred Saturday morning. Elder Hymas and I were pretty bummed I was leaving already but I was super excited about being in the office. What's cool though is the missionary I trained, Elder Bullock will be his new companion in Redland Bay.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Since Saturday things have been a blur. Because we do heaps more than just sitting in the office all day. Saturday we went with the assistants to different baptisms around the mission to support. On Sunday President McSwain (mission president), the temple president, an area authority seventy and all the stake presidents in QLD had a council meeting. We had to set up microphones and video to broadcast to the district presidents in the far north like Townsville and Cairns and the like.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Monday is generally p day but us and the assistants get to do p day stuff whenever we can find the time since a lot of Mondays we don't get around to shopping and emailing. But Monday was transfers, so we had to be at the Kangaroo Point chapel/temple/base of operations to make sure everything went smoothly in terms of getting bikes and cars and supplies to all the right places. Then the rest of the day we spent at the mission home with the missionaries going home the next day. One of those was Elder Adams, who's from Herriman too. So that makes me the last missionary repping Herriman in the ABM! We filmed each of them giving some departing counsel and things that we put together in a video.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Tuesday was district meeting. I was in the same district only two transfers ago and yet almost everyone has changed except for Elder Iufoni, one of my previous companions who's still in Bunya Forest (where I was with him a couple transfers ago). It was also the day I finally got to unpack my stuff since getting there on Saturday!! Man, it is a busy life now. The days just blur together.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Wednesday was equally busy because we got...new missionaries! Now THAT was an interesting experience because it brought back a lot of memories from my first day in Australia. The routine is the office elders, assistants, and President and his wife pick up the new missionaries from the airport. Then, we take them to the mission office, the whole way answering their questions about what Australia's like, how many baptisms there are, how big the spiders are, what the slang is etc etc. It was just so funny because it hasn't changed a bit since when I came in 17 months ago. Then they have a light lunch and interviews with the mission president at the office. Then we take them to the bank just down the road to withdraw cash for their bikes. Then we drive them to the mission home where we hang out for a bit and have a big meal and the goldens (new missionaries) have a "golden transfer meeting" with President and Sister McSwain. The whole time we are making sure all the cars and luggage and bikes are arranged, setting up the computer and projector for the meeting, and being ready for anything. Then they are called up one by one to meet their trainers. After which they drive off to their assigned areas though. It was so funny though, because this intake of missionaries were mostly from the States, and the look on their faces when they were told that all but one of them would start driving right away was priceless (with driving being on the other side of the road here). Soooo funny. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The last couple days have been a lot of preparing for zone conferences next week. It's been a blast so far. Getting to be around the assistants and the mission president on a daily basis is really cool. Plus being in a trio is nice, especially because one of my companions is Elder Banks, who was actually my second companion! Who gets to serve with one of their favourite companions twice?! Sorry its a big email, honestly I'm not even sure if I'll be able to email regularly anymore, it might be a week or two weeks in between emails. Either way, love you all!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Elder Cummings</span><br />
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2. da office elders</div>
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3. the internet went out at the office so this is Elder banks trying to find the network box in the ceiling</div>
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4. next day the internet was still out so we were studying tongan until it was fixed</div>
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5. The internet was taking longer than we thought so we went to the mission home to work and talked with President McSwain about zone conf.</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "segoe ui" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>Catherinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03964540421522882924noreply@blogger.com0