Wowwwwww there's too much to say, where do I start? I guess first off we smashed our week. As a goodbye to President and Sister Henderson, everyone in the mission tried to hit their "hastening standard" for contacts (people we talk to either door to door or on the street). Since Elder Smith is a district leader, our standard is 175 contacts in a week, and Sunday we cinched it off at 182. Our hastening standard is also 8 member present lessons and we were able to get away with that as well. On Monday we had dinner with the Makata family, Sister Makata's husband hadn't gotten home from work yet, so she called over her neighbour to have dinner with us, he talked and talked to us about all the family history work he's done, he's not a member but he knows a ton about the different migrations of the ten lost tribes of Israel. It was pretty interesting until he started talking about how ISIS was created by the US government and all this other stuff. So that's when I kind of tuned out but he was friendly.
We did some service for an old Chilean woman in our ward, Sister Antuar. She wanted us to cut down a tree in front of her house because it wasn't letting enough sun into her window to warm up her house. She made us a really good lunch to take home since we aren't allowed to have lunch appointments. We taught our young friend Nephi a couple times this week. We were able to set a baptismal date for July 16, so...hooray! Other than that we had several other lessons that didn't stand out too much.
We got a couple new investigators which was awesome, one of them isn't too keen but he likes to hear what we have to say, but the other, James, has been WAY prepared. He doesn't have a super strong religious background but all he wants is greater direction in his life, which is exactly what the gospel provides! We even got him to say the closing prayer at the end of our first lesson, which is a rarity! Saturday night we found out Elder Smith was getting transferred, so on Sunday it was pretty sad too because THE coolest person I've met on my mission so far is moving back to New Zealand because his daughter is having her first kid. Everyone calls him Matt Dragon (including himself) I'm super sad because it was really sudden but he's already given away his car and a bunch of his furniture too, apparently. He's a super awesome and he's on track to get baptized later this year, so I'm really disappointed to see him go, but he's determined to bring his daughter and grand-baby dragon into the church so I hope that goes well. The rest of Sunday we went door knocking in the heavy rain for a few hours to reach our contact goal and then we visited a couple less actives and investigators we've been teaching for Elder Smith to say goodbye.
Last night we found out he's getting transferred to the Sunshine Coast to be a zone leader, and my new companion, Elder Banks, is getting transferred from Enoggera. This morning we all met at the church next to the temple at Kangaroo Point. I was able to talk to Elder Potter and Elder Adams, both of which are in the Chinese program but I knew them in middle/high school. Elder Banks is awesome, he's from Salt Lake City, Utah, and apparently we went to the same elementary for a couple years but were never in the same class, and he started going to a different elementary in 2nd grade. He worked at the Fairmont aquatics center as a lifeguard before his mission, and I used to love going there as a kid. Anyways, we've really hit it off just because we know a lot of the same places and things and definitely looking forward to serving with him.
I'm a little apprehensive because even though he's the senior companion he's only been out a couple months longer than I have, and it's up to me to kind of show him around the area and lead in planning and teaching and stuff. I'm really nervous about that but I just need to learn to trust in the Spirit and let it guide everything we do. Love you all and see you soon (kind of)!
Elder Cummings
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