September 18, 2016

Big changes in Atherton area

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers!

Elder Cummings

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

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