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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Elder Cummings
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