D & C 64:34

(Aldste Cummings)

Tjabbatjabbadoooooo

The skies are continuing to hold back the warmth and sunshine that we hardworking Halmstad missionaries deserve. Last year, it didn't rain all throughout the months of May, June, and July and it was absolutely incredible but also extremely unusual for Sweden. So basically, my first Swedish summer wasn't Swedish at all and gave me abominably high expectations of what a Swedish summer is like. Talk about false advertising.

This week we officially said goodbye to Elder Seely. It was sad to see him go but 🅱ig 🅱oy is on to 🅱igger and 🅱etter things.

Elder Childs, my new companion is from Utah and has only been in Sweden for 3 months now. He loves cooking and he makes some good eats. He's training me to properly cook for myself in college. He's super creative with missionary work and always has ideas that I had never thought of. It's exciting to try the new ideas but also nerve-wracking sometimes. You know what they say "You []will have a difficult time of] teach[ing] an old [missionary] new [methods of proselyting and finding the elect]!"

I also got a haircut today. I haven't gone to an actual hairdresser for more than a year and I haven't cut the hair on top of my head since Elder Dumas and I executed President's Order 66 with the Great Buzz of '18.

Other than that, I have little to report about the work here in Halmstad. Things are moving, sometimes not the way that we would like it to, but we're diligently working to spread the joyful message of the Restoration of the Gospel with Heavenly Father's children in this lovely city.

A little food for thought before I close off: All of us are imperfect and sometimes may feel unable to do what the Lord requires of us. President Eyring put it this way: "If you told me that you feel perfectly capable of fulfilling your...duties, I might worry that you do not understand them"("Walk with Me," April 2017 General Conference). But lucky for us, God knows that we can't do it ourselves and He intended it to be that way. In the face of daunting tasks, we are made humble and turn to the Lord with all "[our] heart and a willing mind"(D&C 64:34), and that's all He requires to use us as His instruments to work miracles.

Have a great week!

Love,

Äldste Cummings

 1. This salt attributes this quote by Jesus Christ to "Someone you can rely on."

2. Last companionship selfie 😢

3. Last afro pic before the haircut.

4. After the big clip.

5. Throwback.

We're not in Central Park anymore!

(Sister Slade)

What a week!!! Transfers were this week and for the first time, I was leaving. I'm in Harrison Arkansas with Sister Elkins. She has been out for 6 months and is from Wisconsin. She is super sarcastic and witty and loves to have fun and work hard. We've had a blast the last couple of days!

My last couple of days in Central Park were kind of bitter sweet. I was very excited to see and experience something new, but I also really love the people and places I've come to know in the last nine months. But the three days that I've spent in Harrison have been absolutely amazing! It's hard to say, but I think I have a new favorite area! (Don't tell anyone in Central Park I said that).

The differences in my two areas are enormous. Central Park covered about 3 square miles; Harrison covers about an 8th of the mission. Central Park had 300 active members; Harrison has 400 members, 100 of which are active. Central Park was all city; Harrison is 80% dirt roads. I love it! Here are some reasons why:

First of all, we have a HOUSE! It's small but we live in a house by ourselves. It's super nice. :)

Second of all, we found 3 new people to teach! That's more people in 2 days than I've found in an entire transfer before! One of them, Alyssa, is a self referral and reached out to us. She invited us to join her in a christian softball team and to go hiking with her some time. We're super excited about her.

I also love the members. They are some of the most REAL people I've ever met. I've never felt more like I could be myself without being judged. In fact, I feel like I would be judged more if I wasn't myself. The people here are so humble and willing to do anything to help. Last night we had dinner with a family that had decided along with my companion to try to prank me into believing that they were a polygamist family. It didn't work, but it was really fun regardless. This same family has a competition going between the missionaries on most pancakes to be eaten. Sister Elkins broke their record and ate 16 pancakes last night. I stopped at 6. And by the way Sister Elkins looked afterwards, I think I made the right decision. :)

I love being a missionary and I'm so excited that I still have 9 months to serve the Lord!

God is Good!

Sister Slade

Pictures:

 1. I crocheted a Gryfindor scarf for sister Najera

2. We found some kittens!

3. We were contacting at a park and decided to take a picture

4 and 5. We found this cool mural

6. We saw this super weird limo truck

7 & 8. We found some kittens! cont.

TRANSFERS! Im the new AP!!

(Hermana Ellsworth)

There has been a change in leadership around here and our president has decided to call me and another sister to be the AP's for the Mission president's wife.

Jokes. That is not happening :) I'm going to Toa Baja with Hermana Paredes! This is the baby area of Hermana Boston's and she has given some good tips on where to go and who to talk to :) I love transfers! I will be leaving my beloved Guayama :( the people in this ward are some of the most amazing people I have ever met! There is Maritita Pellot, Jenny Andujar, Devon Benincosa, Elcita!! Los Marreros! And so many more amazing members! It is very much Zion here. The members here have been an amazing example to me of faith and diligence. These members do so much for the missionary work and it has really inspired me. About 90% of the ward is made up of converts and they have the most amazing stories of true conversion. These people have been through it all. They have had to leave their families in order to find their faith but they have blessed their families more by putting God first. It is such a testimony builder to me.

This week has been an eventful one and it was hard saying goodbye to the members this week. We found some amazing people and there is a ton of potential. The elders in our district had a baptism that we had the opportunity to help out with. It is so special to see someone enter into the waters of baptism and to feel the spirit that is there. I love being a missionary.

We found an iguana on our front porch yesterday and took some pictures with it and then took it to a safe place to be free :)  I hope you all enjoy them :) He was a little tender mercy for the day that was really needed :)

Andujar Family

Yan Manuel

Jose Escalante

Devon

Elcita

Clemente

Jacob 6:5

(Aldste Cummings)

Tjena stora hundar,

This week was way fun. Because it was the last week of the transfer and all the members wanted to make sure they covered their bases before any of the missionaries got the boot, we had tons of meals with everyone to say goodbye.

Just yesterday, we got news about transfers. Elder Seely will be transferring to a city a little southwest of Stockholm. It will be sad to see him go. The last of Papa Cummings' little birdies is leaving the nest.

In his place is coming Elder Childs. I know very little about this man, but soon will I know more. He'll be coming here on Wednesday and has been assigned to do the dirty work of "killing" me. That is to say, be my last companion before I finish my mission. It will be a wild ride.

On Monday we went back to the families of the girls that followed us around that one time (see my email two weeks ago), and we gave their families invitations to come to our ward activity next month. Unfortunately, they weren't interested in hearing more of our message, but they appreciated that we came back.

But wait! There's more. On Tuesday we traveled out to that same area again to visit someone and the little girls were out again. They followed us around (again) asking after every door if the people "wanted to talk about Jesus." Then, we figured out that they had already knocked on all the doors in the neighborhood with the flyer to our activity to invite all their neighbors to come to "the two American guys' church party:" It was so adorable.

On Wednesday, we were running late and we ended up having to do our companionship study at the library in town instead of going back to our apartment. As we were leaving, I saw a familiar face in the library lobby (ha try saying that 5 times fast*). I stopped for a second to try to place where I had seen the woman while Elder Seely kept walking and I called for him to come with as I then turned back to run over and say hi. Turns out, this woman and her boyfriend who were living in Karlskrona who were taught by the sister missionaries and wanted to be baptized there over a year ago but were not able to for various reasons had moved here to Halmstad! They had lost contact with the church and the missionaries but then I (probably one of 2 missionaries in the whole mission who would recognize them) was transferred here and we were late that specific day and I just happened to make eye contact with her as we were walking out of the library. Holy cow. The odds of that are simply insane. God is aware of each and every one of His children and He cares enough about them to give them countless chances to come closer to Him.

We're praying that this couple again feels the joy of the gospel and recognizes the love that God is extending toward them in this second chance. He is always there reaching out to us. He asks only that we, as Jacob affectionately puts it "cleave unto [Him] as he cleaveth unto [us]."

Have a great week!

Love,

Äldste Cummings

*Just kidding, it's not that hard.

Pictures

1. Elder Seely and I accidentally stumbled on Halmstad's hidden South Pacific-looking pirate cove thing. Pretty rad.

2. Sri Lankan food. It was to die for.

3. We fulfilled our dreams of walking through a canola field with the coolest Sri Lankan couple ever and a couple of Swedish kiddos.

Weird

(Sister Slade)

This week was just weird. Here are a few of the things that happened:

- Some guy told us that we have 120 years allotted to live and our own sins limit our life span (one sin=one less day to live)

- The same guy started mumbling and making weird noises and tried to claim that he was speaking in tongues

- After being the same height for 7 years, I found out that in the last couple weeks I grew 2 inches. That's right, now I am 5'6"!

- But weirdest of all, during transfer calls I was told I am leaving Central Park.

After 9 months, 6 companions, and 6 transfers, I am finally leaving my first area. I will be going East to Harrison Arkansas. It's super bitter sweet for me. When we got the call, Jarrison felt right, but at the same time I felt like my heart was breaking. Central Park has become my home. I love the members, the people I've taught, the neighborhoods and the area, I love the missionaries here. Now I'll have to leave it all and make a new home in Harrison. I'm going to miss it all but I'm ready to move on and find new people that I can love and serve.

This week we were able to go to the Kansas City Temple with James to do baptisms. It was a really cool experience for me because James as a priest got to baptize me for some of his and my family names. I got to see the gathering of Israel come full circle. The recent convert baptizing his missionary for his ancestors. It was a super powerful moment in the temple. I just love the temple. The spirit there is so strong and I leave feeling like I can do anything the Lord puts in my path. The temple really is the House of God.

We did about 20 hours of service again this week. Something new that we did this week was sew dresses for little girls in Haiti. It turns out that I'm really good at it. :) we also helped paint 2 houses. I've decided to start a painting company when I go home because of all the practice I'm getting doing detail work. We did service at the senior center packaging meals as always, as well as the Helping Hands food pantry.

That's it for this week. I love the Lord. I love his gospel. And I know that the Lord is aware of each of us and is reaching out to us every day.

God is good.

~Sister Slade

Pictures!

1. Gerald, the manager at the senior center, and I

2. Me sewing a dress

3. All of us that sewed

4. One of the dresses I made

5. Me and obie the manager at helping hands

6. Me with Nancy

7. Kansas city temple

8. Sister Najera, James and I at the temple

9. Sister najera and I at the temple

10. Bishop and his family when i went to say goodbye

Candle of the Lord

(Hermana Ellsworth)

I want to write a little bit about the Spirit. The third member of the God-head and what he does for us. My writing is not the best and I would encourage anyone who wants to learn more about the Holy Spirit and who he is to use the link above to learn more.

One of the best things about being a missionary is having the opportunity to invite people to feel the spirit more in their lives. Seeing people have their first encounter with the spirit is one of the most beautiful things. Last night we taught this wonderful family. We had an amazing lesson about the Restoration and the spirit was very strong. I invited them to take a second and recognize the differences that they were feeling at that moment. I invited them to ponder about what they felt inside. I then invited them to write it down tonight. After a moment of pondering we asked them to share with one another their feelings. The young daughter said that she had felt lost and tired for the past few days and had not slept well for the last 3 nights because of anxiety. She then explained that she felt safe, calm, and no longer lonely. The mother said that she felt refreshed. As if she had just come home from a long trip and things seemed familiar. The father said he felt like he just walked out of a darkness of mist. I don't know what the Lord has in store for this family but it was a humbling experience to listen to them describe the feelings of the spirit. I cannot imagine my life without the help of the spirit in every moment. I know that this Church is true and that there are people out here and in every part of the world that are being prepared and ARE prepared. We only need to open our mouths and share the knowledge that we have been given. Everything that we have is a gift.

1 Timothy 4:14-16

14 Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.

15 Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.

16 Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.

I am so grateful for the gifts I have been given in this life and it is an honor to use them to share them with other Children of God. Please read the link above. Study it and change what you need to change to have the spirit with you always.

Fun facts, We have not ever bought apples or mangos but we have 2 drawers full in our fridge. We received 23 mangos on Sunday alone. I love mango season. The Lord blesses his missionaries and it was fun carrying 23 mangos.

 We had a great lunch by the beach with Jenny Andujar. She was a missionary in Utah and she got home about a month ago. She is always coming to our lessons and I love her so much! She drops everything to help the work move forward. Thank you my dear Jenny!!

This carage is so cute

(Sister Slade)

This week we helped a lady that we teach English to clean out her garage. But she kept calling it a carage because you know it's where you put your car. And then when we were finished organizing she said that it was "so cute!" She does not understand the meaning of the word cute.

We didn't do anything too exciting this week. A lot of service. We had interviews with president, and then sister Strong said she wanted to go on a teaching visit with us right then. So we arranged something with Bev, canceled our dinner appointment, and headed out. The appointment went well, but sister strong felt bad that we had to cancel dinner, so she invited us to have dinner with her and president. So president made us spaghetti and it was awesome.

It really wasn't a very exciting week. Next week should be more exciting.

God is good!

Sister Slade

Pictures

1. We learned how to make paler cranes

2. I ate a piece of Mexican candy and it made my mouth look like something very bad happened

3. Us with Sharon at the literacy council

4. Another baptism picture

5. We were asked to be on a panel for a youth activity about missionary work

3 Nephi 27:12-15

(Aldste Cummings)

Tjenare,

This week was rather chill. A lot of things we had scheduled were canceled or rescheduled for the next week. What can you do, it's just how it goes sometimes.

We had a good week anyway, though. The first half was cold and rainy but it feels like things are starting to warm up now again. Although it just rained like half an hour ago so I might be eating my words here in a day or two.

Something fun was that I went on exchanges to a city south of us called Helsingborg to be with my former companion, Elder Nelson! It was so fun to be back together. It didn't even feel like anything at changed.

One evening while Elder Seely and I were knocking doors, this woman opened and politely said that she was Christian but wasn't interested in learning more about other churches, I then asked "How long have you been Christian?" and she threw open the door and yelled at us to show her ID or she was going to call the police and we were a little confused as to what it was she wanted us to show her--I thought maybe, just maybe, this was going to be the first and only time on my mission I would have to show someone my ministerial certificate but I didn't even have it on me--and she made us show anything with our name and picture on it so I gave her my New Jersey driver's license and she asked me questions about how long I had lived in Sweden and why and such and then she just gave it back to me and angrily told us to leave the premises or she would call the police. It was wild. She went from 0 to 100 right quick.

This week, we taught a lesson to a Christian man. It started going pretty well, but as we got deeper in, we began to realize that maybe he didn't know as much about Jesus Christ as he thought. We asked him about what he believes about Christ and he answered that after having read the Bible and other literature about Jesus, he had come to the conclusion that Christ was an alcoholic because he drank so much wine, that he did not understand the Law of Moses because he preached conflicting doctrine, that although he was the Son of God, he was not able to save himself from the mobs that arrested and later condemned him, that he did not speak up to Pilate and Herod because he didn't want to try to defend himself against the charges because he was too burned out from all of the responsibility of being the King of the Jews and the Son of God and he wanted to die to escape the stress, and that he didn't actually die but boogied on over to India instead after visiting his apostles a little bit.

"Just det."

I'm so thankful for the Book of Mormon's unequivocal witness of Jesus Christ's role as our Lawgiver, Savior, and as the Son of the Living God. Listening to this man who somehow could reason his conclusions with the doctrine in the Bible made me realize how much the Book of Mormon clarifies about the Savior's life and mission. It really is the keystone of my testimony and understanding of the Savior. What a book, I love it and the enlightening power it has in my life. I encourage you all to read and explore it and apply its teachings.

Love,

Äldste Cummings

1. I knit that.

2. That's one sleepy cowgirl.

3.That's one sad cowgirl.

Painting, Rainbows, Mothers Day, Spiders

(Hermana Ellsworth)

This was an amazing week. We taught someone named José and he understood so much of the restoration. He said that he has always felt like there should be only one church that has all the truth since Jesus Christ set up one church during his life according to the bible. He has been searching for his whole life but never felt like he was going to find it so he has been attending a church that is close to him because it was easy. While we taught about the apostasy he stopped us and asked if we were still in the apostasy. It is a wonderful thing to tell someone that we are not in this state of apostasy anymore. We have the truth on the earth today. There is the authority and ordinances on the earth. We have prophets. We have apostles. And Jesus Christ Lives. He lives and directs his church. After teaching him this he was so excited to read the book of Mormon and find out for himself. We can all find out for ourselves that this message is true. And when we have found out we can find out again and again. The promise in Moroni 10:3-5 is not a one and done. We can read, ask, receive that answer and do it again. Through the spirit we can know the truth of all things.

Another update on our recent covert José escalante! He is the one that shredded up the Anti-church literature the week before his baptism. He is doing well and I have never seen him so happy. Since we are in a trio now I get to help with the recent convert lessons! We painted his house and we ran into him today at Wal-Mart and he bought us subway! He is amazing and is a changed man with the gospel in his life. This week he blessed the sacrament for the first time! While we were helping him paint he sung us Spanish songs for about an hour on a large microphone. He is doing incredibly well and is already half way through the book of Mormon. The Gospel of Jesus Christ changes lives. It brings joy and it is amazing to see!

Also we were attacked by the largest spider.

If you would like videos of us trying to capture it to release it safely into the wild please email me and I will share them with you.

Also I tried to make cute pancakes for mothers day and I failed and made a mess but here you go! THATS FOR YOU MOM!