The Grind Continues to Continue

 (Elder Cummings)

I talked with my brother on how to start these weekly emails, cause it gets kind of hard to have anything truly creative or new during MTC when it's the same thing every week. Let alone home/virtual MTC where "you don't even have the bois".

The days and weeks really are very similar and that's not a bad thing at all. Just full of gospel and language study, on my own, with Elder Liang, and with my stellar district. There's a lot to learn on how to effectively teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, let alone in Mandarin.

Elder Liang and I taught our first Chinese TRC this week! Needless to say, I am once again grateful for Elder Liang and his immaculate skill in Mandarin, he carried me most of the way through the lesson.

You gotta find fun where you can these days. So it's always a blast when our teacher, He Laoshi, shares a google doc with us to create any Chinese sentence using the new grammar principle we're learning that day. I think Elder Welker won "Most Creative" when he came up with “Chúle Chummings zhǎnglǎo yǐwài wǒmen dōu bùshì dinosaurs" which means "Besides Elder Chummings, we are all not dinosaurs" Very nice Wekler, very nice. I think another highlight of the week was when Elder McKellar shaved his head and when I told him he reminded me of a scripture story he knew EXACTLY the one I was thinking about(2 Kings 2:23-24).

My spiritual thought comes from the Bible Dictionary definition of Prayer. Part of it reads, "As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are His children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part". I found this a very powerful but simple truth, especially when I have to describe prayer and its purpose in Mandarin. I basically say something along the lines of "God loves us. He wants to communicate with us, His children. Through prayer, we can communicate with our Heavenly Father". Not very eloquent I know, but when you're forced to use limited vocabulary and grammar skills, I've found that there is no way fancy words and sentence structures will distract from the truth I am trying to profess. The truth is that God is our Father. He does want to communicate with us, to help and guide us. When we understand that we truly are children of God, prayer not only becomes more natural, but more powerful. Prayer is an act of faith, and through prayer we can find truth and knowledge and comfort and direction and advice and solace and peace...the list goes on and on. I know this to be true, I know because I've acted in faith in prayer, I've "tested" it and I have been able to see just a glimpse of the blessings it has given me, because the blessings are endless.

再见！說祈禱！

Elder Cummings

How could I forget, the view this morning was amazing! I love the mountains.

I met someone famous!

 (Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family a person can hope for,

I'll keep this one short. You know Napoleon Dynamite? I met the old man who shoots the cow in front of the school bus this week. He was driving along the road, and he stopped as we were walking and said hi, and allowed us to take pictures. Definitely the highlight of the week. Also we had a corona scare with one of the people we were teaching. We called him and he was half asleep, and he said he tested positive for Corona. Since his kids are basically tackling us during lessons (they are crazy kids! Those same kids tried to beat me up this week! I have a few bruises from it today) we thought for sure we had Corona, and we would have to be put in quarantine for a few weeks. We did not want that. So, after a few calls to the mission president wife and the person we were teaching's neighbors, we learned he did not have Corona, and he was just tired, in a cranky mood, and didn't want us to come over that day. Oops.

But other than that, it's been regular missionary work of finding teaching and preparing for baptism. We have one kid named Chave who is 13 who is starting to progress. He's one of my favorite people we are teaching right now. It's amazing to see his growth, as it's a testimony to me that the gospel can change us, and help us to become better.

Just so you know, Elder Thompson did finish the 5 pound bag of rice, but only barely. It was quite p'rice'y on my part, as I had to pay 5 dollars but worth it. But you guys have a nice week! (Or should I say "rice" week! Ha)

Pictures:

1-2. I'm basically best buds with a famous person. I really want to watch Napoleon Dynamite though now. I guess I'll have to wait a year and a half though.

The Grind Continues

 (Elder Cummings)

This week both my good friends Elder Vines and Elder Fagergren left me...

Except I have my family and my stellar district to spend time with anyway. For those of you who don't know they're the guys I've been spending my days with as we all are in virtual MTC and in classes. Both of them have now finished MTC, so they left me to myself the second half of the week, all by my lonesome.

So. The Grind continues without them. It must. Cause I really need to learn more Mandarin. Coincidentally, when I don't have two other missionaries in the house with me I'm able to be a lot more productive in my studies. But my schedule remains the same really. I wake up and exercise, and get ready for the day, then I read scriptures for about an hour, and then study Mandarin for about 4 hours until I study scriptures with my awesome companion Elder Liang for about an hour. Then I study again "and by then it's like 7:15, and so I'll read a book, or maybe two or three..." Jokes, jokes. I'm a lot more excited about doing the usual morning lineup than Rapunzel is.

My spiritual thought comes from the Bible Dictionary definition of Faith. But I only know about it because another missionary going to Taiwan shared it in one of her emails (thanks Sister Starley). I thought it was so cool and so powerful. It reads, "The Lord has revealed Himself and His perfect character, possessing in their fullness all the attributes of love, knowledge, justice, mercy, unchangeableness, power, and every other needful thing, so as to enable the mind of man to place confidence in Him without reservation."

This is just absolutely awesome to think about. Faith is the first principle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Without faith in Him, you cannot find lasting happiness in this life. I know that to be true. It is only because and through our Savior that we can obtain lasting joy and happiness in turbulent times like these days. What's better is that He has done EVERYTHING to help us have faith in Him. We can trust Him because He is perfect and all-knowing. We can come to Him because He is merciful and loving. We can rely on Him because of His power and grace. I know Jesus Christ is my Savior and yours too. I have faith in Him and that faith gives me hope, direction, happiness and a multitude of other blessings in this life. I know that to be true with all my heart, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

再见！

Elder Cummings

Pics:

Despite all the work and studying to be done, I still found some time this week to visit South Korea, amazing experience, highly encouraged, the people are awesome...

On a connecting flight back to the States I ran into my good friends Thomas Rockwood and Elder Fagergren in Tokyo! What a coincidence! We stopped at a local Kobe Steakhouse for some good eats...

We pulled a nice little "prank" on our teacher. However I think my companion, Elder Liang wins. That man is SLURPING.

The Rice Challenge

 (Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family an person could hope for,

This has been a good week for missionary work. We found 11 new people to teach! The Lord blessed us this week. We found 6 kids by playing catch with a football in a neighborhood with lots of kids, and then we shared a message with them after, and have scheduled to make it a regular thing, about 2 or 3 times a week. Perhaps alot of them won't necessarily progress towards baptism right now, but I think they will remember these lessons where we talk about how prayer can help us and about God. We also started teaching a man who's wife is a member, but he is not. They are the kindest people. They gave us vegetables from their garden, and soda, and are just super fun to be around! Another highlight of this week was I was able to go on an exchange with Elder Leavitt, who trained me! It was super sweet.

I know that the Lord is active in this work. We saw miracles this week, and it was all because of God helping us. I know that to be true. God is real. He loves us. He will help us. Short and sweet but true.

The title comes from a bet Elder Snow and I gave Elder Thompson. We bet him 10 bucks he couldn't eat 5 lbs of rice this week. I'll let you know next week if he makes it. Elder Thompson also gave a really bad joke this week: What do you get when you put Elder Snow in the Summer? Elder Water! Haha! Yeah, I know. It was a pretty bad joke.

Also, my new address is: 3118 Chasewood Dr Apt #1 Ammon, ID 83406

1 and 3. Last p-day we did a tennis clinic for women kids because an Elder in our district is super good at tennis. We also took a district picture.

2. A zone picture because zone conference was this week.

4. Beautiful sunset last night

5. Some member family gave us cotton candy

The Grind won't stop in Baton Rouge

 (Elder Cummings)

That's right. I've been temporarily reassigned to serve as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission! This is because of Covid restrictions that I won't start my mission in Taiwan. However, Taiwan's borders are open so it is only a matter of getting a Visa. What a tender mercy that is. Many missionaries have been reassigned not only because of Visa's but mainly because the countries they're going to have closed their borders in response to Covid. What a tender mercy Taiwan has dealt with Covid so well that they have had less than 500 cases the whole pandemic, despite being "across the pond" from China. I can't wait for my opportunity to serve and teach people in Taiwan. However, I am so excited to go to Louisiana in a couple weeks; it'll be a great opportunity for me to get better at teaching people interested in the Gospel of Jesus Christ in my native language, and then "transfer" my skills to Mandarin and not doing both at the same time.

This week has been fairly regular, many other missionaries in my district have gotten reassignments, from Washington, to Florida, to Texas, to DC, North Carolina, to Cali, etc. However, we're growing really close as a district and have a lot of fun together, even though it is over zoom and almost all the time we see each other is during a class. I've spent most of the week with my good friends Elder Vines and Elder Fagergren, just swapping whose house we spend the day on zoom and studying scriptures and our mission languages. Vines is learning French, Fagergren's learning Japanese, and I'm learning Mandarin, so it's a lot of fun.

The spiritual thought comes from something I learned for myself while preparing for a lesson Elder Liang and I had to teach. The person we were teaching had never believed in a God, and wasn't comfortable saying he believed in one. Because of that, we would eventually need to teach him about our Savior Jesus Christ and if there is a God, why do we need a Savior? I figured a question he had would be if God is all powerful, then why can't He just forgive us when we repent of our sins? Why does there need to be someone else in the middle? I really thought about it and asked my good friend Elder Fagergren, and also studied some scriptures. I didn't really have an answer for that question at first, and I still don't have a perfect answer but this is what I have thought and been taught on why we need a Savior...

God is perfect. God is just. Because God is both of these things, when we sin there must be a punishment. If there was no punishment for breaking the law there would be no justice. If God did not punish those who broke divine laws, He would not be just, He would not be perfect and "God would cease to be God" Alma 42:17-18...

17 Now, how could a man repent except he should sin? How could he sin if there was no law? How could there be a law save there was a punishment?

18 Now, there was a punishment affixed, and a just law given, which brought remorse of conscience unto man.

Because we sin, there is a punishment. If we repented and therefore received no punishment, that is not just either. There must be some remedy made for when we sin. That is why we need a Savior. Jesus Christ has taken that punishment. He has taken ALL the punishment for ALL our sins. "And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind...he will take upon him death...the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance"(Alma 7:11-13). Now I'm not saying we do not receive punishment when we sin, I'm saying when we REPENT we no longer suffer that punishment because our Savior already has. He willingly offered His life and willingly suffered everything, so we don't have to. Now I don't understand the divine mechanism that allows that to happen, but I do know it is through the Savior and His Atonement that we are made clean and that we have hope. I know it is through Christ and only through Christ, that we can be forgiven, obtain mercy, and no longer suffer the punishments and pains from our sins when we turn to Him and sincerely repent. In the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

...

Some photos...

This is my awesome looking Mandarin Bible

We were feeling a change of scenery, something a little more...exotic...welcome to Sabah Borneo, Malaysia everyone...

The State War

 (Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family a person can hope for!

Another week gone! One highlight this week was that we found two people. We were playing 3 flags with a person we were teaching and two other kids joined. Then we said if one of us missionaries won, we would share a message after. Suffice it to say, we won, and we started teaching them and they said we could keep doing that! I thought it was pretty clever.

I'm getting along pretty great with my companions! They are pretty funny and we have had quite a blast. I don't remember too much of what we say, but we get some pretty weird conversations. During our free time, we have started a state war, where we give all the states super powers or weaknesses according to what's interesting to them. Then two random states battle, and we debate who wins. It gets pretty interesting. I'll let you know which state comes out on top. For example we gave Idaho high speed potato launchers, and potato strength. I great combination in my opinion.

I've recently been recently reflecting on being prepared. It's not just a gospel principle, but also a practical principle that makes life easier. As we put in the effort to prepare for the future, the future will be easier. Just as Jesus Christ prepared for his ministry for 30 years, we too need to prepare for times when we may need to teach others, or when hard times may come. I love all of you! Keep on being the best!

Pictures:

1 and 3: Beautiful Idaho Sunsets

2. A quick selfie. Elder Thompson didn't get the memo

August 11, 2020

 (Elder Petersen)

Hey Y'all hope everyone is doing well!

So there have been a few interesting things that have happened in the last few weeks the first of which happened was Wednesday the 29th of July. In which I moved from Providence Utah to Franklin Idaho. My new companions name is Elder Haacke he is from Amarillo TX he is pretty great. We live in a pretty nice apartment with awesome landlords whose names are the Tondini family. Other then transfers the past few weeks have been pretty boring but this upcoming week is going to be pretty hectic because we are having zone conference on Wednesday as well as service tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday. So our week is super packed until Saturday and Sunday hit but hopefully throughout the week we will be able to set up as many appointments as we can to fill up those days so that we will be able to have a gloriously filled week in which we won't have to worry about being bored. But it is getting a bit late for me so I am going to end this here and I will talk to y'all later!

Another week, another grind

(Elder Cummings)

你们好！

Grind time has not stopped.

Because both my classes are in the afternoon and evening and so is my companion study, I wake up at 6:30, exercise, shower, eat, read scriptures until about 8:30-9ish, and then I'm studying up on that Chinese until 1. Every. Day. It's awesome. I've started to think in chinese sometimes without meaning too and I've said 谢谢(xie xie, thank you) multiple times instead of saying it in English, completely on accident. What's really weird is sometimes just these random chinese "words" come into my head and I look them up and they're not actually words, I'm just mashing up some characters in my brain or something. Don't know if that's a good or bad thing.

Elder Liang is still a beast and it is SUCH a blessing to have a companion who already knows so much Chinese. After taking Mandarin in high school, I have some basics so we've been able to study some stuff ahead of the class and it pushes us both I think.

One day this week during class we were doing some role play with some basic chinese phrases. I was paired up with Elder Welker. The guy is hilarious. Anyway, in our very broken Chinese he invited me to read the Book of Mormon. I said I was willing too. After a good number of seconds of him trying to figure out what to say, he just invited me to get baptized. For some reason we both thought it was absolutely hilarious I really can't tell you why. Now that I'm typing this out I realize it won't sound that funny to most of you... but I was laughing so hard.

Anyway my spiritual thought is actually not mine, but my good friend Elder Chen's. Elder Chen is my good friend Elder Fagergren's companion. They're both in the advanced language program, Fagergren for Japanese and Chen for Mandarin. Anyway, I was just listening in on them talk over zoom and Elder Chen was talking about our ability to choose for ourselves and things like that. He talked about how many of his friends have unfortunately done "bad stuff" because many of them believe that as long as they believe in God and Christ then they are saved. Then Elder Chen said something that really stuck me and I wrote it down. He said "My dumb actions will never overpower my personal accountability". Elder Chen probably doesn't even know I was there listening, but I loved it and it made an impression on me. I do not wish to criticize anybody's beliefs or faith but just testify of what I believe...

From one of my favorite talks, by Brad R Wilcox, he relates the Atonement of Jesus Christ to practicing piano. I will do my best to explain this. Think of God as the teacher, Christ as the parent, and you as the player. The parents pay the teacher: Christ has paid for our sins by suffering them and giving His life for them. Do we ever pay our parents back? no we can't, we don't pay our parents who then pay for the lesson. Our parents don't demand Payment, they demand Practice. Christ does not demand Perfection, He demands Practice. When we mess up learning a song... LEARNING a song, does the teacher stop teaching? does the parent stop paying? No they don't, if that was the case we would NEVER learn the song. When we make a mistake in our lives and choose the wrong, all that is asked of us to keep practicing. If not we would never learn how to be Christ-like.

However, In NO way does our practicing repay our parents. In NO way does our repenting and living a Christ-like life fulfill our debt to Christ for atoning for each and every one of us. But for paying for our lessons, our parents can demand us to practice, and by seeing our growth and improvement they are happy, they have joy, they are proud. They have gotten what they wanted: they have not gotten each lesson paid back in cash and in full, they got a piano player. They paid each and every lesson, hoping that we would choose to practice and become a piano player. By paying for our sins, Christ demands practice and by seeing OUR growth and OUR improvement He is joyful and happy for us and proud of us. He hasn't gotten the pain he suffered for us taken away, like it never happened. He got a disciple. He suffered, each and every sin, every anguish, pain, suffering, affliction, hoping that we would choose to practice and become a disciple, His disciple.

I hope that make sense, and I hope you can apply that perspective to your life and see how it can change your life like it has mine. Please reach out to me and email me if you have any questions, or just want to talk, I'm always down to talk. Stay safe and healthy everyone, 再见！

Pictures:

1) my amazing view from where I sit every day. So beautiful

2) my cool looking tag

3) I like to call him my other companion: Elder Liu has taught me much about Chinese vocab and grammar through pre-recorded video. Too bad he will never have a chance learn from me the way I am learning from him

4) a day in the life...(ft. Elder Fagergren) VOLUME UP

Today is the yesterday of tomorrow

(Elder Slade)

To the best friends and family a person can hope for,

I'm in my new area! I am in Ammon North, which is just east of Idaho Falls. It's a walking area, and let me tell you, walking all day in 95 degree heat, is rough. I've been sweating a lot! I don't understand, I thought Idaho was supposed to be cold. But, it's been fun, a good change of pace from my last area, where we lived 20 minutes away from our area. My two new companions are Elder Thompson, from South Carolina who was reassigned from Ghana Africa, and Elder Snow, from California who was reassigned from Micronesia/Guam. So far we've been getting along great! We get talking about a lot of weird stuff. I'll just say, we've had some very interesting discussions...

One of the people we're teaching is a single father named Moses, and he is awesome! He accepts everything we teach him, and he is preparing for baptism on August 22nd. What a stud! We're teaching quite a few more people, but not too many that are progressing. We're going to really work on finding and setting up expectations this week.

I was pretty sad to leave some of the people in Sugar City. There are such amazing people there, and I love them, they really helped me grow and supported me there. Leaving them made me think of all of you. Thank you so much for supporting me on coming out on my mission. Thanks for being such great friends! I love you guys. If you can endure 6 months of lame potato puns, then you are good people in my opinion. You guys are spudtacular! I Idaho-pe you all are doing well. The title comes from a really confusing conversation I had with Elder Baron before I left

Pictures:

1. My new companions, Elder Thompson on the left, Elder Snow in the middle

2. The Boughs, the converts we taught

3. The Hirschis, some of the sweetest people ever (both  because of their name and their personality)

4. Sister Hansen and us. She is one of the nicest people I've ever met.