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.