Celebrating Thanksgiving and Serving in Summerset

(Elder Cummings)

This week I made the decision to stop numbering my emails by week.  I was studying in the Book of Mormon this week about the story of the sons of Mosiah preaching to the Lamanites.  This story is all about missionary work!  One of the first things I noticed when reading was the Aaron, probably the most well known of Mosiah's sons, went on his mission to the Lamanites without an end date.  I don't quite have the liberty of serving a mission indefinitely, but I decided that I could do more to at least lose track of time.

Elder Ballard and I have been all over Fresno this week...again.  We have had the opportunity to serve the local Hmong community by translating for a relief effort that is currently going on.  One of the major Hmong apartment complexes in Fresno, Summerset, has had the gas shut off for a few weeks, with a few weeks to go before repairs will be made.  We have taught and contacted A LOT of people in that complex and we were beginning to feel that it had been worked out.  Now doors are opening again, and not just for the chicken and rice we are bringing around!

We got into contact with Kenjie again (he lives in Summerset).  He was happy to sit down and talk about the Bible.  We had a long talk about characteristics of God with him.  He still isn't ready for us to try teaching him again.

One of my favorite people that we visit also lives in Summerset.  Her name is Niam Txhooj Vam, which translated is "Song Vang's woman."  There isn't a word for wife in Hmong.  It is part of the culture to quite literally take your husband's name, or as Hmong puts it, your man's name.  She speaks with a THICK accent and for the most part I haven't been able to understand her.  This week that changed and I had a conversation about how her children are doing, how she is doing with the gas shut off, and what she remembers about Laos.  The missionaries can never visit her and her husband without her going off about how our church "sib hlub sib pab"/love and help  like no other church.  She is great.

Her husband has been going for walks too.  He is a very frail old man who is very, very sick.  Or at least he was.  Elder Ballard gave him a blessing that promised him that he would live to accept the gospel.  His health has improved!

Thanksgiving was great.  Hmong know how to eat!  There was so much food!!  There had to be at least forty pounds of pork belly, a couple of gallons of one of the soups the make, and a dish I hadn't seen before that turned out to be uncleaned intestines.  Honestly, you wouldn't have been able to tell.  It made me grateful for the wonderful people I am here to serve.

Speaking of wonderful people, that is the exact same way my setting-apart blessing to be a missionary described the Hmong.  I was getting excited for the Christmas season this week and studying Jesus the Christ when it occurred to me that "Wonderful" is one of Christ's titles and it suddenly became profoundly significant to me that I am here in Fresno serving Wonderful people.  I have definitely come to know my Savior better in serving them.

The next transfer starts on Wednesday!  Elder Ballard and I will be staying in the Pioneer Park Area BUT we will be co-training a new missionary!!  I am very excited.  Twelve weeks ago I came into the Fresno Mission and twelve weeks later I get to welcome someone new!  We are excited for that!

Thank you all for the love and prayers that you are sending my way!  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

love,

Elder A. Jared Cummings

This week Elder Ballard and I had the opportunity to talk to some very nice Hmong people in Laos from the comfort of our investigator's living room!  The gospel really can reach into every nation whether or not the governments allow missionaries in their borders!

Here is Elder Ballard reciting traditional Hmong poetry in the central market of a nice little village!

The intestines are in the dish with the big wooden spoon up and the to right a little bit.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

(Sister Cummings)

Well everyone we have kind of been hopping from computer to computer trying to get our emails done. So this week will be a littler short. Anyways this week a lot happened. For one I was able to attend the temple and to do a session of endowments. One of our members was getting her endowments out and we were able to attend with her. So I was the first Canada Montréal missionary to attend an endowment session, with my companion of course. =D

Well I just wanted to share with you all a little thought. This week we were previleged with the performance of the primary program in sacrament meeting. It was so cute! One little kid was able to shoot off the thirteenth article of faith in record time. And of course there was the usual nose picking that seems to be universal in the Church.

The theme of the event was Je sais qu'il vit. Or I know that he lives. It was not only cute but touching to see as these children gave thier testimonies. The words came to mind of a scripture that I do not remember the exact wording nor have time to find the reference. But it states something like, Out of the mouth of babes are truths shared. I beleive that I learned even more this sacrament meeting as as these children taught the basic truths of the doctrine in the most simple way possible.

I know it isn't much but I need to let my companion do her emails too. I love you all! I hope you have a wonderful week =D

A Temple Dedicated

(Sister Cummings)
Well Hello everyone! This week has been just amazing! We have seen many miracles as always, but I am going to skip right to the good part. THE TEMPLE HAS BEEN DEDICATED!

Thats right the beautiful event started on Saturday with the presentation of the youth cultural celebration. The presentation itself  was in a theatre in Montreal, however there was not enough room for even the families of the youth to attend. So it was broadcasted to church buildings all over Quebec and Ontario, and potentially all of Canada but I am not sure... Anyways the theme was "Je me Souviens" or "I Remember" Which is what is written on every quebecois license plate. The presentation featured a short ballet performance to portray the creation, a First Nations dance (to us Americans this means Native American in Canadian lingo) which was really cool with a lot of stomping around, a French Canadian Waltz, then an English Canadian jig, With a short little interlude of The French and the English having a dance battle. It was so cute! All these little canadians running around in blues and reds seeing who could dance better.

To show the immigrant cultures that have become quite prevalent in the past fifty years they did a Latina dance which was so intense my legs hurt from watching it. And finally a Hatian dance. Which was really awesome. All in all a beautiful performance and presentation as youth of Quebec and Ontario remembered where they came from and why there were here.

A huge part of why we have a temple centres around genealogy in helping those who have not had the opportunity in their life on Earth to partake in ordinances such as baptism. In the temple we can be baptized on the part of our ancestors so that they may also feel the joy of the gospel if they so choose to. The spirit was so strong as the youth shared what they had learned from their ancestors.

The kicker though was Yesterday. The big day. The dedication. Present was Elder Henry B. Eyring of the quorum of the twelve apostles, Bishop Causse, and Members of the Seventy Elders Perkins and Richards. It was beautiful. The sprint was yet again so strong but even stronger than that of the night before. As we were sitting there a feeling of peace just came over me. I myself wasn't able to attend the temple for the service but by way of satellite we were able to be evermore a part of the ceremony. It was beautiful and a feeling of peace just came over me and has not left since.

I know that my redeemer lives and I know that he loves me. And that though this love he has given us the opportunity and the invitation to enter into his temples. The Temples really are the place where we can really feel his spirit the strongest. I am so grateful to be able to be here sharing the wonderful song of redeeming love to those around me here in Quebec.

I love you all and I hope that you have an even better week than I just had.

Love

Sister Cummings

The First Baptismal Date

(Elder Cummings)

Another week has flown by!  Elder Ballard and I have been working hard this week.  We have racked up almost four hundred miles over the course of seven days driving all over the west side of Fresno teaching the gospel to the Hmong people...and to one great German man!

His name is Pieter and he is a ton of fun to visit.  His wife is Hmong and a lifelong member, making him "our" investigator.  They met in the armed forces in Germany, and Pieter has been investigating the church on and off for the last few years, and now the wait is over!  He will be baptized the weekend of December 12!  Elder Ballard and I are over the moon, as are his in-laws.  This makes me so happy!  He is coming to the covenants of salvation!

I am so grateful for the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  I cannot help but smile to think that the power of God is on the earth again, that after centuries of silence God speaks to mankind again through a prophet!  I love to share this message, and I love these people!  We read in 1 Corinthians 13 that the message of the gospel, if not spoken with charity, the pure love of Christ, it becomes "as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."  Effectively just really nice noise.  The gospel is so much more than noise!  I pray that we all can reach out to those around us in the spirit of charity so that they can understand that too.

Lots of love,

Elder Cummings

Thanksgiving

(Anziano Wilkinson)

Okay, so they sadly don't celebrate thanksgiving in Italy... But there is still great food here so I can complain too much! Last week we hadtransfers and I met my new comp Anziano Mattson! He is a wiz withanything mechanical and he loves to get his hands dirty working on fixing things. He is a really hard worker and is always trying to dowhat's right; he's a great guy. We get along well and make a good teamwhen we're working together to tackle the tasks before us. I can tell this will be a good transfer!

So now that I'm back and settled in Pisa we are hitting the road with more determination than ever to utilize our time well and help as many people as we can. We're especially working hard to involve the members in our work and just uplift the ward in general. It's been a fun transfer so far and I can't wait to see what lays in store for the rest of it!

The weather is finally changing here in Pisa and we are breaking out the jackets, sweaters,and scarves. It's so sad that it's getting cold now, but I suppose we've evaded it long enough so I can't complain! The only problem is is that it comes with a lot of really cold rain, which isn't exactly the funnest but we survive haha.

Recently I was reading in the fifth chapter of Luke and I came across the story of Christ calling Peter to be an apostle. Before meeting Christ, Peter and his fellow fishermen had been struggling in their efforts to catch anything despite the long hours they had been putting in. But after listening to the Savior give a sermon, Peter began to regard Christ as someone to be respected. At the end of his sermon, Christ tells Peter to thrust out to sea and cast his nets in the water to catch fish. Peter's response was a humble one and an important one, in which he said, "Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net."

How often to we find ourselves in a similar situation to Peter? The situation where we try our best to do what's right (in Peter's case to make an honest living) and despite our best efforts we find little success or, in Peter's case, none at all. Many time we lose hope and become doubtful when our efforts to do something prove fruitless. But we should never forget to have the humility to do just as Peter did and trust in the Lord.

Many times the Lord withholds success from us so that we can turn to him more fully and give our trust to him. It is many times our humility which unlocks the windows of heaven to pour out success upon us. For Peter, by having the humility to trust in the Lord's instructions he pulled so many fish that it filled two boats to the brink of sinking and stretched his nets nearly to the point of breaking. This same blessing of success is outstretched to us as well if we humble ourselves as Peter did! No matter how fruitless our efforts to do what is right seem at times, I promise that our efforts are not forgotten by the Lord. Instead of complaining when blessing don't come immediately, we should humble ourselves in the face of hard times, follow the Lord's council, and say to him as Peter did: "at thy word I will [keep trying]".

So if hard times happen to have washed up in your lives, I invite you to ask the Savior what he would have you do and have the humility to do whatever it is that he instructs. I promise that as you make this a pattern in your life you will find that hard times will turn into huge success, sometimes so huge that you won't even have room enough to receive it! So whatever it is that is giving you difficultly this week, don't give up on it, just keep trying to do what is right and the Lord will bless you with success.

Have great week everyone and enjoy thanksgiving!

-Anziano Jake Wilkinson

(Anziano Wilkinson)

I Cant Believe Its Monday Already

(Elder Cummings)
It has been ANOTHER great week!  It has been a fast week.  I've got some doubts that this is actually Monday again.  This week has flown by.

I had my first exchange this week!  Because of scheduling conflicts we haven't had any since I made it out to Fresno.  I was with the district leader Elder Cunningham for the day.  We had some great visits with recent converts and members.  I learned a lot from how he teaches and ended the day feeling like there is a lot I could work on, but not feeling overwhelmed.  My favorite part of the day was the baptism.  That's right, I've had my first baptism!  I "baptized" on an exchange.  Not many missionaries can say that!  It was a beautiful service.  They all have been excellent.  This one has been my favorite though.  John, the person being baptized, has been investigating the church for four years, waiting to turn 18 since his parents wouldn't give permission for him to be baptized earlier.  He has waited a long time, and it was clear the he is ready!  The Spirit was so strong as he went down into the font and was baptized.  After four years of waiting he finally was given the opportunity to witness before God that he is willing to keep the commandments and to take upon himself the name of Christ.  It was a wonderful place to be.

All five of us Hmong missionaries were there for the service!  I know I haven't written about them all, and I think it is about time to introduce them.  Four of us are in Fresno and one is up in Merced training an English speaking elder.  So here they all are with John and Ritcherd, his long time friend who actually performed the baptism. 

From left to right we have my trainer Elder Ballard.  He and I get along so well.  We have the same interests, the same quirky sense of humor, and in teaching we play off of each other very well.  It has been great being his companion!  Next to him is Elder Cunningham, our district leader.  He was my companion for the day and is from the tiny town of Koo-Sharem, Utah.  I'm sure I didn't spell that right.  A state champion long jumper and a powerful missionary!  In the white we have John on the left and Ritcherd on the right.  They have grown up together both at school and in the church.  Ritcherd and his dad are the only Latinos in our Hmong ward and we love them!  Next we've got Elder Napton, Elder Cunningham's companion.  Apparently I am supposed to be wrestling him some time soon, but if that has to wait I won't be heartbroken.  Other than me he is the youngest of us Hmong missionaries and has been out for just over a year.  Skip over me and then you have Elder Pace.  I don't know him too well.  I've seen him four or five times at most.  He is the one who is serving in Merced right now.  The other elders all talk about him and love him to death!  We have an extremely solid Hmong program.  We have three more coming to the mission on December 2, Elders Bagley, Biggs, and Grey.  We are excited to meet them soon.

I love being a missionary!  It has so far been the best experience of my life!  All of you who have the opportunity should make every effort to go.  You will never regret serving the Lord.  I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Jared Cummings