Central Park is mine!

(Sister Slade)

Transfers were this week. And thus begins my 6th transfer in Central Park. At this rate, I'll just spend my whole mission here.

I can't really think of much else that happened this week. We had a bunch of really good lessons this week with James, Bev, Jessica, and Jerry. James, Bev, and Jessica are all really close to baptism, so we're working with a lot of faith to see that happen in the next 6 weeks. It would be a huge miracle because this area hasn't had a baptism in 2 years.

I finished the Book of Mormon on Monday. With all of the times that someone has asked me what my favorite book is, I wish I had said the Book of Mormon. There is so much truth in it and people really can get "nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book." If you haven't recently, please read from the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it's true. I promise that you will get an answer and it will bless your life. I know it is the word of God.

God is good!

Sister Slade

Pictures:

D & C 11:9

(Aldste Cummings)

Hey everybody!

This week was pretty crazy. We got a lot of stuff done and had tons of fun.

On Monday, we and the sister missionaries had a little game night with the father and daughter that came to church last week. To make a long story short, we starting playing a Swedish card game, and ended up forming a ward choir. We ran the idea by the bishop--who had already asked us to find a way to provide more musical numbers for our worship services--and he was all for it and wanted to join the choir himself. So on Sunday, we had our first choir practice between sessions of General Conference. It was glorious. The choir itself was only 5 people, 1 accompanist, and 1 director (me haha). It's not the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square under the direction of Mack Wilberg and Ryan Murphy with Andrew Unsworth and Brian Mathias at the organ but we do our best. All you need is a willing heart. "Therefore, if ye have desires to [sing] ye are called to the [choir]" (D&C 4:3).

Wednesday, we went to a local high school to talk to some English classes. It was really really fun. The students were well behaved and talkative which helped a lot. They asked lots of good questions and we told them all about American culture and showed them pictures of our houses on Google Earth and taught them some American slang words. I couldn't remember any slang words other than "sauce" and honestly, I'm not sure what people are saying nowadays so we started telling them mission lingo that has worked it's way into the missionaries vocabulary here. Stuff like "big dog," or "big boy," or "dad." Really funny stuff. By the end of it, you could hear them calling each other "biiiig boyyyyy." Good content.

On Wednesday we went down to a city a little south of us to visit a couple that were taught and baptized by my good friend, Elder BIRD. I had heard a lot about them so it was so fun to actually meet them and get to know them and hear their stories. The husband is from Venezuela and has a pretty crazy backstory which has resulted in a number of things. One of them being that he has some pretty sick dribbling moves in basketball. He wiped the floor with us. I love them so much already.

Speaking of basketball, between sessions of General Conference, three 15 year old Swedish kids biked to the church parking lot and started playing basketball on the outdoor hoops. We decided to challenge them to a game of basketball. So, knowing that this would only work if they thought we were cool, I used our secret missionary weapon: English. I just walked up to them and said "Hey big dogs you wanna ball?" and we were in. We played basketball with them for about an hour and beat them pretty badly but we all had a good laugh by the end.

For those of you who don't know, we had something called General Conference this weekend which was many hours of inspired teachings and guidance from the leaders of the Church who we believe to be prophets and apostles who are given inspiration from God to convey His messages to us. This time around was as good as always and full of plenty of great counsel and specifically loving calls to repentance. President Nelson is particularly adept at given correction and encouragement to shape up, so to speak. I think it's exciting. It's always good to know that there is still room for improvement. The more we repent, or in other words, the more we change the way we think, feel, and live to be more in accordance with God's will, the closer we come to Christ. Isn't that wonderful?

Have a great week!

Love,

Äldste Cummings

1. Mauro and Sara sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g 😘.

2. Elder Seely was really self-conscious about sweating through his pants after a gentle 15 minute bike ride until we discovered that the culprit was the cracked leather on the bike seat and the soaking wet foam underneath.

3. Big Boyyyyyys

4. Eating tons of candy for General Conference. Timeless classic.

We just created a geometric proof for the church

(Sister Slade)

The title for this weeks letter is based on a very interesting companion study that sister Minor and I had. Somehow we proved the church based of scriptures in the Book of Mormon. If anyone is interested, I can send it to you.

This week has been a wild ride! We have been covering both Springdale as well as central park this whole week, so we've been going back and forth every other day. It was a lot of fun but it was super stressful, especially the day when we forgot our phone chargers in the Central Park apartment for the whole weekend. :)

We had a really good lesson with Nancy this week. We read 2 Nephi 31 with her and she really thought it was important to be baptized by proper authority. When we asked her too be baptized, she said she would have to pray about it, but she knew the Book of Mormon was true and she believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet. Pray for Nancy! She also watched most of conference this weekend and loved it!

Wasn't general conference amazing! Did anyone catch how many times they talked about missionary work? Almost every single talk! I loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk, because missionary work really is just loving God's children. If you think about it, the first great commandment is to love God and the second is to do missionary work. I also loved Elder Bednar's talk about the temple. I love the guidance we can receive from modern prophets and apostles! Still no temple in Arkansas, but we'll keep waiting. :)

We had transfer calls on Saturday. Surprise, Surprise, I'm staying in Central Park. My new companion will be Sister Najara. Sister Minor will be going back to Springdale and will be training a missionary that doesn't know English, so that should be exciting for her. I'm kind of upset that Sister Minor and I only have 11 days together, because we're already super close.

I love you!

Sister Slade

Pictures!

GENERAL CONFERENCE!

(Hermana Ellsworth)

General Conference is such an amazing opportunity to have. While inviting people to come to general conference I would say things like, "if you had the opportunity to listen to Moses speak and reveal the ten commandments would you want to go?" and they would always say of course! Conference is a time to hear what we need as a church and individuals at this time.  Some of my favorite talks were Elder D. Todd Christofferson's about Zion who said "Christ is the seed of the Ultimate Hope"  and Elder Ronald A Rasband who spoke about being spiritually prepared. We should be so spiritually prepared that we surprise satan with how prepared we are. That all starts in the home. I learned a lot in my home and I had a great opportunity to have parents and step-parents who were strong in their testimonies even during hard trials. They taught me of the gospel and they showed how to in their actions. I am eternally grateful for the home I grew up in and the friends, young women’s leaders, and members who have all helped me grow my testimony and strengthen my commitment to stay close to the gospel. As we strengthen our homes we strengthen our spirits and become closer to Christ. With spiritual strength we can go forth with confidence with the Lord by our side to declare the gospel without fear. Continue to strengthen others during this time of spiritual war. Start in your home and INVITE all to come and hear of the Goodness of Christ and his Gospel.

Why is Christ called Alpha and Omega? This has been one of my questions and if anyone has some answers that would be great. I Learned that he is called Alpha because he was the first. The first to rise from the dead. The first born of God. The first and same which looked upon the wide expanse of Eternity and all the seraphic hosts of heaven before the world was made. And he is Omega because according to the bible dictionary he is our end Goal. Christ is the beginning of our change and Christ is the final goal of all creations.

We finished our English fast this week and celebrated with some high quality smoothies! The Guayama Llamas are doing well with our Spanish and well with our frozen treats!

We visited our dear loved Martita who is an amazing member missionary who is leaving this week to go serve in the DR Temple! We made her tacos and salsa as a goodbye!

This is the story of how I died

(Sister Slade)

So this week I ran a half marathon and I died. Sort of. I'm really sore right now and my foot kind of hurts because I did something to it, but I didn't die. I ran the race with two other sister who wanted to run. We just had to run together to follow the sight and sound rule. All three of us wore matching "Team Jesus" t-shirts. It was actually a really cool thing. Everyone we ran past would yell that they liked our shirts and we would yell back something like"Jesus loves you!" or "It's the winning team!" It was really fun to show people that missionaries are real people.

I was able to sing at Brian's funeral yesterday. It was really special, and it meant a lot to everyone that was there that we were there and that we had done what we did to take care of Beverly and Brian. A lot of people there told us that over the last couple of months, Brian had talked a lot about the young LDS women who come visit and sing to him and how much it meant to him. It meant a lot to us to hear that we had made a difference in his life.

So Sister Davis is on her way back to Nauvoo right now. We found out what was going to be happening to me for the next two weeks before transfers about 20 hours before she left. My new companion is Sister Minor. She is still in training, so I am finishing her training. For the next two weeks, we will be covering the Springdale 1st ward and the Central Park ward. It's going to be a party. From the last 19 hours that we've spent together, I can tell you that she is super sweet and loves being a missionary. She is super hardworking and loves to have fun.

I love being a missionary!

Sister Slade

Pictures

A whole bunch of race day pictures

A few pictures of Sister Davis and I

Sister Minor and I

John 13:34

(Aldste Cummings)

Hallå!

This week was great. We've seen some really exciting things happen.

Zone Conference was on Wednesday which was way fun. It was nice to catch up with some old pals and hear some inspired guidance from our mission leaders and mission president. There was a lot of really good stuff shared, but my biggest take away was that we need to exercise more faith.

On Saturday, we went out to help a member "dig a lot." That was how they described the project. We showed up with some other members of the ward and find that what they meant by "dig a lot" was "dig A LOT." Yes, that was emboldened, italicized, and underlined.

We ended up digging practically nonstop for nearly 7 hours to dig this big 'ol hole in the ground. It was about 25 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 6 feet deep. What made it even harder was Sweden's notoriously rocky soil. There were rocks everywhere. Some of them were rather small. About the size of a baseball. Most of them were about the size of a basketball and were up to like 65-70 pounds. But there were a couple of 🅱ig 🅱oys that were probably upwards of 300 pounds. We had enough rocks to make a huge pile about 5 feet tall and then a shorter rock mound about 30 feet long on the other side of the house. It was insane. Elder Seely and I could hardly move the next morning. Luckily we knew to lift with the knees👖 and not the back 🙇so we're gonna be good 🏋😤.

This week, we were able to make some exciting progress with a man and his daughter who haven't been to church in a long while. It was cool to see how the Lord was able to put us where we needed to be in order to help them this week. They came to church on Sunday and expressed their intentions to continue coming and to come back to full participation.

It's always heartwarming to see people make those steps in their life to come to Christ or, in this case, come back to Christ. It doesn't make us happy because we will have more members or anything. It makes us happy because we know the joy and peace they they can receive as a result. A truly converted disciple of Christ understands that peace and wants nothing more than for others to experience it just as Christ would.

Jesus is the Christ. He feels the peace that He brings literally all the time. His greatest desire is that other's feel that peace too because He loves us. As we learn to love others as He loves us, we begin to feel that same desire.

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love,

Äldste Cummings

1. Ferrari Hatchback? Didn't know they were making those.

2. Can you dig it?

3. "I'm with the homies" -Kendrick Lamar

4. "Eye Test" 😂

Locked out, Coconut, and Zone Conference

(Hermana Ellsworth)

What an amazing week. This week has been on of small but simple miracles. The biggest miracle we have seen has been our people reading the book of Mormon with an incredible desire. The book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion and is the convincing evidence of the truth of this church. If you believe that we are all of God's children and that God speaks to all his children then you are already on your way to believing the truths in the Book of Mormon. While teaching this week we had one woman named Jacklyne who read her assigned reading and then continued to read 13 chapters between our next visit. She was a street contact and was leaving to the store so when we gave her the book of Mormon we didn't have time to tell her where it came from. But when we told her about the Restoration of Christ's Church and how the book of Mormon is apart of that she had such a desire to learn more. Half way through my companion talking I looked over at Jacklyne who was just reading her heart out in the middle of us talking about where the book came from. Every peice of our knowledge usually starts with a desire to know. It is very rare that you just "happen" upon knowledge. You must go out and search for it and have that desire to know first. My invitation is to be curious. Be curious about things at school and church and have a desire to learn and understand them better. It is hard to work with someone who doesn't want to know.

SPANISH UPDATE: We are on an English Fast this week in our apartment to get ready for General Conference. For the past 4 days our apartment has only been speaking spanish with exceptions of teaching english speakers and calling family home. At the beginning of the fast we had a "family" prayer for help. We asked Heavenly Father for a miracle, for the gift of tongues, for the interpretation of tongues as we gave up our native language for 7 days. I was ready for a really hard week. I was ready to cry and get frustrated at not being able to comunicate. But the best part of this fast has been that God has made it easy. Not the spanish per se but the completing of fast. This has been one of the most fun weeks because I have talked the most in spanish this week. I make a lot of mistakes but I don't feel the embarrassment or worry with the language at all this week. Heavenly Father didn't make me fluent in one week nor will he. He did make learning more fun though. I have learned more this week about spanish than I have in my past weeks. As you prepare for General Conference try giving something up for the next couple of days. Give up social media. Give up an extra show. Give up just a little more of your time everyday to turn to the Lord in scripture, thought, and prayer. I love you guys!

FUNNY UPDATES: We got locked out of our house and we found a coconut because of it. We go running usually in the morning and no one remembered the key to the house. So we had to kind of break in through the window. Nothing was broken and we are ALL GOOD! But while trying to get in through the back door we FOUND A COCONUT! THIS WAS A BIG MIRACLE! It isnt a miracle for any particular reason other than it was fun to try and get it open while waiting for our turn in the shower. It is always good to take an "animo break" every once in a while and enjoy a little bit of fun. Here are some pictures of us trying to open our house and then the coconut! Also a pic of the "Guayama Llamas" at Zone conference! AND A GIANT AVACADO!!