S6 E3: Good Ol' Southern Classic

 (Elder Cummings)

Hey y'all! This week was filled with fishing, the biggest Bass Pro Shop ever, crawfish boils, and more miracles!

We were invited to a youth activity to share a spiritual message afterwards and we went fishing in the members pond in his backyard(not as uncommon as you would think out in the boonies) I caught some kind of fish haha, I think it was called a perch? Don't blame me, I've barely ever gone fishing.

We had to drive 2.5 hours down to Denham Springs because our car needed to be re-registered so that was a lot of fun...we stopped by Bass Pro Shop: Outdoor World to make it a little more enjoyable, one of the coolest buildings ever. Look it up. I got to talk with a guy about being missionary because he came up to me and thought I was the manager or something. So planted some seeds it was good.

Then for the best part...we had a Ward Crawfish boil!! It was sooooooooo goooooooood. We straight up had about 300 lbs of crawfish. Man that stuff is amazing. I ate so much and it was so spicy that my hands started throbbed and hurting after a while. My lips felt like I had bit both of them by accident. But it was worth it.

My favorite part of the week is when we had our good friend Jared Stacy(a former missionary serving here now moved back to Alexandria) drive us around in the boonies. We went to a lesson, which ended up falling through. As we're driving back in the middle of nowhere Jared rolls down his window and screams "I love your dogs!" To a lady outside. The dogs just start sprinting at the car so we just parked it and waited for the owner to calm them down. After chatting for a second and seeing our missionary tags she was like "y'all are a far way from home". Turns out she lived in Tooele for a couple years and loves Utah and is obsessed with temples! She isn't a member but her late husband is and she wants to do anything she can to go inside the Salt Laky City temple. We just talked with her for an hour outside and she wanted us to come back next week! I'm not kidding, we were in the boonies. There was never gonna be a reason we would drive all the way out there and knock on her door if we didn't know who she was. But the Lord provided a way for us to get in contact with her, I love miracles!

This week I was thinking a lot about how I could be a better missionary. I was frustrated with myself because while being in a leadership position, I feel like I'm far from doing my best and am just struggling to be the leader and example I want to be. On top of that, that makes me feel more responsible for the influence I have on others, and I need it to be a good one. While I was praying I had the thought "If I only I was perfect at being a zone leader" and immediately I had another thought, that was not my own. It said "Then there would be no point for you to be a zone leader" it struck me more than it has in the past that this life is about becoming. We are not expected to be perfect. Just like a child learning a piano song is not expected to play it perfectly at first. They're learning and practicing. We don't learn a new song planning to play it perfectly the first time. And so it is with life. Try not to get frustrated like I do when you fall short because we all "come short of the glory of God". And that's why we need our Savior. We has, does, and will lift all of us from our weaknesses and shortcomings to become "new creatures in Christ Jesus" as we come unto Him following his teachings.

Elder Cummings

Photos!

1.Outdoor World!!!!

2. Brother Taylor made us some Harry Potter wands!

3-4. Some southern boys fishing

5. Fat ties. This is my new fattest tie. I call him: the Giraffe🦒

 

A few cool highlights!

 (Elder Slade)

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

This week was great! Some highlights:

-A 9 year old we are teaching named Natalie, who is getting baptized on Saturday (I am SO excited!!), went teaching with us! She wanted to join a lesson we had with Isaac, another person we are teaching, who is 16. She helped us teach the law of Chastity! Pretty epic! She is an incredibly smart girl! Afterwards, she went and knocked a few doors with us! I think she made us one of the finest missionary trios there ever was in Southeast Idaho!

-Chelsie who is getting baptized on the 29th, went to Deseret Book and splurged by buying a TON of church reading material! You know you are teaching someone who elect when they buy a journal edition of the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of great price.

-Got transfer news last night, and I learned that I'll be zone leader companions with Elder Snow in Iona! We were companions for two transfers in Ammon, and he is a BEAST!! I'm so excited! I'll be in a trio with him and Elder Haskett. But before that, I'll stay in this area for a week in a trio because Elder Clove is being transferred to a Service mission and they didnt want to whitewash the area.

I've learned a lot in this area. I've learned how truly the Lord can magnify our efforts when we turn it all to him. Elder Clove is one of the most dedicated and diligent missionaries I know, and despite having health issues that would be really debilitating, he has pushed through, giving it his all. He is a model for Christlike service and diligence to the end.

Love you all!!

1. Natalie doing missionary work with us.

2. Elder Clove and I

3. Elder Crawley and I on exchanges

4. Elder Clove almost faceplanting while riding a scooter

5-7. Using a crescent, Eldder Clove performed some ritual to lure Chonkers, the squirrel, into coming closer.

S6 E2: Another week in Alex

 (Elder Cummings)

Time flies when it feels like you got none that's for sure.

I'll be keeping this one short but we've been jumping around trying to make it from lesson to lesson trying to be on time to everything, we've done pretty good so far but there's always improvement.

There was one lady that we've been doing Bible Studies with over the phone for a couple weeks. We finally met in person at the church building and we were able to talk about the Gift of the Holy Ghost because that's what she wants. We talked about the blessings that come from that and the Restoration that puts it all in context. Afterwards we did a church tour! I love church tours! We were able to walk through the church and talk about all the different aspects of it, from family history to Sunday school to eternal families and sacrament. She LOVED it. She was ranting about how she wants her grandbabies in primary and that she wants to go to the temple soon and that she'll bring her whole family to church! The Spirit was palpable as we discussed our worship of Jesus Christ, and we were able to help her identify that and help her have an even GREATER desire to have the companionship of the Holy Ghost.

I've been thinking a lot about why I'm out here on a mission, and there are a lot of reasons but 1 Timothy 4:10-16 gives an epic description that I agree with a lot. I invite y'all to go read and study it yourself, here's verse 10 though "For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe"

1. A cool pic on a cool car

2. Faith

3. Selfie with Ivan, absolute beast

4. Us and the New Orleans Elders(peep my guy Elder Roderick, I miss him)

5. The Alexandria Ward missionaries

Happy Mother's Day

 (Elder Slade)

To the best friends a family a person could hope for!

This email is dedicated to the best mom in the entire world. She has done so much for me, more than I probably even know. I give her credit for the person I have become, and all the righteous desires that I have. I am better able to understand and feel God's love for us all, because of her lov9ng example. Thanks to the one, the only, Nancy Slade! Love you mom!

This week has been pretty good! We found a new man to teach named Jay, who is the friend of a member we are helping to return to church. He is awesome! We are also excited for two baptisms we have coming up. One on May 22 for a girl named Natalie we are teaching, and one for a woman named Chelsie who is getting baptized May 29th. Chelsie is just absorbing all that we teach her, and is SO excited to get baptized!

Just yesterday we got information that some of our restrictions are being released! We can now eat with members inside, take off our masks, and get rides from members! The Lord has blessed us immensely during Covid, and He continually is blessing us.

1. Elder Clove's tire suddenly exploded last night. It literally sounded like a gun shot!

2. Cool picture of the sky.

3. Chelsie and her family at a ward pie activity!

4-8. Having fun at a pie activity one of our wards hosted. We served the pie, and then they gave us a free pie afterwards and I ate the entire thing in less than a day!

S6 E1: There and back again

 (Elder Cummings)

大家好!

This week has been as interesting as the last. It all started as I was getting ready to fly back to Baton Rouge from SLC. I finished the chest x rays and blood sample for the Taiwan visa and they sent me back to the airport. And I sat there as my plane got delayed 30 minutes, an hour, 2 hours, 2 and a half hours…Finally, we get on and I fly to my connecting flight in Houston. I land at about 7pm with 15% phone battery life, no charger, and a missed flight home. I go to Customer Services and they tell me they have another flight to BR the next morning but I would have to find a place to sleep.

So, I say a prayer asking for a miracle. That I would be able to call and talk with everyone I needed to to work out my travel plans. For the next 2.5 hours, I am making calls to Mission Travel, the hotel, my companion in BR, the AP’s, and the bishop in the Alexandria ward...my phone battery does not go below 15%.

This is where it gets even better. I go out to the hotel shuttles and I get on the only one without thinking(It’s about 9pm and I have flown almost 10 hours in the last 24 so cut me some slack). The driver asks me, “Hilton?” and I realize that I never wrote down the hotel they had booked me in. I wrote down everything else they had told me but for some reason I didn’t write which one it was. But I had their number. I showed the man the hotel number and he pointed at another shuttle that just pulled up. “It’s that one”. I trust him and hop on. The only other person in the shuttle is the guy that was sitting next to me the entire flight here, he was in the same boat as I was. We start chatting and he expresses how he admires the families of our church and how strong they are. We chat about that and next thing I know we’re talking about his spiritual journey and I’ve given him a Book of Mormon and the pamphlets for the first 3 lessons to read. By this time we arrive at the hotel and continue talking, and I’m able to testify of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. It was awesome. I go up to the front desk and check in...the lady takes a minute and says “Um sir, we don’t have you on here” She looks up the phone number I have and tells me it’s the Holiday Inn...I was at the wrong hotel. I talk with Steven(that was his name) a little more and tell him I don’t believe in coincidences, and that I might have been at the wrong hotel, but I was in the right shuttle. He agreed and we were both very grateful for our conversation. I hop on their shuttle, which they were kind enough to drop me off on the way back to the airport. This whole time I’m just by myself, in the middle of Houston, with no charger and only with what is in my backpack. I walk a mile to the nearest gas station and buy a charger and plug my phone in before I get into bed...it was still at 15%. God works in mysterious ways.

Anyway, I finally get back to BR the morning of transfers and come home with my new comp Elder Richards! The man is legendary. If you want to talk about miracles, we’ve been physically out of our area for almost 2 weeks and by the end of this week we had three of our friends accept the invitation to be baptized. If there is one thing I learned this week it was that this truly is God’s work. We are just His tools, we just need to be willing to do the job He is using us for. With humility and faith come more miracles because we are essentially saying to the Father that “Thy will be done”.

Elder Cummings

Photos!

1.Bishop and his array of bass he caught years ago(there's 3 more 9 pounders you can't see)

2. Turtle 🐢 round 2, this one is Reed

3. Went and saw Moana, where this guy we're teaching played Tamatoa. He Killed it was SO much fun

4. Rescue mission to Natches. Elder Hales is all good, he just had to get some tests done. But we picked up Elder Owens and he stayed with us for a couple days

5. The Elders take Alex

6&7. Met with Taiwan missionaries in SLC! Sister Tagatauli was in my MTC district!

A meeting with an apostle!

 (Elder Slade)

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

This week was pretty great! Elder Clove and I were able to take our second vaccination Tuesday. So we are fully vaccinated! Unfortunately the day after we were pretty out of it as we faced the flu-like effects. We were basically sloths on bikes for the entire day. We got better though! The next day was zone conference, and I was able to perform a musical number with some sisters performing the song, I'm Trying to Be like Jesus, one of my favorite songs.

Highlight of the week was our mission-wide zoom meeting with an apostle on Friday! We were able to hear from Elder Renlund and his wife. They gave us some wonderful advice, some of which included how we can stay true to the gospel, even when our circumstances changes. He said we should stay engaged in the gospel, by continuing growing in knowledge line upon line and worthily preparing and partaking the Sacrament. An ordinance given to us by Christ prior to His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Sacrament is one of the greatest ways we can express our gratitude for His love and sacrifice. It means a lot more to me now.

Love you all!

1. Laticia, a woman we teach. We gave her the giant picture of Christ in the back, and she LOVES it!

2-3. We got a 15 lb. turkey from a member and ai decided to cook it today!

4. A creepy mask we found in someone's garage

5. Chonkers eating some popcorn. Today we also gave it another twinkie, but this time with a sleeping gummy inside. Afterwards it was super uncoordinated! We laughed pretty hard.

6 Months!

 (Sister Putnam)

Okay so I've been out six months!!! That's crazy!!!! It's crazy to think that I'm a third of the way done, it feels like I just got out here!

This week we did a lot of service!! We served some ward members who have a ton of animals and they let us hold some of their little baby chicks!! We did service at Salvation Army, so that was really fun. We helped a guy next door with his garden, and that's been great too. There was a lady we helped named Amanda, who said she loves the church.  She was so nice and asked to pray for us afterward.  She said a really sweet prayer asking that we will be safe and that people will be kind to us when they meet us. We love Amanda and hope to help her more! We had another lesson with Reba and Shae, and we taught them the Plan of Salvation and they seemed to really enjoy it!!

This coming Wednesday our whole district is scheduled to get the second dose of the vaccine, and we've been told that dose number 2 hits people really hard with flu-like symptoms so prayers for us would be greatly appreciated!!

Love you all so much!!

Sister Alyssa Putnam