Luke 2:10

(Aldste Cummings)

Merry Christmas (almost)!

This week was pretty busy as usual. We traveled to Göteborg on Monday to go to zone conference on Tuesday. We got to stay with the elders in Västra Frölunda which meant that Elder Wolff and I got to have our own little Morristown Ward reunion which is always a pleasure. Then, on Wednesday, we stayed in Göteborg with the Zone leaders to do splits in Utby which was super fun and we got back to Skövde on Wednesday night. So we had a ton of stuff to do this week and we weren't even in our own area until Thursday basically so that just made it a little busier trying to fit everything in.

We have an investigator named Camilla and she is amazing. I've never met someone who is so prepared to receive the Gospel. She's a Swedish woman in her thirties who lives alone in northern Skövde. We met her for the first time when we knocked on her door three weeks ago and she is already well on her way to making the covenant of baptism. Her enthusiasm is so inspiring, she told us that she was going to get baptized even if it meant she had to stay up all night reading the Book of Mormon every day. I'm so grateful that the Lord led us to her so we can lead her to Him!

I probably won't send another email between now and Christmas so I thought it appropriate to share a little message about Christmas. I am so thankful for Jesus Christ and everything He has done for us. Everything He ever did was done out of complete selflessness and love. News of Him truly is "glad tidings of great joy." Because of Him and His sacrifice, we can come back to our Heavenly Father and be redeemed from our sins. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and we owe Him everything. Enjoy the Christmas season as we celebrate the birth of our Savior!

Love,

Äldste Cummings

p.s. Here's a picture we took at zone conference. It was combined with the Malmö zone so I got to see a ton of people in my group in the MTC that I haven't seen since I actually got to Sweden. Super fun!

Boca do Inferno, Chuva, e Não vou sair (ponte final)

(Sister Ellsworth)\

Então hoje vou ensinar vocês como  é para ser mesmo português. Vocês vão aprender quâo incrível é para ser parte deste pais.

Estou a brincar... Vou falar o inglês...

So this week was so much fun I can't even begin to describe all the crazy things we did. We climbed mountains in the rain and found these two adorable Angolan girls. The Elders had a crazy hectic baptism and we had the biggest ward activity in Portugal! Today one of our members took us on a long car ride all over Sintra and Cascais. We got rained on all week but 5 umbrellas later I'm beginning to dry out!

On Tuesday we got a phone call from a member I had never heard or seen in church but he called with two references of two young women that had come from Angola that day that wanted to talk to the Sisters. We were like YEAH! And we ran over there and met them and we found two best friends. The older is Lavinha and she's 14 and her younger sister is Sira and she's 9. Basically their mother died a few months ago and they got shipped to live with their uncle (the member). They walk with us in the road constantly asking questions and joking around, happy to have two new big sisters.

We also had an awesome miracle this week! One of our friends Jorge straight up stopped smoking! After smoking 40-50 cigarettes every day for 40 years, he read the Book of Mormon and gave us his cigarettes saying that he was done not having control in his life. #WINFORJESUS

This is the dedication site when President Thomas S Monson dedicated Portugal for Missionary work back in the 70's. It's on top of this huge mountain and then in the middle of a little forest but from this rock you can oversee Lisbon and the ocean. It's beautiful! These are Sira and Lavinha!

BOCA DO INFERNO!!! This is probably the coolest thing I've seen  yet in Portugal. Its this rock bowl that has a tiny opening to the ocean and when the waves come water just explodes through this hole. Today it was stormy and the water was even more agitated.

We hiked up to a little lighthouse.

2 Nephi 33:10

(Aldste Cummings)

Hej hej!

Another exciting week in Skövde! We were incredibly busy this week. We had a couple of English and religion classes that we taught at a local gymnasium (basically high school) and it was super fun but it also took a good bit out of our schedule and we had to work things in an around the classes. There was one day where we left the apartment in the morning and didn't come back for over 12 hours! Very tiring, but totally worth it.

On Friday, we had a dinner appointment with a member who lives about half an hour away. Because we don't have a car, we have to rely on the bus system to get there and back. The appointment went a little longer than expected and we missed our bus back but we just assumed a bus was going to come an hour later around 8 and we could just knock some doors until then. WRONG. Turns out the bus didn't come until 9:30 and we aren't allowed to knock on people's doors after 8 so we had to spend an hour and a half walking around Timmersdala in the dead of night while our phone was about to die waiting for the bus. We didn't get home until 10:25. That was crazy. Gotta be careful with those buses.

I thought of this scripture this week when we were meeting with a new investigator, Camilla, and we were talking about the Book of Mormon. She had been reading a little bit in it and expressed the sentiment that she knows its true and good because the doctrines it teaches are very clearly the doctrines of Christ and not of man. She said that she felt the same way reading it as she does reading the Bible. Just as Nephi teaches in 2 Nephi 33:10, a true believer and disciple of Christ will know specifically that the Book of Mormon is true because they will recognize that it is the word of Christ. They will recognize the doctrine as the pure gospel of Jesus Christ.

I know the Book of Mormon is true and I know that by studying it, we can come closer to God and strengthen our relationship with our Savior.

Love,

Äldste Cummings

On one of our busier days, we just drank chocolate milk for dinner. Kinda bummy, but it tasted good.

A picture of Skövde from the top of a nearby hill (sorry for the tree in the way, there was a wedding going on in the ideal picture taking spot).

Mosiah 4:19

(Elder Cummings)

Hej på er!

This week has been really great! We've been working so hard and not wasting any time. And this next week won't be any less busy. We are going to be teaching a couple classes at a local high school on top of all the people we need to visit and talk to. These weeks are just flying by. I can't believe it's already time to write this email again.

We keep forgetting to take pictures so I'm sending two that I took last week when we had our humble Thanksgiving dinner.

I'm running a little short on time so I won't be able to write a whole lot. The verse that I've been thinking about this week came to mind when we were teaching a lesson to a nice Swedish lady. She expressed a lot of concern that the world is becoming increasingly materialistic, classist, and selfish. It made me think of King Benjamin's sermon in Mosiah 4 where he teaches us that we are all beggars before God. We rely on Him for everything. How can we expect Him to forgive us of our own trespasses when we refuse to forgive others theirs? How can we expect Him to bless us with His goodness when we refuse to give of our own to others? When we truly realize that we all are indebted to the Lord for everything we have enjoyed in this life, then we will try our best to give of ourselves and bless the lives of others around us. True understanding of our relationship to God will lead to true understanding of our duty to our neighbor.

As we approach Christmas, I hope that you all find a way to serve someone in need and show love to everyone regardless of who they are just like the Lord loves us.

Love,

Äldste Cummings

Mem Martins!! Whoo!

(Sister Ellsworth)

This week was fantastic! Despite the really cold rain I am absolutely loving this new area. It's a very busy area with a ton of people! We have appointments and new lessons coming out our ears! I love my new companion too, Sister Haws. She's so cute and fun! We hit the ground running and had a blast getting lost and meeting a ton of new people together. She's been on her mission for about 8 months and it's been fun to teach her new teaching tricks and funny Portuguese words. We went to Sintra for Pday and wandered around talking to people there. We bought some Christmas presents and met up with some other missionaries.

I think one of my favorite moments this week was when we passed by an old contact named Catia. She let us in and explained that she was learning about 4 or 5 different religions right now, searching for which one was true. She asked us how we know which church is true and we were like "WELL LET US TELL YA!" We began to teach her about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we invited her to pray to receive a confirmation she looked at us and said, "I never thought to ask God which church was right.... How do you do that?" and  we got all excited and basically blurted out "PRAYYYYY!!!!" So then we committed her to pray and read and go to church and to be baptized and it was awesome.

Here are some pictures of our adventures in Sintra!

 [pics to come]

​Have a great week!

Sister Ellsworth

Alma 32: 17-19

(Aldste Cummings)

Tjabba grabbar!

This week has been so fun! I said goodbye to Elder Martineau and said hello to Elder Cluff which was bittersweet. It was sad to see Elder Martineau go, but I'm super excited to get to work with Elder Cluff!

Funny story, while we were helping Elder Martineau with his bags onto the train and the door closed behind us. So Elder Cluff and I were stuck on a train that we didn't have tickets for while Elder Cluff's bags were left sitting on the platform. We had to get off at the next stop and wait for a train that would take us back. So we got back about an hour later and thankfully Elder Cluff's bags were still on the platform! Gotta love Skövde.

We also had a nice little Thanksgiving on Thursday. Turkey steaks, hashbrowns, and glögg (a Swedish Christmas drink). It was tasty, but it's nothing like a classic Thanksgiving dinner back home that's for sure.

Things have been super fun though! We went to an apartment complex yesterday and met a ton of people and their families who want us to come back. This is going to be a pretty busy couple of weeks!

The scripture I chose this week addresses a concern we get from people often here in Skövde. Plenty of people refuse to believe in a god because of a lack of evidence. If God exists, why doesn't He just tell us all so we all know and can follow Him?

As illustrated in the aforementioned verses, the Lord's requirement to live by faith is a blessing rather than a curse. He knows that because we are human, we are going to make mistakes regardless of what we know to be right and true. How often have you done something you knew was wrong but you did it anyway? If we were to have a perfect knowledge of God and His plan, our inevitable mistakes would have been far more severe. We are given sufficient evidence to act in faith so we don't have to bear the heavy mantle of responsibility that comes with perfect knowledge. When thinking about these questions, it's always important to remember that our Heavenly Father loves us more than we can know. He created this earth and sent us here so we all could come back to Him, not to condemn the unfaithful and He has given us the best opportunity to do just that. His plan, like Him, is perfect.

Have a good week!

Love,

Äldste Cummings

2 Emergency Transfers and a Baptism later... We Survived

(Sister Ellsworth)

So this week was an ADVENTURE!!! On Monday we received a call that Sister Herrera would join our companionship and we made it a whole week together and it was awesome! We arranged Antonio's baptism! While we were waiting for the baptism to start Sister dos Santos taught me and Sister Herrera how to tie ties. We tied them all by ourselves!! Heehee

Look at Antonio... He's so happy!! Haha. I've never seen someone make such a huge change in such a short amount of time. After a lifetime of smoking and being involved with other less-good things. Antonio grabbed his last box of cigarettes and chucked them out the window, stopping stone cold. He grabbed the beer in his fridge and poured it down the toilet, laughing and smiling. When he was  baptized he sat there a moment, smiled and said "It's good."

This week we are also having another transfer! Heavenly Father thought I should spend my last 20 days on my mission in another area so I'll be transferred to Mem Martins tomorrow.

I'm just so grateful to be here. I don't pay attention to the days... (honestly I'm hoping that if i stop looking then the time will start going backwards). I love being a missionary. I love being a representative of Christ. It's the best thing you could ever do. Every sacrifice is worth it. Every tear, sore muscle,  sigh of disappointment, everything is worth coming to know my Savior.

And I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Sister Ellsworth