I am staying! - 10/3/16

We didn't get a transfer call on Saturday which means that nothing is changing for the next six weeks! This means that I will officially served in the Chesapeake Virginia Stake for over a year and the Currituck Branch for 6 Months! It feels like home here, not sure if that is a good or bad thing!

The person we are teaching is still doing great! As of now she is on track to be baptized on October 16th! We are meeting with her again tonight (surprise!) at a member's home. She is awesome and I look forward to seeing her get baptized!

Other than her, we don't have too many people who are progressing that much. We did have a lot of lessons again this week which was very good. This week is looking promising as well. That is assuming that Hurricane Matthew doesn't blow us all away! That has been quite the topic of discussion here. Probably because most people live within a mile of the sound here.

General Conference was great! I came up with three questions that I wanted answered and wrote them down. All were answered in the first session! I then went back and came up with another one for Sunday and it was answered too! Conference is truly amazing like that! I can't wait for the conference issue of the Ensign to come out so that I can go back and study and mark up all of the talks again!

This weeks email is a bit short, I know, but not much happened! It was just a normal week in North Carolina! Expect some pictures though!

Have a great week!!

Elder Ciminski

Rain Rain go away..... - 9/26/16

...come again whenIgethomefrommymission!

We got a foot of rain this week, in about 24-36 hours. Lots of flooding. It was impossible to not drive through any of it, so my philosophy was that as long as I could see the yellow line while going down the center of the road, I would be good. The water was dirty so it wouldn't get any deeper that 4-5 inches before it would disappear. We actually had to turn around several times. There was also a neighborhood where their 3 foot ditches filled up and then the water went into their homes. Crazy. I couldn't believe it! We are safe and no ark was needed!

When it was drier, we were able to get out and we taught a total of 12 lessons! It was a great week! Our investigator is still progressing and just as excited as ever for baptism! We are meeting with her and at a member's home tonight as a dinner/FHE thing again.

Also, this week we had a Returning Less-Active pass the Sacrament for the first time in many years! He has come a long way from the do-not-contact he was only six months ago. I LOVE to see people change their live and come back into the gospel! It makes all the screaming and slammed doors worth it!

In our meeting we learned how to plan. We have had this same training a couple times since I have been out, but I still tried to learn a couple new things, and I succeeded! We also learned about the importance of time management. All good things to learn and master here so that when I get home, I don't have to waste time trying to master it! I am sure that it will help me a lot in a future career and in college!

Other than all that, it was a pretty normal week. We are heading down to OBX again today to see a lighthouse. I will perhaps get me a Polar Pop on the way back up. :)

Have a wonderful week y'all. I love you!

Elder Ciminski

Hello! - 9/19/16

So, this week I will start off with a joke that I got from Jesse Evans Smith, wife of Joseph Fielding Smith.

What is the Garden of Eden's phone number?

ADAM-812

That made me laugh so I thought I would share. I heard it while listening to a lecture by Truman G. Madsen. I am really liking them! I have been listening to them a whole lot more lately! In the Lectures on the President's of the Church series I am on Spencer W. Kimball next!

This week was a good week! We had seven total lessons! That is thanks to the fact that we had two member present lessons with our investigator. We have set her with a date for October 8th! We have another dinner/lesson/family home evening with her and some members tonight! She is progressing so smoothly and so excited you can't help but be excited with her!

We are still meeting with the less-actives that we have been and are working with them. We are hoping that one of them will come to church in the next few weeks! That will be exciting!

I did give a talk in church yesterday. I didn't feel that I did too hot but everyone says otherwise so maybe I didn't do so bad? I don't know, I tried! :)

This Thursday we have a big meeting up in Portsmouth and President Weed will be giving us some instruction. I am excited for that! These large meetings are always fun!

Unfortunately the computers don't want to send pictures this week. That is a bummer, but next week I will have some good ones for you!

With love,

Elder Ciminski

P.S. Here is a pronunciation guide for some of the major cities around here. :)

Portsmouth = Portsmith

Suffolk = Suffick

Norfolk = Norfick/Nawfick

Currituck = Currytuck

Corolla = Corawlla

Some are kinda funny but this is what everyone says around here. They give you a funny look if you pronounce it how it looks!

You can't put an Emoji in the Subject line. - 9/12/16

I tried. :D

This week was one full of service! We are still helping a lot of the members of the Branch clean up. We had one tree that during the storm, decided to go bowling through the rest of the garden and while rolling across the lawn, took out a smaller, second tree, a retaining wall, and a birdbath while narrowly missing 2 other trees. We are making good headway! I think we did almost 20 hours of service this week!

We taught 5 lessons this week and we are getting a new investigator! Finally! The Elizabeth City Elders have been teaching her and they have passed her off to us now! We have a meeting with them tonight with a member and apparently she wants to be baptized! As you know, we haven't found any new investigators in a long time so it will be nice to have one! Yay!

One thing that I have been doing differently lately is using a study journal when I do my personal studies in the morning. A couple weeks ago I got a new study journal in hopes that I would be more inclined to use it. It worked! I haven't been perfect, but I have used my study journal a lot more now and I was honestly surprised at how much more meaningful it has made my studies. It has been amazing to see the difference it has made in my daily activities too! So if you aren't already, may I suggest that you use a study journal when you study? It came make your gospel study 10x better!

We went to the beach to view the sunrise again. I took over 200 pictures! I will be sending some home today so you all can enjoy the beauty of the Outer Banks too! :D

Anyway, other than that, we are chugging along and working. I hope that y'all will have a good week!

Elder Ciminski

If you serve in this mission and don't have a picture like this it is because you didn't serve on the coast!

Kittyhawk

This was a tough week! - 9/6/16

Wait! I Need to be more positive!

I am positive this was a tough week!

:D

It was a good one though. The real exciting part was Hermine. She caused a lot of damage, though as far as I know no one in the area was hurt. Although, we know of 1 trailer, 2 houses, and one Ford Ranger that got crunched by falling trees. The computer is being slow so I will send as many as I can throughout my time here. We were safe and our trailer has only minimal damage (the skirt underneath is now loose and bent, makes it sound like we are sliding off the cinder blocks every time the wind blows!) Perhaps the saddest thing is that a member in our congregation lost their 45 foot Weeping Willow tree. It was so pretty and full and is now being chopped up.

Before

After

There are down trees and limbs everywhere and some billboards got blown over too. One was for an adult store though so that isn't much of a loss. ;)

The storm blew in at around 2 A.M. with high winds and rain, the rain was literally falling sideways. It woke me up and kept me up. The power would blink on and off all night but it stayed on. Then the storm intensified and the wind changed directions at around 8:10. That is when we think all the trees came down. Our power went out for good at 8:13 A.M. (I made a note of it). Driving around afterwards was weird because we actually saw down power lines with limbs and trees on top of them. It was like living the news! Needless to say, we did not go out that day. We toughed it out and stayed in all day. I don't like staying in for that long. I was anxious because we didn't know anything about the storm! All we knew was that it was here! The trailer was shaking from the wind all day and the loose skirt and lack of power wasn't helping. I never felt like we were truly in danger for two reasons, 1. The Mission wasn't giving us any instructions so I figured it would be all right. and 2. The Branch kept texting us and checking up on us so I knew that they would let us know of there was anything serious. The storm finally subsided at around 2 P.M. I was so desperate to get out and do something so we got dressed in service clothes and went out seeking service. We did that until around 6, when we went over to a members and hung out with them and had dinner since we couldn't do anything else and the power was out. We came back home around 8:45 and started searching for flashlights since the power still wasn't back on. It finally came back on at 9:16. And that was it. We were very blessed and I am glad that no one was hurt in the storm. I also have a 72 hour kit now and know what it is like to shop when a storm is approaching. Never again. I will always be prepared! :)

So that was the exciting part of the week. Other than that is was a very slow week. We only taught 3 lessons and no new investigators. I told President Weed this morning in my email, I feel that I have grown the most here and have done a lot of good, even though there is not much outward success. There is always things to learn from others and I am trying to apply that and I get to know my companion more.

We almost taught a new family though! We ended up having to cancel because she is going through cancer treatments. We are hoping to be able to teach her soon when she is feeling better.

That is all for this week. Be expecting more pictures!

With love,

Elder Ciminski

Storm Damage

Currituck Sound

Cooler Week! - 8/29/16

This week was good. We ended having to stop visiting a less-active we have been seeing because she is so busy right now. We let her know that whenever her life calms down we will be there!

And on a brighter note, Joshua got the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday! Elder Kingsford and I got to stand in on the circle and it was amazing! They have come so far and now the next step for them is the Temple!

We haven't been able to find any new investigators, but Elder Kingsford has some pretty good ideas that I haven't tried before. I am hoping that they will yield some fruit!

Not much exciting happened this week. We had dinner with an awesome Member who has an awesome dog named Gabby.

And these people just have a massive dog. Both dogs love pictures! 

That Great Dane is taller than me when he is on his hind legs!

All the members in the Branch are great and take care of us very well. This would be a good place to live! 

The weather finally broke so while it will still be hot for a while, it should be cooling down overall. It is raining here so that means it will be even cooler! 

I can't think of anything else to add. This week was a very boring week to be honest. We taught 5 lessons. We have some pretty good ones lined up this week so maybe next week I will have more to write about! 

But I love you all and am so grateful that you three are my family. I hope that y'all have a blessed week!

Elder Ciminski

Still Alive - 8/22/16

Good week. It is finally starting to cool down! We should be in the mid 80's this week! Yay!

So, for transfers my companion is leaving for Norfolk 1st Ward and I am staying here.

We went on two exchanges this week. I went down to Nags Head for one and then my companion did the other one. I still love Nags Head a lot, but Currituck feels like home.

This is a member family with their niece. They're great. He came with us to a lesson and helped us teach about Home and Visiting Teaching. He had great comments and was a real help. We taught a total of 8 lessons this week! None to investigators though, but some of the less-actives that we are working with are making some real progress! It's cool to see them at church! I hope that my new companion and I are able to apply some techniques that he has learned to help us get some new investigators!

I did get a haircut today btw.

Some of the leaves are already starting to change and fall down. I think that they may be getting ahead of themselves. It was weird to see that start to happen already.

I will never tire of the weather here. And the trees. I still find myself admiring them and enjoying their beauty. It changes so much too. I love it! 

Anyway, not much else notable happened this week so expect some pictures! I took some good ones this week. :)

Love,

Elder Ciminski

Aydlett looking across the Currituck Sound.

No way!!! Just like home.