The Lord Builds Us Up: Gummy and Gumpy

Dear Family:

When we talk about the hand of the Lord in our lives, we sometimes overlook some of the obvious.

Somewhere along the line the Lord has blessed us with energy and vigor (when we say “us” we mean our family – not just Gummy and Gumpy).  Isn’t this the hand of the Lord?  Almost without exception, couples tell us after our visits that they cannot imagine how we get everything done and how much energy we have.  The comments from the couple below are quite typical.

We just thought – this energy and vigor is a great example of the hand of the Lord in our lives – and we are most grateful.  We can take no credit for this personally – it is a gift from Heavenly Father.  This gift of energy and vitality has certainly made it possible for us to be an instrument in His Hands quite a bit beyond the age which you would expect to be functioning in the type of work we are doing.  We acknowledge this special blessing and give thanks to the Lord for granting us this opportunity.

Mom & Dad

From: Jeffrey Hy Talley [mailto:jtalley@ldschurch.org]  E/S Talley are the Humanitarian Senior Couple with whom we worked for the past couple of weeks in Peru. They are ten years younger than we are.

Dear Elder and Sister Cullimore, 

We hope your trip to Ecuador and back to the States was successful and safe. 

Taking a little time to reflect on the 10 days you were here in Peru with us, leaves us with no doubt that this part of your trip was very successful. 

Our first thought and feeling is one of much gratitude to both of you for your time, efforts and knowledge that you have been willing to share with us. And we are very grateful to our Heavenly Father for the many wonderful experiences we had with you during our trips to Chiclayo and Iquitos. We feel that your tireless efforts and hard work will be a great blessing to the people here in Peru and to us.

Our second feeling and thought is, where do you get the energy to do all that you do? I believe Audrey and I both came away feeling like wow, we need to get in better shape if we want to stay up with the Cullimore's. You are a great example of getting things done and giving service when most would be taking a more easy road in life. Thank you for your example!

Thank you again for all that you have done and for your friendship. We will do our best to move this work forward in a way that will hopefully be productive and sustainable. 

We will keep you posted on our progress and look forward to more opportunities in the future to work together with you in this great work that we have been blessed to participate in. 

Muchisimas Gracias por todo, 

Jeff and Audrey 

Healing Power of the Lord: Teisha

This is such a difficult experience for me to share but I honestly cannot think of a better example of the Healing Power of the Lord and I hope that each you can see how powerful the Lord truly is in our lives.

As many of you know Tommy and I have hit a very difficult path in our marriage…  The end of March Tommy and I had started fighting about his relationship with a co-worker and within a week he had decided to move out. He moved in with this woman and in all since of the word “gave up” on life. He began having an affair with her and started neglecting his family. Once he made this decision things moved very quickly on my end. I filed for divorce immediately. Things continued to escalate between us in a negative way.   The first of June Tommy started telling me he wanted to fix our marriage and how truly sorry he was…. As you can imagine I was beyond angry.  He had gotten his own place and had started taking the steps of repentance. I say steps because meeting with the Bishop is one small step, to truly repent of something you must transform and take action to ensure those mistakes do not happen again.  In the beginning I did not care what he said I was set on going through with the divorce and moving on with my life…. But throughout the month my heart started to soften and I began to realize how important my eternal family was.

I can truly testify of the healing power of the Savior from my experience. I don’t think I ever truly understood the Atonement until I was put in this situation. I am a very stubborn person who has the attitude that I can do everything on my own…. Also extremely prideful so for me to try and forgive Tommy in my mind was I sign of weakness.  Through the Power of the Atonement my heart has softened more than words can express.  At the first of June I literally could have cared less if I ever talked to Tommy again in my life but now I am fighting to save my eternal family. Only the Atonement and the Lord could make such a drastic change in someone’s heart.  I have never been alone in this trial in life and I know the Lord has watched over me and my children and given me the strength to endure this trial.

I want to include this in here as almost a warning to others…. Nurture your Marriage.  Tommy is without a doubt my best friend and the person I chose to spend eternity with but we became selfish in our marriage. Tommy became very self focused and we both lost focus as to what truly mattered in life. We did not do family prayer, scripture study, family home evening, we never truly understood how to make our family grow in the correct direction.  We also did not nurture our marriage—Tommy and I rarely took a night out without our children and we have not taken a vacation for the two of us in over 5 years.  You must do this. Reflecting back on my marriage with Tommy I can tell you where our short comings were and how we got to such a difficult trial in our life.  Tommy grew up with a very difficult background- his mom abandoned him at a young age and his father was emotionally abusive. I only include this because they way Tommy handled our problems was a learned behavior; your spouse might not handle something as extreme as Tommy did but that does not mean your marriage is safe.  Nurture it, love your spouse!

Trials are given to us for a reason and although it is so difficult to see while going through the trail we always come out stronger. Dieter F Uchtdor states, “It is often in the trial of adversity that we learn those most critical lessons that form our character and shape our destiny.” Without a doubt this is true for me. I have learned the true meaning of the atonement, I have learned the healing power of the Savior, and I have learned what kind of person I want to be and what kind of mother I will be.

Tommy and I both want to fight for our eternal family and although I know we have a very difficult road ahead of us I know that through the healing power of the Lord I will be able to forgive Tommy for his transgressions and that we will be able to grow together in our marriage if we both truly turn our will to God.   Lastly, I want to reference an article that made such a strong impact on me when deciding what to do in my marriage:  https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/04/divorce?lang=eng

Lost

Hopefully Teisha doesn't mind me sharing this on here!  It's not my experience but I was part of it.

Earlier this week, there was an early open day for season pass holders at Cowabunga Bay.  Both Teisha and I have passes there and we see each other there from time to time.  I happened to have saved some extra chairs and saw her come in so she was sitting right by us that day.  Because it was an early open event, they had a DJ there that was playing music and interacting with the crowd.

She packed up earlier than me and headed out.  Not long after I saw her leave, I heard the DJ announce that a little 3 yr old boy with blonde hair was lost and his name was Kinkade and to please look for him.  I immediately knew it was Teisha and started looking around for him.  When I couldn't see him in the pool area I was in, I started toward the main gate and found Teisha.  She had told me that she was putting Tennyson in the car and when she turned around Kinkade was gone.  She had looked all over the parking lot and at the bowling center across the parking lot and she could not find him.  

The DJ announced that they were still looking for him and I went around the back part of the park and ran into a teacher's aide from Addie's school who was also walking around looking for him.  When I explained that I had looked everywhere in the park with no sign of him but that Teisha had told me she had been in the parking lot when she lost him, she headed out there to look for him. 

I continued to look in the park and then went to find Teisha.  She and I were headed out to the parking lot when we saw the aide from Addie's school and she said she found him out in the parking lot, three or four rows out on a little island of grass.  At that same time, Tommy pulled up and saw him so he picked him up and met up with Teisha at the front gate. 

There is no doubt in my mind that the hand of the Lord was in this in many ways.  For me to be at the waterpark and see her, for the DJ to be there and able to announce for everyone to hear, for the teacher's aide that I knew to be there and looking for him and run into me, it is definitely not a coincidence.   Having lost Addie once before, I know what Teisha was feeling like and it's a terrible feeling.  I was just glad that I was there and able to help and that he was found safe and sound! 

It's good to have these kind of reminders that the Lord is always watchful and mindful of us and is involved even in the smallest of things!

Blessings in Peru

Our trip to Peru has been to help the couple and the Area Leaders here understand the concepts and mechanics of the Self-Reliant (Family Food Production) programs.  Everyone is so in tune to doing things for other people, and these programs are designed for the local leaders to be totally responsible for the projects.  When the missionaries direct the program or the area leaders give directions and make them mandatory, there is seldom ownership in the projects by the people and their leaders.  These are projects that the people want – want more than almost anything in their life.  They have to be committed and the local leaders have to have total ownership.

The Nauta Branch which is described below is about as remote as you can get without being in the jungle its self.  Iquitos is a remote large City that can be reached only by boat or plane and Nauta is a village about a two hour drive from Iquitos.  Before we left for Peru, our supervisors in SLC discouraged us from considering this remote branch – which is a Mission Branch.  It is so remote that it is not a part of a Stake or District, but supervised by the Mission President.  Because the people are so poor and want this project and because they have demonstrated that they are willing to work, the Mission President (who will ultimately be responsible) and his wife have requested that this Branch be considered.  The Area Leadership has agreed that they should be given an opportunity.

One more thing before you read the report:  The Branch President is the key pivot person in these projects.  He is responsible for interviewing the people, insuring that the participating families are committed and that they understand their responsibilities.  He – with the Branch Council and a called Specialist are responsible for developing the project – everything from developing the plan and the budget to insuring that it is implemented.

NAUTA

NAUTA BRANCH

We continue to have reinforced that the Lord is directing this work.  Nauta is a Village (including small surrounding sub-villages) of about 30,000 people.  It is about a 2 hour drive from Iquitos on the banks of a tributary of the Amazon River.  If Iquitos seems to be isolated; Nauta is really in the outlying area. The Branch there has about 250 members with an average attendance at sacrament meeting of 150.  The members – according to the local leaders – are very poor but hard working.

Nauta Branch is a Mission Branch.  The Branch President reports directly to the Iquitos Mission President.  President Gomez is the Mission President of the Iquitos Mission.  It is President Gomez and his wife who have petitioned the Area Presidency for the Nauta Branch to have a project.  Thus we were assigned to visit this Branch to evaluate the possibilities and assist with the development of a project.

We drove to Nauta for a 4:00 p.m. meeting with the Branch President.  We were told after we arrived that the Mission President was also planning to attend.  The arrangements for the meeting had been set up by a counselor in the Mission Presidency and E/S Talley (The Humanitarian Missionary Couple with whom we were working) had never had a discussion with the Branch President.  After arriving in town we were informed that the meeting was really supposed to start at 3:30 p.m. so we arrived at the meetinghouse shortly after 3:00 p.m.  A counselor in the Branch Presidency was already there and almost immediately members started to file in.  By the time the meeting was over we had about 25 – 30 in attendance.  So the meeting to train and educate the Branch Presidency turned out to be a member meeting because so many are interested in having an opportunity to be trained and have a garden.

At about 3:30 p.m. one of the counselors informed Elder Talley that the Branch President was not going to be at the meeting.  At this point we all became concerned about trying to get the basis for a project started without the key player being in attendance – but we had all of the people there, so it was determined to proceed. We had to exert a lot of pressure to continue with the complete presentation.  The Couple was so discouraged that they wanted to give an overview.  We indicated that if the Mission President were really going to be there, that this was a wonderful opportunity to train him and to insure that he understood the responsibility and role he had to play.  It is to him that the  Branch President would have to report.  We waited for President Gomez and his wife to arrive and started the meeting.  We determined that since President Gomez was the authority to whom the Branch President reported, and since President Gomez was the person who requested the project, that the presentation would be directed to him. By the end of the meeting it became clear that President Gomez was the person who should make the presentation to the Branch President and who should train him.  More on this later.

Elder Talley made a brief presentation on the garden project concept, then he used the Family Food Production power point (Which we developed and which he translated into Spanish).  A strong effort was made to commit the members.  President and Sister Gomez are fully vested in this concept and they were of great help as the meeting progressed.  As it turns out Sister Gomez was one of nine children who were raised with a garden and small animals.  She said they were really poor, but never knew it because they had these resources which made them self-reliant.

The meeting went very well and there was a feeling of hope expressed.  After the meeting we met with President Gomez and his wife and the two counselors in the Branch Presidency.  We gave Pres. Gomez a copy of the power points presentations, and Elder Talley reviewed all of the forms and procedures with President Gomez and the Counselors.  President Gomez accepted full responsibility for training the Branch President and he understands very clearly the responsibilities of all the local leaders – he has ownership, and he is willing to take the time and do what is required to develop the leaders and the project.

The way the day evolved, the Mission President was trained, and the members had the opportunity explained to them, and the Mission President accepted the responsibility of training the Branch President and assisting in the development of the project.  The outcome of the day’s activities could not have been better – and they were entirely different than we had planned.  The chance for this Branch to have successful projects was enhanced immeasurably.  The Lord is in charge.

This may not seem as dramatic to you as you read this as it was to us.  We were discouraged from making this Branch one of the presentations.  The events that developed during the day made it appear that we had wasted literally a full day to go make the presentation.  The Couple wanted to “bag it” when we found the Branch President was not going to be there.  The chance of the Mission President being there was so remote it is hard to calculate (he had just arrived from another city the morning of the presentation, and he and his wife had a Sister Missionary that was ill and had to be taken to the hospital shortly before they had to leave to come to the meeting.  Everything was working against us – it seemed.  But to have the Mission President spend that much time and be trained in the program and have him train the Branch President was the best of all worlds.