Sneezes, toilets, and Indian food

Hola familia!

Wow! Congrats to you Dad! Gettin' a big fancy award! Very cool. Haha Abbey does seem to be the only person in the family that ever has much going on... a true party animal for sure! Sorry to hear about the colds though... at least you can get some extra sleep to help you recover faster, since you don't need to wake up for school or seminary. Haha oh ya, that actually reminds me of my companion right now. He has kind of a cold or allergies or something, so he sneezes pretty regularly, and his sneezes are MASSIVE! Like, investigators will start laughing when he sneezes because it's so loud! Hopefully you don't have it that bad!

Well, I will do my best to answer all you guy's questions!

First off, yes, we are primary teaching the new member lessons, not the branch/home teachers. This is because the church is very new here, and members don't really know how to run the church. Actually, that is a big emphasis of the new mission president, establishing the church/helping them to become self sufficient (and rely less on the missionaries). We are slowly teaching them new things (like who should be attending what meetings, what roles does each calling entail, etc.) However, we don't want to overwhelm them, so we are slowly getting them to do more and more things. So, as of now, the missionaries are still the primary teachers for new members. Hopefully that won't be the case in a couple of months!

At the same time, you gotta give these guys some credit. 90% of the branch is first generation members (a handful of people were born into the church, but most converted). This means that many of our leaders have only been members for a few years. It would be unfair to expect them to know/do everything when they are still so young in the Gospel. I'm actually proud of how much they ARE doing! Way to go India church members!

I think our apartment name is Sameera residency? I'm not really sure, since we use the mission address for anytime we need to use an address. Haha hopefully you can find it on Google maps though!

Toilet and bathing situation... haha now THAT is some fun stuff! See, they don't use toilet paper here. Instead (if you are well off, like us missionaries), you get a little hose next to the toilet. So, when you are done going to the bathroom... you just spray out any extra debris! hahaha it's actually surprisingly effective! If you aren't very well off though, all you have is a little bucket of water next to the toilet, and you scoop some water into your hand, and then you splash that around to fulfill the same role as the hose... haha I haven't dome that yet, and I'll try to avoid it for as long as possible!

Here is a typical day of food.

-A big pot of oatmeal for breakfast

-A big pot of pasta for lunch

-No dinner (we are too busy teaching people to eat! So we just have spiritual food to keep us going, which works just fine!)

-At 9 we come to the apartment, plan for a half hour, and then eat some food. Typically I will have a sandwich or something like that.

Where does the Indian food come in, you may ask. Well, it still comes! Most people give us a little snack when we visit their home, so I've tired quite a few different Indian snacks. Also, we get invited over for dinner at a member or investigators house every once in a while. At first, I was DYING while eating Indian meals. Like literally, nearly throwing up. But this past week I actually had my first ENJOYABLE Indian meal! I was wanting seconds and thirds! Hooray for God blessing me with the gift of tongues (taste bud tongues... haha)! :)

Our branch has 2 sets of missionaries. Currently, there are 80-100 people that typically come to church. The branch goal is to get that number to consistently 120+, because then we can split into two branches. Everyone is so happy at church, and everyone goes around giving handshakes and saying good morning to all of the other members. And I love hearing the singing in our branch! It's definitely not even close to on key, but people still sing out anyways!

Here's news on one investigator for this week. His name is Solomon, and he is a CHAMP! He converted to Christianity a year ago, and he just wants to learn as much as he possibly can. He reads the Bible every day, and now he is stating to read the Book of Mormon too. He is so excited about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and tells us all the time how he wants to learn more from us, so then he can share the good news of the Gospel with all of his friends. He has a true love for Jesus Christ, and he really trusts us to teach him God's word.

Well, I must be going now. Have a super duper week, eats lots of sugary American food for me, and don't forget to do your family scripture study and prayers! ;)

Love,

Elder Anderson

P.S. I love the sound of it when people call me Elder Anderson! I'm gonna miss having that title someday!