Mopeds, Dating, and a Drowning

'Ello family! Good to hear from you! I can't help but be a little bit jealous of all the fun you guys are having though! :) I'm especially jealous of you guys getting to ride mopeds! All day I see people riding around on their motorcycles and mopeds, and I always want to ride on them so badly!! Too bad it's against missionary rules... sigh... maybe someday! Hmmm... I'd say one of my biggest cultural changes is the relationship between boys and girls here in India. I'm used to back home, where you see teenage couples everywhere, young single adults all working towards finding their eternal companion, and other such lovey dovey stuff. But that is not the case over here! It's quite frowned upon for teenagers to be flirting with each other, and it's even illegal to date before 18! wowzers! And then by the time they become young adults, most of them have no experience dating, so they rarely do it! But, I think things will be changing very soon. The rising generation is VERY much wanting western culture, so I think 50 years from now India will be much like the USA (as far as dating goes anyways). Usually, we teach Christians. We sometimes teach Hindus also, but teaching Hindus can cause major family tension (e.g. disowning their child), so more of our investigators come from Christian backgrounds. As far as Muslims, we CAN teach them, but only if they are interviewed by the mission president first (yes, interviewed by him before we even begin TEACHING them!) Because, well, I guess the church wants to be careful, and not upset any Muslim groups that could potentially attack us and what not... haha. The mission president checks though to make sure their families wouldn't go bazerk on us if we taught/converted them. As of now, we aren't teaching any Muslims. Well, guess what happened this week? Elder Anderson became the leading companion for all of Kakinada! You see, there is what's called "The 12 Week Training Program For New Missionaries", and it's intent is to get a new missionary 100% trained within their first 12 weeks. Trained so well, that they could fulfill any assignment in the mission, including training a new missionary. As part of the 12 week training program, the new missionary (me) takes the lead for the last 2 weeks. And my trainer has definitely allowed me to take the lead! In fact, he won't do anything unless I tell him to. So, that forces me to lead in, quite literally, EVERYTHING! Wow, it is HARD! I guess that's what it would be like though if I had to train a new missionary; they really would not how to do anything, and I would have to make every single little decision. Elder Watts loves when he gets to say "Oh look! A situation just came up! What should we do??" Uhhhh... oh man, forcing me to think! haha :P But, my skills and confidence as a missionary have definitely skyrocketed this week. Who knew you could push yourself to grow so much in one week? And even more exciting news! We had more baptisms this week! woo woo! :D Sujatha, Diana, and Queeny were all baptized this week! :) It was so fun leading up to their baptism day. Every time I would ask them "You remember what's happening this Sunday??" they would say "Yes! Our baptism! The HAPPIEST day!" Yes, yes it is! The happiest day! :) I baptized Queeny and Sujatha, and Elder Watts baptized Diana. Haha it was funny baptizing Queeny, because when I leaned her back to submerge her in the water, she did NOT want to put her head under the water! haha I had to shove her down to get her head under! I felt like I was drowning a small child! ha! But other than that, everything went great, and I was so happy to see them so happy, and I was even happier when I saw tons of members come to their baptism and gives them hugs and what not afterwards. :) Truly a great experience! I hope you have another awesome possum week! Love, Elder Anderson