Treasure Hunting

Well, today me and my companions went and celebrated our various month anniversaries in the mission. On Friday it was my 9 month mark, on Saturday it was Elder Peck's 21 month mark, and yesterday was Elder O'Dell's 15 month mark. So, we partied hard to celebrate! We went to a place called the Spaghetti Kitchen. It is an unlimited Italian buffet. All the pasta, pizza, bread, pastries, fruit, appetizers, ice cream and brownies that you can eat! It was top notch!

I did feel a little guilty though spending 590 Rupees on a lunch though... Sure, $10 doesn't sound like much, but when you compare 590 to the fact that a lot of people only earn 300 Rupees a day.... ya. You feel a little guilty. In comparison to people around me, I am definitely living a higher lifestyle than I ever ever ever will for the rest of my life. 

This week we've been doing a lot of treasure hunting! We are hunting for all of the less actives in the branch. Which, sadly, are quite numerous. Also sadly, many haven't been visited for a long long time, so when we finally track down their home (Some of their addresses are quite vague, similar to saying "Holiday Hills" as your address), we only come to find that they have moved a year ago. Really though, that's fine, because Bangalore is really pushing to become a stake right now, and part of the qualifications to become a stake is to have a good Shepherding Ratio (Hadn't even heard of that until I came to Bangalore). So, we are going to have all of the people that have disappeared into the "Lost Sheep" file (hadn't heard of that either), so then Bangalore's shepherding ration will go down! woo woo!

Also, as we search for homes, we get to talk to a lot of different people (Hey, do you know this person/know where they live???) And sometimes, that leads them to such questions as "Why are you here in India?? Are you studying?" So then it makes for an easy street contact! 

One awesome experience with that.

So, we were searching for a brother's house, and we knew which street we needed to go to, but while we were traveling there Elder O'Dell felt inspired to go ask a family if they knew where this brother lived (they had a Christmas tree still up, so we knew they were Christian). At first he thought that was a silly prompting, because we already knew where to go, but we decided to follow his prompting anyways. 

We asked the sister that answered the door (her name we found out is Karen) if she knew where this other brother lives, and she said yes. She then told us where to go (the direction we were already heading), and then asked what we were doing here in India. We explained that we were teaching people more about Jesus Christ, and the first thing she said after that was "Well then, when are you coming over to my house??"

What?! Did my ears deceive me!? 

She then asked how long our message takes, and we said 20-30 minutes. She said "Oh no, that's just not long enough! You need to stay for at LEAST an hour!" 

Yup. We can do that.

But then she said "But, you can only come to my home on ONE condition..." Oh no. She's going to say she doesn't want us to try and change which church she goes to, she's already been baptized, or some other disastrous condition. 

But, instead she said "The condition is that if you come over and teach my family, you have to let me feed you dinner."

Yup. We can do that also. 

Wow wow wow. Can't wait to work with this family! :)

I'm working harder than I ever have on my mission, and although our success as measured by numbers is very pitiful, I'm still having the best time on my mission thus far! Life is really good right now. :)

Bangalore Zone Missionaries