General Conference

We got to watch Conference this weekend and it was AMAZING!! General conference goes by about 100X times faster on your mission than it does as a regular church member. I definitely learned a lot of things that I needed to hear. A couple things I wanted to mention about it though. One, as you said, Hyderabad India was mentioned in conference! India has been mentioned in like the last 4 conferences I believe. Cool stuff. Second, was Scott Wood in the BYU-I choir?! I saw a guy that looked just like him!! Third, I noticed that quite a few talked mentioned about the internet. It's definitely a great tool, but we need to make sure we aren't wasting away our time on it. They also mentioned a lot about how we need to go against what is popular sometimes, because sometimes what is popular or politically correct is NOT correct at all! 

And fourth, and most importantly, Elder Ballard talked about every member reading Preach My Gospel and using it to help them in their missionary work. And THEN to tell their missionary what they are learning in PMG. Next week I expect you all to tell me some of your insights from God's guide to missionary work! ;)

This week we had another elder join us, Elder Eames. He has been out about 18 months, and is from Salem Oregon. He's a great guy, and I always enjoy being part of a trio! 

So, whenever an American has an Indian companion, we will do English language study. Thus, I've done some English language studies with Elder Pydimalla. Two observations about this. One, English is HARD! Wow, it's so hard. I don't know how non-native speakers EVER learn to speak this language correctly. Second observation. Elder Pydimalla has studied English his whole life. In 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5h, etc grade he has studied English. He has also been a member of the church for quite a few years, so he has gained a lot of English experience from that. And yet... I can still kick his cannie when it comes to English. I'm not saying that to be boastful, because he is 10 bajillion times better than me at Telugu, Hindi, AND Tamil, but it's just the fact that my English is way way better than his. It just makes me think... I wonder how well missionaries in foreign speaking missions ACTUALLY speak the language. I know they can communicate to people, just as Elder Pydimalla can, but I wonder how they fare compared to a native speaker. Maybe I'll find out first hand when I go to the Philippines!

As far as teaching people... we don't have many investigators. We have about 2 or 3 families we are working with, and that's it. We have one fairly new family we've started working with though, and they show some promise! Hopefully they will continue to do well!