Visiting Kakinada

November 24

I had an awesome possum week! Definitely the highlight of the week was my exchange in Kakinada!!!!! :D It was awesome getting to go back to my missionary birth place after one year of being away. You know, I was expecting to have really weird nostalgic feeling when I went back there, but on the contrary, to me it felt like I had never left! It felt as though I had only been gone for like a week or two. I had to remind myself that a whole year has passed away... crazy. 

Just a couple of my highlights while I was there...

Seeing the first person I ever baptized, Murali. He has finished the Book of Mormon, and is now the second counselor in the branch presidency. Whoa. And he is still just as humble and kind as he was a year ago. I love Murali. :-)

I didn't have time to go see 15 year old Akhil on Wednesday, and I was leaving pretty early Thursday morning for Rajahmundry. Well, Akhil showed up at our apartment at 6:20 in the morning so he could say hello to me! haha crazy, but awesome, boy. He asked when he could submit his mission papers a week after his baptism! 

Seeing little Sandya Palaparti. Without a doubt the nicest person I have ever met in my life.

Ramu.... He still have zero English skills, and our conversation are him speaking Telugu and me speaking English, but I love that guy so much! He even called me Thursday to make sure I got to Rajahmundry safely, and then called me again yesterday to make sure I was safe in Bangalore. Awesome awesome guy.

I also got to see Sudheer, Sujatha, Diana, and Queeny. All smiles during that visit! :-) So, all of the family except Sudheer was baptized while I was in Kakinada, except the father (Sudheer). He was an avid drinker... He almost committed suicide while I was there because he was so drunk. Well, guess what? He has been sober for the last 3 months!! :D He's still not baptized, but it's awesome to the gospel working its power in this family.  

I also saw Sindhu and Bindhu, Anusha, The Big Jug (Jagaparti Rao), and Elder Vaddi, who recently completed his mission in the India Bangalore mission. 

Almost every single person I saw in Kakinada said two things when they saw me. First, they are so so happy to see me again. Second, I look sick, because I've lost all of the weight I gained while I was in Kakinada... haha pardon me for only weighing 148! 

The only problem is there wasn't enough time! One day in Kakinada is just NOT enough!! There is so much more I wanted to do, and so many more people to see... I was busy that I didn't even time to go get one the world famous Kakinada Kajas! But that's okay. Visiting some of my favorite people in the world is more important than delicious sweets. 

Plus, the next day I was on exchange in Rajahmundry, and got myself some Rajahmundry Kaja... not quite as good, but still pretty delightful! ^_^  

The other highlight of the week was yesterday, when we had the Primary Presentation at church! I love the primary presentation so very much! Half the time I am about to cry from feeling the spirit of their simple and pure testimonies, and the other half I am about the cry from holding back my outbursts of laughter from their craziness! Our primary president is only 19 years old, with a semi-active family, so definitely congratulated her for a job well done; I'm sure that was a very big task for her to put this on. 

Life is going great! i'm exhausted nearly continually, but I'm happy. I hope you all are happy as well.