Kiran, Ramu, and Trishual

Hey remember last week when I told you some of our elders got put in jail for a day because of crazies from another faith? Well, apparently that situation caused more of a mess than I initially thought; that whole city is now evacuated of missionaries. I've come to learn there is a revival sort of deal going on through the country right now. They want to reconvert everyone back to that faith ... haha pretty funny stuff. But unfortunately, that means we all have to be extremely careful while proselyting. No door knocking or street contacting for now. Fun stuff! 

I have a few good experiences to share from the week.

So, this week Elder Karri and Dhondapani finished their missions. These two are Indian jokesters! They are always pulling some sort of a joke. And for months they have been bragging about how they are going home. They have been so very excited! And all the time they were so excited, except during their final missionary testimony during their farewell devotional. I've never seen those two so serious. Elder Karri even cried! It's interesting to see elders that seemingly don't take anything seriously actually become serious for something. I guess finishing your best 2 years is a pretty serious ordeal. They are great guys. 

I thought this one was kind of humorous... so, we were teaching a less active family, and after chit chatting with them for a minute we asked to have an opening prayer. Well, while we were half way through the prayer the non-member brother rushed out of his bedroom and went out the front door! We didn't even know he was home! We figure he must have been waiting right by his door, just waiting for us to close our eyes to have the prayer, knowing that was his time to sneak out the door... haha what a crafty fellow! It will be a little awkward for him on judgment day though when God shows him a replay of his life... I hope that goes well! 

Our branch council has decided that the teachers in our branch don't teach well enough (which is true, sometimes it's pretty boring...), so they decided during Sunday school hour we will have a "Teach the teachers how to teach class" over a period of 4 weeks. Well, guess who was assigned to teach the class? None other than myself! I was pretty excited to do it, and spent time during my personal study all all through the week to prepare for the first class. Well,Sunday rolled around, they announced the class during Sacrament meeting, and then when 2nd hour came... no one showed up! :P So I just went to Gospel Principle's class, as usual. At least I learned how to be a better teacher by preparing for this class! :-) Maybe next week people will come to it. 

We have a young man named Kiran in our branch. He is a 16 year old all-star. The nicest guy you ever did meet, and a spiritual giant! None of his family comes to church, but he never misses. And he always arrives at church at LEAST a half hour early so that he can prepare the Sacrament. Well, this week he showed up a little late, so it threw us off. But come to find out he was only late for church because he had picked up and brought not one, but TWO of his friends to church! Wow. If only we had more Kirans in the world! 

Ramu, one of my best friends from Kakinada, calls me about 3-5 times per week. He is an awesome awesome guy, but speaks no English... and my Telugu isn't all that great either, so our conversations last for about 2 minutes (which is really pretty impressive when you think about the language barrier we have!) and then he will ask "Mi companion?" (mi = your in Telugu). Then Elder Penugula (who isn't my companion but who speaks Telugu (my companion speaks Tamil)) will talk to him for a half hour! I always praise him for using his Telugu speaking skills for good. 

I attached a photo of my good friend Trishual. He is a wonderful man seeking for truth, and with an aim to do great good in the world by helping poor people. We have been teaching him for a while, but yesterday he left for his home back in Calcutta. Hopefully he will come in contact with the church again some day, and be ready to accept it in it's fullness.

This week we have been working on Transfers. One thing I've come to realize, something that is contrary to popular belief, is the fact that people that plan transfers are NOT out to get you! In fact, as we plan we try to move each person to the best possible spot for them. I think that's a lot like how God directs our life. Maybe sometimes we feel like "God is out to get me!" by where He takes us in our lives, but I'm sure He is really just putting us in the best possible place, even if we don't realize it.

Chennai Zone Conference

Happy New Year

New Year is about a big deal here as it is in the USA, but for missionaries... it's just the same ole same ole. We did have lots of music blasting outside as we went to sleep though, so that was pretty exciting! 

So, I still continue to get your guys' letters! It's fun, because they come at totally random times... sometimes there is a day with no letters, and then the next day there are 3! And they come in a random order too.. like one day I got 2 letters. One was day #16, and the other was day #23. haha weird. Thanks for letting the Christmas season for me roll on! 

My great accomplishment for the week was discovering a bunch of Excel data sheets that the assistants have maintained for the least 4 years are not needed. Apparently the church spits out most of the information that we were tracking, so now we don't have to do it anymore! I gave myself a pat on the back for being lazy enough to try and figure out how I don't have to track a bajillion different numbers... ^_^ 

Did I tell you Elder Bandi is serving in Bangalore now? It's fun, because every time he sees me he gets the biggest smile on his face. He will also quote me a lot on things that I taught him, so that makes me feel really good! 

Two of our missionaries were arrested in Coimbatore yesterday. They contacted an intense person from another faith, (they didn't know he was crazy), but then he accepted their invitation to come give a prayer at his home. He called the cops on them for disturbing his religion... some people are such babies. They got out of jail the next day, and now they are both being transferred to different cities, so all is well in Zion. 

Life is rolling on very fast!

Christmas Prayers

December 29, 2014

Christmas was fairly exciting this year! Well, mostly for the fact that we had sooooo many walk-ins on Christmas day! All evening random people would flood into the church to give their annual prayer to God... haha. It helps that our building is INSANELY nice. kicks the panties off the buildings we have back in Oly. I found very interesting to meet such a variety of people. They all had varied reasons for coming to a church on Christmas day. Some people thought it was an extra holy day so their regular prayers would be boosted by praying on December 25th, other people thought they should at least go to church at least ONE time in the year, and other people looked like they were dressed up to have a bumpin' Christmas party. 

Alas, many people were disappointed when they learned there was no activity going on at our church, no sermon going on, and not even a single candle to light! Some people even had the boldness to ask us "are there any other churches around here...?" fairly humorous, if I do say so myself. We took people on a tour of the church, and we even had two or 3 people come to church this Sunday after visiting on Christmas! Awesome! There was even a couple couples that came in during the night. It was interesting to see people going to church for their Christmas date. I also liked seeing people that came in, said a prayer that was literally 10 seconds or less, and then left. A very entertaining evening! 

We also had a lunch and dinner appointment on Christmas, so I was well fed. :-) 

Today Elder Bandi got that letter you sent him! He was cheering for joy as he received it. Thank  you for supporting my little baby!

Dad, what you pointed out during our Christmas call is very true: we seem to get magical blessings when we go out to proselyte. God understands we have a very limited time to be out and about, and he truly helps us to make the most of it. Outside of AP life I would say about 50%-70% of my appointments/plans fall through, but nowadays it seems as if 80%-90% of our plans actually happen! Crazy! Even last night we went to Satish's home (he is the only member in his family). Alas, his sister answered the door and told us he had gone out for playing cricket with his friends and wouldn't be back for another 1-3 hours... sigh... well, right as we were walking away Satish we saw walking down the street coming back from playing cricket! huzzaw! We were then able to teach him, and the rest of his non-member family about prayer. Wonderful.

A lot of people didn't show up for church yesterday that were assigned to give talks, so our branch president signaled for a priest to come up, whispered in his ear, and then the priest came down and asked me if I would be willing to give a talk. I said sure! So 5 minutes later I went up and gave a talk! I think it went pretty well. I gave a fairly aggressive talk on how Satan gets to us through our poor media choices. It's fun being a missionary at church!

We finished zone conference this week! Now we have MLC tomorrow. And then next week we have some transfers... life rolls on!

Skype Call

December 23, 2014

I spoke with my family today via Skype.  Life is good.

Travel Agent

December 15, 2014

The fun for this week is I got to become a travel agent! We are having about ¼ of the missionaries in our mission transferring, and I was given the responsibility of making sure everyone gets to the right spot at the right time, and all for a reasonable price. I've done small travel bookings for people, and arranging for one or two people isn't that hard, and even getting 5 or 10 people isn't too bad, but having 26 people has turned out to be a much greater challenge than I first anticipated! Well, actually even that wasn't going to be too bad, but then one companionship denied their transfer call… they just flat out said no, we aren't going to transfer. I don’t think they realized how many problems that created on so many different levels. Rearranging transfers, rebooking travel arrangements, tons of tithing money down the drain... luckily President Berrett called them, and not I, because he was much nicer to them about it all then I probably would have been... :P But, I think everything is going to work out, so I guess all is well in Zion. 

I'd say most of my week has been devoted to transfer travel arrangements. Oh the things you learn on your mission! 

This Saturday we had a branch Christmas activity. It was very interesting! Like many activities I've been to on my mission there were a lot of good ideas and a lot of good people trying to contribute to the activity, but the problem is... all of us need to work on our planning, preparation, and communication skills. Haha the activity was so dis-organized. On my mission my testimony of the importance of meeting has gone up 10,000%! I now see what happens when proper meeting don't happen. 

India Christmas Decorations For Sale

Here's something fun! So, as a missionary you always want fellowshippers for your investigators, but sometimes it can be difficult, because members struggle to go talk to people that they don't know. However, recently we got a young single investigator named Tabitha. Well, because Tabitha was blessed with the gift of good looks, she has now been blessed with many fellow shippers! Haha it takes zero convincing to get one of the young men to go sit by her... awesome. ;-)  

Life is pretty crazy right now, but I'm having a lot of fun, and learning a lot. Time is flying by!