25 August 2015

Well, this whole week has been pretty crazy; not much went as planned. But, it was still pretty good. We had transfer calls, and, while every other companionship in the zone is getting moved around, Elder Patten and I are staying together in Rajamundry 2nd branch. On Tuesday, things were a little interesting. Elder Poleboina, our district leader, came down from Kakinada to stay with us because his companion left for the Phillipines, so in the morning we had to go and print off the district meeting outline that he'd left in Kakinada. After the meeting, we had a quick lunch, which brought back memories. We went to the first restaurant that I'd eaten at in India. Later, we went out visiting, without much luck. In the afternoon during the rainy season here, it is hot. Very hot. And so most people either stay inside and sleep, or go out to some place with air conditioning. That makes missionary work a little harder in the afternoons, because on top of that, schools and colleges aren't out yet, so we have trouble finding people who are home/awake. But, as Preach My Gospel says, our success is determined by our commitment to find and teach, not necessarily our actual finding and teaching. That's good, because we spent the whole week really trying to find and teach, without much finding and teaching. Anyway, Rakesh, one of our investigators, is still on date for baptism, which is coming up really fast- August 30th. We're working with him a lot, because he still has some ground to cover before then. Also, we met a really interesting guy- Mohan. He caught us as we were coming down the street and more or less asked to be taught. He taught himself English by taking a beginners English course then downloading an English bible on his phone and reading it. He is more optimistic than anyone else I've met ever, and figured out a visualization method from Jesus' teachings in the New Testament. He's pretty awesome!

Wednesday was just amazing. We finally got our BML, Auto Raju, to come with us for a while, which made for a really welcome change. In the morning, him and Elder Poleboina came with us (Elder Poleboina's new companion not having arrived yet), and we tried clearing out the phone with his help. Then, Auto had to take off, but he said he'd come back later. We tried visiting around for just about ever, but no one was home. We planned out about 20 people to visit, but they just weren't there. Then, as we were cycling down a road, we saw a car stuck in a sewer. After helping to pull it out, we still had a bunch of time until school let out, so we went to a member who's stuck at home. That night, we had a few more lessons with members, too.  

Thursday was fun. We had weekly planning, and it was Elder Poleboina's birthday. He went with the zone leaders right after planning, and we did a bunch of calling around to get appointments. Later, we got my bike fixed up and printed off the branch list, but then my bike started acting up in a new way. The tire just started leaking like crazy. It would go flat in under an hour, but because there are cycle shops everywhere and people started going back to their houses, we just kept filling it and moving on, trying to make up lost ground. We had a great lesson with Mohan that Auto Raju came to,, and then went to Rakesh. Both of them are excited about learning more! Then, we visited a different Mohan, and talked about him going on a mission. 

On Friday we ended up being a little late getting out of the apartment because we ate lunch inside, and were punished for that with an endless round of missed appointments. All day, we had a really hard time finding anyone who was home or had time. But, we did get my cycle fixed up. The most notable thing that happened was a lesson with the Vakapalli family, about trials. Last time we visited them, they asked about why we get them, so we prepared a pretty good lesson out of the scriptures. After that, we learned something crazy from one of the district presidency: Rajamundry is getting some senior missionaries!

Saturday was pretty weird. In the morning, we got called by a member who asked us to visit her in the hospital because her father was sick. It sounded grim, because her father is the oldest convert in Rajamundry. So, we went over quickly, but had a real adventure finding his room. Apparently, the hospital he was in couldn't help us, because we didn't know his name. We lucked out, and by asking for the "old guy with a big white beard", we were able to find him. He was in the ICU, but he wasn't really sick. He just had some minor thing going on, but was totally fine. After we got out of their, we tried to find a new place to eat, but instead ended up getting massively lost. Eventually we found our way back, but it took nearly half an hour. Then, we headed out visiting, and met up with Vasu, the YSA representative for the branch. We may be having some big "activate the YSA activity" soon, because almost none of them are active. 

On Sunday, we headed out early to visit a bunch of people. We dropped off a shirt for Rakesh, who needed one, asked Venkatesh to come to church, and visited all of our investigators to invite them to church. Unfortunately, most of them still didn't come, but we did have three unexpected people drop in! Two of them, Mohan and VJ, had never been to church before- we'd just talked to them on the street at one point, and they thought they should come! We invite everyone we talk to to church, but these people were the first to actually come, so we were pretty excited. We had a great lesson in Gospel Principles class, largely because Rakesh answered half of their questions and bore his testimony to them. It's always thrilling when you learn how much your investigators feel about the gospel. Finally, that night was kind of slow. Elder Larson, one of our zone leaders, was really sick, but had a few appointments they needed to get to, so I ended up staying with him so his companion could go out with Elder Patten. On the other hand, I definitely got a whole lot farther into the scriptures that night. 

Monday was transfers, so pday got shifted to today. We had all of the usual trouble finding people, but did have some exciting moments. For example, one of the members we are working with met with us, after a long train of unavailability! Also, we found a former investigator's house, after a few adventures. I saw a sign at one point that was really...interesting: Our Slum is Child-Labor Free! Later, we went back to the hospital to visit the same member, who is doing fine. In the evening, we had a really interesting appointment: soccer. There, we found two people who both asked a lot of questions, and wanted to learn more. Then, finally, we taught Rakesh again.