Lots of Curry and a Hindi Miracle

Well hello,

Visakhapatnam, India

            We are starting to see a bit less of the sun over here. Summer is fading away and here comes fall, which means, rain rain rain. Bring on the umbrella.

            As I have said in my last e-mail, my new companion is Elder Botcha from India – Visakhapatnam to be exact. His native tongue is Telugu, and he speaks Hindi and English as well. It’s good to have him here. We eat curry twice a day and my insides are feeling it. But I like eating it so it’s good.

            I will start with a cool miracle we had together. Yesterday we had a potential person that did not show up for our meeting. So we looked at the ward list and I saw an Indian name, Eisha, a less active lady. We decided that since she and Elder Botcha are Indian, we should head over there. So we went and knocked on her door in Letchworth and a guy answers.  He is Indian as well and speaks poor English. We asked him if Eisha was there and he said no and started to close the door, then all of the sudden Elder Botcha turns on the Hindi and the guy gets really excited and lets us in. His name is Ashwani, and he is Eisha's husband. We sat down in his living room and since he doesn’t speak English the two of them were talking in Hindi.  I just sat back and tried to look like I was part of the conversation. It turns out he investigated the church in India for a number of years.  He has a Book of Mormon and reads it all the time. He asked Elder Botcha how to pay tithing and where the closest church was. He is sooo prepared.  He asked us to teach him so we did.  Well, Elder Botcha did – and I pointed out good scriptures. We are going there next week. The guy is rock solid. We will also be meeting with Eisha who is excited to see missionaries again.

            Pretty cool. We are also still teaching I- and E-.  E- will be getting baptized in two weeks, on the 7th. I am excited for that and so are the members. Things are good.  

            I have been studying the Book of Mormon a lot this week. What a book. I love how it relates to our day. We can get so much out of its teachings if we really pay attention to what we are reading. So good. I was reading the part where Nephi is going to go try and get the plates from Laban after a number of failed attempts, in a verse where he is walking by the city walls he says "And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do." 
            I like that. In life we can’t be worrying too much about things or be too scared to do things. We need to just get from point A to point B and have faith that the Lord will take care of whatever we are doing. 

            I gave a baptismal interview this week in Essex to a lady named L-  – really really nice English lady, was not raised religious at all. She married a South African Mormon and decided to find out what we believe by reading the Book of Mormon. She read it, decided that she believed it, and got baptized. That is the power of the restored gospel.

Love you all.