On our feet again and Happy Republic Day!

Hello hello everybody!  I hope you're week was as awesome as ours!

This week we finally got Elder Thambi some medicine for his foot and he is healing rapidly!!!  About midweek he recovered sufficient strength to return to our full proselyting capacity.  It was a little rocky getting back on our feet (pun totally intended) in terms of finding, but the Lord is infinitely merciful and we found some new investigators!!  We also found almost an entire street of potential investigators and we are making a lot of progress with the ones we have now!

I have mentioned Purushotham's parents before, haven't I?  If not, our recent convert couple, Purushotham and Shravani, invited their parents to learn of the gospel, attend church, etc.  What a blessing that has been.  Purushotham's father shows up to church before Purushotham does--even before we do!!  He and his wife accepted the baptismal date of February 14th!!  I'll keep ya posted on progress they make.

Sad to say I didn't eat any obscure foods this week, but as we will have the entirety of this week back in the field I will do my best to uh....try new things haha.

Everyone have a solid week!  And Happy Republic Day from India!!

Elder Tuscano

Pongal celebration: we added our humble kites to the skies

Hello hello all!  I hope everyone's week was awesome.

Our week was good!  Our missionary efforts were greatly hindered due to Elder Thambi having a strange foot infection that has put a serious damper on his mobility.  Also Pongal was this week so many of our members and investigators alike went to their "native places" to celebrate with family and whatnot haha.

My sincerest apologies to those who read my blog, I fear that the past couple weeks have failed to bring the excitement of India to the forefront of your minds.  However, I will elaborate on the holiday of Pongal because it is pretty awesome.  Pongal was on the 14th, 15th and 16th of this past week.  Other missionaries had warned me that it was coming but had not informed me quite when. 

 So I woke up bright and early the first day of Pongal, and walked out onto our balcony, as I typically do each morning (we live on the fifth floor so there is a nice view of a portion of Visak).  I looked around and I couldn't see ANYTHING due to a thick cloud of what I determined was smoke.  I was so confused, I looked around as best I could to determine the source of all this smoke to find that many people had lit logs on fire and placed them in front of their homes.  I thought this quite peculiar, but later learned that this is symbolic of a new start to a new year!  Awesome.

The second day was rad, it was a giant kite festival!!!  Everyone takes work and school off to go fly kites!  It was super cool.  As missionaries we even purchased a kite and joined in on the fun for a little bit.

The third day was fairly uneventful, most people, that haven't already left town, go to their native places to visit with relatives.

Honestly it's an awesome holiday filled with excitement and colors and strange sweets haha.  People would not stop feeding us these strange sweets.  Typically some sort of fried dough ball with a sweet inside that had an....interesting texture.

Everyone have a good week this week!  Also please pray for Elder Thambi to heal so that we may return to our normal capacity of work haha.  

Love,

Elder Tuscano

Trying times in Visak, chicken heart curry and all pictures lost yet all Good!

Photos lost would have been inserted here!

 

While I certainly wish I had an extensive list of exciting things to report on, that is not the case this week.  It was the first week back at work, school, etc. after the holiday break for the entirety of India.  This was a major roadblock for our productivity this week haha.  Few people were able to meet with us or come on exchange/translate for us.

Despite numerous setbacks, however, there were some highlights!  Among spiritual highlights, Purushotham and Shravani were confirmed yesterday!!!  That was awesome.  They were both beaming after their confirmations.  I had the privilege of confirming Shravani!!  The members here, especially the recent converts here, are AWESOME!  They love the gospel so much and they share it with all those around them, specifically their family members!!!  We receive so many referrals and opportunities to unite families.  Shravani and Purushotham referred us to their parents and they've been loving coming to church and learning the gospel!  Hopefully there will be positive updates in the coming weeks on their progress!

Among other funny highlights, this week I had chicken heart curry.  Hahaha the texture was odd, but it tasted really good.  I hope everyone had a nice first week of their year!  And hopefully you don't have to eat chicken heart curry any time soon.  Follow your dreams.

Love,

Elder Tuscano

P.S.  The "net shop" that we email at broke my memory card for my camera so all the pictures from the last few months are gone haha.  Doing my best to recover them though, hopefully I'll send some pictures soon!

Namaskara New Year!

Namskara all!  I think that's how you spell that.

This week was filled with New Years Festivities!  The extent of our celebration was cutting a cake and singing "Happy New Year to You" to each other to the tune of the happy birthday song haha.  It was super fun!  I think the custom for each holiday/celebration is cutting cake and singing a song of some sort, it's awesome.

Our New Year had a great start!  Finding here is quite the opposite of the norm here.  Because we wear white shirts, ties, and tags, we stand out.  This beckons the curiosity of many who thus approach us and ask us who we are and why we're here.  This creates so many teaching opportunities, it's awesome.  So we picked up a few investigators out of their mere curiosity this week!  The Lord truly prepares people to receive the gospel.

This week Prashanth and Chandrika were confirmed members of the Church and received the Holy Ghost!  The former of which I had the privilege of confirming, that was an awesome experience.  I truly could feel the Spirit speaking and working through me and so could he.  Also, an awesome young couple was baptized yesterday!!  Shravani and Purushotham.  They were a member referral and they're super solid.  They love Church and the Savior.  I had the privilege of baptizing Purushotham!  He is rad, he was beaming after he came out of the water.  I feel that I'm beginning to have a correct understanding of the joy promised to us in Doctrine and Covenants if we bring save but one soul into His Kingdom.

Hope everyone is sticking to their New Years' Resolutions!!!  And being faithful.  Do both of those things and you'll just be solid.

Love,

Elder Tuscano