monsoons, missed-call miracle and popcorn shrimp

New companion: Elder Jensen

What is up?

All is good out here in Bangalore.  Monsoon season is in full swing here and we have been pretty wet all week haha.

In other news, my new companion is Elder Jensen from Lindon, Utah.  He is awesome.  Back home he liked dirt biking and playing sports, but out here in the field he is excited and ready to work hard.  He's got a strong testimony and I'm pumped to be his companion.  It's fun to see him adjusting to, well, India really haha.  It is a pretty big change from Lindon, Utah.  He's a lot like how I was when I first came to India: people can be speaking any language to him--Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, even English--it all just sounds the same haha.  He's working hard and adjusting more and more each day.

One cool experience this week: so on Saturday we met with an investigator that lives just outside of Bangalore.  And by that I mean he lives 350 km away from here in some random village.  But anyway, he is a twenty-six year old young man that is a convert to Christianity of just about two years now, he's from Hindu background.  About a month ago, he was looking online for a free Bible and, of course, stumbled upon mormon.org, where he also placed an order for a Book of Mormon and all of the pamphlets.  About a month after that, one of our senior couple missionaries, Elder Little, just so happened to call HIS NUMBER of the BILLIONS of numbers in India by accident. This young man (Ranjith), returned his accidental missed call and somehow they got started talking about the Gospel.  After that, arrangements were made for us to meet with him and he traveled ALL NIGHT by bus just to meet with us and learn about the Gospel.  So on Saturday we met with him and taught him the Restoration, all went really well (despite his limited English) and we are meeting with him again today!  We are stoked and hoping that all goes well.  The faith of this man is admirable, if not exemplary.  I think all of us can take some notes form Ranjith.

Hope Ranjith's experience inspires you guys as much as it did for us.  Everyone keep the faith and have a rad, safe week!

Elder Tuscano

P.S. Attached is a photo of me and my boy Elder Jensen.  Unfortunately he looks like Liam Hemsworth and I look like popcorn shrimp.  Maybe someone rolled me in breadcrumbs and baked me at 350 til I was a nice golden brown color but that doesn't make me not a shrimp hahaha.  But anyway, enjoy!