answers to prayers

not really one of the missionaries of charity but these elders are missionaries with charity

 not really one of the missionaries of charity but these elders are missionaries with charity

 in Guntar with a family that has a chicken

holding a Guntar chicken - haha

Hello hello and namaskaram, what is up?

This week was good, pretty routine, but good.  Our finding efforts were sort of slower this week.  Most of the Christians we talked to told us that they are "already converted" and that it would be better for us to share our message with the Hindus.

Pretty historic week though: this past Sunday was the first fast and testimony meeting ever to be held in Vijayawada!  It was so great to be a part of, literally every member in attendance bore their testimony, as did two of our investigators who attended.

Cool experiences:

The Vijayawada A elders, E. Tahiliani and E. Dass had a breakthrough this week which is noteworthy: these elders have been working so hard the past few weeks and just have not had much success with people wanting to listen to them, primarily because there is a communication barrier--neither of them speak Telugu, only English (and E. Dass, a Delhi native, speaks Hindi).  They have been praying a lot and pressing forward with a brightness of hope and help finally came this week: while they were door-knocking one day, a young man approached them and said that he knew about our church and wants to be baptized.  I think that's pretty miraculous.

Small miracle for our companionship: one brother in our home group lives pretty far away but is so faithful and travels every week to church.  This past week, he was unaware that our Sunday meetings were being held here in Vijayawada because in previous weeks, our fast Sunday meetings were held in Rajahmundry, and he is not included in the home group text message group (he is technologically challenged, we feel for him haha) so he wasn't notified. When my companion and I arrived at church and found no one there yet, we felt impressed to call this brother, so we did.  He answered the phone and said, "Is the church there today?" We said yes, and he said, "I'm on my way."  He was so happy we'd called.  That morning he'd prayed to God that his family would somehow be able to attend church and then we called.  It is so so cool that God hears and answers our prayers.  This brother shared testimony of this experience in our meeting.

Hope everyone has a great week and remembers that God hears and answers prayers.

Keep the faith,

Elder Tuscano