coimbatore trip, tremendous tiffins but no turkey ($9 per pound)!

interesting lawn more 

Sunil Kumar

 

Sunil Kumar baptism

Coimbatore district leader and wife

Hello everyone!

It was a pretty busy week for us, but a solid one.  We had an awesome week.

Our week started with an exchange to Coimbatore.  Coimbatore is kind of a crazy place right now, the missionaries there were not allowed to proselyte the majority of this past week due to protests against Christians, instigated by a pro-Hindu political party.  What a unique situation, eh?  The exchange went well though, we were able to help the Coimbatore zone leaders make an action plan to help them put the Church's amazing Christmas initivative to good use.  On a tasty note, I had some of the best Indian breakfast (aka "tiffins") I've ever had.  It seems Tamil Nadu is famous for their breakfast and I now see why.

Our Thanksgiving dinner this past week consisted of a tasty beef roast and some chicken (slightly dry though, almost like turkey haha).  Unfortunately, the only turkey we were able to find was something like $15-$20 per kilogram.  We decided to forego the turkey this year haha.  It's interesting, the turkey shop (if you will) we found was in a densely populated Muslim area.  I thought that was funny haha.

The highlight of this week was undoubtedly the baptism of our dear brother, Sunil Kumar Singh.  His baptism service was unique because it was held before sacrament meeting at 8:30 in the morning, while most baptismal services are conducted immediately after church.  He said the water was cold, but afterwards, he felt the warmth and peace that comes from the remission of sins.  Brother Sunil Kumar has great faith, we are so happy for him.  He is already so excited to receive a calling in the Church, I know that he will be a might instrument in the hands of the Lord.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Keep the faith.

Elder Tuscano

plenty of indians but no turkeys or pilgrims for thanksgiving; and more comic quotes from Sunil...

 the very road on which we found that cute family!  Or, rather, they found us

 this is us with Elder Navaneethan and his father at his setting apart

from Sister Cheng who visited us from Taiwan last week

What is up everybody?

This week was a solid one.  Pretty busy, that's for sure.  We had a joint zone conference with the Chennai zone, that was fun.  President Funk, who was in town for stake conference, joined us and gave us some solid training about finding effectively.  He also introduced us to the concept of helping members learn about the Church through social media, which is (somehow) a new idea to our mission--in a country that is rapidly advancing in terms of technology.

Stake conference was also really good, it was centered on strengthening faith in Christ and the blessings and importance of the temple.  It made me miss the temple a lot, that's for sure.

One cool miracle that happened this week.  On Wednesday afternoon, President Mortensen asked us to take Elder Navaneethan, a soon-to-be missionary, on exchange with us for a couple hours before his setting apart later that evening.  We were excited to take him with us, we had an appointment with a cute new family that we'd started teaching earlier in the week.  While traveling to the appointment, we got a call from the family saying that they were going out for the evening and wouldn't be able to meet with us.  We were pretty sad, but Elder Navaneethan suggested that we'd better do something productive in that area as we had traveled a long time to get there.  So we went door-knocking for some time, with little success.  When the time came for us to travel back to the mission office for Elder Navaneethan's setting apart, we felt impressed to keep at it just a few more minutes.  We turned to Elder Navaneethan and asked him what direction he felt we should walk in.  He started walking down the road and we followed.  No more than a minute later, we heard a voice call "Elders!" from across the street.  We looked up and who did we find?  The family we had planned to meet with!  It was awesome.  We talked with them about prayer and Christmas for a few minutes, it was awesome.  The Lord truly is directing this work. He not only works in mysterious ways but in marvelous ways and He's watching over every one of us.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, I hope no one has trouble finding a turkey because we most certainly will haha.  Have a great week!

Keep the faith,

Elder Tuscano

p.s. - more from Sunil Kumar regarding the visit of the Father and the Son to Joseph Smith: "Jesus said, 'Don't change your hairstyle.  Don't change your clothes.  Don't change the hat on your head.  Change your heart."

         

What is up?

I hope everyone's week was considerably less hectic than this past week in India haha.  On Monday evening, the prime minister of India hit the nation with the most random economic surprise.  Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that 500 and 1000 rupee notes are no longer accepted as legal tender.  He referred to them as "worthless pieces of paper" from now on.  Apparently this is in an effort to fight the "black money" market and eradicate fraud.  The Reserve Bank of India is now printing new 500 and 2000 rupee notes.  But it will take some time to get those in regular circulation, so where does that leave the rest of us?  It leaves us standing in line for three or more hours at banks in hopes to get our "old money" exchanged for smaller notes (i.e. fifty and hundred rupee notes) haha.  In short, the country is in economic distress right now haha.

But one cool thing that happened this week: we were teaching an investigator named Sunil, he is from north India.  He speaks just okay English, so it's been kind of a struggle to determine whether or not he is retaining what he's learning.  This week were talking with him about prophets, and as soon as we mentioned the name Joseph Smith, it was like a light turned on and he went on to tell us, basically, the Joseph Smith story.  We were in awe.  It was kind of funny, when he was describing the miraculous event of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appearing to Joseph Smith, he said, "They said to him, 'Joseph.  Hello.  How are you?'" Though it was in broken English, the Spirit was very much present as he rehearsed Joseph's experience to us.  Moral of the story is: people are a lot brighter than we often give them credit for.  Have faith in people, because they really can change.

Keep the faith!

Elder Tuscano

P.S.  Sorry for no pictures this week, I forgot to charge my camera.  All week.  But it's charged now, so I'll take some this week and send 'em!        

pizza, egg drop, grinding rice and opportunities hidden in plain sight!

  Haha this is me making a pizza at a SUPER good Mediterranean/Asian buffet we went to

 this is me at a member's home grinding some rice into powder

 in preparation to make some Indian breakfast

 Here are our boys from the Nagaland!

 Elder Poleboina likes to have fun so he picked me up and put me in a closet in our apartment haha

Namaste from B-town, everybody!

This week was a good one for Elder Poleboina and I.  We had mission leadership council with the zone leaders and sister training leaders.  This MLC was focused on seeing opportunities that are "hidden in plain sight," and being inspired and creative in our proselyting efforts--especially in our effort to find and teach more families.  We also did an "egg drop" activity where we were given miscellaneous items (i.e. cardboard, newspaper, tape) and an egg, and were instructed to create a protective case for the egg using the materials given that could withstand a three story drop from the top of our mission office--in ten minutes.  We were divided into a few groups, and after ten minutes was up, each group dropped their egg and "housing" off the top of the mission office.  Much to our surprise, not one egg broke in anyone's group.  It was crazy haha.  We learned a lot from this activity but one thing I learned was that our spirits are a lot like the egg and the protective casing is our faith.  I would elaborate but I don't have a whole lot of time.  But I would love to hear any insights others may have had from reading about our "egg drop."

We found a cool family this week.  How many members in their family?  NINE.  Haha.  They are all brothers from a state in northeast India called Nagaland.  People from Nagaland kinda throw you for a loop: they sound like they're from Cambodia or Vietnam or China, but really they're from India haha.  But anyway, we found them as we were walking one day when we heard some angelic voices singing along to the playing of a guitar.  We started walking toward the voices and happened upon a small home where these nine guys were jammin' out.  We started talking to them, they told us they were singing "gospel songs."  We were like, "No way!  We LOVE the gospel!"  They invited us in, we shared the message of the plan of salvation and they loved it!  We hope to continue meeting with them this week. Sounds too good to be true, right? I will send some pictures your way if there are any unbelievers haha.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a solid week.  All the best.

Keep the faith!

Elder Tuscano

Diwali and Halloween = Diwalloween and this transfer = assistant to mission president.

What's up everyone?  Happy Deepawali (or Diwali for short).  I think I mentioned something about Diwali in my last week's email, but I don't quite recall.  For those of you who may not know, Diwali is the Hindu festival of lights.  They seriously go all out here haha, it's awesome.  It's kind of a combination of Christmas and New Year because there are lights of all colors everywhere and everyone gives gifts to each other and there are a TON of fireworks.  When I say a ton, I mean, we were on lockdown yesterday from 6PM through the rest of the night because it was that crazy haha.  We woke up this morning and there were still some fireworks going off.  Crazy.  I am very sorry to inform everyone that I was unable to take pictures of all the fun festivities that went on because my camera is having trouble focusing/taking pictures in general.  I'll work on getting that fixed this week if I can haha.  Diwali really is a rad festival.

Speaking of holidays, happy Halloween!  Nothing too spooky going on over here in Bangalore.  I did, however, get transferred to the Whitefield ward this week--so I'm still in Bangalore, I'm just on the east side now.  It's funny: I started in west Bangalore, then was transferred to central Bangalore, now I'm in east Bangalore.  Call me a trail blazer. (;  Anyway, I'm STOKED to be serving in this ward!  Our building is right next to the mission office and it's considerably bigger and more noticeable than other Church buildings in India so, naturally, people get curious.  So on Sundays, people literally walk into sacrament meeting and ask us to teach them the gospel after church.  Hahaha it's awesome.  My new companion is Elder Poleboina from Hyderabad.  He is an awesome, charitable guy, a hard worker, and a great teacher.  All around a great missionary, I'm excited to serve with him.  The work here is awesome and I'm excited to help keep it moving.

One thought I had this week was pertinent to Diwali.  Culturally speaking, Diwali is the one day a year that light overcomes darkness.  When I learned that, I thought, "No way, only one day a year?" How blessed are we to know that when we have faith in Christ, we can overcome darkness through His marvelous light every day of our lives.  Christ truly is the light of the world and what an immense blessing it is for me to help these amazing people come to know that for themselves.

Happy Halloween and Happy Diwali (depending on what culture you identify with) and have a great week!

Keep the faith.

Elder Tuscano

can't judge a book by it's cover and happy diwali (festival of lights)!

 a family friend of the Blanchards shared this with us.

he was at church in Bangalore and heard Jonathan give a talk

 Jacob's Automobiles!

An area called New Baiyapanahalli, we found a cute new family to teach there this past week

Happy Diwali week, everyone!  I hope your lives are as bright as India is right now with all of these lights (Diwali is the festival of lights).

This week was pretty solid, again, quite productive for Elder Shrestha and I.  Not many outstanding highlights, per se, however, we found a couple new investigators and we both gave talks in sacrament meeting yesterday haha.  Elder Shrestha spoke about the Plan of Salvation and I spoke on the Doctrine of Christ.

One cool experience we had this week was learning the valuable lesson of not judging a book by its cover.  Earlier this week, we were walking around a bit of a rundown, not-very-well-kept area, searching for people who speak English that we might teach.  As we were searching, we came across a really old automobile shop called "Jacob's Automobiles."  It seemed pretty rundown and as though maybe the shop had been abandoned.  But in a small shack near the entry gate, I saw an older, hefty, dark man, with a pretty awesome but scraggly beard.  The first thought that came into my mind was, "No way this guy speaks English," and as we were about to turn around, I felt prompted to go ask him if he was Jacob of Jacob's Automobiles.  So I did, he responded yes, and we proceeded to talk for the next hour or so about his life and accomplishments, his interests and desires (both fulfilled and yet to be), and it turns out he is one of THE coolest people I've met.  He speaks seven or so languages (including some of the best English I've heard spoken in India) and it seems he was a former engineer in the auto industry, he's worked for some of the biggest companies in the world.  He is a Christian from birth, which is not common here, and he's also and avid soccer fan.  We haven't taught Jacob yet, but we sure hope to.  Moral of the story is: don't judge a book by its cover!  I wish I'd taken a picture with him, but I do have a picture of his shop that I'll send.  I'll also send a couple pictures of the areas in which we frequently work.

Transfer calls are tonight, I really hope to stay here in Indiranagar but I'll go wherever the Lord needs me!  Hope everyone has a good week and happy Diwali!

Keep the faith,

Elder Tuscano

Jono teaching piano(?), and Happy Vijaya Dasham!

Happy Vijaya Dashami, everyone!  Or Happy Dasara.  Depending on what religion you are and what language you speak.  Either way, happy Hindu holidays!  Elder Shrestha and I had a pretty solid week because everyone had a week of holidays.  Or at least the students did, haha.  Dasara is a pretty cool festival, I don't really know what it's all about, but I do know that Bangalore was covered in bright colors and rad designs, I'll send some pictures!

One cool experience from this week: so Elder Shrestha and I have been trying to meet with this one investigator, Prathap (age 17), since we arrived, so for nearly three months now.  Previously, he'd schedule an appointment with us whenever we would call--but unfortunately he'd cancel on us at the last minute. However, this past Thursday morning, we called him in hopes to meet with him later that day.  He told us "Yeah sure, I'm actually going to the church later to practice piano."  I was surprised, I had no idea he was learning how to play the piano!  I told him that was awesome and, if he was interested, I'd love to teach him how to play some hymns.  HE WAS STOKED!  He was like "YEAH!  That would be awesome, elder!  I'll meet you at the church at 2."  So we met with him and it went really well--AND we were able to share a message with him afterward.  We concurred to make this a regular thing: piano practice coupled with a spiritual thought.  It's been awesome, we met with him again on Saturday and we're planning to meet him again tomorrow!  Right now we're learning "Nearer My God to Thee," hymn no. 100.  We're praying that it continues to go well!

Hope everyone has a solid week!  Share your talents and the gospel: both are gifts from God!

Keep the faith.

Elder Tuscano

pic 1 - rad, colorful, bright, intricate design displayed on the floor inside of the metro station!

pic 2 - a SUPER cool mural that was being painted on a previously blank and boring canvas that was the outer walls of the Mahatma Gandhi Road metro station