FEB 2017

What is up everyone?

This week flew by like nobody's business haha, seriously I have no idea how it's already Monday again.  Crazy.  I don't have a lot of time today because it is Elder Poleboina's last Preparation Day on his mission, so we're going to do some fun stuff pretty soon here.

One cool experience we had: on Saturday we had a couple appointments in the evening so Elder Poleboina taught an investigator at the church and Elder Barry and I went on exchange with two young men in our ward who are preparing to serve missions.  One of the young men, Sam, was pretty dejected for some reason as we were walking to the appointment that evening.  We tried to engage him in conversation and he would just give one or two word answers, put his head down, and keep walking.  We arrived at the appointment and once we started teaching, the mother of the investigator family would just not let the question go of why exactly we use bread for the sacrament and not something else.  Before we could give an answer, something happened to Sam, it was like he suddenly came to life.  He said, "Elder, we need to show her from the Book of Mormon where Jesus says to use bread for sacrament," we were all for it.  Sam then showed the sister those verses from the Book of Mormon and she was very much satisfied with the answer.  Sam was ecstatic.  After the appointment Sam was just filled with excitement and could not stop talking about how wonderful he felt.  We told him how great of a job he'd done and how he would be a great missionary.  He told us, "Elder, before the appointment I was sad because I didn't feel confident about going on a mission, I was feeling I am not ready.  But now I know I'm ready and I'm so excited to serve mission."  Again, it is just so cool to see how perfectly well Heavenly Father knows each one of us and each of our needs.  He hears our prayers and knows our hearts and always answers right on time.

I hope everyone has a good week.

Keep the faith,

Elder Tuscano

Swachh Bharath (Clean India) - a worthy slogan for all countries! :)

Hello!!

This past week was pretty solid with finding and teaching a bunch of new families.  I love teaching families haha.  But on Saturday we went to an area where we just knocked on doors and asked people if we could say a prayer with them and their family.  Literally everyone but like two people let us in.  The faith of these people is amazing, I am so grateful for the privilege I have to serve and learn with them.

One cool experience we had this week: so we've been teaching this investigator family: Naresh, who is thirteen years old, and his mom, who is a single mom and an incredible human being.  Sometimes when we meet with Naresh, he invites his close family friend, Sachin, who's around the same age, to join us.  It's pretty cool because these two are typically kinda rowdy/out of control, but when they meet with us they are reverent and engaged and eager to learn about Christ.  This past week we had the opportunity to meet with Sachin and his family and I thought it was pretty cool: other than traveling to and from her home to her workplace, Sachin's mother, who is also a single mother and incredible person, has not left her house for any reason for the past two years.  But when she heard that there were some young men who were trying to help her son become a better, more responsible young man, she came running to Naresh's home (where we normally teach the group) to see what was going on.  She expressed to us that she has been concerned about her son's conduct for some time now and that we were an answer to her prayers.  We shared a lesson about the young men's program and how it will help him become a better young man and disciple of Christ.  She was stoked!!  She was all for it!  She told us she would send her son to church from now on.  How cool is that?  Heavenly Father truly does know the needs of all His children and He really does hear and answer our prayers.

Just took one photo this week, we found this cool mural while walking one day and snapped a pic.  "Swachh Bharath," literally translates to "Clean India" in Hindi haha.  Enjoy.

Keep the faith,

Elder Tuscano

Happy February!

 herding sheep in the middle of a main road

with our investigator Naresh at his birthday party, it was super fun.

Hello hello everyone, Happy February!

This week was crazy for us, at least this weekend was haha.  We had an experience this week that was pretty moving for us:

On Saturday we met with a sister who has been struggling with a variety of challenges over the past five or six months.  She is a single mom with two children, she tried to start a small business which recently went under, her little house is about to be repossessed because she's struggling to secure a loan, her debt is nearly crushing, she's barely making enough to feed her family--anyway, she's going through a lot.  She is a woman of bright faith, but sometimes life hits us with things that try our trust in God.  She said that she'd been praying every day and fasting for God to help her in some way and He hasn't.  She decided that she was done with God.  She would listen to what we had to say but she was done with God--and here's where it gets interesting: we had no idea what to say.  As teenage boys having but little life experience as it stands, we had no idea what to say that would be of comfort to her.  But we knew that there was someone who did know and does know, someone who knows her perfectly well what she'd been going through.  In our hearts, Elder Poleboina, Elder Barry, and I prayed with all the fervency we could muster that the Lord might speak through us and help this sister in whatever way He would.  Elder Poleboina and Elder Barry shared powerful personal experiences about when God helped them when they saw no way out.  Then it was my turn.  I was still at a loss for words when suddenly the words of my former young men's leader (Tim Nowatzke) came into my mind: "If you don't know what to say, bear testimony of Christ."  So that's what I did.  Never in my life have I felt the Spirit move through me with such power as I bore my testimony that as surely as this sister saw the sun shining, I know that Jesus is the Christ.  I don't know always know why He asks us to pass through seemingly insurmountable trials, but I know He'll never leave us and He'll carry us through them if we have faith in Him.  I told her that He is pleading with her told hold on just a little longer because help and hope are on the way.  When I looked in her eyes, I saw hope.  It was incredible.  At the beginning of the lesson, she told us that she wasn't going to come to church because God wasn't helping her, but after the lesson she committed to come--and she did!  She had an amazing experience at church and has a renewed hope in the Savior.  There are a few life changing experiences in your life and this was one of those for me.

Also, yesterday was fast Sunday and Sunil (yes, recent convert Sunil Kumar) got up and bore his testimony, it was awesome!  At one point he said, "The Book of Mormon....is a good book."  It was so funny, we gave him a big hug after.  He's a boss.

I hope everyone has a great week, keep the faith!

Elder Tuscano

Happy Republic Day!

Happy Republic Day this past week, everyone!  It was kinda disappointing, Bangalore didn't really do anything crazy for this Republic Day, but it was nice that everyone had a holiday, we were able to find and teach more people that day!

This week was pretty solid for us.  Early on in the week we had a cool little miracle.  On P Day, Elder Barry and I were talking about the growth and progress of the church in India.  We both concurred that India would definitely benefit from an increase in strong priesthood holders who will help establish the church here.  We then resolved to pray that night and the next morning to find and teach more potential priesthood holders.  The next morning, after we'd finished our administrative tasks in the office, Antonett walked in.  Antonett is in his mid-20s or so.  Just by looking at him, we could tell that he'd been going through a lot in his life.  He said that he was just walking along the road, saw the name Jesus Christ on the sign outside our building and felt impressed to come in.  As we met with him, he opened up to us about everything he's been struggling with.  Among these things he told us that his father's leg had been amputated and it was now up to him to provide for his family.  He was desperate for peace and direction and, now more than ever, was searching for God in his life.  We taught him about the nature of God, his relationship with God, and how much the Savior loves him.  It was one of the most peaceful lessons I have as yet been a part of on my mission.  The Spirit was abounding and Antonett was touched.  We look forward to meeting with him again this week and in the coming weeks.  It's cool to see how quickly God hears and answers prayers.

In other news, we set two amazing families with baptism dates this past week and we are STOKED for them.  We have a lot of work to do haha.

We also went to a lunch buffet at this super nice hotel with our good family friend, Brother Loren Krieger, who is here for work.  He is a boss.  It was fun getting to spend time with him.

I do have my camera this week so I will be sending some pictures your way!  Hope you'll enjoy them.  

Keep the faith,

Elder Tuscano

pic 1 - Mom and Dad with Loren Krieger in St. George before his visit to India

 

pic 1 - me playing the piano at the wedding last week haha

pic 2 - Elder Barry carrying one of the youth in our ward haha

pic 3 - me with a cute little boy in one of the areas we work

pic 4 - a cool view of one of the streets at a local bazaar we were walking through.  Or at least I feel like it's a cool view haha 

Back in Bangalore

Hello everyone!!

This week was pretty normal here in Bangalore, it's good to be back though, I missed these people.

Transfers were this past week and Elder Poleboina and I are training a new missionary!  His name is Elder Barry, he's from London.  He is a boss.  He's been on his mission a little over a month now and he's already a powerful teacher.  He's loving the people (but not quite the food yet haha).  He played rugby and soccer back home which is rad.  And important tidbit is that he's an OCI missionary, meaning that he has a lifetime visa--like me!  His grandfather emigrated to the UK from Kerala (a state on the southwestern coast here in India) a long time ago, that's his connection to the motherland.

Not any super cool experiences this week but just a funny one: on Saturday morning at like 10AM, during companionship study, we got a sudden call from the bishop.  He asked me if I could play the piano for a marriage function at 11:30AM.  I was like "WHAT?  Sure."  So I was the accompanist at a wedding for one of our ward members on Saturday.  Who knew I would be playing the piano this much on my mission, it's awesome!  I had my companions take some pictures so I will send those soon.

I hope everyone has a good week, keep the faith!

Elder Tuscano

Happy Pongal

Happy Pongal/Sankranti/Kite Festival (depending on what locality you're from and what faith you belong to), everyone!  The kite festival was AWESOME here in Hyderabad.  Seriously, thousands of kites were in the sky yesterday and Saturday. Everywhere you went you would hear the victorious shouts of children after they'd cut down a rival kite (kite festival really means kite fighting here, it's pretty cool).  I am so sad to say that I didn't get any pictures as my camera battery was dead all this past week.  We had helped some investigator kids fly a kite on the top of their apartment building--which just happens to be one of the tallest apartment buildings in the area, that was a lot of fun.

This week flew by, I was in a different area/ward nearly every day this past week.  I started in A.S. Rao Nagar then made my way across the city from there.  It was a lot of fun working with these elders and, what more, the Lord led us to at least one new family to teach in each area, how incredible is that?  

I had a cool experience this past week while I was serving in the West Marredpally 2nd ward area.  It is important to know that in the earlier part of last year, I served in the West Marredpally 1st ward area.  I struggled quite a bit in that area because I felt like the work was not progressing very well, despite the hard work my companion and I were putting in.  We talked to hundreds of people, most of which seemed relatively disinterested in our message.  So that brings us to now.  Prior to my arrival in Hyderabad, a certain investigator in the 2nd ward area, Swamy, had been looking for me.  He had been asking all the elders in Hyderabad when Elder Tuscano would be coming.  Naturally, the elders asked Swamy why he wanted to know and he told them that Elder Tuscano was one of the missionaries who introduced him to the church.  When I got to the 2nd ward area, the elders asked me if I knew Swamy.  The name sounded familiar, though I had no recollection of any specific Swamy in Hyderabad that I knew of (you talk to a lot of Swamys in India haha).  Anyway, the elders told me that he'd been dying to meet me and they'd scheduled an appointment to meet with him.  While walking down the alleyway to his apartment, Swamy saw me from the end of the corridor and ran up to me and gave me a huge hug.  As soon as I saw him, I recognized him!!  He was one of the few people I'd spoken with last year that had actually been interested in learning more about the gospel--my companion and I had talked with him while waiting for a bus to come in the 1st ward area.  And now brother Swamy is making rapid strides toward baptism.  It was an amazing reunion.  This experience was a testimony to me that, truly, NO effort is wasted.  Whether planting seeds or gathering the harvest, we are but instruments in His hands.  I will forward some pictures we took with Swamy on his phone haha.

I hope everyone has a week as exciting as this festival was here in Hyderabad.

Keep the faith,

Elder Tuscano    

Hello from our Hyberdaddy trip

Hello from Hyberdaddy, everyone!

It's been a while since I've been in this city, it's good to be back, even if it's for a brief time.  The food is still as good as ever and chaala spicy, might I add ("chaala" means "very" in Telugu).  It's been fun serving in the A.S. Rao Nagar ward with Elder Shuman, from Preston, Idaho, these past few days.

One interesting change, however, is that of the climate: it is SO cold in the mornings and evenings here!  Some of you may be thinking, "Elder Tuscano, you're in the heart of southern India, there is no way it can be that cold."  I beg to differ haha.  We've been going to this park in the mornings to exercise and you can see your breath, I kid you not.  Some of you may refute that thinking, "Elder Tuscano, that may just be the exhalation of the abundance of pollution in the city of Hyderabad, is it not?"  That may be partially true, but I think the main reason is because it's so cold haha.

Elder Shuman and I witnessed a cool miracle this week.  One night we had a fairly busy evening planned; but, lo and behold, all the appointments we had planned for fell through.  So we went to a quiet place and said a prayer together that we would be led to a family looking for the gospel.  After saying Amen, we asked an elderly Hindu man if there were any Christian homes nearby.  He led us right to the home of Prabhudas and his family.  No less than five minutes later, the Lord led us to a wonderful family, prepared by the Lord to receive His gospel.  Prabhudas is the friend of a member who had met with missionaries a few years ago but stopped, and had recently been hoping to meet with missionaries again.  Interestingly enough, Prabhudas is the very same man whom Elder Shuman had been trying to contact by phone for just under a month now but he'd never actually talked to, seen, or met with him.  As we met with Prabhudas, his brother walked in.  Then his mother.  Then his other brother.  It was amazing.  They were all so happy to see missionaries again.  How grateful I am that the day of miracles has not ceased.  God lives and He is a God of miracles.

I hope everyone has a great week and stays nice and warm.  I will do my best to do the same haha.

Keep the faith,

Elder Tuscano 

P.S.  I am so sad because my camera battery died shortly after I arrived in Hyderabad so I was unable to take many pictures ):  But I will send the one I did have enough battery to take haha.  The picture I am sending is with a cute family we taught this past week.