elephants everywhere... happy ganesh chaturthi!

 my last zone conference

our recent convert, Krishna, with President Mortensen

HAPPY GANESH CHATURTHI, everyone!!!

As far as I know, I think "chaturthi" translates to festival.  Or possibly birthday.  Either way, there are GIANT Ganesh statues EVERYWHERE and people are just throwing huge parties and also ceremonial Hindu rites of worship, also known as "poojas."  I wish I could take pictures but it is disrespectful to do so.  For those who are unaware, Ganesh is a Hindu god that has the body of a human but the head of an elephant.  Ganesh chaturthi is a nine-day celebration celebrating him, it's kind of like Hindu Christmas haha, everyone gives you sweets and stuff.

Anyway, we had a great week.  Kinda crazy though, it was the last zone conference of my mission (and also the last time I have to take the long bus ride to Rajahmundry haha).  The highlight of the week was setting a baptism date for the husband and father of a part-member family: we've been teaching this brother for a few weeks now and this past week we were teaching him and planning to extend a baptism date.  We discussed the plan of salvation and in the middle of the lesson he stopped us and said, "Brothers, I only have one doubt: your church says that marriage continues in heaven but the Bible says it's not so."  He then turned to Matthew 22:30 where the Savior says that there is no marriage in the resurrection.  I tried answering his doubt with 1 Peter 3:7, with a brief explanation about the nature of the Millennial reign of the Savior, and he was not having it.  I said a small prayer in my heart that we would be able to clear his doubt and help him progress toward baptism.  At that moment, I got a thought, I asked him, "Brother, do you remember God's promise to Abraham?"  He said he did, that God promised his endless seed.  I think asked him how that was possible if marriage doesn't continue in heaven.  He was stumped, and said that made so much sense.  At the end of the lesson he accepted a baptism date.  How grateful I am that Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers.

We also set another brother with a baptism date and his date falls on my two year mark: 23 September 2017 haha.  I thought that was funny.

Have a great week, don't worship idols, and remember that God answers prayers.

Keep the faith,

Elder Tuscano

 

P.S.  I anticipate that one of the most frequently asked questions I will get upon my return is, "Did you learn how to make the food?"  YES.  Yes I have haha, your boy has gone to WORK in the kitchen.  I can make a bunch of various veg curries and also a number of varieties of rice dishes (tomato rice, ghee rice, tiger rice, etc.) so let the dinner appointments start lining up! :)

a week full of firsts...

 Happy Indian Independence Day!

 for some reason, the city of Vijayawada has these RANDOM Avatar statues haha so me and my companion took some photos with them

 for some reason, the city of Vijayawada has these RANDOM Avatar statues haha so me and my companion took some photos with them

 a variation on Thank You!

 the island we went to, called Bhavani Island

an obvious resident on monkey island

 me and Krishna on a lion bench

 the Krishna Canal, where Krishna's baptism took place

 rare bird, indigenous to India, that I spotted while we were checking out the canal

VJW elders and Krishna (minus Elder Kommalapati, who took the photo and also baptized Krishna)

WHAT UP Y'ALL?

First and foremost, Happy Indian Independence Day!!  Exactly ten days after your boy celebrates his birthday, India celebrates her birthday (August 15th haha).  It was so much fun.  The subject of this e-mail reads "a week of firsts," and on Independence Day this past week, we were the first assigned missionaries ever to visit a nearby town called Guntur.  There's a part-member family that lives in Guntur, which is about 36km away and we received permission from President to go there and teach them.  Guntur is AWESOME, it is famous for its spicy chilis.  It's also famous for this dish called "Guntur chicken," which is ridiculously spicy and guess what: the member who lives there hooked us UP he made the most delicious Guntur chicken ever for us.  It was way spicy but that's why it was so good haha.  So that was cool.

But what was cooler?  THE FIRST BAPTISM EVER IN VIJAYAWADA.  As some of you may recall, Sam was the first person baptized into the Vijayawada Home Group, however, his baptism took place in Rajahmundry.  But Krishna, who was baptized this past Thursday, was baptized right here in Vijayawada, the very first ever to do so.  And where exactly was he baptized?  IN A CANAL.  Yes, a canal.  It was beautiful, but I'll get to that in a minute.  Why was he baptized in a canal?  Funny story: we asked all of the swimming pools in VJW if we could use their facilities for a baptism service but they all said no because they "would not allow anyone to enter the pool with clothes on."  But I think the real reason is because they're strong Hindus.  Anyway, we asked our home group leader what we should do and he said there's a canal near his office that is secluded and peaceful and relatively clean.  So we went and checked it out and it is a beautiful place.  It's literally like someone took the waters of Mormon and the River Jordan and combined them and placed the creation here in Andhra Pradesh.  So we got the okay from President, and Thursday night, just after sunset, Krishna Manelli was baptized.  There were six souls in attendance: the Vijayawada elders (4), Brother Rajiv (our home group leader), and Krishna.  The water level of the canal was perfect, but the Spirit of the Lord was overflowing.  The first outdoor baptism I have as yet witnessed, let alone the first in a canal.  Funny side note: the name of the canal is the Krishna Canal, haha.

This e-mail is lengthy as it stands, but just one more miracle: amidst our many travels this past week, we were waiting at the city bus station one evening to catch a bus back to our apartment.  While waiting, a lady came up to us and asked us if we were the elders from the Church, we said yes.  She was overjoyed and in her excitement she expressed to us that she is a member from Hyderabad and had recently moved to Vijayawada a few weeks ago.  No one had told her about the Church's new presence in Vijayawada and she was so sad because she thought she and her family wouldn't be able to attend church anymore.  But she said God answered her prayers when she found us at the bus station that night.  Also her husband is not a member, can you say part-member family?  We can.

God does His work.  I believe in and have witnessed miracles.  It is such a privilege to be where I am right now.

There are so many other stories from this week, of lesser significance, but remind me to share them with you soon because they're still great.  Also we saw monkeys on an island this week, I will explain later haha, but for now I'll just send pictures.

Keep the faith,

Elder Tuscano

home group growth and kitchen adventures (food poisoning and tomato rice - separate issues)

 

the Vijayawada elders, with our investigator Krishna!

"Elder Tuscano, are you still healthy despite your apartment mates all being sick/injured?"  Good question, I am now!  Haha.  This past week I got food poisoning, unfortunately, perhaps from eating some expired bread, so I was down and out for about 24 hours but now I'm back to 100% again.

This past week was good, we are continuing to teach the wonderful families that we're working with, two of which are progressing towards baptism.  We also started teaching two new young men and they're awesome, one of their names is "Baktha Singh" I thought that was a cool name haha.  They invited us to come teach their families this coming week.

I also learned how to cook an Indian dish called "tomato rice" this past week, I've made it a couple times already and it's turned out fairly well (important side note: me in the kitchen and me getting food poisoning are two separate, unrelated events haha).

 

Yesterday our little home group's attendance exceeded the room!!!!  we didn't have enough chairs for everyone haha.  So please pray for us to get a building soon.

Hope everyone has a good week, keep the faith!

Elder Tuscano

Weekend of Celebrations

 me and Gandhi-ji.  Haha this is a cool set-up at one of the malls here in VJW.

 "did you all plan to wear red ties?"  yes.  It was my birthday, I thought it would be fu.

don't know how well you can see this one, but this is one of about six identical connecting bridges to the city of Rajahmundry.  It is surrounded by a river, it's kind of like Pittsburgh, but Indian version

 me and E. Ramishetty outside the Rajahmundry chapel on Friendship day.  There's a whole ceremony that goes with it, remind me to tell you about it when I get home haha.

 happy birthday, Manoj!  Manoj is one of our member's, it was his birthday this past Tuesday.  In India, it is the custom to feed the birthday person a piece of cake haha.  It's a lot of fun.

E. Tahiliani is taking the selfie, then from left to right: E. Ramishetty, myself, Krishna (one of our investigators), and Elder Kommalapati.  This was my birthday lunch, the food was life changing Chef Ajay (Elder Kommalapati) cooks really well.

 me, Elder Kommalapati, and Sam, one of our recent converts.

Hello all, how goes it this week?

This past week was awesome, we found two new SOLID families to teach, both of which are strong member referrals and they're awesome.  Cool little background story about one of the families: the husband and wife were both strong Hindus before and right after their marriage, until one day, something happened (I don't remember what exactly, the story was relayed in Telugu) and the wife fell from a three-story building.  She called out Jesus' name and was not injured or even harmed from her fall.  From that day forward they have been strong believers in Jesus Christ.  I think that's pretty cool.

This weekend was a blast, it was a weekend of celebration: Saturday was my birthday and it was so much fun.  Elder Kommalapati, serving in Vijayawada A (haha), made ghee rice and chicken fry upon my request for my birthday lunch.  That afternoon we traveled to Rajahmundry and had a small birthday celebration which consisted of eating beef kebabs, Arun brand ice cream (the best ice cream in the world, the one I got was caramel, banana, and cotton candy flavor), and drinking Artos (a drink that strongly resembles red creme soda haha).  Then Sunday was Friendship day, which is a big thing here in India, so that was fun.  And today is Raksha Bandhan which is like Sibling day I think, so shout out to my siblings, I love 'em.

Lotta photos comin' your way this week, enjoy!

Have a great week and keep the faith,

 

Elder Tuscano

a humid happy birthday... to me?

 a beautiful yet common scene from Vijaywada: a family of cows walking down the street in front of a Hindu temple in front of a beautiful sunset

 Rajahmundry zone conference

 we had a FEAST yesterday this is a picture of us with our feast

 there are some cute little kids who stay on the lower floors of our apartment building, they are all Christian.  this is me reading the Old Testament stories to them.  They loved it and I loved it 

an area in our area called Housing Board colony

NAMASARKAM, everyone, how goes it?

This past week was alright for us here, unfortunately, three of the four elders here are either sick or injured right now (I am the only healthy one, perhaps that's my birthday present from above haha) so the work was a little slower.  However, we still found two cute new families to teach and we had a couple investigators attend our little home group meeting which was awesome.  We had over twenty in attendance yesterday, that was a great blessing.  We will be getting an actual building sometime in the future, we believe.  We hope at least haha.  That's the goal.

Cool experience from this week: we are teaching a minister of another church here, he is currently housing one of our members, out of the goodness of his hear, as our member is trying to provide for his family that stays in a nearby village.  This minister is so humble and is quite receptive to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  On Saturday we were talking about Jesus Christ's atoning sacrifice for us and, naturally, we started talking about where Jesus went for those three days and nights (the spirit world).  This minister said yeah, the wicked go to prison and the righteous to paradise.  His eyes were then opened as we talked about how Jesus bridged the gap (Luke 16:26) and how his ancestors, who had not received the gospel in their mortal lives, could now do so because of what Jesus did!  We also talked about how he could be baptized on their behalf in holy temples (not Hindu temples haha, LDS temples).  It was like a wave hit him.  He was so happy.  There's a lot more detail to this story, I've given the executive summary haha, please remind me to share the details with you when you see me.

We are going to Rajahmundry this week for fast Sunday so that will be fun.  And long.  But fun.

Hope everyone has a great week, keep the faith!!

Elder Tuscano

pic 1 - a beautiful yet common scene from Vijaywada: a family of cows walking down the street in front of a Hindu temple in front of a beautiful sunset

pic 2 - an area in our area called Housing Board colony

pic 3 - there are some cute little kids who stay on the lower floors of our apartment building, they are all Christian.  this is me reading the Old Testament stories to them.  They loved it and I loved it haha

pic 4 - we had a FEAST yesterday this is a picture of us with our feast haha

Rajahmundry, Red Creme Soda (?), and tender experiences.

my companion and I with a member that visited our home group from Hyderabad.

Namaste, everyone, how goes it?

This week was as quick as it was humid haha.  We had zone conference this past week in Rajahmundry so we took a bus and traveled four hours to get there.

Rajahmundry is a pretty amazing place, it recently became a stake in December and currently houses the largest Church building in India.  All of this is interesting because Rajahmundry is a straight village haha, it's awesome.  I have heard about Rajahmundry my whole mission so it was fun to finally travel there and see what all the hype is about.  One of my favorite things about the place is that they have this soda called Artos that is almost identical in taste, consistency, and color to Red Creme Soda, so that's rad.

The coolest experience this week: Elder Ramishetty and I were walking around our area and felt impressed to walk down a certain road.  As we walked, we saw a home with a sign outside that read, "Zion Home for the Blind and Differently Abled," which naturally caught our attention.  Outside the gated home, we saw a handicapped man and spoke with him about who we were and what message we share.  He was so excited that he invited us in and introduced us to the director of the home. The director then gathered the twenty plus residents of the home, all of whom were either lame or blind, and sat them down on the porch of the home.  We sat down with them and taught and testified of God's plan for them, that they are children of God, and that as part of His marvelous plan, they would one day receive perfect bodies.  They loved it and invited us to come back this week.  It was one of the most tender experiences of my mission, I was nearly in tears.

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

Elder Tuscano

a week of miracles!

  the crew at the birthday gathering

photo from the birthday gathering, before everyone arrived

YO.  The weather here in Vijayawada is not necessarily ideal, it's been rainy and muddy all week, however, the climate for missionary is IDEAL.

WOW.  THIS WEEK WAS NUTS.  Seriously everyday this week something or things happened that were just absolutely miraculous.  I will do my best to relay just a couple of the miracles.  I will also do my best to be concise haha, please bear with me.

For starters we divided the area haha, we cast lots for who gets what side of the city, so that was fun.  Our proselyting area is literally half of the city haha.  Crazy.

Also remember that hill I sent a photo of last week?  We went door-knocking on that hill this past week (which was as awesome as it was tiring because of all the steps we climbed).  While up there, I made eye-contact with a sweet old lady, waved to her, and felt impressed to go talk with her, so we did.  It just so happened that nearly two years ago to that date, her husband had passed away.  We shared the message of the plan of salvation with her and that she would see her husband again.  She was greatly comforted and so thankful that we'd found her.  God really is great, isn't He?

Also both elders in the other companionship had birthdays this past week, so we had a small gathering to celebrate.  Who attended?  NINE INVESTIGATORS, all of which are potential priesthood holders.  And they brought gifts.  One of our investigators came up to me at the said gathering and asked, "Brother, where was I before this life?"  Great question, brother, we actually have a message about that.  This same brother has a baptism date now, we taught him about the plan of salvation.  He's an amazing guy, I'm sure I'll include details at some future date.

We found a peculiar investigator this past week, he's a boss.  His name is Ravi.  Where is he from?  Texas, haha.  His parents are from a nearby village but moved to the US after they got married.  Years later, here Ravi is, by himself in Vijayawada and what is he doing?  He's going to medical school here.  There's randomly a bunch of medical schools in Vijayawada by the way.  We just thought it was funny that we're teaching an Indian-American in India.  He has an overseas citizenship, like me.  Which is cool.

Last of all, remember how in Malachi 3:8-10 the Lord promises so many blessings to the faithful that they wouldn't have enough room in their house to receive it?  We witnessed an literal realization of that on Sunday.  Remember how last week only eleven souls came to sacrament meeting?  Yeah, not the case this week: TWENTY-SEVEN PEOPLE came to sacrament this past week.  There was literally not enough room for everyone in the little house where the meeting was held haha.  There was also no power, so no fan or A/C which made the Spirit burn within us and without us haha.  But it was an incredible experience, so there's a little glimpse of how the work is going on over here.

This isn't even half of the miracles we witnessed so please remind me to tell you all about this week when I get home haha.

I hope everyone has a great week, and enjoy these photos from this week, sorry there's so few.

Keep the faith,

Elder Tuscano