wHO, wHO, wHO is that in the Santa suit and other holiday treats!

 The look that this kid is giving me is exactly how I felt to be Santa Claus

 Eggnog

 sharing the Light the World message with everyone!

 Sister Bhargavi's baptism!

 Elder Poleboina and I with Brother Davidson at lunch!

young kids playing cricket.  We shared the Light the World message with them after the match!

 service project with elders' quorum

"Merry merry Christmas, happy happy Christmas!" everyone!  That is the chant you will hear as the members here go caroling, it's pretty funny.  And cool.  Fun traditions.

A lot of stuff happened this week and it went by pretty quickly.  There are a few highlights I will address just briefly so that this won't turn into a novel haha.

On Friday night, Elder Poleboina and I went on splits in an effort to share the Light the World message with as many people as we can.  I went with a young man who is preparing to go to the India New Delhi mission later this month, his name is Karthik.  We had a wonderful evening planned, but unfortunately, everything we had planned for fell through.  Even our back up for our back up for our back up plans.  We didn't know what to do.  By chance, we ran into some members who were doing a service project at a sister's home nearby.  We followed them and when we arrived there were quite a few people doing quite a few things and we thought, "Oh there's no way we'll be able to share the message with all of these people."  But we asked the leader of the project if we could share a quick message with everyone and within two minutes or so we had everyone gathered together in one home and shared the Light the World video and message and they loved it!  It also just so happened that a bunch of small children came to hear the message.  Afterwards, we asked one of the cute kids, Wilson, where his home was and he said, "Come!  I'll show you!"  Then he led us right to his home and his family with whom we then shared the same message and they loved it!  They invited us to come back and teach them again this week.  I will send pictures from the experience.

Bhargavi's baptism was yesterday and that was seriously awesome.  She loves Jesus so much and is just ecstatic about following Him.  I will send photos.

The other highlights may not be as exciting but they are still fun.  For example, on Saturday, we went to lunch at the Marriott with Brother Davidson, a good family friend here in India.  He is an amazing person and also a pioneer here in India!  It was so cool to chat with him about his experience of seeing how the Church has grown since he joined.

Also, this is interesting, in the middle of our elders' quorum class yesterday, the Young Women's president called me out and asked me to be Santa Claus for a gift giving activity they were doing as a last part of their class, so that was pretty funny.  I will send a funny picture.

Lastly, I made eggnog this week!  Miraculously, we found all the necessary ingredients to make eggnog so it's been nice to have a little piece of home.  Unfortunately we couldn't find nutmeg, but we did, however, find nutmeg in it's true nut form; so we had to grind it into our own powder haha, that was cool.  I will send pictures.  Lot of pictures from this week.

But I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas and finds time to reflect on the true reason for this wonderful season.  Christ truly is the Light of the World, how blessed we are to know that.  I know that He lives and I can't express how privileged I feel to bear witness of His divine reality to the beautiful people of India.

Happy Holi-days (get it?  Because Holi is the festival of colors?).  Keep the faith.

Elder Tuscano

sweet (and busy) is the work...

 Us, the wonderful schoolchildrens, and a new missionary that came on exchange with us.

 This is the sister whose home we helped paint!  She is awesome and speaks Tamil only.

Elder Poleboina, myself, and our boy Elder Navaneethan!

He just came back from the MTC, we went to pick him up at the airport!

 

Vannakam, everybody, what is up?

This week flew by, there was a lot going on this week: missionaries departing, new missionaries arriving, ward festivities, etc.  But this week was a good one.

The highlight of this week happened on Thursday we went to a recent convert's home, Sister Babitha.  Sister Babitha teaches a nightly homework-help class for children ages four to fourteen or so; there are about twenty or so children in her class.  So on Thursday evening we went to her class and showed all the kids the Light the World video and they LOVED it.  They asked us to show it again so we did haha.  But the discussion afterward was probably one of the coolest experiences on my mission so far.  We asked them simple questions like, "Who has the light within them?  Who wants to have more light?  Who likes serving their friends and family?  Who wants to be like Jesus?" and they would all respond in unison with hands raised high and loud voices, "MEEEEEE!"  It was incredible.  I guess what made it so incredible for me was that a room full of children from diverse religious backgrounds--Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians--all made a commitment to be like the Savior and serve others as He did.  Many of them didn't know much about Jesus before, but as they watched scenes from His life they saw the light in Him, they recognized the light within themselves and wanted to be like Him.  That's how powerful and loving the Savior is.  I can't express how blessed I feel to be in His service.  I took some pictures of us with these incredible schoolchildren so I will send them your way.

Also, this past week, one of the Light the World days was "Jesus Visited the Lonely and So Can You." So, our elders quorum did just that by visiting with and re-painting the home of an elderly widowed sister who hadn't been to church in some time.  She just has a small home but was IMMENSELY grateful for the service and even came to church on Sunday.  I got a picture with her as well, so that's comin' your way!

Here are a couple of classic, one-liners from our favorite north Indian, Sunil:

• Once a week, we play badminton or volleyball with Sunil because he loves sports.  After we finished our match this past week, E. Poleboina was, naturally, sweating profusely.  Sunil came up to him and said, "You look so sweet."  We later came to know that what he meant to say was, "You're so sweaty!"
• Sunil was helping me teach a new investigator we found this week.  At one point in the lesson, Sunil said, "The Bible says there should be no terrorists."  I had to try as hard as I could to hold in my laughter.

I hope everyone has an awesome week and keep lighting the world!

Keep the faith.

Elder Tuscano

rainy, biryani and light the world

 Madinaguda chapel in Hyderabad.

this is me with a good family friend of ours, Brother Davidson!  His home ward is

Whitefield Road.  He is the one in the beige vest.  On the far left is a recent convert Raj Kumar,

and in the center is Brother Fisher, a counselor in our bishopric.

Hello hello, everyone!  How goes it?

It goes well out here in Bengaluru.  It was pretty overcast and rainy all week which is interesting because monsoon season is supposed to have left with the month of November.  It's been nice though, the rain has made it even cooler than it has been lately.  Bangalore's climate is pretty awesome, it gets down into the 60s (I believe in the evenings).  At night we don't sleep with the fan or the A/C we just open the windows.

This week started with an exchange to Hyderabad.  Hyderabad is also Elder Poleboina's hometown.  When Indian missionaries go on exchange to their "native place," which is rare, they are not allowed to visit with family.  Fortunately, however, the zone leaders serve in Elder Poleboina's home ward and were able to coordinate with his mother so that we could eat the food she'd prepared!  It was delicious.  I also had some of the most incredible beef biryani while there haha.

Speaking of biryani, for the Church's worldwide day of service this past Thursday, our ward got together and made a TON of biryani for a local orphanage here in Bangalore.  It was awesome, seriously such a sweet experience.  The children were adorable and so appreciative.  I'm working on getting pictures from the event, unfortunately my camera is having trouble focusing again so I did not take any photos.

A cool spiritual experience: we are teaching a sister named Bhargavi, she's cool.  This past week we were teaching her about the plan of salvation and God's purpose for her: to live with Him forever with her family.  As soon as we said that she teared up and expressed how wonderful that would be.  That was such a powerful experience, I hope that we all appreciate God's purpose and plan for us as much as Bhargavi does.

Sunil experience of the week: we were about to start teaching him when he stood up, extended his pinky finger from his hand, and said, "I have to sing the song." He then left the room and came back a couple minutes later, we asked where he went, he said he went to the bathroom.  It seems that, for Sunil, singing the song is code word for going to the bathroom.  We thought that was pretty funny haha.

Hope everyone has a great week!  Don't forget to light the world this week!

Elder Tuscano

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