Sorry for emailing late today and I
hope you weren't stressing about me. I'm doing great. We had a zone activity
all day today. We found a basketball and tennis and soccer complex and we got
the whole zone together to play and it was so fun. This week Monsoon season
came and so it has been storming all week. With that comes lots and lots
running sewage down the streets of India. How well must Heavenly Father know me
to send me to a place that has every challenge I needed to work on in my life?
I think he knows me a little too well. So yes patience has been a tough one,
but I'm loving it. The grossness of this place is ridiculous. I just want to
wear a hazmat suit for proselyting. Ha-ha.
But yeah the monsoon has brought
more water than I have ever seen in my life. Literally flooding the streets.
And the sewage just runs with it and people bathe in it and are swimming because
it's been pretty much a year since it rained last. It's a different experience.
So today at the sports complex, which is outside, it was sunny and that brought
so much humidity, I was drenched all day. I got sunburned and I look like a wet
tomato with blonde hair at the moment. But man do I love playing basketball, I
just wish it was with friends from home. But I have Elder Dusara and Elder
Basil and Elder Chand. I love playing with them and we have such a good time
together. They all can talk to me about my favorite sports and teams and we always
can have a good time. Too bad Dusara and Basil are outside of my district. But
Elder Basil is from Australia and is half Indian and is so cool. He is only one
transfer ahead of me. His older brother is serving in the Bangalore mission
right now and is going to be playing for BYU's basketball team when he gets
home this fall. And he even at one point played against none other than Dante
Exum from the Utah Jazz. So his little brother and my new friend Elder Basil is
really good at basketball and is way cool. He even has the whole Aussie accent
from Down Under.
No problems at all this week with
Muslims or with any crazy people. We are just doing our best to stay away from
them. If we can hear them praying on their loud speakers throughout the
community, or if you can see the top of the Muslim mosque we have decided that
we're too close. So hopefully there won't be any problems for awhile. Sounds
like everything at home seems to be going good as well. I pray for you all. I
found out that if I'm not praying like 100 times a day I'm doing it wrong. So
you're all included in those, and I hope that the health of all of my family
gets better. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help or anyone I can
pray extra for. It's the least I can do with all of the prayers I know I'm
getting from home. So thank you.
Man is the time going by fast. I
can't believe I'm almost out 8 weeks or something like that. The time is
seriously so blurry, but it's only because I'm having so much fun and staying
so busy. I just want one hamburger and a clean glass of water from the greatest
place on Earth, Marsh Valley.
This email is going to answer a lot
of questions that my grandma Norma had asked in the last letter I received from
her. So grandma I hope I can answer your questions and everyone else's as well.
I am receiving your letters every week, they come a little late, but that's
okay because I love getting them and being able to read them before bed each
night. They update me about the family and I feel so much love from them. My
only problem is that I don't want you spending so much money sending them to
me. I know you love me so if it ever becomes a problem you can email me and
I'll be happy with that as well. And no sending money I'm a big boy I can
survive here in India with only 9000 rupees!
So yes I am keeping a journal. I
haven't missed a single day yet and I don't plan on it. I love writing down my
memories. I have already looked back on it and was reading about stuff in the
MTC that I had already forgotten. So yeah in 50 years I'm going to love that
journal. I also want to inform you about the people I'm teaching. We have two
investigators on baptismal dates. I absolutely love teaching them. The first is
Shiva. He is 20 years old and wants to learn so much, his drive to share the
gospel is unreal. He even got us in trouble because he loves our message so
much. We finished a lesson with him and he said he had some friends he wanted
us to teach. We said "That's great!" and followed him down the road a
ways. When he took us to the top of some building we walked into a room full of
fourth graders that his brother was teaching. He wanted us to teach all of them
the Restoration lesson. That was a crazy experience and we could have gotten in
so much trouble teaching all those little kids about Christ in that school with
all of the religions present and no parents anywhere. So we kindly invited them
all to our English class and left as fast as possible. Shiva just really wants
to share the messages we have shared with him and everyone loves him so he is a
great referral machine.
The second kid we have on baptismal
date is Varun. He is 16 years old and loves to learn. He is an only child of a
family with a deep Hindi background. He is the only one in the family who
speaks English. He is taking our English course and comes with Shiva to church
as well. He loves Karate and is a green belt (he even let me wear it.) and he
likes to watch WWE from America and thinks that I'm John Cena. Which is crazy
and that's another nickname I have. He loves to go to school and wants to
become an engineer. He says that "Jesus Christ is all good things." I
agree with him. He reminds me of Parker as a little brother and he is always
willing to go with us to teach other people and to help us in finding. He and
Shiva both found us an entire area of Roman Catholics which is absolutely
unheard of here. He's a great kid and I care for him so much. I'm glad his
parents trusted us and gave him permission to be baptized and to pursue what he
knows is right.
Then we have Vijay. Vijay is the man
we met at the MoMo stand and has been coming to church with us. He is in his
mid thirties and has a wife and a baby girl that is about 2 months old. Their
family is wonderful. He should be on date for baptism very soon and I would not
be surprised that once he is a member he will be the Elders Quorum President
here in Dwarka. Our current Elders Quorum President and first counselor are
inactive and have been for about 5 or 6 months and there still hasn't been a
change. It's so bad and each week we missionaries have to teach priesthood
classes and doctrine classes and if someone just doesn't show up to church we
fill their place, even the sacrament meeting speakers. So we hope to get Vijay
baptized because he loves the gospel and is a very responsible man who would do
well with a calling.
We also are teaching Bobby like I
told you in the first couple emails. He is a less active member, but he wants
to serve a mission. He finally started coming back to church lately and his
family is so nice to us. His dad the "Angry Man" has been so good to
us and I think he has been working to stop drinking. His mom is such a kind
lady and wanted me to tell my mom that I'm in good hands. His older sister
Seema has still been sick and was in the hospital a couple days this week. We
gave her a blessing and it was my first time. It was a stutter filled blessing,
but the spirit was so strong. She has been recovering and has resumed working
two very hard jobs to help provide for the family. Then the baby girl who I
know her name but couldn't spell it right if I wanted to, is awesome and is so
funny when we go over for dinner. I love their family and I hope we can build a
trust to be able to teach the father. It would bless their family with so much
peace.
We teach many others and the days
are busy, but those are the main people who have really filled my heart. I hope
you enjoyed hearing about them and I hope, for you and for them, that in the
coming weeks you will see us in pure white, as they choose to follow Christ.
The people here are absolutely wonderful. I was sent here for a reason. I look
back on the day I opened my call and I think it may be the happiest day of my
life so far. I know I am exactly where the Lord wants me. What a blessing. I
have been thinking a lot lately about my opportunity to serve a mission. I kept
thinking this week that I want to be changed when I get home. That I want to be
a different person in two years. But that's so silly of me to think like that.
I realized that that way of thinking is wrong. I want to be changed tomorrow. I
want to be a different person tomorrow. I want to change continuously every day
of my life until I'm the best I could possibly become. We are to repent every
day of our shortcomings, it's a commandment. So if we have that many
shortcomings we have plenty to change. Pick a thing each day to change and do
your best to change it forever. Even if it's small. By doing this continually
throughout our lives we can become the Disciples of Christ that God wants us to
be. It's never too late to change, and the Atonement has been paid in full. If
we were to think we could pay our own way to the Celestial Kingdom without
accepting the help of our Savior that would be absolutely horrible to do with
all of the love he has for us. So the way we show our acceptance of His love,
is by accepting the Atonement and changing every day. Watch the video if you
can find it, "His grace is sufficient" by Brad Wilcox.
I love you all. The Savior loves you
all. Please stay safe and have a good week. I'll be emailing you in 20 minutes,
or at least it feels like that.
Love Elder Armstrong
No comments:
Post a Comment