Elder Preston Armstrong : Week Twenty-Five

Kavita's Baptism!

Dear Family,

This week was one for the books..literally. It's one of the ones I'm going to be grateful for keeping a journal on my mission. Thanks for the advice Grandma:)

We had solid lessons and new investigators all week long. I love telling you about investigators but so many come and go and I don't want you getting attached to their lives and stories and then hearing that they turned the gospel down and didn't want to change. Because that's what I feel like I go through on a daily basis, and sometimes it's tough. I have met so many great people and I've seen a lot of lives change. Just yesterday one of my first investigators ever, Varun, called me asking me about a name in the Book of Mormon. I haven't talked to him in months, and he couldn't be baptized because traveling to church would cost too much money and he is still young and his home life isn't ideal, but he is still reading the Book of Mormon. That was a great feeling, it made me feel like the work I put into him and his family wasn't for nothing. I meet lots of people all the time, and I can remember just about every one of them and their stories, so it's hard to make these friends and watch them feel the Spirit and then struggle to keep going. But I'm okay with planting seeds for the future, it will all pay off soon enough.

I don't have much personal stuff to say today, just out here fighting the good fight. I'm not sick anymore! That's a blessing. It also is starting to get cold here and when I say cold it's like September or October weather....but the Indians think it is Antarctica and it's kind of funny to watch them bundle up when us Americans still have short sleeves on. But then they laugh at us in the 125 degree heat, so it evens out. Oh sorry, I mean 50 degrees Celsius, or whatever language they do temperature in outside of America. Also, the metric system is dumb...how am I supposed to make food without cups and tablespoons...I don't know what a milliliter is. It's like learning Hindi twice. But with the cold there is way bad pollution and the homeless people are burning things to stay warm at night and the sky is just thick with soot. We decided the correct terms for the pollution is Viscus and Palpable. Great word usage I know, and wearing the masks is getting annoying, but I don't want black lung when I'm 20.

This week I just want to share with you how the Gospel of Jesus Christ changes lives.

In Mosiah chapter 5 verse 7 it says:

And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.

Simply what this is saying is that after baptism and making covenants with Christ we become the Children of Christ, we become His people. And your hearts are being changed..through Faith on his name. This week that has been more apparent in my life than I ever had noticed before. This week I realized just how much the Gospel of Jesus Christ can change someone’s life.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to baptize Kavita Singh, an investigator you have heard a lot about I think. I have been working with her since my first two weeks in Dwarka and she has grown to be a very good friend of mine. In the beginning of teaching her she didn't know any English, and she was a pretty devout Hindu. But as the rest of her family was member we wanted to teach her and help her. He husband is less active with Word of Wisdom problems, sometimes severe problems. She was forced into an arranged marriage with him and has been living with the Singh family ever since. The parents of the family are old and can't get around very well and Manisha, the greatest blessing Kavita and missionaries have ever had, is always at work providing for the family. So Kavita is always at home cooking and cleaning, even while having a one year old child and while she was pregnant with another. She probably didn't plan her life to go like this, but that's how it was. And from the beginning I could tell, she wasn't happy. She just wasn't.

But about 4 months later, a new baby, a husband that is doing his best to give up alcohol, a sister in law with Manisha that will do anything for her, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ...she is happy. Yesterday in sacrament meeting I saw her laughing with her husband as their one year old, Sanat, was running around and their new baby was waving her arms in the air. It was a great experience to be able to bless the baby and to baptize Kavita yesterday, and to see the deer in the headlights look on her face after coming out of the cold water. But the best thing to see is that her life has been changed, completely. Everything is turned around, and her heart has been changed, through Faith on His name. Kavita will always be a great friend, and I've barely had even a full conversation with her in English, usually in Hindi. But more than a great friend to me she will be a better mother and wife, with a better husband and father by her side, because of the Gospel. She has many sacrament meetings ahead of her with wild children, but I think she'll always be laughing like yesterday, because life is now starting all over for her.

This is why we preach the gospel. For the longest time I thought it was for World Domination and so that we could have everyone be a Mormon. There's a lot more to it, we're trying to change lives for the better, we're trying to help people be happy. Share the gospel with everyone, live it in front of everyone, they'll notice the blessings and want them for themselves.

have a good week, #CowboysNation #AmericasTeam

Your loving Elder Armstrong;)