Ten Month Mark

 Hello again, it's 100 degrees here in India and I'm already tired of summer...but I have 4 or 5 more months until the rainy season. The heat makes me miss hotdogs and hamburgers on the grill, I miss bonfires and jumping into 24 hole and going boating all summer with friends. I even kind of miss moving pipe, I miss manual labor. We don't have enough of it. But life here is good and always interesting, it's foreign that’s for sure. How's March Madness? I hope it's madness and that everyone is hitting game winners and hopefully there is a Cinderella team this year. This week was great, we are just having a tough time here in Noida. Meenuka was definitely prepared by God and was ready to receive the gospel, no one else in Noida seems to be ready or willing to listen. But we work and do our best, it's rewarding in so many ways to be in Noida. 

The streets here are full of tractors and cows, BMW's and Audi's. It smells like curry and incense and feet, I can hear the prayers of different religions over loud speakers, I see people from different nations and different cultures. I have met Monks from Tibet and China, I have met with Christian people from Kolkutta, I have shared our beliefs with Sikh people about Prophets, and I have even shared thoughts and taught lessons with Muslim people about Christ and how we believe He is the Son of God. I have met hundreds of Hindu people and talked with them about Faith. And overall I love these people, I love that they believe. I have an amazing opportunity to live in a place where people believe so much, they have unbelievable Faith in a higher power. You have no idea how much I admire that, in a world where most people don't care. And all I want to do every day is share with them my Faith, and how maybe they can find something that helps them increase their Faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Over and over again I share with them the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon has always been the rock of my testimony. And I have seen and heard and felt, countless times, that it is true. To all these people I recommend reading the Book of Mormon, because I know it's true. It teaches plain and simple truths that so many people need. But most of all I ask them to read it because of the feeling I get when I read it. I can open up to a random page and no matter where I am or how far I read, I close the Book feeling closer to God. There is a special power that comes from reading the Book of Mormon, and I hope you have a desire to feel that feeling. These people I meet have unreal faith, but they don't have the Book of Mormon to build that Faith. But we do, and why I am out here sharing the Book of Mormon with them, I hope you are sharing it back home, and reading it personally. Cherishing it, and thanking Heavenly Father for the direction it gives us. 

The Prophet Joseph Smith gave his life for the Book of Mormon, I hope we treat it as more than just a book. 

Love,

Elder Armstrong