Week Sixty

Dear Family,

What a wet, humid, hot, sweaty week it has been in Delhi. One day it was triple digit heat, one day the floods came and we could barely even work. Rainy season is coming in hard, but it still hasn't let summer go yet. This week I went on an exchange back to Noida where I served for 4 and 1/2 months and we woke up to the entire street being flooded. I went and got my breakfast by wading through water above the knee. It was so fun, but the water was absolutely disgusting. So much dirt and trash, but it was quite the experience. The next day it was so hot I thought I was going to die, there was so much water in the air and I am just wet all the time. Delhi is a great place.

Rainy Weather in Delhi

 This week the highlight was the baptism of Rabina, I've told you a lot about her, and she just really is the coolest. All baptisms are special and we get so happy for everyone to make that promise to God, but Rabina’s baptism I will never forget. She has a testimony, and she doesn't even really know how big it is. If you could see how much she loves the church.  Singing hymns, praying, and reading the scriptures, you would think she has been a member for years. But she found the gospel a little over a month ago. It's just such a blessing to see the gospel work in every life that it is applied to. When someone gives it a chance, that's all it takes. I grew up in the most Mormon place in the world and I just thought the gospel is what we do, that it worked for us and that's why we do it. But then I came to one of the most non-Mormon places in the world, where the smallest percent of people live the gospel and I saw that it still works, that it still changes lives and makes people happier. And that's when I realized why we do missionary work, because it works for everyone who has the smallest bit of faith to try it.

Rabina's Baptism!  Baptized by Elder Karkala

Rabina and her brother Rakeesh and their mother

I don't have much else this week, we are about to go to do some cool stuff around Delhi, next week I should have more cool pictures to send. Football season seems to be just around the corner, I would do anything to be in Idaho on Treasure Field on a September Friday night. But that's a sacrifice I am being asked to make right now. We have to sacrifice a lot for the gospel, I have sacrificed a lot, the missionaries I serve with have sacrificed a lot, and every faithful saint in the world sacrifices for the gospel. People in India have to change so much to be baptized and to follow what they know is true. They give up more than just tea and coffee, although that is tough too. They give up thousands of years of traditions, ideas, and practices, to be a Latter Day Saint. Today is Pioneer day in India and all of them are pioneers, in every sense of the word. I appreciate what the early Saints did for us, and I hope you will too. I also hope you will recognize how lucky and blessed we are because of them, and that's the vision in India right now. Someday the Church will be big and strong and it will bless millions here, but it starts with them. Years later I will look back and see where India used to be and compare it to where it will be then, and I will be thankful for the pioneers of India, who made it possible for people just like Rabina to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ. This church is so true, and that's all that matters.

Love, 

Elder Armstrong

 

Three American Amigos!

 

 

My eggs for breakfast