Week 96: Two baptisms in Chennai (Jennifer and Akshaya)

So...I kind of emailed you like 4 days ago so not a lot has changed since then. We did in fact have 2 baptisms on Sunday. The Baptism of Sister Jennifer and Sister Akshaya. We have been preparing her for this past week and she has done everything in her power to make sure she was ready for that day.

Sunday was really awesome and kinda sad because I was still expecting to wake up in Dowelaiswaram somehow and see all those individuals I loved but a change had to be made and I was so lovingly welcomed by the members of Chennai 4th branch. Elder Ravindran and Elder Sommer have actually told me about this branch before since this is where they served. I knew this branch was pretty awesome and I was not even surprised when I arrived. 

All the leaders are communicating with each other and we had a Branch Correlation Meeting after church and Elder Bunga and I were able to get some information about some members we can go find and bring back. I was actually called to give a talk 10 minutes before the meeting even started and I felt like I needed to speak about the importance of families. I quoted a song that was shown to me by a member and it was actually from Fast and Furious 7 (The Tribute Song), " How could we not talk about family, when family's all that we got". I felt like it was a great talk because I also talked about my family as well so they could understand.

The Baptism service was actually kind of scary. The water filter decided to be lame and stop working like half way as the font was filling up and we were all trying to figure out what the problem was. This happened right as the baptism candidates were told to be escorted. A couple members just opened up this reserve water thing in the ground and we all brought buckets and started to throw water into the font. It took about 20 minutes but thanks to the help from the members we were able to have some great baptisms. My companion and I were not in the photos because things were running a little behind and lets just say that some people were not really thinking straight-____-.

Here are some photos of our district and the other. 

Elder Dusara

Baptism of Jennifer and Akshaya

Filling the font manually

Filling the font manually

Chennai district

Baptism of Jennifer and Akshaya

Week 95: Chennai first week looking for apt

We will get a longer recap of the past week in a few days.  The photos below are from his last few days in the Dowelaiswaram area in Rajamundry. He really loves that place.

Sorry for the late email this week, I was super busy with my new companion Elder Bunga getting from here to there and this whole mess that unfolded as I came to Chennai. But no things are a little bit different and we are getting in the rythm of things.

I almost cried saying goodbye to Dowelaiswaram branch and it was hard to say goodbye to Elder Thambi. He was a great missionary and I was blessed to be with him for that trainig process. That branch will stay in my heart as the months go bye unitl I come back to India. 

There is really nothing new that is happening other than the fact that we have been looking for apartments for the past 3 days. Our apartment has been having a lot of problems lately and we actually have to leave for some time and live in the other Elders apartment for the time being. This is a very humbling experience for me. We have looked at like 13 apartments and all of them have been wanting families instead of bachelors and it is very frustrating. Even when i give this whole speech to the owner about what we do and how we are REPRESENTATIVES OF JESUS CHRIST he is like, "Yeah...thats great and all but we want families!"-_- 

We are preparing a sister for a baptism next week, her name is sister Jennifer and she is Owesome! 

Me and her little baby son are best friends and that also is Owesome.

Other than that...It is so freaking hot outside! I have been having the worst luck ever. I tore 2 of my pants already trying to get into autos and the pants that would have been great for Chennai I gave them to members in Rajahmundry:( 

See you in 3 days:)

Elder Dusara

Morning cricket and futbol gang

Singh and Dusara

The gang in Rajahmundry

Week 94: Trying to be like Alma and Amulek

So General Conference was...freaking sweet! My favorite messages were given in the Saturday sessions and Priesthood Sessions about Fatherhood and Marriage:) There were some great talks that were also given about missionaries and people who are preparing to serve. I have been thinking about some things I need to change when I come home and what will take priority in my life. I know that I cannot be doing a lot of the things I did before my mission, I just need to put the more importance to the things Heavenly Father wants me to do.

Anyway as the title says, "Trying to be like Alma and Amulek". If you read in the chapters in Alma where he is introduced to Amulek you see that they had one of the most successful exchanges we have record of. This week and also next week my companion and I have decided to not go on splits any more so we can have more effective appointments because the spirit will be stronger when we testify together. We actually almost achieved all of our goal that we set and our appointments were so much more powerful. Even though the weather is hotter than sin we are still outside and cycling to and fro to get to the appointments we have set. For some reason this week we have been talking to people more outside than we ever have before. We have been teaching and talking to so many youth that come to play futbol in the morning and also we have been blessed to share this gospel with the deaf. We met two brothers the other day that could not hear but could understand English and could write it. It was so cool just try and communicate with them with the little knowledge I had with sign language.

So the appointment of the week goes to one family that is experiencing some really tough legal problems that they are not even responsible for. The children are fine but the parents could be in some huge trouble. I went with our Branch Mission Leader Ramesh and we planned on sharing about prophets but...the spirit guided us in a different direction. I started to share one of my favorite stories about Faith and Patience and the 3 children responded "We just broke our fast 20 minutes ago and that was the same scripture that we read together before you came"(Ramesh and I had a small bro fist-bump). They ended up telling me what that lesson meant and I shared some personal stories of how my family and I have been blessed when we have Faith in our Heavenly Father and Patience with him. Such a spirit driven lesson, I don't know if it could have been better than that honestly.

I want to give a shout out to my dude Riki(Get those Red Robin points loaded up:)) 

Here is the greatest primary troll face!

Love,

Elder Dusara 

Week 93: It's Curling! Book of Mormon is helping hasten the work...

The time in Utah to drop the younger Elder Dusara has been an amazing experience for all of us. To read the experiences the elder brother is having continues to have an impact in all of our lives, but especially his younger brother.  It's looking like the heat and humidity are helping shed some unwanted lbs for Elder Dusara.

So last night before we went to bed we had a long discussion about a certain sport in the Olympics but we could not remember for the life of us what that game was called. For 30 minutes we thought it started with an S and we kept going through different names from shuffling, skating, shaking,.shifting, sambar&Rasam, literally anything that started with an S. With al of our energy gone and just wanting to go to bed, we received a text message and it said Curling! I turned to Elder Singh and shouted ITS CURLING! We are rejoiced for 10 minutes and laughed so freaking hard.

This week we continued to teach every lesson from the Book of Mormon and we are seeing more and more of our investigators are now reading on their own and are making much better progression than they used to. On Sunday two sisters that we have been teaching for two months came to church for the first time and they loved the atmosphere of the church and the members that helped them learn. We had such great members fellowship them and they did not let them leave their sight. They were there to answer questions and to introduce to them new things about the church.

It is getting much hotter outside and the humidity is ridiculous. Two days ago it was 101 with 96% humidity and it was horrible. We sit in the AC in the mornings and when we leave for lunch we just die. Its great because the weight is coming off but...It feels so gross outside. No more spicy foods because it just adds to the nightmare hahah.

So the photos below are of the movie night we had on Friday. I was hoping to watch Meet the Mormons but there were problems with Google so we watched the Prince of Egypt. We celebrated a birthday at the same time so everything was chill! 

Another 2 photos are of our investigators with the Book Of Mormon and their mother. They are progressing very well.

ALOHA! 

ELDER DUSARA

Big Smooth playing cricket