Christmas call & Skype notes

It’s amazing to think that today is the 6-month mark for his mission.  What a blessing it was to speak and Skype with Elder Dusara this week.  We spoke like he was in the other room and had not left the country.  He is becoming a great missionary.  Being the social person that he is, speaking with people is an easy chore for him to do on a daily basis.  He doesn’t look at it as a chore.

An example of this is his love for electronics.  When he sees someone with a cool phone (usually a younger person), he will walk up and talk to them about their phone and they’ll talk about the phone.  Eventually the conversation will turn to why he is in India and what he’s doing.  An invitation to come to church and find out usually follows. 

Something else we learned from our conversations with him is how well he gets along with the other missionaries.  He has found out that almost all of the other elders have experience with video games, and Yu-gi-oh cards.  Of course, these are the elders that have come from the US and have been exposed to those two forms of entertainment, but he is quickly becoming a mission favorite.  A lot of other missionaries want to be his companion because of his easy going personality and his constant focus on having fun while working hard.

In Rajahmundry, his current area, he is spending a lot of time reactivating those who have recently joined the church.  Being in India (like anywhere else), it is very easy to return to your old ways due to family pressures, or just quit going all together.   

Elder Dusara is learning the value of long-term relationships and scripture study as well.  He never really started to read scriptures until he was just about to leave.  Now he is reading to learn and to study a specific topic.  He now has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and loves to read it. 

Being the competitive person that he is, he is getting close to his dad’s mark for wedding proposals on his mission.  His dad had 7-8 wedding proposals on his mission, and Elder Dusara already has three proposals just from Rajahmundry.   Let’s hope he keeps the proposals as they are and nothing more.

He is having a great time in India, and the time is really flying for him and us.  We look forward to our next conversation with him in May to see how things are going with him.