Week 92: The power of the Book of Mormon

This young man is really changing right before our eyes.  The experiences that he is sharing are coming from his heart and he is really totally committed to sharing the gospel to the people of India. He is learning so much each and every day.

Before I even start my letter today I would just like everyone to know that I got pooped on by a bird yesterday! 

The Book of Mormon has literally changed everything in our area. We have been so worried in the past by responding to other peoples questions by going directly to the New Testament to answer their concerns, leaving very little room to share or even focus on the Book of Mormon. Yeah, we were able to answer their question but that only led to another question and so on. 

Right after that conference we practiced every morning using the Book of Mormon and trying to be creative with it. We have been teaching lessons in the morning because many of our New Investigators come to play soccer with us and that is the only time they can meet. We have not taught one lesson this week that was not centered on the Book of Mormon. 

We saw, not only were they actually reading the Book of Mormon, but they were also keeping other commitments as well. We are working with one family that was not progressing at all really, but still continued to go and visit and see what the Spirit can do. We have been reading the Book of Mormon with them pretty much all week and now they are reading the Book of Mormon as a part of their family studies they have. Their daughter and son are preparing for baptism April 12th and we are going to read the Book of Mormon every day to get the parents also.

The Book of Mormon will change, and can change everything...you just need to have faith. Every appointment we had was spiritual and powerful. People focused and could feel that power work with in them.

So here is a funny quote of the day for you.

We needed one more brother to come with us on splits, I tried everyone but no one replied. I was able to get a hold of one brother and this is the conversation.

Dusara: "Hey Brother can you help us today?"

Brother: "Sorry Elder I am trying to prepare to go back to Vizak tomorrow."

Dusara: "Wait you have plenty of time to get your things ready, we only need you for 3 hours."

Brother  "Sorry Elder I need to iron my shirt"

Dusara: "Wait what? You need to iron your shirt?" Just come in whatever you want"

Brother: "Sorry Elder bye..."

Dusara: "Troll face with Elder Singh for 20 minutes ------____--------

Another Elder Dusara is coming,

Elder Dusara

Week 91: AC goes out, but the Spirit comes in

This young man's testimony grows stronger each week with the experiences that he has.  We are truly blessed to have him serving a mission among the people in India.  

So last week our AC was leaking water and we woke up to a little lake it our bedroom, 2 days ago we did not turn on the AC and instead let the fan run...I think I lost 10lbs trying to sleep and my pillow and bed sheets were soaked in sweat. Elder Singh continues to scoop everyone without cause or mercy and it's injuring me. Since we have been playing football (English) in the morning I am starting to see my body trim down a bit and it feels awesome!

Elder Thambi is continuing to rock it with the members and is doing a great job getting close with our investigators. Everyone loves him and it makes teaching so much more effective, We are continuing to do all we can to prepare our investigators for baptism but we are still having trouble with some of them to help them come to church. Elder Thambi and I have been spiritually drained a couple times last week because we have been having awesome personal studies for our investigators parents.We had an interesting experience with one mother who was very set on Jehovah being god. We shared with her many scriptures from the New Testament to support our claim that Heavenly Father is our father and HIs father but...since her bible was translated horribly wrong she did not understand. It was also in Telugu so even we could not understand. I am so grateful for the King James version of the Bible! 

So on a more spiritual note. Yesterday we received a phone call from one of our great families(Chinagondolas). They wanted us to give a blessing to their mother since she would be going to Hyderabad to undergo a surgery. We felt it would be good to give a comfort blessing and that is what we did. The mother, sister Kanthum, started to cry and get very sad so we decided to share a scripture I read in my personal study in Alma chapter 14.  Alma and Amulek were thrown in prison and were delivered because of their patience and because of their faith. The spirit just swooped in and everyone was just silent after we read the verses we needed to read. Then for the closing prayer I called on the daughter Tulasi to give the prayer but she did not know how? I taught her to pray in English and she started to cry during the prayer and than everyone in their family started to cry. The spirit was very strong and I was just speechless after. My companion and I fist bumped after the lesson! MY LIFE IS BRO

Enjoy the Handsome,

ELDER DUSARA

Look out Bollywood

Henna...misspelled

Week 90: The blessings keep coming

Elder Dusara continues to "Hasten the Work" in India.  He and his companion have been in Rajahmundry for approximately 6 weeks and they are averaging about 25 lessons each week.  They are having a wonderful time serving among the saints in that part of India.

This email will be nice and short because there is not much to say other than the work is moving forward and we had the Baptism of Brother Lokesh on Sunday.

We have been teaching Lokesh for about 2 weeks and he is more than prepared. The Baptism was preformed by Elder Thambi (His first baptism) and everything went awesome! Brother Srinivas also baptized his son Satish. The day just got better when we went back to Lokesh's home at night. We taught him about the Holy Ghost and tied his father into it as well since he is not a member of the church. We asked him how much he loves his family and if living together forever would be something to look forward to, of course he said that he would love that and we just felt like we should invite him to be baptized. He was unsure about it at first and then when we asked him to pray about it he said he would to that. 

We have been playing soccer every morning here for the past 2 weeks and not only do we get a good workout, we get the chance to teach some awesome people as well. This past Sunday we saw brother Vamsi at church and he has been playing soccer with us since day one and he loves the members of the church. He wanted me to hook him up with Gospel Library and to come to his home to teach him and his grandparents. Since the Cricket world cup is happening soon we will be playing Cricket in the coming weeks and hopefully I will have the chance to teach the YSA's how to play American Football.

So much for a short email. I mentioned last week that we have been struggling to have our investigators at sacrament. This past week was the greatest blessings we have received in a long time. Every investigator that we have been teaching that has not come to church in the past 3-4 weeks came yesterday and they had a blast at church. The members fellowship great and now all those investigators want to come back next week:) 

We are having a hard time meeting with all our investigators even when we go on splits. Heavenly Father is blessing this area abundantly! 

Enjoy the Photos

YOSO,

ELDER DUSARA   

Teaching bro Srinivas and Satish

Lokesh and Satish

Baptism of Lokesh and Satish

Week 89: Disappointments will come

We asked Elder Dusara, what he would do different if he had the chance to prepare over again and his response is below:

- My mission has been memorable so far! I cannot tell you have many awesome experiences I have had and I cannot tell you the many crap things that have happened. Its 30 years of experience all in 2 years!

- I wished I would have been more in tune with the scriptures. I love reading them and I love learning the deeper doctrines of what different scriptures mean.

Do not be fooled by my title today. Elder Thambi and I still worked really hard and had 25 great appointments but there is another principle that I learned this past week. I am sharing this because it will be a little bit different compared to my other emails.

So the whole week we have been preparing our investigators in all things. One of them is coming to church. It does not matter what you teach them during the week because if they do not come to church they are not exercising that faith that will push them to the next..level.  Its kind of like Halo. Before you move on to the next chapter or the next level you usual fight a boss or face something really challenging. 

So sometimes like yesterday, our investigators did not come and I was so sad. In Elders Quorum class we were reading through the Ezra Taft Benson manual and we came to chapter 4 which talks about "Living Joyfully in Troubled Times". I was reading through that in class and I just felt so happy for some reason and I was excited to visit those families that were not able to attend church. We visited every family and we able to share with them the importance of Sacrament. Something that was interesting to note was that after we finished the lessons they said that they knew or felt like something was wrong when they did not come to church. I am pretty sure that is the Light Of Christ acting within them. 

We found two new investigators yesterday and they were two people that I was told to go speak too. I I ITL'D them last week and did not ask for his phone number just to see if he would actually call me. I knew where he stayed so everything was fine. He did call me yesterday and I went on exchange with Arun and Raj Surya and we started teaching the "God Head" and then this brothers wife started asking questions that Joseph Smith also asked...so...the lessons turned into the restoration by the end and it was so cool. She has a very strong testimony of Jesus Christ and so does her husband! 

Here are some photos of our Service Activity:) 

YOSO,

ELDER DUSARA

Week 88: Because of Him

Last week had its all time highs and had some really crappy lows. 

The highs were great, we achieved our goal of teaching 25 people and we had great success in using the spirit to testify in our lessons. I have made my companion a little promise and I promised him I would stop talking so much during the lesson and give some more time for him to share his thoughts. I think it worked out very well because it brought more unity between us and we were able to testify together(John 8:17). Elder Thambi is going to become one of the best Indian's in this mission. He is so willing to learn and to improve and he is not afraid to tell someone how he feels. 

So we have been working with the brother named Guna. He was taught like 2 years ago and just lost contact with the missionaries. One day we were derping around our area at night with a member and we stumbled upon him. We asked some questions and one thing led to another and now we are reteaching him all the lessons So this Friday we had a really powerful lesson with him and we invited him to church. The next day my patience was tested and I was not happy at all. On Saturday I went to visit him and he said that he would be back in 10 minutes...If you have been in India for more than 20 minutes you will know that 10 minutes is actually 30 minutes:( He said that 3 times...so that means that I wasted 1 hour and a half waiting for him and I missed 3 appointments I could have had. He did eventually come back and when he did he just said "Sorry Elder I cant talk now I have some work" and he was gone:( 

We tried to have members go to pick him up on Sunday but it was to no success. We tried so hard to have him come to church and to help but nothing worked. I was so angry that whole night before Sunday and I fasted so that all that anger would go away and I could love him instead. On Sunday we visited him after church and went over the 10 commandments. I want to talk to him directly about the Sabbath Day and how special it is for him. I can't type what I said because I have no recollection of that but I can say that the spirit worked through me in one of the most powerful lessons I have ever given! Now he understands why it is so important and he was sorry for not coming. My anger was gone and all I felt was joy because of his understanding. Because of Him.

This has happened with a couple investigators last week but this was the one that was most powerful.

Here are some photos of a service project that we took part in and a baptism that we all had this week. Also a nice selfie for ya!

YOSO,

Elder Dusara