HELLO!

So, my new companion is awesome. Elder Shahi is Nepali, but his ancestry is from China. He knows how to work very hard and genuinely cares for all of the people we meet. I'm starting to be able to do the same. I've almost got it down. He has not climbed mount everest, but you're right, it's in Nepal. He's 22 and was baptized maybe 5 years ago. He's a lot of fun and really wants to cook, so I let him... he cooks well. We're almost ready to move into an apartment. It's pretty nice. Marble and a full kitchen. Wood cabinets and guards. Its in a commercial area and should serve us fine if we get it approved. We don't, however, have a cell phone. We also don't have a landline. The other elders we're staying with just lost their phone... so it's VERY difficult to get a hold of our people, and since we just split our area, we really need to follow up with potentials that were ignored due to our previously less-than-satisfactory area book. I'm excited to get to work... again.

Here are the names of people I have been teaching...
Abhishaik: boy 18yo, I baptized him this sunday (yeah, I did it)
Chaitu: girl 19yo, INCREDIBLE testimony and now has a huge knowledge of the gospel. Wants to be baptized but her father will not allow it.
Naresh's Parents: They don't speak much english but we can teach them because they are a part-member family. We helped his father overcome alcoholism and they are finishing up getting over tea addiction, then they'll be good as far as the WoW goes. They love us and want to baptized, so they're doing their best to get eligible.

Since our boundaries just got split (4 elders in RJY 1st instead of 2) we have an incredibly small area and I lost many of the people I've been teaching previously. Some of them are:
Silaja, Amar, and baby Lucky: Silaja is a teacher and speaks english. She is soooo good, but is pregnant again and is getting sick, and is unable to attend church. She follows through with comittments well other than that. Amar speaks little english and went from tolerating us to really enjoying our lessons. He doesn't read the BoM as often as he should though. Lucky is the cutest little boy. Always smiling, rarely making noise.
RaShaker: boy 18yo Works out a lot and is starting to get built. He promised to come to church everyweek and sincerely meant it, came for 2 weeks in a row and then didnt come once. It was sad, but is very ready to overcome his parents unwillingness to let him get baptized and go through with it.
There are others...


Actually, yesterday we had a lesson with Chaitu and since there isn't anything left to teach her we discussed Corinthians 11 about the covering of our heads when we pray. One thing that isn't difficult for people to accept here, but is a culturally common practice is for women to cover their heads with their sari as they pray. No one knows why they do it, it's just that everyone does it so they assume it's the way it should be done. Well, Paul explains it away when he talks about a woman's hair is a covering for her and it is glory for her. Weird stuff.
Anyways, Chaitu asked me to bear my testimony to her, it was a little unexpected, but an awesome experience. The missionary work really is very exciting. I've managed to learn so many things and the gospel just gets more and more interesting the more I learn.

The doctrine that most people have trouble accepting is... different per person. Some can't accept that new prophets are called, they believe that revelations ceased with the death of Christ. Most often it's just confusion of what we teach mingled with things they heard from other people. If they are willing to listen to us and what we are actually teaching we can clear up concerns, but a struggle sometimes is getting them to let us teach what we believe, sometimes they would much rather tell us what we believe. Haha, we can only knock Christian doors for safety reasons and most of what we get is "I already know about Jesus and I've been saved, you aren't on a mission to save the people who already know about Jesus, go teach the Hindus!" That's the funniest, some of them tell us they already know everything about Jesus and that we have nothing to offer... those types of things. It's really quite sad, those with beliefs that are similar to ours seem to be our worst enemies. It obviously isn't the case every time. Many times we are urged to come in and pray for their family. Many want us to eat with them the second they see us, having never met them before. It's sad when we have to turn away people because there isn't a male in the house and we couldn't get a member to come, or because they only speak Telegu and we can't communicate. I'm hoping that we can teach in the native tongue soon.

I love you ALL!

Elder Shep