Hello,
Okay I have to explain the subject line. Elder Brown and were visiting the Chinna family. They know very little English but they are one of the most pleasant and delightful families ever. We love the two sons, Arun and Murali. They are always wanting to come on exchange with us and every time they see us they give us a big hug...or that is the biggest hug five foot, 95 lbs Indian boys can give us. We were teaching the family and the Father, Peter, takes one of his dogs who is super pregnant, takes her paws and says in a pretend dog voice "hewwo Brown, hewwo Mackay". I just about died laughing. When I call home I'll mimic the voice for you. It's very similar to Dustin and Ashley's 'Rithe' story ;)
Speaking of rice, I'm going to be eating a lot of it this next week. Holidays mean food, and food means lunch appointments and just to put the cherry on top of the cake there are three birthdays tomorrow, two of which are feeding us. So after all that time and effort trying to bring down my weight I'm going to put the pounds back on. So Byron get ready cause in two years I'm going to need some major wippage back into shape.
We have been really busy lately. This week is going to be really tough cause we're not sure if we can even visit all the people that we need to visit. I think it's a mixture of having a short week last week, a couple bunked appointments that we need to visit, and (my personal favorite) a ton a referrals flowing in from the members. It's amazing. I think we have 6 investigators coming from referrals and that may not seem like a lot but as any missionary knows, referrals are like gold. Elder Brown and I were analyzing and we noticed a definite higher percentage of keeping commitments from member referral investigators and the investigators we found on our own. Preach My Gospel says that the gospel flows most easily when it is supported by a friend out of love (or something like that). That is so true and it makes me so grateful to be in Rajahmundry.
We set Srinu for baptism in January. I'm not sure if I've talked about Srinu, it gets hard to remember what I wrote home and what I wrote in my journal. But Srinu is a cool middle aged guy with a wife and two little girls. He is a referral from a member, Anand, and Anand has helped so much in the process. We told him about baptism and he said he wanted to be baptized but first wanted to make sure he could come to church continuously. We were delighted to hear that he wanted to make a commitment to coming to church and we explained that by setting a goal he shows God his faith and by doing that God will help be ready by that day, if he should be baptized on that day that is. But he is really excited and loves church. The only problem that I can see facing them is Srinu's job and his wife's English. English is a hard thing in Rajahmundry, while most males know it for business purposes it's very hard to find a wife speaking English, especially if she's a house wife. We're trying to help her learn English, and coming to church would definitely help. Srinu's job is probably the larger obstacle. Getting Sunday off in India is very difficult since the Sabbath Day is such a new concept to many people. Most will have one day for a holiday (day-off) during the week and all the Christians try to get Sunday. Since there is such an overload of petitions for holidays on Sunday not everyone can get it off. There is just not enough supply of Sunday-holidays. So usually that means they will pass around the Sunday shift so that everyone can have one or two Sundays off during the week. It's a bit of a problem but it seems to be that if someone tries hard enough they can get at least part of Sunday off.
We met a really interesting guy last week. We were walking on the road searching for new homes and people to talk to and a guy rides up on his motorcycle and asks for holy water. He was in his 40's, wearing a dirty shirt, chewing tobacco, and had the smell of alcohol on his breath. We told him we didn't holy water but we could share a message with him. "I really want holy water. I'm not Christian but I need blessings, I'll do anything to get them. I've been reading your book, the Bible, and I want blessings." How could we say no? His name was Raju and he took us to his home. He owned a building with three floors. He rented out the bottom two and took the top for himself, which was a tiny two room flat. On his bookshelf we saw piles of religious books coming from all different backgrounds. He told us how he was rotten when he was younger and that he wasted his life but now he was feeling a need to come to God. He told us he was married but his wife lived far away, I think separated. She had his son and he was lamenting over how he wanted his son to be blessed. It was a pitiful sight to see and it tugged at me a little bit. We shared with him the Restoration and he seemed to be touched by it. We visited him again yesterday and he looked like a new man. He was wearing a nice polo shirt, he was clean shavened, and smelled to some extent kind of nice. He amazingly remembered everything we taught him last time. We were really impressed. Sadly he is going out of town for 2 weeks but he says he really wants to meet with us again. We're kind of nervous that he'll forget about us and won't want to meet with us again but we're hoping. I thought after him about the message we share and how great it really is. Raju wanted blessings for his son and we were able to show the way for him to do that. Not only that but anyone who knows the gospel knows it could heal his marriage. That's pretty powerful stuff if you know what I mean.
Well I have to come to a close but I have to finish with a funny story. The other day Elder Brown and I saw a cow walking into a home. I thought it was funny but Elder Brown told me of his cow-in-the-home-experience. While him and his companion we're teaching a family a cow walks into the room. The family was shooing it out and on its way it stepped into the other Elder's shoe and was walking away with it. So the Elder was chasing the cow trying to take off the shoe as it was taking a step. Not something that you see everyday.
I'm so sorry to hear about Jon. That really is tragic. Thank you for letting me know and I'm for his family and friends.
I love you all so much though. You are always in my prayers.
Love you a million cows,
Elder Mackay
p.s. sorry I couldn't get any pics the internet is so slow it times out every time i try to upload to email:(
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment