Well there is a reason why I am responding later than usual and that's because today is the long awaited 'Holi' day. For those of you familiar with this holiday it is when everyone stuffs their pockets full of colored chalk and chucks it at each other. What some of you may not know that the true Indian way to celebrate Holi is to also toss eggs and tomatoes. So to avoid getting our nice white shirts from becoming all sorts of pinks and purple we had to stay inside until 12-o-clock yesterday and today. That didn't help so much because Elder Chagoya was on exchange in another area and he got pounded with a fist full of 'color'. When he came home he was completely pink:)
I had the history explained to me and it was kind of interesting. There was a boy named Prahalad who prayed to the god Venkat. Well Prahalad's father, who was a wicked man, told Prahalad to stop praying to Venkat but Prahalad disobeyed. The father asked for the help from Holi, some type of half goddess. Holi had the power to walk in fires and not be burned but only when the moon was full. She had the idea of tricking Prahalad into following onto a big pile of sticks and then lighting it on fire during the full moon so that he would burn while she would stay safe. Well Venkat got word of this and he blessed Prahalad with the ability to also walk through fire. When Holi got him on top of the pile of sticks she lit it on fire but was suprised to see that Prahalad was immune to the flames. Then Venkat caused to moon to become half full and Holi burned into a pile of ash. Now Holi is celebrated by throwing the ash of Holi around to celebrate the end of the wicked Holi. Kind of an interesting story and it kind of reminds me of Abraham's deliverance from his father.
Last was kind of a poor week and we're not quite sure why. We did have to spend some time working on getting a new apartment and it took some of our working time out. The most depressing part was that we only had about half the attendance at church as usual. It was strange and later most of the people came but they came really late. And we only had one investigator at church, which is really strange for an area like rajahmundry. We are usually getting about 8-10 investigators at church every week but I don't know what happened. There was a big Christian church meeting this weekend and we're thinking that that was probably part of it.
But the work is moving forward and I can feel the spirit working in many of the people we're teaching. Kranti Kumar and his family are doing a lot better. Thanks for the help Mom with the little girl. She's starting to trust us and everytime she comes I tell I have a chocolate for her and she can either be with us and play quietly or she can go to a different room and play. It works really well and she's even talking to us. Her name's Sri Mayi and she is actually a really sweet girl. As for Kranti Kumar he is doing a lot better both with the word of wisdom and with the gospel. Thank you so much Dustin for the article. I've read some of it and I'm definitely planning on using it. We're also working on strengthening Kranti and Neelima's marriage. There's been a lot of problems in this family but they are willing to do anything to finally find peace in themselves and in their families. Lucky for them the gospel focuses on the family and it's going to be an amazing experience to see this family progress... that is, if I don't get transferred.
We had a pretty amazing experience this week with the Paulson family, the family from a state called Karala. All the states have their local language so they don't know Telegu, so finding a fellowshipper is tough...or so we thought. The member who owns Moroni Model School is also from Karala and is best friends with this family. They are having a tough time with our message because we don't pray to Mother Mary, which is a huge tradition for them that has been in their family for many generations. We've explained why we pray to Heavenly Father but we seemed to be at a standstill. But a few weeks back Rinju, of the sons, told us that he read the Book of Mormon and prayed to Heavenly Father and he felt so good for the whole week. He said that he's never felt that way before. Well we met the whole family on Saturday but they're still at the same standstill. We focused on Rinju and he seemed so interested. The father started to voice his concern again and the member that was with us tried to convince just to try our message. After a few minutes it seemed like Rinju was even trying to convince his father (it was in Maleyalum so I couldn't tell). Rinju has definitely felt the witness of the Spirit and it was such a testimony builder for me because it's was so great to see the converting power of the Spirit.
It sounds like you all had a good week (except for you Mom, I hope you get better soon). Paige I'm so happy that you got all of those acceptance letters. I agree with you, Utah State does seem to be the better choice. 1) because Utah is a lot more fun than Idaho 2) Utah State is a good school and 3) by the time you finish your sophmore year I'll be back and we can both be in Utah together. Also I love your idea of going to Africa. It will be quite the experience and you'll probably be living in a lot rougher/cooler conditions than I'm in. Carly if you try to make Indian dishes than you have eat with your hands. I'll warn you though that your hands will smell like onion and ginger for about a week. Dad I like you're analysis of power. I wish I had more time to dig deeper in the scriptures but I think that I can leave that job up to you and you can give me the results (I've been practicing my delegating skills :). And I love Paige's birthday song. I got everything except the last verse and I don't think I want to hear the story behind that. I also heard that Elliott Dennis is home with a pretty nasty disease. I'll keep him in my prayers and well as Rafe.
Well I love you all and I wish that I had more time to write you.
I love you a million colorfully chalked up shirts,
Elder Mackay
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