New Companion - July 7, 2009

Just finished picking up Elder Korraya. He's a great guy and I feel we're going to get along great. Hope everything is doing well with you.

Love

Curtis

Good Evening, Morning, and Afternoon (depending on where you are),

My morning today was bitter-sweet. I lost Elder Smith to Erode but I got Elder Korraya now. And good news, Elder Korraya can ride cycles. He's actually been riding them for a few months in another area and it seems he likes it more than walking which I can imagine. He doesn't have a clubbed foot like I thought he had but he has polio sadly. But it doesn't seem to get his spirits down. He was so warm and happy to see me and I him. His English is a lot better than I remember it being at the beginning of his mission but I have to make sure I don't break mine so I can bring him up to the next level.

We have our work cut out for us. We have plenty of families and referrals we need to integrate into the branch that are progressing fairly well up to this point. There is the Francis family who we met on Friday with the first counselor of the Branch presidency, president Charles. Charles did the most wonderful interpretation of the plan of salvation, listing every piece of important doctrine with promised blessings. He put it in such a simple and easy way to understand, and in perfect English (Charles is the official church translator for English to Tamil and he knows both languages pretty darn well). After the lesson he talked with the family about music and told how he was the former organ player for a local Roman Catholic church and he told us "Elders you can go home, I'll take care of it from here." Well I just love to hear those words. Francis came the Sunday alone because his daughter had school in the morning so his wife went to go get her and he came to church. He came for the first two hours and loved it so much that he told us he would change his daughter's school timings so they all could come to church.

We have a very interesting situation with a few families. Last week I think I told about how we met two brothers and a sister in one home. Well we met with each of their respective families and on Sunday one member from each family came to church for a certain period of time. To make things easier to explain I'll list the names of the families. There is (oldest brother) Poopathi's family, (sister) Punitha's family, and (youngest brother) Stanley's family. Stanley and Poopathi's son, Rahul, came to testimony meeting. They both loved it so much. I talke with Rahul later and he said "Your church is so amazing. I've never seen a church like that before. Thank you so much for inviting me, I'll definitely come again next week." Punitha's family made a small visit for five minutes so we showed them around a little bit. Punitha's children loved the church so much that they may be the reason for them coming back next week. I've been really excited for these three families and also a little nervous. I feel like the situation is so good that some opposition is on the verge of happening. But we'll stay strong, work hard and involve the members in our efforts.

On Sunday we had some great news. I went to the Priesthood Executive Committe on Sunday and the branch presidency told us that for the past four months they've been focusing on the less active members of the branch and haven't gotten anywhere with them. So they decided after much prayer that they would leave the less active responsibility to the Elders Quorum and focus the most part of their efforts on missionary work. My heart flipped when I heard this. We have such an amazing presidency, and their spirit and authority is going to move our investigators. So the plan is set and the work will go forward. I hope to have some good pictures of many baptisms to send home:)

Just to make the week that much more spiritual we had an amazing testimony meeting. The members have had so many difficult yet great trials. They ranged from financial problems, family problems, down to the sincere question of if there was a God. But I was able to see, hear and feel the power of the gospel that has blessed these people's lives. There is one Anglo-Indian sister, Teresa, who got up and shared about how much she had to fight her way into the church. Before she never knew the gospel even though she was Roman Catholic but her sister introduced her to the church and after almost a year of family and personal struggles she was finally baptized and confirmed a member. It's so great to hear testimonies of the gospel proclaimed when the rest of the world tries to push it in the attics of their minds.

Well I love all of you so much. Thank you so much for your prayers. Jen I hope a week without Matt around wasn't(isn't?) too horrible. And Paige I can't wait to hear from you. College is a blast but just be careful as finals come up. You don't want to be caught empty handed, or I should say empty brain-dead, when the exams are passed out. As for not having the name-tags in the auto picture, we were in Bangalore and there you have to take off your nametags when you go outside. If you serve there one companion will have to wear a colored shirt a neither can wear ties outside. They're just safety precautions but the work is still going on there so there's not too much hinderance.

Love you a million bright faced companions,

Elder Mackay

Oh yeah and I forgot to tell you about the rain. So far so good, there hasn't been much more than a few sprinkles here and there. Definitely though when it gets heavier, we'll be using less cycles (and hopefully more members will feel sorry for us and take us in their cars:)

Hugs and love