Week 41: Teaching the Talwars. a clean apartment

This week Elder Mungamuri and I went with the Allen's to a lesson with the Talwars. We taught them The Plan of Salvation. The Talwars read the booklet that we gave them. The both had lots of questions about the three kingdoms of glory. We gave them a booklet for The Gospel of Jesus Christ. They are going out of town for a few days so we will meet with them when they come back.

Yesterday we left our apartment extra early to pick of a less active sister and her disabled son to take them to church. They don't have very much money so they can't afford to come to church. Plus her son can't walk very well. She said it was her first time that she's been to church in 2 years. The Branch Presidency had no idea who she was. They thought she was an investigator. Also I'm hearing a lot in this Branch that a lot of members that struggle to find money to come to church. It's tough for us cause there isn't much that we can do. We had 53 people in attendance and 7 people in English class.

This week was great with the district. Elder Mutyum and Prabhudas had two baptisms yesterday. Everyone is getting along in the apartment. For our apartment check the apartment was looking great. We are getting a lot of our apartments needs crossed off of our list. All is well in Dwarka.

Elder Dusara out!

Before the haircut

Paying off the doughnut bet

After the haircut

Week 40: Talwar family experience

This past week we received a great referral from the branch. They are the Talwar couple. They are in their mid 50s. They have a son who's a return missionary. Plus he attended BYU and is married in the Salt Lake Temple. This is what initially sparked their interest. We taught them The Restoration and they said they would like to be taught as much as possible before they get baptized. They live pretty far away from us but we plan on teaching them twice a week.

Elder Mungamuri is doing well. He's still helping me with the area and the names of members. He has expressed to me that he wants to stay in this branch for one more transfer.

My testimony had grown this past week because I was a little bit nervous with trying to find only English speakers to teach. But the Talwar couple is great and I understand just about everything that they are saying. They also have had a lot of questions about the chronological order to the events of The Restoration. Which means that they are truly interested in what we are saying.

We had 82 people at church this past week. We also had 4 people attending English class.

"Faith can not exist when fear is present"

Elder Dusara

12th man in New Delhi

Ajay in joggers

Week 39: English classes, Go Hawks!

So this past week I told my district that if the Seahawks win then I'd buy the district donuts from Krispy Kreme. So it looks like I'll be ordering donuts this week. I'm also wearing the same blue and green tie until the Seahawks lose or win the Super Bowl this year.

My area hasn't grown a lot this week. But with all of the visits that we make to RCLA's I feel that I'm a little bit better connected to the branch. We are continuing to teach an investigator named Dileep. He's 9 years old and seems to understand everything that we are teaching him. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Plan of Salvation this past week. He's on date for February 7th. We also are going to start visiting another brother in the branch weekly to help him prepare for a mission. We had 71 people at church and 3 people that attended English class.

I went on an exchange this past week to Vasant Vihar with Elder Cratch. He's from Saratoga Springs, Utah. There is also another American in the apartment as well. It was very refreshing to be around Americans once again. I attended their English class in 2nd Branch and there was 60 people there. For an hour before the class I stood outside the Church spinning a sign advertising English Class. It was actually  fun doing it. We had people that made U-turns in their cars and bikes asking us about the English Class. It was pretty amazing to see the positive response that we got from random people on the street that wanted to learn English.

This week is zone meeting and "get-big" season just started

GO Hawks!

Elder Dusara

Week 38: Transfer to Dwarka, new missionaries to work with

Happy New Year Everyone,

I'm going to need to re-start my adjustment meter.I got transferred to Dwarka. My new companions name is Elder Mungamuri and he's from Rajahmundry, India. Dwarka is a completely different place compared to Malviya Nagar. This is just a new environment for me. We had 72 members at church this past Sunday. We also had 4 members confirmed in sacrament meeting. I've met just about all of the active members but I just can't seem to remember everyone's name. We had 2 people show up to English class this week and we are expecting that number to grow as the weeks go on.

I can tell that this apartment is very close. Everyone seems to get along very well. This morning I made it a point that everyone helps clean the apartment, especially the kitchen. The kitchen looked like a tornado went through it. But now it looks 10 times better. There are 6 of us total living in an apartment. One of them goes home this transfer.

I'll start to enjoy my time here once I fully understand how to get around with public transportation and also memorize where all the members live. I can tell there is going to be a bit more missionary work out here as well.

I'm going to miss my old area with having great members and an awesome mall 10 minutes away from my apartment.

My New Year's Resolutions are to
1) Finish Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine & Covenants
2) Not buy any soda
3) Put on 15 pound of muscle. I weigh 167 pounds right now

Elder Dusara