Elder Braden Baker: WONGA! WONGA!

This week was great! We were able to invite two more people to be baptized and they accepted and are preparing to be baptized soon. Everything seems to be going great right now on my mission and I'm loving it! I'm learning more and more Tamil every week. This week, we met a couple and I started talking to them in tamil. Turns out that the guy didn't even know Tamil but the girl did. So, after I was talking a little bit in Tamil, she was getting angry at her boyfriend because I knew better Tamil than him! Hahah it was really funny. She said, "He has only been here for 6 months and he is speaking way better Tamil than you!" I was pretty honored. (; Not like speaking Tamil will be useful for much longer because as soon as I get transferred, the people will speak a different language. It's good for now tho!

Anyway, this week we were crazy busy planning and having our branch Easter open house activity and it was a lot of fun but exhausting! Yeah, you might be a little confused why we had an Easter activity way before Easter. Well, somehow there was a miscommunication between our zone leaders and the mission president so we planned for April 6th and we were supposed to have the activity on April 20. Since we already started advertising, we had it on the 6th but now we will just have it twice! So, we had to get a lot of supplies and stuff ready for the activity. Then, we were at the church setting up and decorating the church ALL day on Friday and then we were there for the actual open house all day Saturday. What we did was set up and decorated 5 different rooms like the final events of Jesus Christ's life and took people on a tour through each room teaching them more about Him. It was great!

So during the Easter open house, not a ton of people came right away, so we decided to just go out on the street and start talking to people. Elder Rajendran was SO pumped to bring people in the church. The first guy we talk to, Elder Rajendran starts talking to him in Tamil and then like 20 seconds later, "WONGA WONGA!" which means "COME, COME" and we brought him up and taught him all about Jesus Christ's life. It was awesome. Many more people like this came in and learned and felt the holy ghost so strongly. There was a mom and her son that we were talking to and initially she said she has no time at all! She was walking to the train station and had to catch her train. Finally she agreed to just come see and also to come into the AC(which was a good finding idea) because it was so hot outside. After seeing each room and feeling the spirit, she sat down in the chapel and watched Bible videos for the next 45 minutes. It was so cool to see the spirit touch many people including myself! I know Jesus performed the atonement and died for all of us. I know He was resurrected and lives today. I know he visited the ancient people in the Americas and I know he is the head of the church today and speaks to His prophet Russel M. Nelson.

Speaking of the prophet, I hope everyone had a great experience listening to general conference this weekend. Because of the time difference in India, we will watch it next weekend and I am so excited. Apparently, having a church meeting at 1:30-3:30 AM is frowned upon or something idk. I had no say in that decision. But, next week I will be able to hear all the talks and I couldn't be more excited. I've heard great things!

One experience I want to share is a lesson we had with Vidubala. She has had a lot of trials in her life and health issues the last few years. We have been meeting with her for awhile now and usually the lessons would go like this: 90% of her telling us all her problems and 10% of us sharing a quick message to try and help. This time, we taught her the gift of repentance and baptism and how amazing it is that Jesus let's us change over and over and always repent each day to become more like him. We shared the scripture Alma 13:28 and told her that she won't be tempted above which she can bear. She won't have any trial harder than she can handle with Jesus Christ. She really felt the spirit and I felt to invite her to be baptized. I told her that Jesus Christ has his hand out to grab her and help her up to her full potential but she is the one that has to grab his hand. If she never grabs on tight to His hand, then He can never lift her up. It often takes a small leap of faith to jump out of the darkness and into the spiritual light. Vidubala understood and really felt the spirit and now wants to prepare to be baptized.

Until next week everyone, love ya bye!

Love, Elder Baker