Elder Braden Baker: The Lemonade Bucket and uhhh Who's Govind?

Hello! I hope everyone had a great week. Well, this week was good. I swear time is going by so fast, I can't believe it's already June! June 6th is my wonderful mom's birthday so make sure to wish her a happy birthday on Thursday and do me a favor and give her a hug for me. I can't explain how grateful I am to have her in my life. She truly is a blessing to me and my family. I love her so much!

So this week!! We had some really good lessons. One family I've been teaching for like 8 months finally started reading the Book of Mormon and loves it! The father is really into the Church! He follows all the videos on YouTube and follows and listens to the Prophet Russell M. Nelson. We have taught him about everything about the church and he is really impressed with the Church and everything about it. The one thing that He wasn't doing was reading the Book of Mormon. He finally read the first two chapters of 1 Nephi but was a little confused. We went to his house and started to read chapter 3 with him. He read the whole thing and he understood so well and was explaining to his wife! At the end of the chapter, he looks up and asks, "Can we read chapter 4 too?" Heck yeah we can!! Hahaha he was loving it, he just couldn't stop after one chapter. He said he will definitely continue to read now! The Book of Mormon is such an awesome book. I love reading from it so much, it's my favorite book rn. I enjoy reading and love to learn from the prophets and their examples.

I met this guy named Vignesh on the train about 2 months ago and gave him a pass along card. He visited the Church website on the card and ended up requesting a missionary visit and a Book of Mormon. So, later we got a referral for a guy named Vignesh and I didn't think too much about it because that's a name like "John" here in India. When we met with him though, I saw he looked so familiar! So it was way cool that he actually found interest before even meeting with us. This guy has been prepared to hear the message of the Restored gospel. During our first lesson, we were just talking with him at first and he was telling us, "Well, I go to random churches just so I can pray. I believe in Jesus Christ. I'm just confused which church to go to because one of my friends invites me to his church and a different friend invites me to his church and other people say come to my church. I don't know where to go!" We we're excited to share with him the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he could totally relate to Joseph Smith. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and downloaded the gospel library app on his phone. I asked him, "How do you feel about the Book of Mormon." And he said, "Well, I really like it and I can say I know the Book of Mormon is true!" Hahha awesome! This man is already bearing witness before he has even read it. I love his faith but I told him that is awesome to hear and as excited as I was I invited him to start reading it. He has come to church the last two weeks in a row and loves to meet with us!

Well, this week was the new and improved lemonade bucket stand. This time, double the squeezed lemons and double the buckets! I never knew how big of a hit a bucket of cold lemonade and a foreigner yelling, "Come! Free lemon juice!" I would love to take the credit of the business being the white guy speaking Tamil but it's probably just because it's the middle of summer in Chennai and everyone's melting outside. We had such a fun time and as long as we are free, we will continue to upgrade the lemonade bucket each week in hope to find the elect! This week was successful, three more new people in the church that evening.

Update on the lemon juice miracle guy last week that came. He came to church on Thursday to meet with us but mostly talked the whole time. I thought this whole time his name was Govind and I was bearing testimony that God knows him personally. I said, "God loves Govind and he knows Govind's name and everything you need!" And he hit me with a reply pretty quick, "I'm Gopal, not Govind." That was pretty embarrassing not gonna lie. Make sure you know their names. Anyway, it wasn't a deal breaker because he came to church on Sunday again! That's two weeks in a row and he got the Book of Mormon and told me he will read it in a week. So, I will update you next week if he's serious about that! I hope so!

I love ya guys, I'll talk to you next week!

Love, Elder Baker