Elder Braden Baker: God knew it wasn't a dead end

This week was way good and it seemed to go by way quick. The busier I am during the week, the faster the days go by and this week was busy!! Madhu Shalini was interviewed for her baptism and she will be baptized October 19th. Elder Karra came to Kakinada for an exchange with me and we had a great great day. We were totally led by the spirit to find a family just waiting for us. Kamalaker is learning well and progressing. Bashira is amazing like always. Oh, and she got her job that she has been working for!! Which is really good because it is one step closer to her being baptized. I wish I could talk about conference but no I have not seen it yet. I really look forward to watching it next week!! In india, we don't watch it live so we stream it at the church the next week. I suggested to watch live but they frowned upon a meeting at 1:30-3:30 in the morning...

My exchange with Elder Karra was amazing!! So, when missionaries from Rajahmundry come to Kakinada for exchanges, we always have lunch at KFC because there is no KFC in Rajahmundry. So, we planned to eat at KFC which is way good here but super expensive. Elder Karra also wanted to see my bishop here because they were friends before his mission. So, we called my bishop but he was working and he suggested he could take us to lunch during his lunch break. So, we got to go to KFC with my bishop and he payed for us!! So, the day already started off good, but there was more than just free KFC.

We were finding and there was a lady washing her clothes in front of her house, I said hey we need to talk to her. So we stopped and she was happy to see us stop and talk to her. She invited us in to say a prayer but there was no brother home. She said her son went out with some friends that live above her house on the second floor. Okay, we said we could come back another time. We kept going about our day. Didn't think about it really until later in the evening, we had an appointment cancel and we had a member with us for exchange. I asked the member to show me where a member's home was so we could visit. We started walking down the street and it was the same street as the lady washing her clothes we met this morning so we told that story to the member with us for an exchange. As we got closer to the lady who was washing her clothes house, we stopped and the member said, this is their home! I had no idea this morning but some members of our church were living in the same house of the lady we talked to in the morning. AND EVEN BETTER, she said her son was out with some friends right... they were our church members and they invited him to come to seminary!! So, in the morning we were led to meet the mother of the boy that was attending our church seminary class at that same exact time. We got to meet him and the member family that night and shared a good message. It was a crazy story.

Now, to tell about my subject title!! God knew it wasn't a dead end. We were finding all day on Saturday because we only had evening appointments. We dropped off our bicycles at our apartment so we could just walk and talk to people. We started walking and just got lost way inside a village. Like, there were almost more pigs and cows then huts at this point hahah. We had two members with us to help translate. We made a turn and it was a long street with a house at the end, it looked like a dead end. We walked a little bit but someone said "hey it's a dead end, we will take another street, come on let's turn back." It definitely looked like a dead end. In fact, I even thought it was a dead end for sure but I kind of made an inspired joke saying, "No way! It goes left, we have to take a left there!" The members laughed at me but we kept walking. Sure enough, it opened up to the left a little bit. We took the left and started walking. There was a lady standing outside at her front gate. She lived on the second floor but she was standing at her gate on the street. I started talking to her and she invited us into her home really quick. We went in and shared a message about God and how He is our Father in heaven and loves us and we also taught how to pray. They loved the message and felt so much love learning where they came from and who they are in relationship with God. Afterwards, she started crying and told us that she was not feeling well that day and her pastor was supposed to come to her home today and say a prayer but he didnt come for whatever reason so she was praying that God would send someone to pray in her home. Just at that time, she went to wait at her gate and we followed the prompting to take the left at the dead end. God knew the whole time. There is no coincidence in a story like this. I absolutely love and trust God's knowledge and His hand in my work. I'm so grateful I could meet this wonderful lady and her son. I'm also grateful that I chose to take the left at the dead end. God knew the whole time it wasn't a dead end.

We started teaching a bunch of new kids this week and they are so sweet! It is like three different families and like 5 little kids and they are all primary children. They seemed to really enjoy our lesson about who they are in relationship with God! He is our Father and loves us so much!! They learned it was a lot more personal relationship than they have ever thought of. They also said they like how they learned more clarity during our lesson. It was awesome, they are sweet kids and we are meeting with them again tonight so I hope it goes good!!

Ever since my year mark, I have been telling people that I have been out for just about a year. It was just easy to answer when people ask to say like yeah I've finished one year and I have one more year to go. So that's what I have been saying for the last two months and I just realized today is my 14 month mark... Time flies when you're having fun, wow. I guess I'm 14 months out. Only 10 more left!

Love, Elder Baker