Primary program, Blessings, and Baptisms

Kakinada is the place to be for real. I love this area, I love this ward and I love the members and leaders and everything. I love the people I am teaching and love to see them progress and have their lives change for the better as they learn about and live the restored gospel and choose to follow Christ and be baptized. Elder Datla and I have awesome companionship unity and we are really good friends which helps so much in your teaching together. I can really see a difference. He is also learning so quick and doing well. This is my third time I'm training and on the mission we call the trainer the dad and the trainee the son because it's like raising a kid.(supposedly) Well, I guess God really wants me to get married and have kids because this is my third son in 14 months.

The Rayudu family is such a wonderful family and to be honest, when I first came to Kakinada I thought they were all members!! The mother and one son have been members for the last 4 years, but the father and the daughter are not members. Apparently everyone has been encouraging them to be baptized but the family has had many doubts. Despite their doubts, they understand the importance of coming to church and partaking the sacrament each week. The father has a very strict and busy job but he always manages to at least come for sacrament each week. I saw this family and knew they needed to become members of the church by being baptized. Well, I started visiting this family when I came to Kakinada and I just remember telling their family how amazing they are and then I bore my testimony about how we are so lucky to have the restored gospel in our lives. Finally, I told them that they deserve to be members of Jesus Christ's church here on the earth. After some time, many more lessons, and the blessing of receiving a telugu speaking companion, they agreed to be baptized!! The son Chandra is 16 years old and will perform the baptism for his sister and father. He has a great testimony and a goal to take his family to the temple to be sealed together as a family for all eternity. He even gave a talk in sacrament meeting a few weeks ago when his father and sister were listening in the congregation. His topic was eternal families and going to the temple. It was like he was speaking straight to his dad! Powerful 16 year old to be so confident and bold with what he believes. The daughter Bhuvana that isn't baptized is a little missionary!! She is only 13 years old but she loves to share the gospel and wants to serve a mission when she gets older. She told us a story of when she was at school in class, her friend asked why she is getting baptized and Bhuvana told her, "In our church, we have the correct authority to baptize and the restored gospel..." and told her friend all about the church during her class at school! This family is going to be powerful members as each member will be baptized this Satirday. 

We saw a full 180 turn with Priyanka this week!! She has been a little hesitant with everything we have been teaching but she has enjoyed learning. She was praying and asking if our message is true but was having a hard time recognizing an answer to her prayers. We also have been praying for her and teaching her how to recognize her answer. About the message of the restoration, she said, "If Jesus Christ has one true church today, then everyone would come and join that church!!" Well, this week after a spiritual lesson, we taught her about priesthood blessings and offered to give her a blessing. We shared a scripture from the bible(James 5:14) and she said she wanted a blessing. She had a fever so we gave her a priesthood blessing of healing. I gave my companion Elder Datla the opportunity to give his first blessing. He was nervous about what to say but I told him that he is just the voice and the spirit will tell him what to say. The blessing is a direct blessing from God! Well, when he started speaking, the spirit was strong. After the blessing, Priyanka stood up and turned right to me and didnt even mention anything about her fever that she was suffering from minutes before. She looked at me and said, "I'm ready to be baptized." She was so happy and kept saying, "thank you soooo much!" She said she wants to be the example to help change her whole family to also learn about our church. So, she is planning to be baptized on the 23rd! She is progressing so well!

This Sunday was the primary program in our sacrament meeting at church and it was awesome. It's seriously like my favorite sunday all year, I just love the little primary children and love hearing their testimonies at such a young age. Also, the little kids that I've been teaching came to church today and participated in the primary program. They each read some scriptures from the pulpit and sang the primary songs and everything, it made me so happy to see them! What was also great with teaching the kids this week is when we went, finally the father opened up and started talking with us how he feels. He said that he is feeling a little guilty and bad for his church pastor because all of his kids like our church better than his. He said that his kids have learned sooo much more from us in the last two months than in the last 15 years from his pastor. He is seeing how much the kids like our church better and they belive it is the true church. He also wants to join us with his kids but feels guilty for leaving his pastor. He said he feels comfortable and his pastor told him that we should stick with one church and not go to other churches. Which, we told him is completely correct!! But, we invited him to find out for himself which church he should stick with. So, we are doing our best to help him. The kids are totally awesome, but we also want to make sure the parents also come to church and be baptized so they can grow in the gospel and have support in their home. 

Everything else is going well right now! This saturday, we have 5 baptisms scheduled and we are so excited for all of them. Also, right before the baptism service, we have a baptism interview for the next week for Priyanka. Thanesha is still progressing and we are planning for his baptism in December. Also, all of the kids are coming to the baptism service saturday and two of the girls getting baptized are the kid's friend and the same age and her dad is our bishop! It should be an awesome experience and we are expecting the same soon for these kids. I'm seriously going to be so sad when I have to leave them. I love them so much.

Love, Elder Baker

This is Sarpavaram Junction and the main intersection by our church and our apartment. The sun                                                 was beautiful but you can't tell in the pic...

               Elder Datla drinking straight from the coconut that the guy cut open seconds before.

 We had a day where it wasn't safe for us to go outside because of the government so we had to stay inside. We got bored and I taught Elder Datla about Halloween and we had some fun with

                               the halloween stuff I got in a package from my mom.

This is when we couldn't wear ties or tags out in public for a few days because of some issue just                                                                             to be safe.

These are all of my children!! Look how cute they are with their bright colored indian dresses, I love it. Their names from left to right are Mahalakshmi, Sravya, Rajeshwari, Meena Kumari, Anand, Elder Datla, and in the front in the pink is Shuba Varshini. I was so proud of them for being in the                                                                   primary presentation. 

 This is how you finish your russom and rice. When you get all the rice you can with your fingers,                                                  you gotta drink the russom from your plate.

                My girls Shuba and Meena always run to hold my hand when we walk to church❤❤