Elder Braden Baker: Good Food, Another New Son Named Elder Clawson, and Answers to My Prayers

This week was transfers and I got a new companion!! His name is Elder Clawson and he is from Utah and brand new to India. I will be training him and especially training him and helping him adjust to India. I'm way excited. I got to pick him up at the airport on Friday and we had a great few days so far together. It was an awesome weekend. I get to experience all the "firsts" in India again with Elder Clawson and it is so fun. This week, he experienced his first time crossing the street in the crazy traffic, he experienced eating with his hand, and eating rice and curry, riding in the shared autos, using the sprayer instead of toilet paper, he is still taking it all in!!

Elder Clawson is slowly adjusting to India, he is experiencing a whole lot of culture shock. Despite all of that, we have had a GREAT first weekend together. Saturday we had a teaching appointment with a new family that some members referred to us. They were incredibly nice and so loving. We had a struggle finding the address of their home because we both are Americans and don't know the area or language. I was nervous about this before I got Elder Clawson so I have been praying to find and seek people that we can teach in English! So, as we were searching for their home, a brother stopped on his moped and started talking to us. He spoke amazing English. He lived in America for 14 years and knew about our church and has even been to our temples there to visit. He accepted our invitation for us to come to his home so we plan to go this week!! Answer to my prayer.

But that's not all, we ended up finding the families house and taught them. It went great. When we left, we walked for awhile and then stopped to get a coke at a small shop for Elder Clawson because apparently it is good for digestion. I spoke with the worker in Telugu and was very friendly. At the same time, there were three ladies in an auto nearby watching us foreigners "enjoying and being happy while surviving here in India" as they explained. We got in the auto and rode together and we talked with them and even they spoke perfect English and accepted our invitation for us to come to their home. There are just prepared souls all around the streets of India and they nearly come to us when we are doing the right things. By now, Elder Clawson was so happy and excited to serve in India. I told him, "welcome to serving in India, it's so much fun because people love us and I love them!!

We taught a lesson that night to two sisters who are super interested and will definitely progress to be baptized. The spirit just pounded all of us in the room and left everyone on the edge of their seat wanting more. When we closed the lesson about the restoration, they looked at the clock and they were shocked because about 50 minutes had gone by and they didn't realize it. They were just so into the message. I asked when we can come back to teach more, and one sister suggested next week Saturday again but the other sister cut her off and was like no, that's way too far away, come Wednesday!! Oh, I get so excited teaching!! I just love helping people understand the need for a restoration and how it has happened! Everyone needs to know this. I feel sad for the people that don't know it or don't understand it.

Finally, Sunday was really good. We taught a walk in family who heard about the church 6 years ago from some members and have been wanting to come. They just felt a strong urge to come to church today and were asking us to teach them something so we sat down and got to know them a little bit. They only had about 15 minutes so we taught a basic, simple, shortened restoration lesson and they invited us to their home the very next day to teach more about it!! It was perfect. Everything that needed to be there in the lesson was there even though it was short we didn't teach every single piece of doctrine and each point but the spirit testified enough for them to realize this is good and true and they want more. We will hit them with the rest of the lesson tonight more in depth. They said they want to come to our church every Sunday.

Everything is going pretty well right now, the work is starting to pick up. God is blessing us for working hard. Last transfer, there wasn't a lot of people being taught that were progressing but now it is going so good and we should have some baptisms soon. I am loving it and time is just flying by. I don't even know how another transfer is gone. Just like that, another month and a half are gone. The end of my mission is coming way too close, it's making me sad to think I have to stop doing what I'm doing. It's too much fun.

I love you all!!

Love, Elder Baker

A member works at a big 5 star hotel and took us for food and it was the best food I've ever had in india. It was so nice. So the pictures of food in this email is probably from the Westin hotel. Here is the cake.

Apparently the new family took a picture of us while we were praying in their home hahah

Cool little Indian things

A super cool terrace restaurant on the top of the Westin hotel roof

Handmade elephants that looked super cool.

Bashira, Sowmya, and Paduru at church with us.

Just a picture of me because it's been about a year and a half

I was so excited at this moment because I was about to eat an unlimited buffet at a 5 star hotel.

My new companion Elder Clawson on his first day in India!!

Our table at the Westin hotel. Apparently we got there right before closing time so we just had to fill our table with plates before they took away the food hahah.