Elder Kent Thompson, India Bengaluru Mission: Week in Indiranagar

Hello all,

Elder Grimmett and I have had a really great week this week. Here's what happened:

Our apartment got painted, so we spent most of the week in the zone leader's apartment in Indiranagar. It's about ten minutes away on the metro. It was fun to be with them. It's kind of funny because they are both American, and all four elders in my apartment are also American. It's really really rare to have 6 or even 4 American elders in the same apartment. But we enjoyed spending time together. Eder Mangum made us breakfast almost every day that we were there so that was really nice of him.

Elder Grimmett and I got brand new cycles to use. They are pretty sweet. Vey simple cycles, but they are new and work really well for what we need. It's so fun to ride them around because we can weave through traffic really well. Whenever there is a speed bump, all of the cars slow down, and we find a gap and launch ourselves off the bumps. Whenever there is a red light, we snake our way through all of the traffic and get first in line for the green. It's pretty awesome. My cycle got a flat tire on the first day, but I found a really nice guy that fixes flats for only 25 rupees.

Elder Grimmett bought me a coconut the other day. The guy just took the coconut, sliced off the top with a machete, and put a straw in there. It was pretty tasty.

The other day, we were on our way back to Indiranagar. It was almost 9:00 and we still had a ways to go, so we were trying to hurry. We got stopped by this super super drunk guy named Muhammad. It was funny because we were walking down the street, and he drove his car right into a pile of bricks. (He was driving really slow, so we were fine) he looked out the window with his very happy grin, and shook our hands and said that he wanted to chat a while. After making a pretty pathetic attempt to park the car on the side of the road, he came over to us and started to chat. It was hard because when people are drunk, they don't really listen to you, and just want to talk the whole time. I gave him a pass along card, so hopefully he will fix himself up :) It was also funny, because while we were talking to him, he almost tripped over a brick. He said "sorry I'm drunk tonight", and I said "yeah. I know." The smell of alcohol in his breath was so strong, that I think Elder Grimmett and I were a little bit drunk ourselves from simply standing there and talking to him. We had a good laugh as we finished our travels.

The other day, we had a really spiritual experience. We have a good friend named Adidia that we met on the metro. He doesn't live in our area, but he works in it, so we get the chance to meet with him from time to time. He texted us the other day saying that he wanted to meet up, and that he could also use a blessing. We went to Dunkin Donuts, and he bought one for all of us. He told us that work has been really rough, and his boss has been giving him a lot of trouble. After, we went to the church to give him a blessing. He told us that he has been having trouble with depression for the past few years, and has been taking medication for it. He just wanted to be comforted. All four of us gave the blessing to him, but he chose me to be the voice. At first I was a little bit nervous, because I haven't given very many blessings before. But the Spirit was there to help me. I know it was. The blessing went really well, and he felt so good after. After I gave him a blessing, he said a prayer. In his prayer, he told God that he was sorry for not believing in HIm for all these years, and that he could feel his presence during that moment. It really was an amazing experience for all of us.

One of the members, Sister Sri Davi took us to get dinner, and she also got us Ice Cream after. I got a banana split. It made me really happy to eat the banana split. Sri Davi is going to study at BYUI here in a little while.

I found a place in Indiranagar where you can get Snickers bars for 30 rupees. I may or may not have purchased a few of those while we were there... :)

This week was so good because we picked up a few new investigators. They seem pretty interested. I took the lead in teaching the restoration to them. Also, yesterday we went to visit someone named Sirshendu, and his wife Paromita. Elder Grimmett has visited them before, but hasn't been there in a while because Paromita had some pretty intense knee surgery. We went out to their home after church yesterday. It was cool because they live in a pretty nice apartment, and they have both spent lots of time in the US, so being in their home was almost like being back home. They also spoke really really good English, so anything I said, they could understand. The lesson went really well, and it turned into a discussion because they had lots of questions. After the lesson, we just sat and had a conversation for a while. It was cool. They are super awesome people. They are also really good investigators because they are super willing to pray, come to church, and come closer to Christ. I'm excited for the day when they will have the chance to be baptized.

I attached a few pictures. My coconut, our new cycles, and the delicious banana split.

Hope all is well back home. I look forward to hearing from all of you.

Love, Elder Kent Richard Thompson