Adventures in Bangalore

Hello all! 

The week was a little slow for us because most of our investigators are out of town right now. I guess school is starting next week so everybody decided to go and enjoy nicely before school gets going again. We're continuing to do our best and rely on the Lord in our work! 

Elder Ball and I are having a good time. Sometimes when we travel in crowded buses, we like to speak to each other in Tagalog so only we can understand. People always give us funny looks and try to understand what we are saying but have no idea what's going on. People just get so confused when they see us which makes it really easy to talk to them and share the gospel. Often, they will even start the conversation for us! They usually get our attention and ask us why in the world two tall white guys are cruising around Bangalore in a sweaty government bus. We have a really fun time with the people here. We're trying to pick up a little bit of the Tamil language so we can impress the older people that don't know any English and get them to laugh a bit.

Here's a few pictures from our week.

A view from the area. That bridge in the distance is a major landmark in Bangalore because there's a train station there. It's always extremely crowded with people and traffic.

This is our apartment complex at night. I stand out on the balcony during my daily follow up calls and enjoy the view.

The highlight of the week was getting the chance to see my good friend Krishna once again! He was baptized right after I left Bangalore and we have kept in pretty close contact.

Twins Ah?

Walking around the streets of Bangalore with another tall white guy that looks exactly the same as me regularly causes people to lift their eyebrows and turn their heads as we walk by. When we talk to people on the streets, our conversation usually goes something like this:

Us: Hey guys, how are you?

Them: Fine! Where are you from?

Us: We're from America. 

Them: Ahh, okay okay. Twins Ah?

Us: No we're not twins. We're looking the same right?

Them: Yes! You are own brothers?

Us: Nope. Also not brothers.

Them: Cousin brothers?

Us: Yeah, let's go with that. We're cousin brothers. (which in India really doesn't imply that you are blood related but related because of friendship or something)

This week was pretty good. We've had a ton of good time to go in our area and teach the people. Elder Ball and I are teaching more lessons than ever which is cool because the last time I was able to teach this many lessons was when we were companions in Rajahmundry. We must be the power companionship. We have a ton of really awesome investigators right now and becoming really close friends with them all. Baptisms will be coming!!

Church yesterday was really good. There are some really cool members of our ward that I'm excited to have some time to get to know. Our ward is about half American people because many of them are working here and stay within our ward boundaries. Very interesting for me to see what a ward is like with American people serving in many of the callings. It's been a long time since I've experienced that.

That's about all for now.  (Pictures are at the bottom) We're working hard and having a really fun time while we're at it. Hope you all have a great week!

Love, Elder Thompson

We've started collecting a few traditional recipes from families here and there and then learning how to cook them ourselves. We made this one after church yesterday. It's called Dal (Telegu =papu) with white rice and popped. Very delicious and extremely cheap to make. It's made out of Dal lentils and a few vegetables and spices.

With our investigator Raj Kumar. He was a walk in to church one week and been consistently coming to church and taking the lessons from us ever since. He was pretty shocked to hear about the Plan of Salvation and life with his family after death. As we taught him that lesson, I realized even more how lucky I am to have the knowledge of God's great plan in my life. It makes me more motivated to find and help other people learn about this essential doctrine as Raj Kumar has just learned. We're working to help him be baptized next month.

Us with Shabbeer, another one of our investigators. He overheard Elder's Ball and Basil teaching somebody else in a restaurant last transfer and was intrigued by our belief and knowledge of God. We had a nice visit with him here in the park.

Bengaluru

Hey Everybody!

Life has become super crazy for me here in India. President Berrett has recently called  me to be his assistant. On Tuesday, I packed my things and headed back to Bangalore. (Now officially called Bengaluru) I'm back with my good buddy, Elder Ball who was my companion back in Rajahmundry for one transfer. We basically look exactly the same so people always think that we are brothers. We met together and jumped right into our area. It's been so productive for us because we already know each other's teaching styles and work habits so we can work in unity very easily. This is supposed to be one of the more difficult areas in our mission but we had an extremely productive week with new investigators, people at church, and new people commit to be baptized. I'm excited to see what we can do to try and set a model for the mission. The assignments of the assistants in our mission has recently shifted so that we don't spend very much time in the office and have plenty of time to go out and teach the people. I'm loving it so far. Yesterday we had a meeting with President Berrett and it gave me a chance to see a little bit more of his personality. We went into his office, he slouched down in his chair, put his feet up, and started talking with us about what is going on in the mission right now. It will be cool for me to work more closely with him and see what I can learn from him. Also, we will be spending a lot of time with him in the next couple of weeks so that we can get ready for the new mission president. It's going to be a crazy experience to help our new mission president figure out how to live here in India and lead the mission. He is going to be great. 

Yesterday we had the opportunity to attend the first ever Bangalore stake conference. I was also in Bangalore a year and a half ago when we had district conference so it was cool to see the differences in everything. The people were very reverent, the speakers were great, and over all it was just better. It's been so cool to see the growth of the church in this city since I first served here 18 months ago. President Berrett gave a great talk and mentioned that since he has started his mission about three years ago, there have been enough baptisms in the India Bangalore Mission to create an entire stake. It's so cool to see so many of God's children that have made the decision to come back to Him.

Aside from all the hard work, Elder Ball and I are having a great time together. We started doing T 25 with Shaun T every morning to try and stay nice and fit for the end of our missions. 

Hope you all have a great week and find great joy in everything you do!

Love, 

Elder Kent R. Thompson

I took one last picture with the elders in my Hyderabad apartment. We woke up very early in the morning. I came to Bangalore and Elder Sundas went back to Rajahmundry.

This is my new home! It's a pretty nice housing complex called Brigade Metropolis. We're about a block away from the church and the mission office.

Stake conference was also great because I got to see many of my good friends from Convent Road Ward. Here I am with Brother Megha.

I'm getting old.....

The news for the week is that Elder Thompson just turned 20! I can't believe how old I am getting! We travelled to MLC this week and learned some great things from President Berrett and Elder Funk. The work is going great! We're finding new investigators and teaching them how to be happy. It's so fun.

Here we are in the airport on the way back from MLC. The sisters had a nice pan of brownies so we enjoyed it to celebrate my birthday. L-R is Elder Parks, Elder Wailey, Elder Rajendran, Me, and Sister Raman and Sister Padmakumar in the front.

This is us last night with the Boddugu family, some super nice members from our ward. Brother Vivek (my right) is part of a different family but accompanied us to our appointments.

Hope you all have a great week! 

Love, Elder Thompson