Being on lockdown for 3 days is normal when you are a missionary right?

Hello Family!!!

This week has been a interesting week, but not very productive at all due to reason that will be displayed shortly. First of all sorry for the late email, we had a zone conference in Bangalore yesterday and are now having our pday today. Let me just say its been a long couple days. We had to travel to Bangalore Sunday night on train and got there 4 in the morning, so we are all running on little sleep. The train was pretty cool even though you can imagine the conditions haha, luckily we got a sleeper cell which gave us a short bench thing to sleep on. I'm pretty sure my Elder Chettimala saw a small rat running on the floor but i only got a glimpse.

Zone conference was really good, we had Elder Funk who was the last Mission President here in India come and teach us. A lot of what was taught was being exactly obedient. Sis Funk shared a cool miracle of a Elder who got burned pretty bad from spilling a big pan of boiling water on himself and having a pretty severe burn and blisters but was given a priesthood blessing that night before they would go to the hospital in the morning and he was pretty much completely healed. I thought that was cool how you mentioned the priesthood in your email.

I got to meet more missionaries which was pretty cool and guess what, I met another person from Mountain View! His name is Elder Magalei and he is a year older than me but I immediately recognized him. He played football and wrestled. Apparently Mountain View is popular for India.

So this week has been different for sure... mainly because Elder Nakkapalli left last Tuesday and I still don't have my companion! hahaha Ive been companion less for a whole week now. Same with my zone leader and another area in the zone. We are all getting them from Rajahmundry and we have to do some gov de-register papers to leave a district and to reside in another. So they have all had issues getting that finished but we are expecting them on Thursday.

So what i've been doing is taking a couple members out with me for the whole day and meeting up with my zone leader at night. Its been pretty fun but kind of hard. I have had to give lessons on my own which is super difficult. But its been a good learning experience.

I have found this week how nice it is to have Elder Nakkapalli who can speak the Indian English because so many people cant understand when I talk to them. Like i've said before here in Coimbatore is the Tamil language. And they prefer to speak that more than anything so English is very difficult for many of them. I would say most of the people are definitely more shy but are definitely a loving people. I usually always get some sort of snack when I go into their homes :) 

But like i said this week as been pretty uneventful. Due to the reason of a BJP assembly/conference for Anit-Conversion that took place for half the week. Which led us to a lockdown in our apartments, and all Americans were not to go out and to stay hidden at all times. Apparently some people don't like what we are doing here. I'm just kidding it wasn't that bad, but we were told not to leave the apartments so we were stuck for 3 days. And can I just say that I don't like it doing absolutely nothing all day. Man, I did not feel like a missionary. But it was also fun to invite some other missionaries over and to play games and to get to know them. We have a pretty good zone which i'm excited to work with.

Mom don't be worried because it really wasn't bad in our area. At least from the what I got out of it ;)

So for my thought for the day, so as I have been doing the Book of Mormon challenge to finish before zone conference and to mark everything that has to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was an awesome experience to take that challenge on. I can only say that the Book of Mormon is such a blessing for us to have and we can learn so much from it. I don't know how many times I was reading and something I hadn't noticed before popped before my eyes. We can get so much out of the scriptures if we are prayerfully searching them out. There is a reason God has told us to read the scriptures. We must have that daily spiritual nourishment, just like we need physical nourishment. As we do those small and simple things we will see a light of understanding in our lives and give us the Faith and Hope to continue on the path of righteousness.

I love you all and hope everyone has a great week!

With love,

-Elder Conrad

Finally pictures in India!

6 months down!

Hello Family!
Well in approximately 2 days I will be hitting my 6 month mark! Already 1/4 of my mission has flown by and it doesnt seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Like you have all said each day I am out, I am seeing things and growing a greater appreciation for the blessings in my life. Man I don’t think we realize how awesome our family is and the relationship we all share. I often think, why should I be someone so blessed with my life and so many others don’t have what we do? Its been such a testimony builder for me as a missionary to help those around me to the best of my abilities.
This week in Coimbatore has been hot... simply said, at least hotter than its been, even though I know everyone in Chennai,Hyderabad, and Rajahmundry are getting hit with 110 degree weather. Yes let us pray for those missionaries in those areas for their safety because I know they need it.
We had an interesting week here in my companionship, in an area close by one of the companionships was split due to one of the missionaries finishing his mission. So they sent Elder Aldridge to hang out with us for the entire week. Which was pretty fun to actually have an American who I’m able to talk about random stuff with. Even though you would be surprised how much Elder Nakkapalli knows about American music sheesh... he knows more than I do.
Also early in the week we received a call from the wonderful APs, informing us on ideas for transfers and what President has been thinking about. Apparently my guess about Elder Nakkapalli was wrong and he is leaving to Bangalore to finish up his last 6 weeks. Soo... ive been in India 6 weeks and am now about to take over an area im not as familiar as I should be. Sounds great! haha just kidding. I am pretty excited for a change of things. We get a new zone leader as well due to Elder Chandroo leaving to the Philippines. Which so everyone knows we have like 15 Elders in the Philippines and 10-15 more in the states waiting for visas. Which has been a problem of late with rumors running about the government and other things that might make it harder for Visas to be approved. Right now I think the mission is dropping with missionaries out and we are not receiving new ones either. :(
It looks like our whole Zone is receiving new companions. We will be getting Elder Monk from Rajahmundry who is from America! haha dope. And also Elder Harris (who came to India the same as I did is also entering our zone from Rajahmundry) My new district is souding fun with Elder Aldridge as District leader and 2 other Americans and a Canadian who is like half indian or something. Elder Monk has been out like 2 transfers more than me I think but ill get back to you next week more on him.
But im not too worried about the area, everything is opening with us very soon being able to knock and talk with everyone once we have our zone conference next week. Surprisingly we have a pretty good teaching pool that has seemingly popped out of nowhere. we have gotten a couple referrals and im exctited to work with a couple of them who seem strong.
I am loving our branch though, our leadership is amazing out here. they are holding lots of meetings to help us out and the branch members with lots of plans. Even though I am a bit scared of our Branch President haha he has got a lot of passion and is wanting the best out of us. They are awesome.
Not much to say about the events of the week, It was kind of disappointing to see the overall numbers and how I feel our efforts were but many things are about to change and im quite excited to start a new transfer.
Elder Nakkapalli and I were very appreciative to receive a talk assignment for yesterdays sacrament session. Which I didn’t like at all preparing since we hardly have time to prepare! But I was given a really easy topic. The Sustaining Power of Faith in these the Latter Days. We were told 15 min long which I was worried about but ended up being just fine. I gave a pretty good talk and went over the time which surprised me since I had to rush and not use like half of my talk.
Anyhow I did find a nice paragraph that I liked alot about faith.
Even if you exercise your strongest faith, God will not always reward you immediately according to yourdesires. Rather, God will respond with what in Hiseternal plan is best for you. He loves you to a depth andcompleteness you cannot conceive of in your mortalstate. Indeed, were you to know His entire plan, you would never ask for that which is contrary to it even though your feelings tempt you to do so. Sincere faith gives understanding and strength to accept the will ofour Heavenly Father when it differs from our own. We can accept His will with peace and assurance, confident that His infinite wisdom surpasses our own ability to comprehend fully His plan as it unfolds a piece at atime.
I’ll end with that and my short testimony of what was just said. I think we would be surprised how much we are able to grow through using our faith. Gods plan is eternal and not meant for us to complain about the trials that we go through. Everything is for us to grow and prepare us to enter into His presence. I liked a talk, that I can’t remember, that talked about how we think of the Whys in negtivity in our lives. but that we should always be thinking of the Whys in postivity and blessings that God has given us.
Love you all and hope you have a great week! Your always on my mind and in my prayers!

-Elder Conrad