Hey Y'all,
This week was pretty interesting, our lessons were sadly down because we had to drop a lot of our investigators, but I was able to have quite the cultural experience this week. A lot of our investigators weren't progressing or weren't interested which is a bummer because now we only have like 4 solid people to teach, but they are all on a baptismal date. On Tuesday, sister Akula (the lady that taught me how to make chicken curry, that burned my throat the first time I had it) make us crab curry. We had to go get the crab curry so we went to the fish market. Man that is the dirtiest and most unsanitary place on the planet. My companion said if I went to Bangalore it would be even worse. There were fishes of all kinds everywhere and on the floor there was nasty fish water mixed with dirt and smashed fish scales and guts.It also doubled up as a goat chop shop, and there was goat heads everywhere, I named them all Chivito (sorry Kayli..) (my sister's goat she had when we were younger) The crab curry was good, it was kinda weird when I ate it because I wasn't sure if I was eating Indian food, or Cajun food from New Orleans. A lot of the members have had engagements lately, and are marrying childhood friends, which seems like a nice love story (some of the engagements are arranged some are love) the weird thing is, is that they are more than childhood friends... They are marrying their cousins. That was very surprising to me, I had no clue that a lot of the people I we know here are married to their cousins.. Now granted I knew that was normal in Alabama but I didn't expect it in India. While visiting people this week, I have had two people ask me if I could take their babies to the U.S, I was flattered but declined. I had the opportunity to go to a Hindu wedding and dang those things are crazy. The bride and groom sit on stage and pour rice and pebbles on each others head. I missed the actual marital ceremony, but the we are invited to an Indian Christian wedding at the church, which will probably be different than an American wedding. There were lots of people at the wedding, and man the people here loove to eat. I find this problem when we have church activities, when we start the program barely anyone is there, but near the end when its over and they serve snacks or dinner the people come. We had a self-reliance program this week to help those with financial problems better manage their money. As we were handing out flyers through out the week, the number one question I got was "Will there be dinner there". There wasn't a big turn out at the activity, but am glad that the people that really needed to be at this program were there. President Berrett came to zone meeting and was able to get our zone back in shape (hopefully) because the disobedience in the Rajahmundry zone has been ridiculous. I also had shrimp curry this week for the first time and it was really good, probably my favorite. A member in the ward (sister Tatanini) is trying to learn English and is doing so by practicing singing church hymns. We went to her house and I had her practice sing hymn #340 (The Star spangled banner), my companion was laughing the whole time because she didn't know what it was. I tried to get her to sing #338 (America the Beautiful) but was unsuccessful. Other than that its been a hot week here, about 107 degrees all week. Until next week
Love,
Elder Magnusson
