Hump Day and Birthday!

Hello everyone!

Well it was an eventful week! I finally hit my year mark! Man crazy how fast time flies by. I still feel like I just left the MTC! I still have so much to learn and so much to do! It was a solid week though! So for my year mark, we celebrated by going to Mcdonalds. The first time I have eaten real fast food in over a year! It was glorious. I teared up. Mostly because as I was taking my first bite into the juicy crispy chicken sandwich, Viva la Vida came on the radio.... It was so weird. I felt like I was in America for a second but then I saw my companion eating rice with fried chicken. Thats one of the specialties that mcdonalds has here I guess. Pretty sweet. Then for my birthday some members gave us some food! It was Tilapia and rice. It was actually really good. Im not gonna lie though... I still don't like fish. my tongue was stabbed by like 30 bones. Its okay though. it tasted really good! For dinner we went to a place called greenwich Pizzas. Man it was way good. I had eaten Pizza in India before but this was sooo good. Also. I prepared chicken curry for everyone staying in our apartment. It was nice and spicy! Not as spicy as I would have liked but it was still good. I missed the burn at the back of my throat. My companion wasn't too phased by it but one of the zone leaders was crying. It was awesome. We used curry powder instead of Chilli powder so it wasnt the same. Next time. 

Well Yeah. Back to work. We didn't have any of our investigators come to church so that was rough. But we are teaching some really cool people. We are starting to focus on the less actives in this area because there are a lot of them! i guess our area is only going to be a temporary one. There were like 30 new missionaries that came last transfer so they had to create a lot of new areas. I dont know how long we will stay here though. We have to travel to the other side of the city to reach our area. Its okay though. The people are are way nice. The biggest problem here is that no one gets married because divorce is illegal. so people just live together. We have 2 investigators with that problem and one of their boyfriends is a member. I have no idea how to help with that problem because that is unacceptable in India. If anyone does that there than I am pretty sure they will be stoned to death... Just kidding. But seriously.... Anyway. Thats basically our work right now. We street contact everyday all day. lots of finding!

This place is like in between America and India. They try so hard to be like America. I have seen more American flags here than when I was home! But its still kinda dirty and all the houses are stacked together. But no where near as dirty as India. I don't know how to describe it. They actually drive on the right side of the road! That was weird. Toilets here are nice. Haha there is toilet paper but I don't want to use it. I am using the beautiful bucket. Also! So theres no warm water here and our showers are freezing but its nice because it gets pretty hot here. not as hot as Rajahmundry but close. Anyway we use a bucket for showers as well. I will have to take a picture. I cant send photos today cuz this computer is ridiculously slow and wont load them. Next week!

Well i love you all and hope you are enjoying the warm winter like I am! I just want to mention one of the gifts of the spirit. I think i have talked about this before but I want you all to know the gift of tongues is real. I haven't had it constantly, but there have been many times on my mission when i heard someone speaking a foreign language to me and I have understood exactly what they said. That has happened a few times while I have been here in the Philippines and it is amazing. It usually happens when I least expect it but also when I needed it the most. More evidence that God really does love us. Oh that reminds me, I gave a talk on Charity in church on Sunday! Hopefully they understood my English! I thought it went well. I connected it with Matt. 22:36-40. When Christ tells the 2 great commandments in the law. Its amazing how all the law and the prophets really do hang from these 2 commandments. Also How in the last days men's hearts will fail them, but charity never faileth. I dunno. Charity is cool. love you all! 

Elder Checketts