Happy New Year! Elder Head's 1st Transfer

It was so great to be able to talk to Ryan on Christmas Eve!!  We have missed hearing his voice!  Elder Head is doing great and is absolutely loving his mission.  He loves India and all of the wonderful people that he has met and continues to work hard.  We (namely me...his mom) were so disappointed to hear when emailing back and forth the night before our Christmas phone call that as of the morning of the 24th, he had yet to receive his Christmas package that we had sent to him 4 weeks earlier.  We didn't want his first Christmas away from home to be without a few Christmas gifts and notes from home....well alas there was a Christmas miracle.  The elders had gone over to the church on Christmas Eve for a program and his package had indeed arrived!  He shared with us stories of his cultural experience.....spicier than spicy food....learning to cross incredibly busy roads on bikes...being surrounded by many, many people and having his pictures taken more in his life than ever before :)  We asked him about coming to America this summer to renew his visa and he said that the missionaries before him that had to done the same thing were in Washington DC for as little as 3 weeks and some as long as 2 months.  The India Bangalore Mission currently has 108 missionaries....54 Americans and 54 Indians.  He loves the Lord and bore testimony of the blessing of the gospel in his life.  He said that he loves and misses everyone but is so focused on what he had been called to do!  We LOVED every 70 minutes that we were able to talk to him.  Can't wait for mother's day :)  Happy New Year!!


Here's Elder Head's latest letter......

Happy New Year! 

I thought that I would start this week off with a funny (weird) story that happened this last week! So yesterday, my companion and I were in this new investigators home and we are teaching about the Restoration. Part of the way through the lesson, I look at the little kid that has been playing in front of me the whole time. When I look, I see him adjust himself in his shorts (he's like a year old) and he starts to pee on the tile floor. The mother doesn't notice and I don't know how to comfortable bring it up so I do the best thing and just sit there silently. Then the little kid sits down and starts scooting around on his butt all through the wet pee. SO GROSS. But it gets weirder. Then, we are going to say the closing prayer and we ask this sister to pray and it started out normal, but then she started to feel the "Spirit" (some evil spirit probably) and she starts yelling and screaming and has like a panic attack! It was bizarre. I opened my eyes and just watched her roll around on the ground, panting for air. It was WEIRD. 

Well, big news this week is that Elder Head has officially been transferred! I'm leaving Kakinada on Wednesday and going to the biggest city in the mission... Hyderabad! I will be serving in the West Marrepally 1st Ward and my new companion will be Elder Nepali, who conveniently is from Nepal and speaks Nepali (Nepal language). I will now be senior companion and follow-up training him (he just finished training). I'm really excited and really nervous at the same time! It's a HUGE area and a tough place to serve. The work is really slow there, but I know with the Lord's help, I can succeed! 

So Christmas here was uneventful. Nothing really exciting happened so I don't really think that I will talk too much about it, but the most exciting thing was talking to my family! That was a blast and I love and miss them! 

Well, it was an eventful week and I'm really happy right now. I love my mission! The India Bangalore Mission is the best mission in the world! 

Love,

Elder Head