Sister Massey's Journey - India Bangalore Mission

Hey All, I am sorry for not emailing last week. Got caught up.  So yeah, last week we for a fun Zone Activity to Aruku Valley, its a hill station in Vishakhapatnam and is a beautiful place. I am attaching some pictures from that day :)) Also, this past week we got to meet such amazing people! We met 3 women of such a strong character that have inspired us a lot. Venu, she is a college student here in Vizag but is actually from Orissa. She belongs to a Hindu family but loves to attend church because it gives peace to her. She is super talkative which makes meetings with her all the more fun. Then there's Priyanka(a girl we just met in an auto going to visit a family) and Prem (a friend she got with her to meet with us). They shared with us how they have been praying since they were kids and how that has blessed their life so much. We all shared our testimonies with each other that day and the spirit was so strong in the room that evening. We all could feel it i...

Hey all, I received my new companion, Sister Chadda. She is also from Delhi and is adorable adorable adorable! she is tiny and very sweet. She makes me smile a lot :)) She has a very strong testimony and it has been strengthening mine since she came.  With her, i got Sister Beesa in my apartment too!!!! it is super crazy how my cousins always end up being around me on the mission. It amazes me to see her on a mission and how good of a missionary she already is. We have been laughing continuously since they came. It's fun. They're both tiny and Sister Kongu and I are not so we feel like big aunties in front of them. hehe  This last week we had an appointment that I will probably never forget. We were teaching the Restoration and Sister Chadda shared her testimony n Hindi, when I looked at sister Kongu to say that I will translate it in English and then she can do it in Telugu, she said she that she got it and she went on and translated the whole thing in Telugu! It...

                                Hello, It's had to believe but i completed 6 months on the 10th of August. It has been such an amazing time!! 6 companions,almost 2 areas and many many wonderful memories. I am enjoying every day on my mission. I feel like i just came but it definitely has been quite some time.I have come a lot more closer to my Father in Heaven and i am realizing each day that I have the potential t become like Him and His Son Jesus Christ.  We are very excited for the new sisters to arrive!!! i am really hoping i can b with one of them!!  I am eager t see how the rest of the year will be :)) I am doing well. I am happy and healthy.  ps- dab on the 6 month mark! Sister Massey India Bengaluru Mission

                                                   Hello, Beautiful People! How is everybody this week?  I had a wonderful week. We met new families and individuals that are so interested in the gospel and we feel that they are very well prepared to heed the message of the restoration. Also, these new families and individuals speak and understand English really well so it is a lot more fun and easier to teach them.  We celebrated rakhi with a few missionaries here yesterday. I have attached pictures with the email. It was really fun.  Saturday  night we got a phone call from President Mortensen and he gave us a news that's both happy and sad. He told us that i am being transferred to Vizag for the time being until new sisters come in in next week. I couldn't stop thinking about the people i was always with her...

Hi, I have loved sharing the gospel this past week. We were able to meet a beautiful family. The best part is that they speak Hindi too!! We had our first lesson with them in Hindi. They are from a Christian background and rear chickens in their yard hehe. They had many questions for us and we loved answering those for them. There's 3 of them. Mom, dad and their daughter. She has polio but what amazed us was that she teaches tuition to kids like her. We got to see one of them That girl was about 8-10 years old and she had the most beautiful smile!! Sister Waghmare and i were filled with awe at seeing her and her beautiful smile. Next time when we visit that family we will meet all her students. We're very excited for that.  We met a member last week, Vicky, who has been a member since 2008 but has been inactive ever since. We learned that he lost his father last month and visited him. He is a really sweet person and we had a good time with him. We shared John 3:16-1...

Hi, This past week we had a great time with our ward members. We met a very cute family last week. they have 2 daughters and they live RIGHT BEHIND our stake center. They came for English class and that's how we met them.  Ramanama is doing well. She didn't come to church last Sunday though. We have planned visits with her this week and are excited to be working with her.  We had a zone conference last week so our whole zone was together. We have 19 missionaries in our zone which make us the biggest zone in the mission. We all love working together and learn a lot from each other. I have attached a picture of our zone with this email. Yesterday i gave a talk in our ward. It was the longest talk i have ever given! but it was fun.I was impressed by the spirit to talk about my favorite hymn, hymn #219  Because i have been given much. I talked about the last verse in the hymn that says, "Because i have been blessed by thy great love dear Lord. I'll sh...

Hi, Guess what? I went proselyting in Bangalore last week!! So we were there for a training and President suggested that as we had a whole extra day there we could go and meet some families. SO we did and it was the sweetest experience. Some people we couldn't meet because they were busy but we did meet Dina (the girl in the picture) and Brother Vishnu's family. his wife was just baptized 3 months ago. It was so good to see these people. Dina shared with us how she is wanting to be a missionary like us once she is done with her studies and we were able to give her some suggestions and shared our experiences that made her more excited and gave her a clearer picture of what we do as missionaries. Then we met brother Vishu's family. We shared about temples with them and loved knowing about how excited his wife is for their family to visit the temple one day and be sealed to her family not only for this life but for the life after death as well. In Rajahmu...

Hello! How is everyone?? We are still in Vizag and are loving it here. The weather is a lot better now as the monsoons have started so we almost have a nice cool breeze. We are teaching 2 men whose wives and kids are all members. In fact one them has a daughter who is serving a mission right now.It is so amazing to see how strong their wives and and their kids are in the gospel and how much hope they have for their husbands to accept the gospel in their lives. We will be going back to Rajahmundry this week and we are excited to meet people there and to learn more about them. I am happy and healthy :)) Love, Sister Massey 

Hello! First of all sorry for not writing last week. These last 2 weeks were so good! We were able to serve in Rajahmundry in a trio. We met some wonderful people too. One of them is the Balakrishna Family. We had a restoration lesson with them that went so well. We felt the spirit so strong in the room when Sister Kongu was sharing the first vision. She did hat in Telugu but as she did that it was testified to us that it doesn't matter what language we speak, the holy ghost can touch, speak and testify to all of us of the truth. We also witnessed a miracle!! So last Sunday I was greeting everybody in church and as I went up to greet sister Seerapu she told me that her son was coming to Rajahmundry on the 24th (which meant they could have been baptized because they were waiting for their son to come and baptize them) So i immediately asked her if they were thinking about baptism still and she said yes, hey were. I couldn't believe it! This is the couple that ...

This was a crazy week! We had no clue how we were going to manage both areas but as we did it this week and it seems possible now. We were able to meet a lot of people here in Vizag. It is good to have two support systems for a few days. We are excited to go back to Rajahmundry and work with Sister Kongu there. Our investigators in Rajahmundry are doing good. We are working on ways that can help them better understand the purpose of this life so they can be more willing to follow Christ into the water. Last week I got to know that one of the recent converts in rajahmundy passed away and it shook me a little. He had 2 kids, I think, and the older one is just 17-year-old young women. I knew that the Plan of Salvation is real but at that moment it made me doubt it. I couldn't stop thinking about her and her family. Plus, them being recent converts I was afraid that they will move away from the church. My companions assured me that Lakshmi's dad is safe and is really in the spirit...

  Hii, I hope you all are well hydrated this summer! i am doing my best myself :P  We had a lot of new things happen this past week. Sister Waghmare and I found out that one of our investigators speaks Hindi so we had 2 appointments teaching in Hindi. I never thought i would ever be teaching my native language. It made me realise that God always provides us with ways to keep doing His work if we really have the desire to. I am in a tri-companionship now with Sister Waghmare and Sister Kongu(my MTC companion) and we are serving in rajahmundry and in Vizag! We're excited to see how this works out! Yesterday we had the opportunity to attend one of the fist Stake conferences in the Rajahmundry Stake. It was wonderful to see so many faithful saints gathered here in Rajhamundry! They came from Kakinada, Dowleshweram and here. I was so happy to see and have short conversations with some of them! I know tha Heavenly Father has great things in store for the saints in Indi...

Namaskaram :P This last week was precious. As a mission we got to meet a special witness of the divinity of Jesus Christ. It was a beautiful experience and i sure got to learn a lot. The spirit was so strong that i couldn't hold my tears the whole time. Sister Mortensen inspired me a lot! I got a lot o answers to my prayers through her short talk that day. It gave a testimony that prayers do get answered and that God really is there and is ALWAYS listening to what we are saying.  It was such a delight to be in the same room as an apostle of Jesus Christ. I will always cherish the memory of conducting the music when an apostle visited our mission.  I was nervous of being picked on by Elder Cook and not being able to answer the right thing and all that but as soon as he started talking certain calm came upon me and i knew that the holy spirit was there and that even if he asks me something, that i will be fine. It felt so good in my heart when he was addressing us al...

Hey, We met a new family last week, Balakrishnan, his wife Madhuri and their 2 adorable daughters. They're a sweet family and we're hoping that they progress well in the gospel. The most amazing part of meeting them is that they are a referral from brother Bonthi who was just baptized this march. We are as trying to meet with a referral from the Juthuka family but those guys are young and they seem to slip out during opening prayer. I think its hilarious but i hope they stay and would want to listen to what we have to share this week :P Everything is great here. the heat is increasing day by day.  i am getting a new companion this coming week and i think she is from Mumbai so that will be fun!  Our mission meets Elder Cook this Wednesday! We all are very excited!! It always a treat to be able to see and hear from a living special witness of Jesus Christ. I'd love to share more about that next week.  Take care. Stay hydrated. Don't lose that...

Hey, We had one of the best experiences here in Rajahmundry last week. We had the first Open House at the Rajahmundry Stake center and it was a successful and a beautiful event to be a part of. We invited everyone we could.  We started off with a word of prayer, there were about 40 of us who were there for that but we could feel the spirit so strong as our stake president spoke about how grateful we are as a stake to have this opportunity. We shared all that we do in our different auxiliaries with the guests and a lot of them loved it. Sister Botcha and i were helping out the Young Women's program.  There was a different feeling in the building the whole day and we knew that we were all brothers and sisters working together to let those who visited know that this is what makes us so happy. Everyone had beautiful smiles on their faces and there was so much love around.  It went on for the whole day and we had a big dinner with everyone who helped out after. ...

Heylow! Sorry for not writing to you all yesterday! We were in Vizag busy with Sister Botcha's things so couldn't send out emails. But I'm here now so, hey! Last week was another great week. Had new experiences and met wonderful new people, Vijayalakshmi being one of them. So she came in our English class last Friday and told us how much she wanted to meet with us and learn more about the church. She asked us to pray for her as she wasn't feeling well too. So we did and gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and a pamphlet of Joseph Smith's testimony. The next day when we went to meet her we were so surprised to see that she had actually read the pamphlet and remembered what she had read. She told us that she felt very happy while she was reading it and that she wanted to learn more. We invited her to church and she \came. She felt the spirit so strong in the sacrament meeting that when I looked over at her during sacrament I could see tears in her eyes. We ...

I AM 20!!  Haha Hi!! This last week was crazy! There was so much to do and so less time.  On Tuesday  our zone and the Vizag zone were together and we had a training with Elder and Sister Evans (of the Seventy). It was a wonderful conference, we learned so much from him, our mission president and other missionaries. One thing that I loved, that we talked about was being kind. Elder Evans talked a lot about President Monson and being kind is one of his counsels that he shared with us. As I was preparing for my talk this last Sunday I was thinking more about what really does being "kind" mean.I learned that it means being generous and, being generous means giving freely. And what can we share and give more freely than our testimony of this true church, of the fact that Jesus is the Christ and that the Book of Mormon is not just a book, it is the evidence that Joseph Smith was a prophet who was guided by Jesus himself to restore the truth back on Earth. I know t...

                                                                      Hellooo! This past week my trainer left for home. My new companion is Sister Botcha. She is from Vizag and is very tiny.  So Bobby said he will be baptized next year. He says he wants to start his life new and he will do that starting next year. That makes me sad. But my companion and I are constantly praying for him. We met quite a few new people last week.  And again I was reminded of how simply God works. There was this one lady we were trying to meet but we couldn't get hold of her and didn't even know her name so it was getting very hard to meet with her but then,  day before yesterday we were just passing past her workplace and saw her sitting outside. I didn't recognize her but she was smiling at m...

Hiii, First of all, Elder Massey is serving in Rajahmundry as well!!! We will be in the same district!! We're really excited to be serving together! We started teaching 3 new beautiful families today and one of them is the one that sells coconut water right in front of our apartments! They're really sweet and interested in learning the gospel.  Jancy was baptized yesterday! Boby said he wants to be baptized next month so we're hoping to work with him starting this week. My companion goes home this week and i will have a new companion. My training is almost over so I am......nervous xD  We had splits last week and i think i can handle it, but it stills makes me nervous a lot of times :P *pray for me :P*  The heat is increasing here but we have fun plans to work during the summer. I love you all! Love, Sister Massey

Hiiii This week was amazing, as usual, :P We, as a district, set up a table in front of the church building with church books and magazines for people to take home and share the gospel. We were so surprised at how many people actually showed up and were interested! we gave out many book of Mormons and church material. It was a wonderful experience.  Jancy will be getting baptized next week! We're so excited for her!! I loved the conference!!  It was so good to be reminded that we should not fear and just have faith in the Lord that he will provide us with ways to do His work.  I am truly blessed to be here sharing the gospel and meeting wonderful and such beautiful people each week.  I am doing so good! and I pray for all of you always!  I love you all so much and I know that our Heavenly Father too loves every single one of you a lot more than we can ever comprehend. Which is why He gave us His Only Begotten Son to die for our sins. I know...

Hey, all! This week was amazing! sorry, i sent those emails earlier just with the pictures. We had 3 more baptisms this Sunday and we are really happy that the JUthuka family is complete in the gospel now.  We were also able to have sister Laxmi baptized. She had been coming for 3 years. We went to a temple here today, the Korukonda temple. We had to climb more than 500 steps tp get to the top. It was a fun and and a very sweaty experience.  this past week something happened that we hadn't expected at all. So this family, the Seerapu family has been attending church for a long time(18 years). All his 3 sons have served their missions and are married to beautiful girls who also have served successful full-time missions but brother Seerapu is not yet baptized. We talked to him once and he said that he has many issues with his work and other things and he is fine like this. Many missionaries have tried to convince him but nothing has worked. We visited their house th...