03 JUN 10 letter

This week has been alot different than all of the other weeks on my mission. For the first time in 19 months I am spending my days sitting in an office. At first it felt very strange but I am slowly getting used to it. There is so much to learn and alot that goes into this new responsibilty. I am grateful thought that I have a chance to learn how to do all of these things.

We just had zone conference here in Bangalore. The zone conference tour always starts here and then moves around the mission. We are flying to Chennai tommorow and I am so excited to be back there and see some of the people I was so close with. Zone conference today went really well, we ran a practice on how to help memebrs participate on exchanges and i think it went well. We learned alot about how to improve it though.

On monday we went down to this place called KGF, it is about 3 hours outside of Bangalore and used to be a huge gold mine town. Today the gold mines are closed, but there are still quite a few people down there. Anyway, we've only got one companionship out there and they're basically marooned. I have been waiting to see that place my entire mission and I was excited to get down there. It was a really cool place, a small town but most of the people speak english because it was settled by the British when they had struck the gold. But that night when we were getting ready to head back it started PORUING! It was raining like I have never seen rain before...I am really starting to understand what the monsoon is. It is dumping here in Bangalore also.

Oh yeah I forgot. On saturday night we sent off Elder Mehan, Elder Ward, Elder Brown, and Elder Bartlett. It was very strange, not as strange as I thought but interesting to be a part of. We got to go to the departure devotional and be with them for their last night in India. We saw them out at about 3;30 Am to go and catch their flights. They all seemed to handle it very well. It is just strange to me that when Luke gets here and I tell him about these Elders he will have no idea what I am talking about or who they are.

So one more thing. At chruch on sunday, we attend Bangalore 1st branch, a brother pulled me aside and asked if i was Sister Arunachulam's grandson. I was taken back, but then I realized that this was the guy Mom was talking about. He is a member of 1st branch! He invited us over after church and we went. His wife and daughter made a wonderful lunch for us and it was so cool to get to know him. We came to find out that he is a huge pioneer for the church in India. Espcially in chennai, he told me that he was the first member there and he knew all of the old members that I had met while serving there. He was an incredible man and it was a miracle that we were able to meet him so easily and unexpectedly. Cool huh?

Love,
Elder Tuscano