E-mail: May 18, 2015 "And this gospel shall go forth until it has gone forth unto every nation, kindred, tongue, and auto rickshaw."‏

We've been able to see how the "stone cut out of the mountain" that Daniel talks about is literally filling the whole earth, especially here in India. Everywhere we go the Mormon church is making it's way into the lives and homes of random (or maybe not so random) people. One day we walked into a Christian family's home and there was a Telugu calendar from their church hanging on the wall, but the picture of Jesus Christ on the front was from the bible videos being produced by our church. On another occasion we hopped into the back of an auto and found a rack with free catalogs from almost every Christian church in the region; and although there was nothing with our church's name on it one of the pamphlets had a popular LDS depiction of Christ coming down out of the clouds on the cover. My favorite experience however is when we were in an investigator's home and we heard the unmistakable soundtrack from one of the Doctrine and Covenants videos being used during a dramatic moment in a random Tamil movie. Whether it be through pictures, movies, songs, or other media The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is beginning to penetrate every corner of the earth. The next step? Ask the brother who's driving the auto if he knows where that picture came from, and then invite him to learn more. ;)

Apparently when you have to leave a foreign country that doesn't want you there preaching about Christianity in the first place, you have to have not one, but two passports to get you back in. It sounds like I'll be using one of my passports to get me into the Philippines while the US keeps my other one and tries to get me back into India. Does this sound like a big, complicated mess? Yup. Does it sound like I may have to stay in the Philippines for a while if things don't work out? I sure hope not. Regardless though I had to take a trip to seaside city of Chennai this week to get all this stuff figured out. Chennai is the second biggest city in southern India and borders the eastern sea. It's known for being a major importing dock for all of southern India and for being hotter than- ...a very hot place. Thank goodness it was overcast and rainy the two days we were there or they may have had to ship my melted remains back to Bangalore in a bottle. The city was beautiful though, and the church members there are awesome. We got to tour the biggest church building in the mission and it was incredible. A three story giant religious superstructure on the main road of the city attracts more than just a little attention, and so we spent the rest of our time Thursday afternoon out front handing out pamphlets and Books of Mormon to anyone who passed by. It made me realize that it's not very hard to share the gospel with others. Our message is simple: God loves us and wants us to be happy so He sends His prophets to teach us about His Son, Jesus Christ. If we follow His example we will find joy in this life and eternal life in the world to come. This book, which is similar to the Bible, contains the words of ancient prophets and the fullness of the gospel and will bring you closer to God if you abide by it's teachings. If you diligently read and pray to know that these things are true, God will give you an answer by the power of His Spirit.

My challenge this week- introduce one of your friends who's not a member of the church (you all have one) to the Book of Mormon and help them to come to Christ. E-mail me with your experiences as you do this too, I'd love to hear about it. :)

Anyways everyone until next time- Stay awesome. :)

-Elder Clouds