After she became a nun she went back to India where a man named Gandhi was a leader who worked to get back the rights of Indian citizens non-violently. She loved to pray, read, and work with her students. When she joined the Loreto Sisters, in 1928, everything was strange and new, like the odd food and language, but she finally got used to them. Also, when she joined the Loreto Sisters she took a new name. Her new name was Mother Teresa, in honor of the French saint, Therese de Lisieux.
In 1929 Mother Teresa began to teach geography at St. Mary's High School. During World War II, in 1945, no food came to Calcutta. Mother Teresa marched out into the streets, found some solders, and demanded that they give her rice to give to the people. It was a rule that nuns were not allowed to go outside the gates, so the people were amazed when she did. On August 16, 1948, she left the Loreto Sisters to work with the poor and again she had to leave the people she loved behind. Mother Teresa started school in the streets for the children. Each day before the lesson started, she would wash them with soap and water. The Indian children called her "Ma" or "Mother", and others called her "Saint of the Gutters." Besides healing the sick she told them about Jesus Christ.
One night she found a beggar in the streets and gave him her own bed and supper. Mother Teresa had to beg for food for the poor, she was so desperate. Another day, a girl named Shubashini, one of Mother Teresa's former students, came to help her with the poor. Soon other nuns came until she had over eighteen people helping her.
Mother Teresa had to deal with many hardships when she was working with the poor. She often got the same diseases as the poor she helped and once broke her arm, but she pressed on no matter what. Mother Teresa had to deal with many sicknesses like leprosy which is another name for Hansen's disease. On several occasions Hindus would throw sticks at her, because they believed that they should not be told about Christ.
One of her greatest accomplishments was founding the Missionaries of Charity, in 1950. In 1971 she won the Pope John Paul XXIII Peace Prize, and then in 1979 she won the Nobel Peace Prize.