This is the Bangalore Metro.
Well,
things are happening in our area! I can't really keep track of the
days; it all happened so fast. But, here's a quick overview:
On
Saturday, I got to interview an investigator for baptism! Not ours, but
the other elders in our ward were teaching him. On Sunday, he was
baptized! That was a very long Sunday. We had
9:30
church as usual, then the baptism, then a mission farewell for one of
the YSA members of the ward. He's leaving to the India New Delhi mission
this week! All told, we were at church for 5 1/2 hours. Right after
that, we had a quick lunch, and went out to teach some lessons. It's
plenty hot here- so much so that we all got little cards from Sister
Berrett warning us about heatstroke and its symptoms, and giving some
remedies. Anyway, we met with one elder's parents, who fed us a very
nice dinner, and then with an interesting family. The husband was
baptized about ten years back, and then got an arranged marriage. That's when
your parents and your soon-to-be spouse's parents are both hunting for a
spouse for you, meet each other, and decide to marry you off. You do
get a say in the matter- you can meet your spouse exactly once before
the marriage, for the engagement. That's your one and only chance to
veto before it becomes permanent. Fun, right? It used to be incredibly
common in India, but is much less so now. Back on topic, his newly wed
wife was baptized basically just for his sake, and so they remained up
until we ran into them. Elder Sunny and I all but whitewashed (both
moved in at the same time, thus being equally clueless about it) this
area, so we were trying to find some members. A member showed us this
particular family's house, so we visited. They weren't home. We tried
again later. This time, their 7 year old daughter was home, but not the
couple, just the daughter and the grandma of the house. We talked
briefly, and left. Then, out of nowhere, the brother showed up at
church! I didn't recognize him, because I'd never met him, but he told
me his name, and asked me to find my companion (who was at the other
side of the sacrament hall). I did so, but when I turned around, the guy
was gone. We visited their house Sunday night, and finally met them,
and learned their situation. The husband was very less-active, and the
wife had pretty much abandoned our church in favor of her last one. But,
they listened to the message, talked with us, and promised to come back
next week! That's always good.
Other various announcements:
I
have 3 weeks left till I go to the Philippines. Anyone who wants
souvenirs, speak now or forever hold your peace. I'll mail them off from
the Philippines; I've heard the mail is a lot more reliable and faster
there.
We are teaching a Muslim investigator,
Navaz. He wants to be baptized, but the mission has some special rules
for Muslims. One of them is that they have to be interviewed by our
mission president. He did that this week, and we sat in and watched. It
was interesting: there are some strong recommendations made, and some
things that I hadn't thought of. For example, Navaz was advised not to
travel to the Middle East and certain other countries, to consider
changing his name, and other sundry topics. He was also asked if he had
any friends/family who would consider injuring or killing him for converting. Fortunately, he passed the interview, and is go for baptism!
Bangalore is awesome!
That's it, but here's some pictures. See Ya!
This is as much of the chapel as my camera could get at one time.
A normal street in Bangalore.
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