15 Feb. 2016

Well, this week was pretty epic, just like last week, in a lot of the same ways. It's getting hotter and hotter over here, and I'm ready for winter to start. In other news, I hit my 13 month mark yesterday, and that also means that I am under 3 months away from heading out of the country...again. I'm still not sure where I will go; to the Philippines, where missionaries have been going, or to the states, which would make much more sense. When I head out, I will have 6 months left on my mission, which less time than the missionaries who are currently waiting in the Philippines have been there. We'll see what happens.

Anyway, a lot of fun stuff happened this week. On Sunday, we had District Conference, where Pres. Berrett and his wife spoke. On Saturday, we had no water. Well, we had no running water: our water filter holds a couple liters. But, you can't shower with a water filter. That was fun enough- until the power cut too. That removed the possibility of getting water until the power came back on. Fortunately, power was restored soon, and we got water back at night. On Friday, we had a LONG district meeting. President and Sister Berrett were there too, and held interviews with all the missionaries- which took 4 hours after district meeting. Add in 2 hours of travel to get there and back, and the 2 hour district meeting, and that pretty much killed our whole day. It was fun though. Sister Berrett checked our medicine packets, and gave out brownies. She also showed us some hilarious pictures that she'd found on the internet, that perfectly describe the Indian attitude toward some things. I'll forward them, with explanations. On Thursday, we had weekly planning, but Tuesday was the really exciting day. I got a new companion, and we split the area. Elder Maddikonda and Elder Singh, his new companion, took the north half, and Elder Kommalapati and I took the south. Splitting an area is always and adventure: one companionship can only work with so many people, so when you split that, both sides have to do a lot of finding to build up their teaching pools again. Elder Kommalapati is from Bangalore, and knows a whole bunch of languages, which comes in handy frequently. With four elders in the apartment, we've starting preparing a lot of our own food, which is a lot cheaper, too. I've made fajitas and stew, and they've made lots of curries and biryani. 

Here's a couple pictures from the week:

Here, the leaves are just starting to fall.

8 Feb. 2016

Well, we had a surprise, or at least disruption to the schedule every morning this week; some much more so than others. Last Monday, we took a trip to Semmedu, but Tuesday kind of upstaged it. We were just studying in the morning, when the power went out. It wasn't your normal powerout- it cut in sections. So, we went out and looked at the junction box- only to see a power company representative pulling our fuses. We talked to him, of course, and he said that it was because we hadn't paid our bill. Monday, we'd gotten a strange call from the mission office about that, but it was referred to the zone leaders, who I had assumed had taken care of it. Apparently not. Anyway, I called the mission office again, and got the lowdown on the situation: missionaries had vacated the apartment last year for a couple months due to transfers, and the electric meter got switched out in the interim. The church didn't know that, and couldn't figure out how to pay the bill. So, in November, the power got cut, and the talks began in earnest. Soon, it was all figured out, and the power company gave us power again. BUT, the company seemed to have failed to credit that to our account, and so was charging us for that huge amount all over again, along with the recent power use. The mission office had been talking with them for 3 weeks without any results, and now asked us to go down in person (they'd sent a few others, who had all been sent off ineffectually), and figure out what was happening. We went to the main power office, and got redirected to a more senior official. Our BML, Bro. Bosco, and Elder Maddikonda and I went down there to speak to the guy. But, he didn't know English, and our BML was the only one that knew Tamil, and didn't fully understand the situation. After much talking, translating, and misunderstanding over the papers we had been sent, we finally learned what had happened: Soon after the missionaries had left the apartment, the power company had shut off the power for no explicable reason. But, someone had gone and plugged in their own fuses: a criminal offense here punishable by jail time, as it technically is stealing power, despite the fact that the company still meters and charges for it. Anyway, the power company confiscated those fuses in November, causing the power to cut. They put in the official fuses, and restored the power. But, sometime between those points, the power company threatened police action, and someone went to them and asked if they could just apply penalty charges instead of informing the police. So, they did. The only problem was that the company billed the user, the church, not whoever actually put in the fuses, which was probably the landlord. So, we talked about our options, called the mission office, and ended up telling the power company that they could just sue the landlord; we had nothing to do with it, and wouldn't pay the penalty. They accepted that, and I just got an email confirming that the terror is over: the bill (the standard amount) was paid, not the penalty. After the talk, they gave us our power back, which was off for a very long four hours. But, that seems to be the end of it.

On Wednesday, we had yet another exciting trip to the FRO. And yet again, they told me to come back another day. Apparently, my documents finally cleared in Hyderabad, after a month of waiting, and are now pending in Rajahmundry. No one can quite explain why or how or what is going on, but they are content to sit on it and let things pass by. 

On Thursday, we had some thrilling weekly planning, where we tried to guess what was going on in the transfer. But Friday was where it got really exciting: we had zone training, and learned some very interesting new announcements:

1: We are no longer serving in the India Bangalore mission; it is now the India Bengaluru mission. No explanation was provided.

2: Due to another change in the MTC training time (it's 3 weeks for English speakers again), next transfer will be 7 weeks long to catch up.

3: 4 missionaries are entering the mission on the transfer.

4: Missionaries from our mission whose visas ran out have been waiting for 6 months for new visas, and prayers would be appreciated.

5: Bangalore has unofficially stopped registering missionaries, so no American elders will be assigned there until they clear things up with the FRO.

6: Our area is probably being split. 

That was what we heard, and yep, it all happened. On Saturday, we were anticipating an appointment in the morning and an exchange with the zone leaders, but both fell through. Finally, on Sunday, we had church, then transfer calls. Elder Maddikonda and I are staying in the same area, but splitting up: the area is being divided, and we have to figure out how. That means that every area I've stayed in for a full transfer in India, I personally had to split it. Granted, that's only been two areas, but it's still pretty crazy that out of the 9 months I've been in India, I've only been in 2 areas for a full transfer! At the end of the email, I'll send my full transfer/companion list as of the end of my first year. Anyway, my new companion will be Elder Kommalapati, who is fresh out of training, and also a native Indian. Stuff is happening!

Man, I keep getting weird flashbacks to a year ago, which was still on my mission now. I remember talking with my trainer about the Super Bowl! Also, I'm really jealous about you getting snow. Believe me, I'd really appreciate a couple feet of snow around here. It's nice and hot and humid in Coimbatore right now, still hitting over 80-90 some days, with plenty of sun. I looked through some old pictures I had, and saw one of me wearing a jacket, which made me laugh. That's also interesting news about McDonald's- they never offered me more money! And, that's about it for the week. See ya!

Year one of the mission:

Areas:

Brea 1st Ward (5 months)

Rajahmundry 1st branch (3 weeks)

AS Rao Nagar (2 weeks)

Rajahmundry 2nd Branch (5 months)

Kakinada (1 month split b/t RJY 2nd)

West Maredpally 3rd Ward (5 weeks)

Coimbatore 1st Branch (6 weeks and counting...)

Companions:

Brea 1st:

Trainer: Elder Wilding

Elder Mackey

Rajahmundry 1st:

Elder Thompson

Elder Willis

AS Rao Nagar

Elder Patten

Elder Peter

Rajahmundry 2nd Branch:

Elder Patten

Elder Braganza

Elder Jalagam

Kakinada:

Elder Patten

Elder Braganza

West Maredpally 3rd Ward:

Elder Campbell

Coimbatore 1st Branch:

Elder Maddikonda

All that in one year!

1 Feb. 2016

That's interesting, about the new missionary. I actually have had a few opportunities to practice French here. I've met a few people who have studied it in school, and I have a funny story. In the Coimbatore FRO office, things are a little slow. I've been there once or twice a week since the beginning of the transfer, but with no luck registering. Anyway, I've met people from 4 continents in there. One of those countries was Rwanda, where the guy spoke French. So, we had a very short conversation in French, where I quickly realized that I do not know as much French as remember knowing.

Things have been going pretty calmly here, up until today. We spent most of the week trying to stay in one area a day, to cut down on travel time. That's been going pretty well, but it's been slow. We have found quite a few prospective elder's houses, but we've been having trouble meeting with our investigators. We expected 8 to show up at church on Sunday- but none came. Give the missionaries in your home ward lots of referrals! They are really important! We have 3 investigators who we could baptize any day now if they would just come to church. 

Today was pretty fun, though. In the morning, we woke up early to go to a Hindu Yoga place. There, we wandered around the very well-manicured grounds, and got to see a lot of what happens in Hindu temples. There was a huge pool that was "energized" by small solidified mercury pillars in it that people would take a dip in, a pooja shrine with a bunch of chanting worshippers, and a whole building thing that takes some explanation. Elder Sampson, a former Hindu missionary, explained the concept behind Hindu temples. Apparently, the grounds and the shrines are comparable to the telestial rooms in temples, or the outer courts of the tabernacle of ancient Israel. The waiting place to get into the big room is comparable to the terrestial room or Holy Place, and the room itself was like a big celestial room, or Holy of Holies. It was lined with all sorts of carvings and decorations, and had a massive Linga in the middle. It looked like a big silver pillar wrapped in snakes, and decorated with a garland. It was supposed to be the biggest mercury pillar on the planet, consecrated by a great Hindu priest, the whole nine yards. There was near-silence in the cavernous room, which had a domed echoey ceiling. Everything was made out of stone, and there were several Hindu attendants to silently show you the proper way to worship the rock. When you were walking up to it, you are expected to maintain absolute silence. Outside the building, you wait, until the cross-legged priest flips up a sign, inviting you to enter. You file inside the dim space, and look around, before sitting until the bell chimes (about 15 minutes). It was kind of a neat experience, but also really weird. I'm starting to see more and more from being out here how good it is to know a God that answers prayers. 

I'm a little pinched on time this week, but I'll send pictures once I get to a less sketchy computer. See ya!

24 Jan. 2016

Things have been pretty hectic around here, too. We spent a whole lot of the week trying to get the apartment repaired, which it finally is! We were having some big problems with the water, but it's all cleared up now, thank goodness. On the other hand, we've been having some nice, hot, humid weather here. It probably sounds nice when there's snow out, but it's not quite as nice when you haven't felt cold in a year...literally. In related news, I hit my year mark last week. That was fun, although I didn't really do anything for it. Oddly enough, there's no snow here.

That's too bad about the van, though. It worked for the last what, 15 years? That's not bad. Also, I can't believe that Payne is going to Vegas! Although, that's more because I'm surprised there's a mission there than anything. Speaking of missions, when is Sam putting in his papers? The time for that is coming up... David wants to move to Arizona? What for? I think I might live in Alaska the rest of my life, after being here. 

The biggest news for the week was zone conference. It was supposed to happen on Friday, but got pushed back because Pres. Berret's flight got delayed. So, on Saturday, we learned all about using time wisely, and how to have effective planning. It was pretty powerful, and made me look back on how we use time. He asked us to track how we used our time for a couple of days, and then had us add it all up. As it turns out, the zone as a whole spent twice as much time travelling every day than we did teaching. Our areas are huge, by the way. It can take up to an hour to get to some of the places. In the last area I served in, we lived at the absolute edge of it, so we never really made it up to the top. I think it would take about three hours or more, judging by how long it took to get to other areas. 

I still have some candy left from the last package you sent! Not much, but there's still a little. Speaking of that, we got some news at zone conference. American elders are now strongly discouraged from getting packages from home. Apparently, they've been causing the office missionaries no end of headaches from all the customs regulations and requirements. However, if you want to send me something, you can just go to the site amazon.in, and it'll be sent in-country, avoiding customs. We got express mission authorization to do that, and even to have them sent straight to our apartments, if we want. Feel free to do that! I remember when you said the package arrived, some things had broken. Did any of the carved wooden elephants break? 

Well, our teaching pool is a little small right now. But, we do have some very interesting investigators. One of them, Samuel, is very old, and his family really does not like him coming to our church. He is very set on some gospel topics, such as God showing himself to people, and takes a while to change his mind on those things. However, he is starting to feel the truth of the gospel, and is on date to be baptized! We also have Preetha, whose husband is completely indifferent about her religion. She is a 7th-day adventist, and has some real trouble seeing why we have church on Sunday.. We've explained it to her a million times, but she still can't quite wrap her mind around it. Fortunately for our scheduling, if not for her, she broke her arm recently, and so stays at home a lot, and lives right across the street from a fun member family. So, we go there at least once or twice a week to visit one or another. Our BML recently gave us four referalls! The problem is just that none of the will meet with us. We also found one guy while looking for someone else, Sujit. His grandpa is a less active who lives in Ooty, 2 hours away. I'm still not sure why the elders from a while back baptized him here... Anyway, Sujit is pretty awesome. He has no particular religion, just believing that God is some sort of power out there, but likes to have us over, and is coming around. 

That was basically our week, have fun in Indiana! And possibly Arizona soon!

18 January 2016

Ooty sounds like a disease of some sort, doesn't it? Well, it's actually a place- and one of the most famous places in all of Coimbatore. I took a million photos, which will be included in the multitude of attachments. That's handy to know about cheap courses at Ivy Tech; I'll definitely keep that in mind. The week here was pretty eventful, due mostly to (yet another) Hindu holiday, Pongal. It's a farmer's festival, largely celebrated by decorating your walkway and outside your door in the early stages.

 

Guess what that lovely brown and green stuff is? You guessed it- cow poop. They actually paint outside their doors with cow poop. And it gets better:

 

In case the cow poop wasn't enough, they then decorate that by putting dye powder on top in colorful patterns. Some streets, such as this one, were completely covered in poop. Mm-mm!

In other, unrelated news, I started cooking again! For the last few weeks (or maybe months), I haven't really cooked much. But, last P-Day, I picked up some ingredients, and made fish rice. I used to make it all the time in California, but not since. I'll admit, that's largely because we don't have rice cookers here that do all the work for you. I did learn some interesting things about the fish stalls here. For one, they leave all the fish out all day long. 

Delightful, right? What's more, they'll even chop up the fish for you if you ask them- in slices across the fish, just to make the bones harder to pick out. People here really love playing Where's Waldo with their food; it's the real reason they eat with their hands. Regardless, the rice turned out surprisingly well. 

We also had another bit of unexpected news: one of the branch young men, Gibson, was riding his motorcycle and had a nasty accident. He hit a telephone post with his face. He's far out of danger, but his right eye swelled shut and the doctors say that it'll probably stay like that for the next 3 weeks, because he fractured his eyebrow ridge in 2 places. 

More about Pongal: it's a farmer's festival, and is celebrated over four days, the last day being the most exciting. It's when they have bull races, people races, and all sorts of fun. We just came out of it, and so they are still clearing up all the decorations. One of the celebratory foods is also called pongal; it's a mix of rice, brown sugar, and a bunch of other spices. A member gave it to us, but it wasn't all that great. 

Anyway, we went to Ooty today. That was a 3 hour drive out, that we started at 4 in the morning. We found some HUGE dosa (picture included later) for breakfast, and kept going. We made it all the way to the Boat House, an amusement park. That was way fun, and very surprising. We all got a combo thing that let you ride 6 rides for cheap, and went on. I was surprised by most of the rides- the boring-looking ones tended to be fun; the exciting-looking ones were boring. We rode the Dragon Coaster, which was a simple oval, with one tiny hill. That ended up being one of the most fun: it went super fast, and actually scared you on the turns because you had to wonder if it would fly off (the whole place looked cheap and sketchy). We also tried the 7d movie theater, which turned out to be the sketchiest place of all. The "seat" was a bench held up about 5 feet off the ground with cables (the door that led into it was at the same height as the bench). There was a big padded bar that dropped to chest level for you to cling on to for dear life. And, to top it all off, there were several intimidating items on the ground: a fire extinguisher, a box full of loose, rusty tools, an ax, and several fire buckets full of sand. The wires and cables for the bench were hanging loose in plain sight, and looked generally disreputable. We got on anyway, and settled in for the ride. It was just a psychedelic minecart ride underground, with loops and jumps and all sorts of craziness. There was even a hundred-foot plunge into a lake of lava, which you only narrowly avoided. The motion of the bench was the best part: it would actually drop you a few feet, lurch back and forth, and do all sorts of nausea-inducing maneuvers. We had fun with that one. All of the rest of the sites we visited were just photo sites, of which I will include the pictures. That was basically it for the week; I'm in a bit of a rush. See ya!

 

 

10 January 2016

Well, I finally made it to Coimbatore on Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday were entirely spent running around with Elder Harris and trying to find his missing RC/RP form, then trying to get it replaced. I still don't know if he has it or not; the process for getting a new one was honestly ridiculous. We went to the FRO to see if he could deregister anyway, but as they were 9/10ths of the way through the process, he casually asked how he could get a new RC/RP. They were ready to deregister him anyway without one, but as soon as he suggested that he might not have one, the work immediately ground to a halt, and they suddenly needed his form after all. So, we went to the police station that the FRO people told us to go to, only to learn that they couldn't do anything. They redirected us to the Me Sheva office (I don't know what that means either). The people there told us to go back to the police station. But when we arrived there, we were told that the officer who did that sort of thing was out right then. That was Monday. On Tuesday, we tried again at the police station, got redirected to the Me Sheva office again, and there finally found some help. After a long wait and a lunch break, they finally did some mysterious work and registered his plea. We went to the police station again, and they told us to come back the next day. I ended up being on the plane before that, but I hope it went well.

Funny story- in the Hyderabad airport, I met a guy, Kalyan, while waiting for my plane. He was about 20, and traveling for the first time- all the way to Pennsylvania. While I was talking to him, I mentioned a few things that he couldn't believe, like the cost of smartphones (they are insanely expensive here- 72,000 rupees for the iPhone 6s+, or $1,200). He was also wearing a thick coat, but I advised him to pick up a hat and some gloves, too. He had never so much as seen snow before, and Visak (the area he was coming from) never gets below 70 degrees. He was going from that, to Pennsylvania, in January. I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for him. 

Another funny story- at the Hyderabad airport security station, I reached into my pocket to pull out my stuff, only to realize I'd forgotten to put my pocketknife in my checked bag. I groaned, and asked the security officer if I could just throw it away somewhere. He just smiled, and told me to put it in the tray. It came out the other side of the scanner unconfiscated, so I stuck it back in my pocket and moved on, a little more worried about people bringing other dangerous things on the plane. 

Anyway, I arrived in Coimbatore on Wednesday night, and stayed the night at the zone leader's apartment. We had zone training in the morning, where a surprising announcement was made: all missionaries can expect to stay in their areas for at least 6 months before being transferred. That means I'll probably stay in Coimbatore 1st branch until I leave India. My new companion is Elder Maddikonda, who is from Rajahmundry 1st branch, where I served when I first came to India. That connection is almost as weird as with my last companion. Elder Campbell was companions with Elder Maddikonda before I replaced Elder Maddikonda in Hyderabad. Apparently, I met one of Elder Campbell's companions from the mission he visa-waited in- Seattle (Elder Smith). However, that happened when I was 5 or 6, so I don't remember it at all. But it gets better- while my grandparents visited home from their mission in Brazil, they had dinner with Elder Campbell's parents! And that was only a month ago, while I was still companions with Elder Campbell! And better yet, I'm fairly sure that before that dinner, they had no idea that we were companions...or even in the same mission. 

In Coimbatore, we've done a lot of visiting the less actives of the branch, which has been fairly exciting. On Sunday, we had 4 priesthood ordinations! Granted, all of them were young men getting ordained to the next priesthood office, but it was still exciting. We visited most of them later that day to talk about the responsibilities of the priesthood, and had some good conversations about it. That pretty much sums up the week. 

Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention why I put water in the title: the apartment has some issues with it. It's really nice, and has a lot of fun things, including a Hindu worship closet that the elders keep their proselyting supplies in. The closet permanently reeks of incense, so I think that it was in use for a while before the elders moved in. Anyway, we have to turn on the water pump and wait a few minutes before we get water in the apartment. Theoretically, it goes to the water storage tank above our apartment, but either it leaks out really fast or it doesn't, because we never have water in the morning before turning on the pump. This morning, however, there was no water in the main storage tank either, so we just had no water period. Fortunately, the office elders had planned for just this sort of contingency- our water filter holds 10 liters of prefiltered, ready-to-drink water. And that's great! We won't die, but we have to go to the church to use the bathroom and to the zone leaders' apartment to shower. Fun, right? Here are some pictures:

 

That sounds safe.

This is my new companion, Elder Maddikonda, in our apartment. 

This is the church's baptismal font and dressing room. More pictures will come in the next email.

 

This is a tree full of chickens.

This is the church's sign to indicate the baptismal font.

 

4 January 2016

Well, this week was not really exciting. For one thing, I'm still in Hyderabad. I did manage to deregister today, which was another really long story. But, I made it through, and will go out to Coimbatore...sometime. My ticket still isn't booked, as far as I know. Today was kind of crazy. For example, it's 8:30 at night already, so I need to be pretty quick. We woke up early in the morning so I could meet up with Elder Harris, who needs to go to Chennai. We went down to the FRO, and put in our papers. They put up a huge fuss about him not having one particular paper, and couldn't be dissuaded from rejecting his application. My papers did go through, though. We then went to try and get him a new one, which took the whole rest of the day. And, to top it all off, he still doesn't have it. There's another long story on that one.

With the stuff in the package, what broke? And yes, you can do whatever you like with the leaves. Although, that's painted, not embroidered. 

Anyway, with the news for the week. Not too much happened; just lots of running around. We had a new elder with us, Elder Martin. We showed him all we knew about the area, which took a while. That was basically it- lots of time on buses, lots of money spent on autos, and lots of little naps taken while in one of the two.