After we celebrated Divali, the US holiday season began – at least for we Americans. Our Young Single Adults (YSA) are not familiar with the concept of Thanksgiving – although they do celebrate (here in Tamil Nadu) Pongal in January, which is similar. More on that on a later blog. We celebrated with a Thanksgiving feast, along with our American and Indian Elders and Sisters and the YSAs. The main course was not turkey – it was chicken biriyani – the very popular local dish here – that I mentioned earlier.
It has begun to rain here – this is the winter monsoon season. We brought crocs for this type of weather. It is not cold – it never gets cold here. So crocs are the footwear of choice. The storm drains, if there are any, are usually clogged with debris or in some state of disrepair – so the water collects in the streets – like it does in Phoenix after a major monsoon event. If we are fortunate, passing cars and motorcycles (called “bikes” here) won’t splash copious amounts of water on to the pedestrians.
During this period, we registered with the local Police Commissioner. We also register with the Foreign Resident Registration Office or FRRO. We try to be “good neighbors” and comply with all of the local requirements for foreigners living in India and here in Chennai.
For those who did not receive the following email, here is what Sister Gibson wrote on December 3:
I can’t believe we have been in India for 3 months. The time goes so fast when you are working hard. This past Sunday was district conference and we have President Evans (Asian Area President) visiting. We had to prepare the building and had many other assignments. The district President wanted us to put up a Nativity scene on the grounds. We had been working on the plans for about 2 weeks. Last week we were going to build it. He wanted it made out of wood, so that it could be used year after year. The plywood was supposed to be delivered on Monday, it finally got here on Wednesday morning. One of the committee members rented a couple of jig saws to cut the figures out with. One of them didn’t work and the blade for the other was larger than I wanted. He also informed me that he didn’t know how to use a saw. I told him I know how so he got a lesson in woodworking. We finally found the right size blade, so we put a call out on WhatsApp for help. Many people came to help. We finally got another saw that worked, and one of the missionaries here had used one in a woodshop class in school. We finally got all 15 figures cut out. Then we had to paint them and seal the edges. That took a lot of time, but with so many helping we were able to get the task done. It went up on Friday night just in time to turn the lights on it. (See Featured Photo). It is wonderful and we are hoping that a lot of people will come in the church yard to see it and ask questions about the church.
It seems that everything is a go for our trip to the Taiwan Temple trip. We are taking 4 families for a total of 14 people including their children to be sealed to the parents. We are all excited about the trip. This will be our first group so we get to go with them. We will be spending Christmas Day in the Temple. We will let you know how the trip goes.
The work here is going very well. We had a baptism of a husband and wife on Saturday and will have a baptism of a young single man on next Saturday. These people have been in our English class.
We watched the Christmas Devotional at 6 am on Monday morning and really enjoyed it, especially the talk by Elder Vinson. He said an African proverb says if you think you are to little to make a difference, try spending a night with a mosquito. We have spent many nights with them. We finally got screens on our windows so it isn’t so bad. Bill still has to zap a few every night, but not as many as he used to.
We are keeping busy between English classes, teaching temple preparation classes for those going on missions and their families, watching over the missionaries and the buildings. But that is what we wanted, to be busy. And serve the people.
Christmas is celebrated a little different here, they put out a lighted star in front of their homes if they are Christians. I just noticed a little Christmas shop that opened at the entrance to our neighborhood, so I am going to check it out this afternoon. We put lights out on our terrace and have seen a few lights at others homes, but it is not a big holiday.
Sorry this took so long to get to you, but we have been without internet for several days.
We completed the teaching the Temple preparation lessons for the four families that we will accompany to Taiwan Temple at Christmas. We are learning that it is an involved process for Indian citizens to obtain visas for other countries. There will be 4 families – Ruskin Kalavainan, Gopi Sundaram, Anil Kumar and Josephine Fernando. Sister Josephine is very enthusiastic about attending – “you tell me when to go — I GO!!”. There will be 7 children under the age of 12, who will be sealed to their parents. These wonderful families are very excited about going to Taiwan.
