Where Do We Begin?

We have so many pictures this week, we are unsure of where to begin, what to include, and what to exclude. Our work week began early Monday morning with a phone call from Brother Raju Joseph from Semmedu asking us to pick up Brother Gill from the airport at 9:45. Brother Gill was the first mission president for the India Bangalore Mission. He served from 1993 - 1995. We had to put ourselves into high gear to get ready in time. We also had to call our driver to see if he was available to take us to the airport. Luckily, he was available. Well, we went to the airport, but we were late because Brother Raju Joseph decided to ride his motorcycle into Coimbatore from Semmedu to go to the airport with us. Brother Gill was not sure anyone was coming to pick him up, so he hired a taxi. We went to his hotel and met him there. We enjoyed our short visit with him. Later that evening, he went to the church to meet with any members that wanted to drop by to visit with him. We stayed until 7:00, and then we had to leave for an appointment. His Grandson, Elder Westwood, who recently returned home from his mission here in India, accompanied him.

We visited six families this week. One family was the Raju Joseph family in Semmedu. We left at 10:00 a.m. and returned about 4:00 p.m. Travel time is about one hour one way. The Raju Joseph family had just completed some renovations to their home. They increased the height of the house, put on a small addition, and painted their house. They now have an indoor toilet. This is the outside of their home. Notice the double doors. Most of the houses that we have been in have this type of door. Also, notice that the windows have no glass in them. This, also is common in this type of house.

This picture is of Sister Kalyani in her new kitchen. As we mentioned earlier, the roof, including that of the kitchen was raised. Originally, the roof on the left side was not much higher than Sister Tiefenbach. This kitchen is typical of many of the kitchens we have seen in India. We have seen two kitchens that would be comparable to western style kitchens and several others kitchen that fall between what we see here and the western style. This family has a refrigerator, but it is not in the kitchen; it is in the hall (or living room), which is typical in India. In an earlier blog, we mentioned that the floor space of a particular kitchen was filled with water jugs and cooking vessels, etc. You can see an example of this here. Also, the shelves behind Sister Kalyani are tyical of many of the kitchens we have seen.

The floors of this house are cement without any tiles. Many houses we have been in have not tiles, while others have beautiful marble tiles. Brother Raju Joseph and Sister Kalyani have added beauty to the cement floors by making an impression of a flower in the wet cement and then painting it. The hall (living room) is about 8 feet by 8 feet. They feel highly blessed to have been able to make these renovations to their home.





Brother Raju Joseph and Sister Kalyani had some of their family visiting. On the left side is Brother Raju Joseph's brother, Brother Joseph, and his wife, Sister Mary (who happens to be Sister Kalyani's sister). Brother Joseph and Sister Mary live in Dehli. Their sons have very good English. The older woman is brothers' mother. Both Brothers have two sons. In this picture you can see that the roof is tiled. This is typical of many houses in India. Notice that the roof simply sits on top of the walls, and their is a space between the wall and the roofs. Many people choose to have cement roofs to avoid rats entering into their homes. Brother Raju Joseph (blue shirt) was one of the first missionaries from India to serve in India.


While we were visiting this family, we also visited a Hindu meditation place, Isha Yoga. This cement block has a Christian symbol, a Muslim symbol, and a Hindu. The presence of all three symbols suggests to them that we all worship the same God.









Opposite to this is a statue of a cow, which is one of the gods that the Hindus worship. Beside us is our driver, Brother Augustine. He is such a good help to us. We appreciate all he does for us.















We visited with Sister Ronna again this week, which we do every week. Her sister, Jean, and her two children were visiting. They will be staying for ten days. They will all sleep in the same room, which is about 8 ft. x 9ft. Sister Ronna has only a kitchen and one other room in her house. But, this doesn't seem to influence whether or not family can stay. This makes us wonder why in North America we think that we can't have extra company over because we don't have enough bedrooms.




Sister Tiefenbach made banana cake for our Zone Meeting. Actually, she made two attempts at the cake. The first ones did NOT turn out. They fell drastically in the centre just before they were finished cooking. That is the third time for this recipe. The first time, the cake turned out exceptionally well, but each time after that the results went further downhill. So, Sister Tiefenbach used a different recipe (the one she got from her daughter, Sheri). It was a hit with the missionairies. The toilet seat that Elder McDonald is holding has nothing to do with the cake.

Our trusty Zone Leaders, Elder Ram and Elder Vaiphei, were will organized for their presentations and training. One of the topics was Hope . . . what is that you have on the board? . . . Hope for . . . reimbursement . . . what???? What is happening? Oh, now we understand. That is Elder Challa with Elder Ram. Elders, quickly erase that . . . Elder Ram, you better get with you companion, Elder Vaiphei, so he can keep you on the straight and narrow.




That looks much better. Having scriptural references on the board and holding the scriptures and the Preach My Gospel manual is a great touch!

In truth, they give very good presentations.









The Christmas program, Picture a Christmas, was fabulous. The choir sang wonderfully. Everyone was impressed with the program and the singing. This is the first program they have had of this type. We asked one of the branch presidents if the program met his expectations, and he told us that it surpassed his expectations. The attendance was over 300, and many people not of our church were there. Many of our visitors commented that they felt peace and that they felt good when the songs were sung. Our goal was accomplished. We wanted the spirit of Christmas to be felt by all those who attended.

The evening started with the primary children performing a dance and singing a song. The song was directed by Sister Tiefenbach.

The choir was thrilled with the opportunity to participate in a program like this. Sister Tiefenbach has been asked to lead a choir for the District Conference that will be held on January 20th. Their experience with this choir has made all of the choir members eager to sing for that, as well. We had a small choir, numbering only 14 members, but they sang like a much larger choir. We still can't get over the number of fantastic male singers we have here. We had a difficult time getting women to sing in the choir, so those numbers were quite low, but they were wonderful. We had several who had never sung in choir before. They made great progress from the time we started practicing to the time we performed. The men looked handsome in their suits and red ties. The sisters had special sarees made for the occassion. The one sister not in her saree changed before we could find her for this picture. Everyone looked very professional. Maybe, we looked just as good as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Unfortunately, our pianist left before the picture was taken. Elder Tiefenbach is in the picture because he operated the computer for many of our practices. Our pianist could not practice with us until December. Until then, we used the music on the church website to learn the parts. Elder Tiefenbach was very patient while Sister Tiefenbach had him stop and start parts of the songs over and over again. He deserves a special award for his work.

 

In one part of the program, Sister Tiefenbach sang "Mary's Lullaby" with Sister Sujithra (left) and Sister Punita (centre). Sister Punita is one of the sisters that had never sung in a choir before. She has a sweet, pleasant voice, and when Sister Tiefenbach heard her sing, she knew that she wanted her to be in the group to sing this song. Sister Punita learns the things Sister Tiefenbach taught during the choir practices very quickly.

 

The program, written by Sister Tiefenbach, was inspired by the primary children's song, "Picture a Christmas." The audience was asked to picture several scenes in their minds. Of course, we had actors to help them picture the scenes.

  

Following the program, a cake was cut, and food was served. Of course, the main attraction was chicken biryanni. Notice that the food was served outdoors. This is the common pratice when large numbers of people are served at the church. This isn't a problem because the weather is warm in the evening, and Coimbatore gets very little rain.

Christmas is two days away. We have a hard time believing that Christmas is here. We have enjoyed singing Christmas songs at church and thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas program, but Christmas is different this year. We will spend Christmas day with two different families. But, Christmas morning will be spent by ourselves. We have not woken up Christmas morning without others in our house since the first Christmas we spent after we were married. This will be very different for us.

We pray that your Christmas will be wonderful and that you will remember the birth of the Saviour as you gather with family and friends.

Santa Claus, Yellow Watermelon, and Strange Moon Phases

With Christmas less than two weeks away, Elder Tiefenbach was very sad because he had not had a chance to see Santa. One day this week, we went shopping, and we saw him! Elder Tiefenbach was so eager to see Santa Claus. Santa did not make any promises, but he listened carefully to Elder Tiefenbach's wish list. Apparently, Santa was looking for snow. His sled got stuck on the dry pavement, so Elder Tiefenbach told him of a wonderful place where he could find lots of snow. We haven't seen any live Santas here, so this was close enough.


 
We have seen a few decorations in some of the homes here, but the decorations are scaled down a lot compared to home. This store has the most Christmas decorations up than any other store we have seen so far. It was good to see some evidence of Christmas. The weather certainly is not contributing to the festive season. Mind you, we are enjoying not having to put on bulky winter jackets, boots, mitts, hats, and scarves. But, somehow, sweat running down one's back does not invite the Christmas spirit as well as looking outside and seeing the moonlight glistening on the new fallen snow. Now, that is a scene to make one feel cozy.
 

Yellow watermelon????? We had never seen it before. The shop keeper told us it tasted just like the watermelon with the green rind, and what was even better, it cost the same. So, we decided we might as well try it. It, indeed, tasted the same as the other watermelon. Having the yellow rind made eating watermelon seem more exotic. We had bought 3 regular watermelon at the same time to feed the missionaries at the Zone Conference last week. All the watermelons were exceptionally good; it was juicy and sweet - yummmmm.

On Saturday and Sunday night, we noticed a strange moon phase. The crescent was on the bottom. We had never seen that before. At first we thought it might be a lunar eclipse, but when we saw it again on Sunday night, we knew it wasn't an eclipse. Apparently, it is not uncommon here. The internet said it has something to do with the apparent path of the moon across the night sky. This path is associated with the seasons. Sometimes the northern part of the earth points toward the sun; other times the southern part points toward the sun. This changes the path of the moon as we see it on earth. When the crescent moon appears to travel straight down toward the horizon, we get the "U" shaped moon. This happens once or twice a year (usually in the winter). That is the explanation, according to one source on the internet. It happens only at specific latitudes in the northern hemisphere. Even though it apparently occurs once or twice a year, we have never seen it before. Maybe, we have always been at the wrong latitude or at least not at the one that gives this look for the moon.

Well, we have told you about all three parts of the title of the blog, but don't stop reading; we are not finished yet. We have more to share.

We went to a business opening this week. Three brethren from 2nd Branch (left to right: Brother Prabu, Brother Ramamoorthy, and Brother Suresh Jayasingh) have decided to go into business with each other. They have opened a business called "Zion" (a suiting name for members of the Church). This business will do training for businesses (e.g., motivational presentations, etc.), help with job placements, help companies get ISO (International Standard Organization)certification, etc. They have been planning this for quite sometime, and are moving into it slowly. Only one of the men, Brother Prabu, quit his regular job to do this business. The other two will follow as the company grows. We were honoured to be invited to share this moment with them. We wish them good fortune in their new adventure.

Here's a job for those who like a "hands on" job. This man is painting lines on the church parking lot. It is all done by hand. Many others were working on the landscaping, as well. You can see the workers in the background; many of the workers are women. They haul that whole pile of dirt to the new destination using small bowl type buckets. Once that pile of dirt is gone, a truck brings in another load. In Canada, they would hire a bobcat machine and have it all spread and leveled in a short time. They all looked hot. At least the man painting the lines has found some shade. We have seen a lot of labour like this done be hand.

 
On Friday, we walked to the grocery store (about 1 km one way). On the way, we noticed several houses with the outside cement falling off. We thought this would present us with the opportunity to show the way houses are constructed. The walls are constructed from plain bricks. Then, a layer of cement is spread over the bricks. The cement is the same type of stuff that is used in Canada for the parging on the outside of the basement walls that are above the ground.

On Saturday night, we went to Sister Radha and Brother Yesaiya's home. They are the parents of the family to whom we teach English every week. The parents and two adult children have moved to a different house. The new place is closer to where Sister Radha works. Their oldest son and his wife and daughter remain in the old house by themselves. The parents still own the old home and are renting the new place. In the picture are (from left to right): Brother Yesaiya, Sister Radha, Sister Priya (daughter), Sister Tiefenbach, and Elder Tiefenbach. The young girl is the daughter of the Branch President, who lives close by. Sister Radha works for the Branch President's family (cooking, cleaning, etc.).

 

We went to Chavadi Branch today. Elder Tiefenbach spoke, and Sister Tiefenbach listened. As this branch has been designated a Tamil speaking branch, Elder Tiefenbach's talk was the only thing Sister Tiefenbach understood, but we could clearly understand the warm welcome the members extended to us.

 

 The temperature at Chavadi was quite a bit cooler than Coimbatore, as it is much closer to the mountains. Remember "cooler" is relative. It was probably around 25 degrees C (abt. 80 F). The church building was cool. They have fans, and they open all the windows to keep the meeting hall from getting too hot. Today, they had to close the front doors during the meeting so it wouldn't be too cool. Also, they didn't open all the windows. During the hot summer, keeping all the windows and doors open and the fans on is a necessity.

 

Today, 2nd Branch had another baptism. Sister Grace's husband, Brother Rungan Ratinum, and her son, Brother Vivek Raja, were baptized. Sister Grace was baptized about a month ago.

 

The sun greets us each morning outside our balcony preparing us for days filled new opportunities and memories to cherish. We love working with the missionaries and the people here. The Lord has truly blessed us to be associated with such warm, loving people. We shall cherish these relationships always. May the Light of the Lord fill your hearts with happiness and joy.

 

 

 

 

 

Sixteen Days Before Christmas 2012

Our week started with teaching the final temple preparation lesson to two young people, Brother Prabakaren and Sister Sathya, from Erode who are preparing to go on their missions. They are excited to be going on their missions. Brother Prabakaren is going to the India Delhi mission, and Sister Sathya has not received her assignment, yet. We ejoyed teaching them, and the spirit was always strong in the class. Teaching about the temple reminded us how much we miss the temple. We look forward to attending the temple when we return home.


After the lesson, we went to the missionaries' apartment to do an inspection. Elder Aruldoss (right), Elder Massey (centre), Elder McDonald (not in picture), and Elder Vaddi's (not in picture) apartment was in good shape. It was much better than the last time we inspected it. Right after the inspection, we took the missionaries and our driver, Brother Augustine (left), out for lunch at a place called Boom Boom. It is similar to Kentucky Fried Chicken. We had chicken burgers and fries; lunch was yummy.

On a previous blog, we showed a picture of some sod that had been put down and had mentioned that it was there temporarily. It has now been put in its proper place. We knew they divided the large pieces into smaller pieces before laying it, but we had no idea of how small the pieces were. This is a section that has the sod layed. Each small piece of sod is about 2 inches across. Apparently, within 3 months, the grass will have grown together. They do it this way because sod is too expensive to lay the entire stips down the way we do in Canada.


On Thursday, we had a multi-zone conference with our zone and Chennai's zone. We had 35 attending, including President and Sister Funk and the Assistants to the President. We have been blessed to have President and Sister Funk in Coimbatore three times in the past three weeks. Sister Tiefenbach made cinnamon buns (or rolls for those who prefer that name) to serve during the morning break. Making the cinnamon buns was a day long job because of the lack of power, but in the end, it was worth the  time because all the missionaries appreciated them. They all eagerly lined up to receive them. Although the training is meant specifically for the young missionaries, we always learn something and gain new insights into the gospel.

Here we see the elders in Coimbatore Second Branch (left to right): Elder Justesen, Elder Augustine, Elder Vaiphei, and Elder Ram. We not quite sure what Elder Ram was doing when this picture was taken. Elder Ram conducted the meeting. Of course, he did a good job, as usual.








The Elders in Coimbatore First Branch are, from left to right, Elder Thomas (barely seen), Elder Challa, Elder Solomon (Canada!!!), and Elder Smoot. Interestingly, Elder Smoot's grandparents served in Coimbatore several years ago.









Of course, we have the sister missionaries, who serve in both branches. We enjoy having Sister Madbuthala (right) and Sister Jebamani in the district. Sisters always add a new dimension to the area.

Today, Sunday, was a typical Sunday. We spent about 11 hours at church today. Elder Tiefenbach attended a Branch Presidency training meeting after all the church meetings today, and Sister Tiefenbach helped with the practice for the Christmas program that will take place on December 22. A highlight of the day was the baptismal meeting for two families (7 people) for Second Branch. Brother Kanniyappen was baptized when we first arrived in Coimbatore in April. He had the privilege of baptizing his wife, Sister Ranganayeki, and children today. It was great to see him perform these ordinances.

 

Elder Ram and Elder Vaiphei baptized Sister Christie (3rd from left) and Sister Bhuvenswari (2nd from right) and Sister Bhuvenswari's two children.









We have had a UPS (uniteruppted power supply) for the past few weeks. It has been great!!! It allows us to use fans during the day. That is a big relief. We can now do our preparation during the day without sweating. The UPS will not operate the oven, so we still have to wait until the power is on to do any baking or any cooking with the microwave/convection oven. It doesn't work well with the generator the apartment building uses at night, so we have had to bypass the generator. This situation has a few minor inconveniences, which we may be able to sort out. But, if it can't be resolved, we will be happy to put up with the few small inconveniences in order to have the UPS provide us with power when we have power cuts. Between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., we continue to generally have power from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. and from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. That means that for most of the daytime hours, we would have no power if we did not have a UPS. In the evening and night, the power often goes out every other hour. The rest of India does not experience power outages to the same extent we do. Many other states experience one or two hours of power outages per day. The battery for the UPS is in the cabinet.

When we are outside, we do not think a lot about the Christmas season. The sun is shining; the grass and trees are green; and the temperature is in the low 30's. Although, we see a few signs of Christmas, we see nothing like we see at home. We don't hear Christmas music in the stores here like we have at home, but that may not be a bad thing because the type of Christmas music played in the stores back home are no longer centered on the birth of Christ and are usually played too loud.










Once we step into our apartment, however, and we see our newly purchased Christmas tree, we are reminded that this is the time we celebrate the birth, the life, and the resurrection of the Saviour. There is something magical and wonderful about the sight of a Christmas tree, as it can fill the soul with hope. This is the smallest Christmas tree we have had in our entire married life, but it still gives us pleasure when we look at it, and it still brings the Christmas spirit into our home. We will look for a few small ornaments to add to the tree. We hope all your preparations for Christmas are going well and that you will take time in your busyness to think about the Saviour and the hope and light that He offers to the world.

Relief Society Activity

On Friday, the Relief Society (the Church's women's group) of Coimbatore 2nd Branch held an activity. We all tried our hand at fabric painting. Sister Lakshimi (left back) was the instructor. She is highly talented. She paints designs on sarees, paints on other silk for wall hangings, paints on canvas, etc. She has done some very intricate designs on sarees for many customers. She creates her own designs and does a lot of her painting free hand.



For this activity, she taught us to use existing patterns that we "fill in" with paint. We could tell by the way she used the paint brushes that she was confident in her abilities. The trick to this is that we are not to be concerned with filling in the spaces with paint, but to focus more on the brush strokes, making sure we brush up and down only, not sideways, and not adding bits of paint here and there to make sure the open areas are filled with paint.



When the template is removed, we end up with a great design. It looks simple, but it takes talent to paint it the right way so the paint doesn't run.











Sister Lashimi then added white by free hand to highlight the design.












Sister Punita (front left) and Sister Tiefenbach worked on a design together. We were enthused participants. The end product may not have been as grand as Sister Lakshimi's, but, it was good for our first time.









This is a sample of the paintings she does on sarees.














Sister Tiefenbach had the saree draped over her to get an idea of what it would look like.














At the same time that the women had a painting activity, the men also had an activity, but theirs was instructional on priesthood ordinances and not any where near as fun as the women's. The primary (the children's classes) also had an activity. They had fun by folding paper into fish shapes and painting them. Sister Shanthi Arul (the Branch President's wife), Sister Nancy Raghu, and other women helped the children with their activity. Of course, food was available when all the activities were done. Everyone had a great time at the church Friday evening.

We spent some time with the Sister Madabathula (by Elder Tiefenbach) and Sister Jebamani on preparation day. We checked out a few problems they were having with appliances and other things in their apartments. Their washing machine was not cleaning clothes as well as it should, so we wanted to have look at it to see what exactly was happening. We found that the filter had probably never been cleaned since it was purchased. It was extremely dirty. We cleaned the filter, so we will find out if that has solved the problem. We had lunch with them at Domino's Pizza that day and then went grocery shopping, too.

 

We had to pass by the Ramanathapuram Junction. As you can see, even the animal drawn wagons need to stop for the red light. The streets are always busy with pedestrians, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, autos, trucks, and wagons pulled by cows all looking for opportunities to pass, turn, or cross the street. The streets and the rules of the streets are very different than in Canada and the States, but we are getting used to the difference.

 

In the evening, the sisters also joined us at our appointment with the Suresh and Shanthi family. Actually, the sisters were originally to be there an hour before us, but everyone decided that we might as well all go at the same time. Sister Shanthi's father (far right) was visiting, so he also wanted to be in the picture. The woman behind the sister missionaries is Sister Shanthi's sister. The little boy in the green shirt is the sister's son. We had a great day with the Sister missionaries.

We had fun holding a couple of babies this week. On Saturday night, we went to the hospital to visit Sister Deepa who had a new baby girl shortly after midnight Thursday morning. We were negligent and forgot to take a picture with our camera, but we got a picture of the 3-month-old baby girl that was blessed today. Sister Jennifer and Brother Richard Paul have a beautiful baby girl dressed in frilly pink from head to toe and wrapped in a soft pink blanket.

 

Sister Jennifer was insistent that we have a picture of both of us with the baby so she can show her daughter when she gets older a picture of her with her grandparents. These babies will be a substitute for our own grandchildren. When holding these babies, our thoughts turned to our beautiful daughter-in-law, Jessica, who will be giving birth soon to our new grand????? We also think of our beautiful granddaughter, Cassie, who will give birth to our first great-grandchild in June. We may not be able to hold our new grandchild or our first great-grandchild in are arms while they are newborns, but we will hold them in our hearts. Everytime, we look at these two babies, we will think of them.

 

 

This baby is a little older, but she still holds the affection of everyone. It seems that everyone takes their turn holding people's babies. We find that even young people, such as Akash, enjoy holding babies. Akash is the son of Sister Punita and Brother Amalraj. In Canada, we didn't usually see unmarried men in their early twenties going up to a mother and asking if they can hold their baby. One of the things we like about India is the closeness people have with each other. All the children call adults "auntie" and "uncle." It is kind of nice in many ways when children call us auntie and uncle. That is much preferred over gramms and grapps!

 

 

And last, we leave you with a reminder to always look for the wonders of Heavenly Father's creations amidst our busy days. Our Heavenly Father has truly created a beautiful world. In the midst of all the noise of the busy city of Coimbatore, we can find peace and serenity in watching a simple butterfly.