Taking Shape

The grass at the Coimbatore Chapel is beginning to take shape as the small tufts grow upward and outward. It looks like we will have a complet lawn in a few months. The workers water it frequently. We are not sure if they water everyday, but everytime we are at the church, we see them watering the grass. We wonder if this way of laying sod would work in Canada (or the States for that matter). Our neighbours would certainly think we were strange. The results are looking better than if they had seeded. The draw back of planting small bits of sod is that it is so time consuming, and we are sure it would be hard on the back with all the bending that is involved.

 

 

On Tuesday, we had our regular district meeting for the missionaries, where our trusted zone leaders do their best to get our district into shape. One might think that having a meeting every week would be boring for the missionaries, but they always seem to be happy as they come to the church. We can definitely see our meeting begin to take shape as our three missionaries from Coimbatore First Branch arrive: (left to right) Elder Sambaria, Elder Justesen, and Elder Smoot. Elder Sambaria is new to Coimbatore. He arrived Saturday, January 19. We expect his companion to arrive in the next week. Until then, these three elders will join with the Coimbatore Second Branch district for reporting purposes. Elder Smoot and Elder Justen told us that they are not sure whether or not they liked being the only two in their apartment. The biggest advantage they said was that it was easier to keep clean. We have to admit, their apartment was in great shape. Elder Smoot was in charge of cleaning the kitchen, and he did a great job!

 

 

Things really begin to take shape when the sister missionaries are around. They are ALWAYS smiling and excited about everything. We love them! Sister Madabathula and Sister Dhkao arrive at the district meeting sporting a fashionble umbrella to sheild them from the sun. Umbrellas are a welcome addition right now because lately the temperature has become much hotter. The sun is shining almost everyday. We can't imagine the snow back home. When we look at pictures of the storms and the piles of snow at home, it seems like a totally different planet.

 

Brother Appasamy (the one standing) keeps the church building and grounds in great shape. He has been given major responsiblities to make sure everything in the building and on the grounds is running properly and aranges for repairs, etc. for things that need attention. He has been recovering from a terrible motorcycle accident that he had about 2 years ago, and only now has been able to do anything. He sustained some severe memory loss because of the accident. He did not even know his family. He is so grateful that he is able to remember most things now and that he can contribute to the church and his family. He and his wife have two daughters and one granddaughter. They are one of a few couples in Coimbatore who have a love marriage (which means it was not arranged), and they were not related before they got married. They are both form the same small village around the Erode area, but they moved away because their families were not accepting of their marriage. Over the many years they have been married, their families have come to accept them more. Brother Appasamy was a chemist before retirement.

 

While many things are taking shape here, some things are not in good shape. We received a package from our daughter, Chantel. One of the items in the package was a chocolate bar. Well . . . it did not like the 10 week journey. The chocolate bar melted, which made the wrapping wet, and the wrapping became moldy. Also in the package were some pictures that our grandchildren drew. The pictures were right next to the moldy chocolate bar wrapping, so the pictures became moldy, too. We appreciate the pictures, but we decided that we would not keep them.

 

One more thing that has NOT taken shape is our microwave/convection oven. It quit working in the convection mode. That means Sister Tiefenbach cannot bake! We don't know how we will break the news to the missionaries that there will be no homemeade treats on Tuesday. We can use the convection mode for only about 15 minutes before it shuts off. The fan does not work, so the oven overheats and automatically shuts off. We suppose we can make cookies for the missionaries for the Tuesday district meeting. Cookies don't take as long to bake as cakes. We think they prefer the cakes, but they will have to settle for homemade cookies.

 

 

We are happy that Sister Shanthi's mouth is taking the shape of a great big smile. Sister Shanthi smiles a LOT, but whenever we take pictures of her, she has a super serious look on her face, which seems to be typical of most of the people who live in India. She was not expecting this picture, so she did not have time to put on her serious face. She is so fun, and she loves to laugh! She brings great happiness to us as she shows the joy she has felt since accepting and living the gospel.

 

Coimbatore District is taking great shape with President Vincent Paul leading the churh here. He has a great desire to do things the Lord's way and is eager to learn. Elder Tiefenbach has the opportunity to work closely with him, as Elder Tiefenbach is on the District Council. President Paul often consults Elder Tiefenbach on a variety of things. His wife, Sister Christy, and their two sons, Britzer (left) and Allan (right), are dedicated members and work hard in the church. Every one in the family has a great voice, and they all enjoy singing in the choir.

 

Our week has taken good shape. What better way to end the week (or begin a new week, depending on one's view) that to sit back and sip on mango/papya/banana/pineapple smoothies and eat handfuls of freshly popped, buttery popcorn. Mmmmmm . . .

As we begin a new week, we pray that we will all allow the Lord to mould us into the shape that He knows will be best for our happiness. May the Lord bless you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Pongal to District Conference

Pongal started last Sunday and continued until Wednesday. Pongal is comparable to our Thanksgiving, but it is much longer. It is rooted in the Hindu religion, but it is celebrated by everyone in India. It is more widely celebrated in Tamil Nadu. Government workers here get 3 days off for it. As with other festivals and celebrations, women often decorate the outside of their homes and businesses with beautiful designs made from coloured powders. We have been told that the powder is from rice, but some of the powders have a glitter to them, so we think some may have some kind of salt crystals in it, but we are not sure of that.
Some designs are simple white drawings.

 

 Others are colourful works of art.


 

 

Monday night we went to Brother Sekar and Sister Shanthi's house. We arrived a bit early, so we had time to go up to the roof top of their house. Roof tops are inspiring. Somehow, being up above the city makes India look different. It also seems more peaceful and at the same time, exhilerating. The Sekar's have some coconut trees in their yard, so we were able to be close to the coconuts (I bet you were all thinking that we climbed the tree to get this close!).







Here is Elder Tiefenbach posing in front of the top of the coconut tree. Coconut trees are very common here, but we were excited to be up in the tops of them.

They have a pile of coconut shells, which they use to burn in a stove (seen below). The stove is sometimes used to boil water, but we don't know when they boil water up here. Mostly, they use the gas stove in their kitchen. Brother Sekar said that they often sleep up on the roof on hot summer days. That certainly sounds extremely uncomfortable to us. They bring up thin mats and put them down on the cement and sleep the night away.

 

We were able to catch the sun setting in the west. We don't see the sunsets like this from the ground view. We mostly don't see the sun setting at all. We just notice that it gets dark very fast. From our high vantage point we were able to witness the quickness of the sun setting. Within a few minutes of this picture, the sun was behind the mountain, and then within a few more minutes, the sky was dark. The colours in the sky are largely from the smog.




 
We had a special training session with President and Sister Funk this week for the Coimbatore Zone. In preparation for that, we were asked to buy some fruits and vegetable for the lunches for the two days. We had trouble finding a market that was open that sells in the quantity that we needed to buy. We ended up finally finding the stores open on Wednesday. While we were buying the fruits and vegetables, we thought we would pick up some cauliflower for ourselves. We were fortunate because the truck delivering the cauliflower arrived just before we left. The men unloading the truck happily took a cauliflower off their pile, chopped off the outer leaves, and handed it to us.

 
Zone training was great! Although the training doesn't apply directly to our assignment, we enjoy attending because we learn many things that we can apply to ourselves and that will be useful in other church service. Another assignment we have at these Zone meetings is to be an observer as the missionaries practice the things they have learned. We then give feedback about their practice. We enjoy helping the missionaries out this way.

Elder McDonald (serving in Erode) was asked to lead the music. He needed to raise the stand because he is about 6 feet 5 inches. As he attempted to raise the music stand, he pulled on the top, and the entire top came off. He held the top of the stand with the book perched on it for the entire song. It was funny!

Elder Mills (second from the right) has taken the place of Elder Ram. We have already become very fond of Elder Mills. He is soft spoken, is concerned for others, is polite, and is always appreciative. Elder Mills is the Zone Leader with Elder Vaiphei (right of Elder Mills). Elder Smooth (left) and Elder Justesen are the elders in First Branch. Right now, we have only one set of missionaries in First Branch. The other set were transferred out last week.




 
District Conference this week-end was great! The choir was amazing. After the choir sang Saturday night and today, many people said that they thought they were watching the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. That may be a slight exaggeration of the quality of the choir, but they were wonderful. The only mistake was made by Sister Tiefenbach, who forgot that she inserted an interlude between two verses. So, she merrily began leading the choir for the next verse. This really confused the choir, but we all made a good recovery. Most people did not notice anything happened. To me, it was very noticeable. Twelve men in Coimbatore District were advanced to the Melchizedek Priesthood. Elder Tiefenbach ordained two of them.

Elder Tiefenbach ordained Brother Raja. He is a great man, and we feel he will be a great leader here someday. His story of faith is one that we will share when we return home. We love to visit his family every week. This is the family that invited us on Christmas day.

The other brother that Elder Tiefenbach ordained was Brother Suresh. This is another family that we feel close to. (We feel close to many families here. We get sad thinking about the day we will have to leave them.) Brother Suresh is so eager to learn about how things are done in the church. When he learns a new principle, he does his best to implement it in his family. We had a baptism in Second Branch today, but we were not able to attend it because of the priesthood ordinations.

We ended our Sunday with having Elder Mills and Elder Vaiphei over for supper. Elder Mills celebrated his birthday today, so we wanted to make sure he had a birthday cake. We hope they enjoyed the North American food. They ate well, so we assume it met with their approval. Sister Tiefenbach made carrot cake for his birthday cake.

 

As the sun sets on another week in Coimbatore, we have the opportunity to express our gratitude to our Heavenly Father for the opportunity to be here in India. Although we miss home, we have met many wonderful, dedicated people whom we will always remember and cherish. A great blessing we have is to be with the young missionaries. We love them and become very attached to them. We express our gratitude for the support of our friends at home and especially to our family who always remember us in their prayers. We love to hear that our grandchildren pray each day that "Grandma and Grandpa will have a good time on their mission." Well, we are having a good time. We have been richly blest.

Seeing Clearly in Coimbatore

We bought new glasses from the father of one of the members here. Unfortunately, the glasses that were made for Sister Tiefenbach did not work. She could not read anything with them. The store owner had three different pairs of glasses made for her, but none of them worked. She, however, was able to get a pair of prescription sunglasses that work for her. Elder Tiefenbach had no trouble with his new glasses.

We often see many pharmacies, but we buy most of our medications and vitamins from this particular one. It is typical of many pharmacies here in that they are open to the outdoors. We have seen some pharmacies that have a door that you open before you walk into the store, but the type that is completely open to the outdoors is more common. So far, we have been able to find most things we need. At first they did not have calcium citrate. We had found some in a pharmacy in Bangalore when we were there for a couples' conference, so we kept the package and took it to this pharmacy. They were able to order in the calcium for us.

 

We know this is January, and January has always been freezing cold in the past, so potato salad is usually not on our minds. But, the temperature here is hot, and Sister Tiefenbach had a craving for potato salad. Along with the potato salad, we made fried chicken breast and buttered beans with oregano. Of course, we needed some more colour on our plate, so we added fresh tomatoes to our meal to improve the presentation. It was so good! Potato salad is wonderful in January.

 

We visited Sister Vasanthia and her daughter Sister Evenjaline. They live outside the city of Coimbatore. The trip by car took about three quaters of an hour. The area in which they live is remote, and not many people live in the vicinity of their house, although some of the land has been purchased and the property lines marked in preparation for building. They have been in their house for about 3 years. Their house is a nice house. They have their own indoor bathroom, which is a plus because not all houses have that luxury. Many people have to share a bathroom with a few other families.

This a view of the outside of their house. You will notice that they also have a decent sized yard. Not all houses have yards here. We noticed a pumkin plant (seen in the foreground) and a watermelon plant in their yard, along with a few flowers. 

 

 This is a view from outside their fenced yard. This picture shows that their house is quite isolated from other houses.

 

 

We saw this house close to their home. We are not sure whether this is a permanent home or a temporary home while they wait to build a house out of bricks.

 

The road that leads up to their house shows that the immediate area does not have many trees. This pictures also shows the dryness of the wild grasses of the area. We have had little rain here since we arrived.

Speaking of grass, we have been watching the new tufts of grass around the church and have decided that they are beginning to grow. It will take some time for it to completely grow together, but hopefully, in a few months, it will look like a carpet of grass. Workers have been working in the church yard for close to two months now. We still see them hauling red dirt to different parts of the yard. New trees were also planted in front of the church. This time, we hope that when the workers are told to trim the tops of the tree, they actually trim the tops and not the bottoms. The yard is beginning to take shape and will look beautiful soon.

 

Here we see President Solomon (branch president of Chavadi Branch) teaching the lesson for the young single adult family home evening this past Friday. Every Friday evening, we attend family home evening with the young single adults. Unfortunately, not many people attend. We still enjoy the time spent with them.  He will be getting married this June. Once he and his fiancee get married and are not attending, we will re-think our involvement in the Friday family home evenings. Following the lesson, we always play a game of some kind and have refreshments that have been made by Sister Tiefenbach.

 

This is a man we see often and we look forward to seeing him. Every other day or so we always ask Brother Prakash, who is the security guard, if we have received any mail. Usually, the answer is no, but once in a while, we are presented with a parcel or some letters. All mail goes to the mission office in Bangalore and then sent to us in Coimbatore. The mission office people send all the letters in one package that is addressed to "the Coimbatore Elders." So, we often wait until the Zone Leaders open the envelop that contains all the mail before we know if we have any letters. Sometimes, we get to the security guard office first, and we go ahead and open the package of mail that is sent from Bangalore. Here is Brother Prakash trying so hard to look very official! He is a great guy, and we enjoy talking with him and joking around with him.

 

 

 

Here we see Sister Dhikao and Sister Madabuthala ready to go out to meet the challenges for the day. Because the weather is so hot and sunny here, we often carry umbrellas to sheild us from the sun.  Did they buy umbrellas that match their outfits, or is this a coincidence? Which ever it is, they look great! We love to see their excitement when they have success in their missionary work.

 

Now this is a great sight to see! Today, Brother Raja baptized his twin girls. Elder Justesen took the picture, so he is not in the picture. Elder Smoot was able to join in the picture. This is the family who we visit every Thursday evening. The parents were baptized in July this past year. It is wonderful to see Brother Raja and Sister Sumathi fulfilling their callings and being involved in activities. Brother Raja has caught on to how many things are done in the church and does a great job of blessing the sacrament. This is truly a great family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all our family and friends! The year 2012 has been an eventful year in our lives, with serving the Lord in Coimbatore as a big change in our lives. The time has gone by quickly; we can't believe that we have been gone for just over 9 months. The longer we are here, the faster the time goes. At times, we feel that we are running out of time and we won't have enough time to make a real contribution here in this area. Another big change we have had is the birth of our 18th grandchild. We definitely missed holding and cuddling this precious new child so new from our Heavenly Father, but we are grateful for technology that allows us to see and hear her. We also had a grandson baptized this year. Again, thanks to technology, we were able to see and hear part of that event. Because of the sacredness of the baptismal ordinances, we were not able to see the actual baptism, but we were able to be included with the other people before and after the baptism.

We began our celebration for the new year at the church. The program consisted of a "talent show." This seems to be a popular theme for activities here. Many members shared their singing and dancing abilities. The people here enjoy dancing. Most of the dances that are performed here are taken from Indian movies. A committee was assigned to organize and approve of all the entertainment. They did a good job of putting this event together. It started a bit later than it was supposed to, so we ended up staying later than we expected.


One of the displays of talent was a fashion show; both of us participated in it. Elder Tiefenbach wore a casual jacket over his fashionable missionary attire. Sister Tiefenbach wore a fancy scarf over her high class missionary clothes. We were enthusiastically welcomed when we stepped out to show our outfits. We don't have a picture of Elder Tiefenbach, as he was taking the pictures.

While the new year began with a fun time with the members, we also felt some sadness because we knew we would be losing some missionaries because of transfers. We grow quite attached to the missionaries, and when they leave, we feel an emptiness in our hearts. We say good-bye to a long-time friend (long-time here is much shorter on our mission than at home), Elder Ram (right). He has been here for about six months, and we will miss his enthusiasm and his fun times. Elder Vaiphei will continue as a Zone Leader. His new companion will be Elder Mills.

We also say good-bye to Elder Solomon. We feel that a big part of us is leaving with his departure. We feel that he has brought part of home to us here in Coimbatore. Maybe it is because he is from Canada that we feel this way. Or, maybe it is because his parents and we have mutual friends, the Oviatts, for whom we have a great love. Whatever the reason, we always feel closer to home with him around. We shall miss that.



Elder Augustine (left) also leaves us, but we will see him once a month because he will remain in our zone, as he will be serving in Erode. We have enjoyed him as a District Leader and have enjoyed his quiet, dedicated manner. He has a wonderful command of the English language and always has a genuine concern for all those with whom he associates.  Sister Tiefenbach thinks he would make a great psychologist. Elder Justesen has had a short transfer. He will be serving in Coimbatore 1st Branch instead of his current assignment of Coimbatore 2nd Branch.



Elder Challa (center) also leaves us. We shall miss his sense of homour. Although he likes to joke around alot, he also displays a sincere, humble testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

As a farewell to Elder Solomon and Elder Challa, we had them over for a pasta supper before they left. We were happy that they could spend some time with us before they left. Elder Ram and Elder Augustine left before we could have them over for dinner.









We also began the new year by celebrating the eighth birthday of Brother Raja and Sister Sumathi's twins. They will be baptized this coming Sunday.













Sister Tiefenbach made carrot cake for the celebration.

 

Elder Solomon seemed to enjoy the cake. We are fortunate that they were also invited over for the celebration. That way, we were able to see him the night before he left. He had several dinner appointments that night. We hope he did not get sick from all the food.

We have two new sisters serving in Coimbatore. Sister Goupta and Sister Dhicau (not sure of the spelling of that). We picked them up from the airport. On the way back from the airport, we got a flat tire.










This gave us an opportunity to take pictures of the sisters in a building that is under construction. Sister Goupta (on the right) and Sister Dhicau (left) are both from Delhi. This is Sister Dhicau's first area.

Sister Goupta will be serving with Sister Jebamani. They will be taking over the apartment and area that Elder Augustine and Elder Justesen had. Sister Dhicau will be serving with Sister Madabuthala.









We wish you all a Happy New Year.  We hope that we can all grow from all the experiences that we will meet in the coming year. We pray that Heavenly Father will bless you with peace and joy in the next year. As we make new goals for the coming year, let us not forget to set goals to draw us closer to the Saviour so we make feel his love and understand the His atonement in our lives.