Arrival in Coimbatore

We are so excited to have internet. The branch president of the Coimbatore First Branch (one of the church units in Coimbatore) helped us get a USB data card so we could have access to the internet. We will try this for a while, but we are finding that it is very slow. We opted for this type of internet because our apartment is not ready, yet, and won't be until the first week in May. We may get a hard-wired form of internet once we get into our apartment.

We were met with HOT, HOT weather in Coimbatore. Temperatures hovered around 40 degrees, without the humidex factored in. We have never sweat so much in our lives. Coimbatore is a city of about 2 million people, so it is significantly smaller than Bangalore, but 2 million people is still huge. This city has a small town feel, despite the number of people here. We have seen a few larger, modern buildings, but mostly, the buildings are small and old. Coimbatore is in the state of Tamil Nadu.


The current apartment is in a nice, quiet neighbourhood called Thasami Park Residency. It is a gated community with 2 security guards at the gate. We are the only foreigners in the community. The neighbours have been friendly and helpful. We have had to approach them a few times to help us call for taxis. The taxi drivers don't understand our English, and we do not understand theirs. So, we take our cell phone to the neighbour, so she can speak to the driver in Tamil, the language of the people in the Indian State of Tami Nadu.

Welcome to our temporary home.

These are our kitchen cupboards. The cupboards in our real apartment will have cabinet doors. Yes, our cupboards are looking bare. We will buy more when we "shift" our apartment. Below is the counter top. You can see that the stove is a counter top stove. I will have a 4- burner counter top stove and a microwave/convection oven in our new apartment. I am not sure whether or not I will be able to bake in it. I hope so. The kitchen does not have hot running water, so all water for washing dishes must be heated up on the stove. Our new apartment will be the same. The sinks have no drain plugs, so we use basins for washing and rinsing. We have a washing machine, and we hang the clothes to dry in a spare room on a drying rack.

We have many power outages in Coimbatore. Generally, the power is out everyday from 6:00 a.m. go 9:00 a.m., 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., and during the middle of the night. We have to plan our laundry, etc. around these outages. We have auxiallry power, so we can still use the lights and fans, but not the washer or the air conditioner. Whenever the power goes out or comes back on, we have to go to the breaker box and flip a breaker. One night we had to do that about 4 times during the night - we had extra power outages. Of course, it was REALLY hot, so we had to keep the fans going. It was just like getting up to a fussy child during the night.

 

We have a queen size bed, but the mattress is very hard. We also have an air conditioner in the bedroom, as of Saturday, so the nights have been more comfortable.

Last Monday, we visited an orphanage. It has between 300 and 350 children aged from infancy to adolescence. The orphanage has decided to "specialize" in special needs children, and is slowly changing its focus as the older children move into their own housing. We heard many sad stories about the lives of these children. We will likely volunteer at the orphanage by helping the older children with their reading. Right now is school vacation in India, so we are not sure when we will start that.

We have been asked by the District President of the Coimbatore District of the church to be involved in the Family History Center, in training the director of the center, and in helping her train other family history workers. We will be attending a planning meeting on Tuesday evening. We also hope to be involved with the young single adults (ages 18 - 31) in this area. There is a young single adult conference scheduled in Hyderbad on May 25 - 27 for all young single adults in India. This will be an amazing conference, and we have the opportunity to help with the conference. One of the main focuses of the conference will be to encourage the participants to gather their family history. We will have a major role with that. We are very excited about helping in this area. This conference will coincide with the formation of the first Stake of the church in India. A Stake refers to a specific geographic area of the church, just like a district, but Stakes have a more direct link to higher church authorities. This is a significant event for church members in India.

We are slowly getting used to life here in India. We have ventured out on our own to get groceries, etc. and have made it back home. This is good.

Arrival in Bangalore

Our flight from Salt Lake City to Bangalore was LONG. We left Provo at 12:30 on Monday, April 9 and caught our 3:30 flight. The flight took us to Chicago, then to London (England), and finally to Bangalore, arriving at 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 11 (Bangalore time). That would be 5:00 p.m. Tuesday, April 10. We were tired. This is the two of us leaving the airport at Bangalore.

After arriving, we rested for a few hours; then we went out to eat at an Indian restaurant. The Wigg's took us. The Wigg's are the mission couple who work in the mission office. Elder Wigg is in the above picture.

Our apartment will not be ready until May 1st, so we are staying with the Wigg's until Thursday, April 19th. We need to be in Coimbatore to register, so we will stay in an apartment that two young missionaries were supposed to have. They will stay with two other young missionaries until we move into our apartment. We spent the rest of the week spending some time at the mission office, helping when we could and doing some tourist activities.

On Thursday, April 12, we went for an auto ride. An auto is a three-wheeled vechile used to transport people. The traffice here is total chaos; however, it is organized chaos, if there can be such a thing.

This is an auto; they dart in and out of traffic, along with all the other vehicles and pedestrians on the road. We have never seen so much traffic and people. The traffic here has often been compared to a river because it goes where ever there is a place for it to go. If the road has two designated lanes, the vehicles will make it into 4.

One of the places we went on our auto ride was to the  Lalbagh park, where we saw several of these:

Friday morning was spent at the mission office, and Sister Wigg and Sister Tiefenbach went shopping for an hour to get food for the conference that President Funk (the president of the India Bangalore Mission) is having with the missionary couples. In the evening we and the Wigg's went for a walk and came accross this animal by the sidewalk:

On Saturday, we were escorted to Mysore by Karthik, a young friend of the Wigg's. He was an excellent driver, weaving through the traffic congestion with ease. In Mysore, we went to a palace, and we bought a saree.

Apparently, Mysore is famous for its silk.

We also drove up Chamundi Hill and enjoyed the view. The view would have been better had the smog not been so bad.

India is very different from Regina. Seeing young children walking in the middle of traffic trying to sell trinkets to the motorist and seeing all the people working and living in little shanties made me grateful for the things that we have. We could also learn from these people because despite their poor situation, they seem to enjoy life. We should all take a moment to thank our Heavenly Father for the blessings that we have.

Salt Lake City and Provo

When we arrived in Salt Lake City on March 30, 2012, the weather was absolutely wonderful, with the temperature ranging between 22 and 25 degrees for the first few days. This is the tree outside our hotel.

The weather continued to be beautiful in Provo when we arrived on April 1, 2012.

This was the scene on Friday, April 6.

We have had a wonderful experience here in Provo. We have met many other couples going to places all over the world. We have met couples going to Freiberg, Germany; Parguay; Scotland/Ireland; Kiev, Ukraine; Russia; several to the Philippines; Tacoma, Washington; Washington D.C.; Chile; and the list goes on.

All the couples were divided into smaller groups of about 5 couples. This is the group we are in: Sister Hale (our morning instructor), the Bush's, the Clark's, the Abbotts, the Bass's, and us.










Meeting all these people has been a great support. Leaving family behind has been difficult, but being with so many other couples who have done the same has made it much easier. We have developed our own family away from home with these people.

We are here with about 2,000 young men and women who are preparing to serve missions throughout the world. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, out of these 2,000 young adults, we met a young woman from Coimbatore, India. She was so excited to meet us. We will definitely enjoy meeting her family when we get to India. We do not believe this meeting was by chance. We have witnessed many ways our Heavenly Father has guided and directed us while we have been here.

We leave for India tomorrow (Monday, April 9). The trip will be LONG!!! We fly out of Salt Lake City at 3:30 and fly to Chicago and then to London, England. We have a couple of hours at the airport in London, and then from London, we fly to Bangalore, India. Twenty-five hours will pass from the time we leave Salt Lake City to when we arrive in Bangalore at 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday, April 11. We will definitely be ready for bed when we arrive, but people in Bangalor will be preparing to start the day.

Assignment to Coimbatore

Assignment to Coimbatore - March 26, 2012

We received a call from the Mission President last night. He is assigning us to the city of Coimbatore. Although the church website says Coimbatore has two branches, he said that it had three, two Tamil speaking and one English speaking. Coimbatore has a modern church building. A picture of the building can be found at http://www.lds.org.in/index.php/coimbatore-1. We will have a variety of assignments, one of which will be to be involved in the family history centre there. When President Funk, the Mission President, told us that would be one of our assignments, we were very excited. The family history centres in India are quite different from the ones we have here, so this will be a learning experience. Information about the family history centre in Coimbatore can be found through a google search. The listing says that it has film ordering ability, but I don't know whether it is a generic posting for all family history centres or specific to Coimbatore. The listing does not include any other information about the family history centre there. We had found a site on the internet that talked about a family history centre in Chennai, and it said that the one in Chennai did not have the ability to order films. We will see when we get there. Other assignments could include teaching English classes, teaching marriage and temple preparation classes, teaching people how to lead music, or any other classes that the local leaders ask us to teach. We will also need to be available to help local leaders in organizing and running various meetings and training seminars. We are not there to take over from local leaders; we are to assist them in anything that they ask us. President Funk asked if I, Teresa, played the piano. He was hoping that I played because not many of the members of the church in Coimbatore play the piano. Unfortunately, I do not play the piano.

The temperature in Coimbatore is quite reasonable with daytime temperatures varying between the high twenties to the mid thirties. The highest recorded temperature is 41 degrees. Today (which will actually be Tuesday because it is night time there), the high is 35 degrees. March and April are the hottest months. According to Wikipedia, a cooling breeze is always present, making the hot temperatures more pleasant. We will have to see if the hot temperatures are pleasant. The humidity is not as high in Coimbatore and it is in Chennai, so I think the heat will be more tolerable. Mind you, I personally prefer the heat. Wayne does not like the heat as much as I do.

As of last night, they have not found an apartment for us. They are looking for an apartment that is within walking distance to the church. We are hoping that they can get one before we arrive in India, so we can go to our assigned city as soon as possible. We will be staying two to three days in the Mission Home recovering from the change in time and becoming oriented to India.

We are still waiting for our visas.

Waiting for Visas

We are ten days away from flying out of Regina. We do not have our visas, yet. We hope to get them this week, as our passports were sent with our visa applications. If we don't receive our visas by next Thursday, our trip to Salt Lake City will have to be delayed, as we will not be able to get into the States without our passports.