Day 7: Church

We were up early again!! We had to leave campus by 7am to get to the 9am meeting in Chennai! We were so excited to go to church in India wearing our churdidars!

The one thing I LOVE about church is it looks, feels, and smells the same no matter where you are in the world!! That is absolutely true about India.

The meeting house was SOOO beautiful!

The spirit is so strong in these people here. The talks were absolutely amazing. They keep it so simple and their testimonies were so real. It was amazing to hear them speak about their experiences with the church and see the difference in these members, as opposed to those we had encountered out on the streets. There was a recent convert who spoke, and listening to his life story before he found the gospel and seeing the man he is now was so touching. Especially in a place like this, that is so full of poverty. To see these people talk so openly and lovingly about their love of Christ was an amazing experience for me. This meeting made me appreciate the fact that in Utah there are meeting houses on every street corner and temples within minutes of my house. These people drive hours to come to church every Sunday, there is no reason I should ever miss a week just to sleep in. One of the ladies that spoke said something that stuck with me. "By staying home on Sunday you will not be more productive or progress in those 3 hours, but if you come to church on Sunday you will increase your physical and spiritual productivity all week." ...Amen. I felt the spirit so strong here. I just can't say enough that EVERY experience here is amazing, every minute I am thankful for something new in my life back home. My life is changing here every day. I am becoming a different person, a better person. I hope that I can carry what I have learned here with me for the rest of my life. I never want to come home haha, I just wish I could bring all of you HERE! There is so much to be done, so many people to serve. I'm already almost halfway through my adventure here and that thought makes me so sad.

The Church

of Jesus Christ

of Latter Day Saints

(in Tamil)

After church we had to wait 4 hours for the bus to take us back to the Rising Star school, so we headed down to Spencers to walk around and check out the shops. This is a sort of shopping mall in Chennai but seemed more like a swap meet or a bunch of street vendors indoors. Everything here is very different. It was cool to see the shopping mall. I caved and bought another pair of genie pants with an awesome elephant pattern, as well as a few more souvenirs for the fam. I don't know if I have told you yet, but the power goes out in India... ALL THE TIME. Like atleast 10-15 times a day. Don't know why, but it does. The power went out in the mall on us lol, at least it was as we were leaving so it was great timing for us! I am excited to bring home all of the fun stuff I got for my family and friends. You guys will love it. I hope. Maybe I just have India goggles on now and think everything here is completely AMAZING... actually nope, I'm pretty sure it IS completely amazing!

SOO excited to show you.

Chinese Food!!

Our place mats were chinese calendars with all of the information for your birth year and character traits you may have if you were born in that year. I pictured mine and Jordan's below. Can you guess whose is whose? I think they fit PERFECTLY!

any guesses?

Yep.

On our way back to the school we stopped at the Marriott to pick up Shawn (dance teacher) and exchange money. Aaaaand guess who I ran into? Majeeb!!! My cab driver from the airport! He was so excited to see me again! It was great to see and talk to him a week later! I feel like I'm making friends here already. It's cool that now I am seeing familiar faces and I am starting to have more of a sense of direction on the road and feel like I kind of know where I am lol.

When we finally got back to campus it was time for LOTS of blogging. I didn't blog Friday or Saturday at the time that I normally do so I feel like I have been playing "catch up" these past few days.

At dinner time I didn't eat anything again. We were scheduled to go over and have dinner with the kids, but a couple of us stayed back and snacked and worked on our blogs.

We met up with everyone for family time at our houses. I just love our boys so much. I seriously am falling more and more in love with them every day. It's so fun now that I know them and can remember their names, and know their personalities. I wish you all could meet them. I just love them so much. It is so nice to end each night with family time, it makes me soo happy just before bed. They LOOOVE to play "down by the banks" and read story books!

Basha came down to visit me tonight. I just love him too!! He is such a sweetie!

Overall this has been an AMAZING spiritual Sunday. I am learning so much out here about myself, and about what I want for my life and for my family.

I seriously wish I could just stay here forever and get lost in all the work there is to be done.

Between loving these kids, working in the colonies, and doing construction, I don't think I have ever felt so alive as I do right now!! Ok, sorry I'm getting so cheesy on you EVERY blog.

Great Sunday.

Very spiritual. I love the people here. I feel the love of God EVERYWHERE!!

I feel like my blog posts are sooo loooong and they don't even begin to describe everything I am feeling about this beautiful place. I love it. The End.

Love you and goodnight!