6.26 - happy happy Sabbath!

Every day is my favorite day. Wow. Today we left RSO at 7:30 and drove for a little over two hours to go to the nearest church in downtown Chennai. I will definitly be more grateful for having a chapel just a four minute walk from my apartment or a fifteen minute drive from my home.! Their nearest temple is in Hong Kong. Maybe ten years down the road they will be able to build a temple in India?! They had fourty baptisms in the Chennai mission alone this past month!! It was one of the neatest experiences to be able to go to church with some of the people in India. The church is growing and spreading everywhere! We went to the Chennai India 3rd ward and there were about thirty people there… most of them spoke English, but some of them spoke only Tamil. It was neat because our Sunday school teacher would teach some of the lesson in Tamil and then some in English. I just love the people here. Some of the students from the RSO choose to come to church each week also!

*Some of the primary children and me (the lady in the background was the first member of the church in Chennai!!)

*"Indian society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints"!!

Probably one of my favorite parts of today was singing with all of the members in sacrament meeting. We sang “Jesus Once of Humble Birth” and “How Firm a Foundation”. The church is growing and it was one of the most touching things to see today. I love this gospel.

“How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said—
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
“Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand."

Their relief society president, Chelladurai Elizabeth, gave the lesson from a talk by President Uchtdorf from October’s 2010 General Conference. I got to talk to her afterwards and she was telling me all about how she became a member of the church. She has been a member for nineteen years now and was introduced to the gospel from a family friend and now she has a son coming back from a mission on the 29th of July! Her other son is the second counselor in the bishopric! She also knew very little english when she got her calling as relief society president three years ago, but is now really fluent. Wow! Elizabeth was so happy and friendly.

*Elizabeth and me :)
One of the missionaries pulled my friend MK and I aside right after Sunday school and he asked her to give the baptism talk for Brother Jerin after church- we didn’t even know that there was a baptism, haha! We got a group of the volunteers to stay after church for the baptism. It was so special… he was actually the nephew of Elizabeth!! He had come to Chennai for college and started to go to church with his aunt and uncle. He was a very sweet, quite boy. There was a little makeshift baptismal font in a tiny room right next to the chapel. You could feel so much love in the room.

*MK trying to hurry and put a talk together before the baptism!!

*Jerin with the missionaries (from southern India) and his aunt and friend



*Some of us with Brother Jerin, Elizabeth's nephew :)

The chapel was in a couple of tiny rooms in the basement of an alleyway apartment. I would have never seen it if I had not been looking for it...it is really neat though. There is a new chapel being built that is HuGE and probably THe most beautiful buildings that I have seen in Chennai yet!

*A picture on their church bulletin board of the ground breaking cerimony for the new chapel

*Driving past the new chapel! It will be done in the next two months.

We ended the night by seeing a performance by the lifedance kids. Joseph is the kid in the green. Some of the volunteer coordinators said that he has just always had a passion for dancing, even before he came to RSO. It is fun to see him love something so much. “Romeo” is the little boy in the maroon shirt that always break dances. His nickname is romeo because he is just always flirting with all of the girls :) The performance ended by all of the kids and pulling us up “on stage” with them and we had a dance party!