We have news, we are being reassigned to Nepal! Rick and I are excited to begin another new phase of our mission. Hopefully this will be the last phase although we will probably change apartments after three months. It will be fun to be able to do humanitarian work. In Nepal they have some fairly strict regulations and we will be limited in some regard, but there are clean water projects and they have a Helping Babies Breath program that we will help implement. We will be working closely with an NGO called Choice and some others that Latter-day Saint Charities has a long standing relationship with. There is a missionary couple serving there now and we will be blessed by their tutelage for the three months we will be working together.
Nepal is actually part of the India New Delhi Mission but there are no young missionaries there, just the one senior couple. We will be based in Kathmandu. One of the things we are excited about are cooler temperatures. Another is the Himalayas. We understand the people are wonderful. We are looking forward to meeting them and helping as much as possible.
As we have told some of the people we have met while walking and playing badminton they have expressed sadness about our departure and two in particular wanted to spend some time with us before we go. We were able to meet with a man and his wife who run a home for underprivileged and orphan girls. They currently house 20 girls. We met them and shared some singing and good wishes. Later in the week we were able to go visit a new property in the country that they are developing which will be more suited to their needs now and in the future. They are amazing people. We are not able to help them at this time but maybe future humanitarian missionaries will.
Another gentleman took us to the Andhra University campus (established in 1926) and showed us around. He taught there for about 35 years. This was something Rick was excited about doing because of his tenure as a university professor. It was a nice walk and interesting to compare the AU campus with the BYU-Idaho campus. It is more spread out and has lots of trees and many of the buildings are from the original university. He is another of our contacts and has been doing some leg work trying to help us find some projects. Again, the timing is not right and hopefully in the future there will be the opportunity for collaboration.
We attended the baptismal service for two teenaged girls. They will be a great addition to the branch. They already have strong testimonies. It is fun that after each baptism they serve a “birthday cake” which includes the tradition of feeding each other cake. It’s pretty fun.
India is hosting the G20 summit and various cities are hosting different conferences. These are some murals created here in Vizag to welcome guests.
The women here dress more in traditional clothes than in New Delhi. They are so beautiful. Women at the walking park wear saris and kurtis with tennis shoes and sometimes they even play badminton dressed traditionally.
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