Challenges of the Office and Home

Are we all staying on track with our new years goals and resolutions or have we started to forget what they were?

Office Challenges

When we were called to serve a mission in India, we were told it was English speaking. Since then we have found language to be a challenge, especially when talking on the phone.

Vasanth in the Service Center is invaluable in his help with the mission tasks. Occasionally, I move over and have him sit in my chair. He helps talk to property owners that we lease from and many others.

Here's a video clip example...

According to the government of India there are over 1600 languages/dialects in India. In our mission there are 5 main languages spoken: English (with various difficult to understand accents), Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi. Many that we have met say they can speak 3 or 4 of these languages... amazing.

We stock "The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ" books in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi and of course English but no Kannada yet.

My cousin Bob Priddis, a prior Mission Finance Secretary, is sometimes quoted here in India. Sister Briggs, one of the Senior Couples serving in India said, "Elder Priddis said that if India was his first mission, it would have been his last". Bob and Annette Priddis served prior missions in Japan, including helping as office couple.

We found this picture on our computer of the Priddis's opening a farewell gift in the mission office last May.

Power goes out often. Sometimes we go back to our apartment to get some work done. Our internet seems to go out sometimes in the office. It rarely goes out at our apartment.

Sister Martin's biggest challenge is helping the foreign missionaries register with the government when they arrive and when they move to a different location. It's an ongoing concern and endless paperwork. She even dreams about it sometimes, waking up worried about the missionaries when they don't receive the documents needed in a timely manner.

Baking Challenges

With different ingredients and appliances we often find it difficult to make meals that we are use to eating, especially when it comes to baking. I love to make Curry Chicken with Rice and vegetables which is great in India, but some things don't work too well.

We enjoy having Sister Kannagi come in twice a week to cook and clean for us which really helps a lot. She makes great local India dishes and other recipe varieties.

Baking with a toaster oven is a big challenge when you have always used a big oven. We even tried using the Microwave oven below, which has a convection oven setting. Sounds really good until you start to bake with it. Either oven often results in a disaster.

Banana bread, overdone on the outside, gooey on the inside.

Sometimes I wonder if using a child's Easy Bake oven with the light bulb heating element might be easier.

Making my Chocolate Chip cookies is another challenge.

Brown Sugar just isn't quite the same

Flour seems to be pretty close to what we're used to

Not only are the ingredients different, but the uneven cooking temperature constantly requires experimentation. No good Chocolate chips on the shelf in India so we just break up chocolate bars. The chocolate chips online were tiny ones and they just don't taste that good.

The cookies were pretty good but not great. 

One fun cooking experience was my first time cooking with mustard seed the other day. Southern India cooking often includes Mustard Seeds. So, I put some yellow seeds in a frying pan with oil. After a couple of minutes the seeds all started jumping out of the pan like popcorn. I quickly added some rice and fried it up. Quite yummy. We mixed it in with other leftovers as well. Sister Martin added more salt as usual.















About once every week or two the sink clogs up and we have to use a plunger to make it drain again. No Liquid Plumber or Drano in India that we've found.

No garbage disposal or dishwasher.

Success...These rolls tasted good with butter and jam even though they didn't rise much.

The refrigerator is about half the size as ones we enjoy back home.

The washer works well. It's out on our balcony.

The dryer is an interesting set up. We open the sliding door and the vent hose goes against the screen door. Gotta keep those mosquitoes out.

Well, we can always turn to cereal in the morning. It's pretty good if you like non-refrigerated box milk, right off the shelf.

We rarely do, but sometimes you just give up and go out to dinner. They have a Chilli's restaurant nearby. Staring at that computer screen too long.

We had a great salad and buffalo burgers with fries. Pretty good.

Hospital and MLC

Mission Leadership Council (MLC)

What's for lunch? - You guessed it, Curry chicken. But this time with some extra veggies.

The mission president told everyone that he received two calls recently from branch presidents that have a big problem. They have more people attending their meetings than their total membership. Therefore not enough room to fit everyone in the classroom. He told them to have two Sunday school classes instead of one. Nice problem to have.

Off to the Hospital

Since we don't have a mission nurse, we sometimes help the younger missionaries with their health challenges. About a week ago I was asked to accompany one of them to the hospital for a procedure. Getting there was quite the challenge. The traffic is usually really bad but this morning was even worse.

We tried to leave the mission office but couldn't for about ten minutes, as the traffic was at a stand still.

There happened to be a transportation strike going on that day. It was for bus drivers (they estimated about 26,000 buses would be out of service), and other taxi unions protesting new laws that affected them. They said it would affect schools, businesses, government, and more.

As we finally started moving we saw that protesters were walking the street, so once they started moving, we moved as fast as their slow walk.

What normally would take about 10 minutes to drive to the hospital in the morning took about 35 - 40 minutes.

A picture of a sign in the waiting room in two languages.

Here's a picture of some hospital food they brought the missionary, which the Elder said was quite good. It was vegetable soup.

Vegetable Soup at the Hospital -  Called "Chef on Wheels"

The server asked to be paid for the soup so the missionary pulled out some cash and paid him. It was 35 rupees (about $0.50 US)

Except for the few hours for the procedure and then recovery room we were together and had a good time talking and sharing stories throughout the day. These missionaries have so many interesting experiences that also help to strengthen my faith in Jesus Christ and the missionary work. 

9:00 am - 9:00 pm... A great day helping missionaries here in India.

There have been a couple of other times I have accompanied missionaries to the hospital in the last month, each time an interesting experience. And the cost is a small fraction of what you would pay in the US for similar procedures.

The need is tremendous and the work fulfilling. Please spread the word that missionaries young and old are needed out here.  

A Great Little Church - Convent Road Ward

We visited a nice church in Bangalore (Bengaluru) City called Convent Road Ward. It was near a hotel that we stayed over night at so we were able to walk there. We arrived a little early and took some pictures around the grounds.

Meeting the members here was a nice treat as well. One sister had joined the church less than a year ago. She is a doctor, and said she also lived 8 years in Boston. She shared with us some of her experiences and struggles and was so happy to have found the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. When she found the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ she said she hoped this would help her to improve her life and become a better person. She said it has helped her to change for the better. She and many others have no other members of their family attending, but they continue coming alone. 

We love talking with these faithful members who are really some of the pioneers of India, since there are less than 15,000 here. When the pioneers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints migrated to Utah in 1847, there were less than 35,000 members at the time.

When this building was built they preserved many of the original trees on the property. Isn't it nice?

Meeting Young Adult members from the Convent Road Ward

Eagle Scavengers Dive Bombing the Marketplace

Commercial Street Shopping Area

Bangalore has some huge shopping areas. Commercial Street has been a big shopping area for many years. We heard it was an interesting place to visit/shop so we asked Prabhu, our friend, to take us there. The meat markets were especially different. There was a strong, disagreeable stench. What was quite surprising were the number of Eagles, Hawks and other birds. They were obviously looking for scraps of meat.

I saw several Eagles, one nearly hitting Prabhu in the face.

Perhaps we could add an interesting scripture about the 2nd Coming...Matthew 24: 28 For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

Prabhu ducking as an Eagle nearly hit him in the face.

Another large bird, perhaps a Hawk, swooped down near us...So close, I could feel the breeze on my face from it's wings. 

One of the young missionaries from India told me a story of when he was 11 years old. His classmates at school were playing outside during a break and a huge Eagle came down and picked up a 6 year old little boy. The Eagle carried him for about 10 feet and then dropped him. All of the children picked up stones and threw them at the Eagle until it flew away. The little boy was OK but ended up with scars on his shoulders.   

Watch this video that these pictures were taken from.

Fresh chickens butchered and ready for sale.

We must have walked for two hours or so through these shopping streets.

The only thing we ended up buying was this rechargeable, electric zapping mosquito bat (cost just over 3 US dollars).

Elder Martin closing in on a mosquito with his new electronic zapper bat

Here's a different picture. We saw this cow eating some garbage or something so we decided to take a picture with it.

As soon as we took the picture the cow started to pee.

Learning some history and seeing the city of Bangalore, India

Bangalore Palace

On one weekend we broke away  from the office to take a look at a few of the sites in the city. 

Maharaja - Chamarajendra Wadiyar X

We started at Bangalore Palace, a residence for the Maharaja of Mysore while he was training at Bangalore. The interior was a little neglected and in need of repairs, but it was a nice place to see. The gardens outside were nice but not great. Some of the flowers were blooming which made it worth seeing.

This was a cool archway of flowers

Cubbon Park

We then visited Cubbon park, a huge park in the center of Bangalore City. It was close to the big court house and government buildings. 

Our new friend, Prahbu took us around to see the park. 

Some of the trees in the park with the long branches like arms kind of reminded me of the "Whomping Willow" tree from the Harry Potter movies

Quite a beautiful walk. The shade was nice since I forgot my hat.

Some of the trees were beginning to flower.

Some of the roots of these trees were amazing.

I didn't want to touch this plant

Vidhana Soudha - The Grand State Government Office Building

Just outside the park were the government buildings. We weren't allow to see them up close or inside. Prabhu said it must be by invitation or special permission only.

Interesting statement - "Government Work is God's Work" is engraved on the front of the government building

About two years after India gained it's independence from the British and the year after Mahatma Ghandi was killed, Dr B.R. Ambedkar finished the India constitution. He is named, "The Father of the Constitution of India", pictured below.

Statues of Mahatma Ghandi

We continued our walk to see the many statues of Mahatma Ghandi. There was a great movie made about him called "Ghandi" that is worth seeing if you haven't. He was named, "The Father of the Nation".

These three statues of him were in Mahatma Ghandi Park

Ghandi made his own clothes in a movement to promote home-spun clothes instead of British made

We enjoyed our little tour around Bengaluru city. The next two blogs continue the journey.