Monday, July 30, 2012

Sunday we had the opportunity to drive to the city (Chennai) and attend a small branch for our church,  the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Saints.  I love attending church in other countries because it is so fun to see the culture of that country shine through the steadfast principles of the gospel.  I also really love the reminder that I get that the gospel of Christ is true and consistent throughout this entire world.  It doesn't matter which continent you are on, which language you speak, Christ and His gospel remain consistent.  Because of this consistency and truth, being in church in a foreign country is always such a comfort, like seeing an old friend or like going home.  After sacrament meeting some of the people were leaving to go do some shopping and needed more people to go with them.  So my friend Paige and I decided to go with them.  It was a crazy experience shopping in the mall here!  It was like being in a massive labyrinth.  It was huge and filled with a million small shops!  But it was fun to see it and shop around a little more.  :)
Sunday night the kids had a talent show and they were so excited for it they could hardly stand it.  Some of the kids sang, some of them danced and some of them even showed drawings they had done but all of them were absolutely adorable!  The girls in my family did a dance and it may have been one of the cutest things ever!  They were really good at it too... I should have them teach me how to dance.  :)  At the end when all of the kids had performed we as volunteers decided to surprise them with a little dance of our own.  That's right, I actually danced (not well I might add) AND sang (also not well) with all of the other volunteers.  And, of course, the kids absolutely loved it!  When the talent show had ended, music came on and the kids went CRAZY!  They circled around and danced mosh pit style for a while and then for a while they would take turns showing off their dance moves in the middle of the circle.  It was amazing and so much fun!

my girls getting ready to dance


sorry if these videos are a little shaky... I was getting bumped a lot! :)

kids going crazy!


Today, (monday) my group was on the construction rotation again and I have to admit it was so much fun!  We had a good time, talking and singing while we moved bricks and bags of sand.  For half of the time I ended up working with two older Indian men helping them lay foundations for the new and improved outhouses.  I never thought I would say that building bathrooms would be a blast, but it really was.  At one point I took over for the man and instead of handing him mixed cement he let me lay the cement down and spread it out to fill the foundation.  It was really cool to see the finished result and know that I had actually laid a foundation!  We finished our work in the colony early and were able to stop at the paratha bread and also at the junciton (small shopping area near our campus) and buy some henna!  So for anybody who wants to do henna when I get back let me know... I have plenty!  This afternoon, instead of typical play time, we had a water fight with the kids!  It was so much fun to see them running around soaking wet and surprisingly more fun to get soaking wet by the kids.  At one point I looked over at one of the little girls and saw that she had decided to go swimming in the puddles that resulted from the massive water battle.  It was adorable, to say the least.

It's really sad to think that tomorrow is my last day at Rising Star Outreach.  The time has gone by entirely too fast!  It's going to be hard to say goodbye to it all when we leave here Wednesday morning at 3, but I am so grateful to have even been here at all!


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