Day 3, Sunday, Chennai, church

We left at 7am to drive to Chennai to attend the LDS church meetings.  On the way, our driver’s side rear tire blew apart.  Our driver, Rajendran was great.  He steered us to the side of the road, quickly got out, and changed the tire.  Can imagine having a flat tire on the freeway in the States, and just stopping right there, blocking the entire fast lane (left lane for us) for 30 minutes to change a tire?  Of course, they don’t drive quite as fast here (maybe 80km/hr on the highway), but it’s still amazing that this didn’t mess up traffic one bit.

It just so happened  that a few hundred yards down the road there was a tire shop, and not only that, but one of Rajendran’s friends just happened to work there, and he topped off the new tire with air—for free.

We attended of one of the LDS branches in Chennai.  They have a beautiful building  that was built about 3 years ago.  I believe 3 branches meet there.  We were just about the only Americans there.  Most were Indian.  We had a great Sacrament meeting.  It was really neat to see the Sacrament blessed and passed so reverently, in that crisp British/Indian accent, by sharp young Indian men, all dressed nicely in white shirts and ties.  One of the speakers spoke in Tamil, the rest of the meeting was in English.  The second speaker was a young woman returned missionary, and she was so very articulate and impressive!

In priesthood meeting, I met Vijay, who was baptized just two weeks ago.  He seemed so happy and sincere.  It is my understanding that it is illegal to proselyte in India, so I asked him how he found out about the Church.  He said, “I prayed to God, then I just rode my bike to the Church.”  He was so excited to bring his mom to church that day.

The church even has a basketball court!

Lunch with our friends, Kaylee, Lilly, Kyla

After church we went to Spencer’s, which is a non-western style mall.  It’s kind of like an indoor bazaar.  The building is run down, the shops are small, bartering is expected.  There were many shops for shawls and scarves where salesmen draw you gradually deeper into the shop, repeatedly draping scarves over their arms and explaining how great they are.  The most expensive are Pashmir (I think), made just from the beards of high Himalayan goats. 

I got my first experience with an Indian public toilet.  I wish I would have taken a photo.  There was actually a western style toilet, but the whole room was wet like it had been washed—including the toilet seat.  There’s no toilet paper, of course, just a medium and a small bucket on the floor under a faucet.  No soap in the bathroom, either. 

Indian grocery.  It was very much like a western grocery store.  They even had Oreos and Nutella, a staple here among the volunteers.