Monumental Moments - Days 18, 19, 20, and 21.

August 17 - 20

I always want to know what “a day in the life of” looks like when people are doing something out of the ordinary, so here it is (schedule subject to change):

I wake up to the sun shining and the lizards chirping.  I get ready briefly and study not so briefly.  I take a malaria pill that makes me sick, I grab a banana, and head out.  It’s a beautiful eight minute walk to the school.

I check in with Mary so she knows I made it through the night, at which time she gets mad at me for not eating more than a banana and sits me down to drink hot sweet milk or coconut water.

I go teach “English Club” – About twenty minutes of English practice for 6^th grade through 10^th grade.  All I’ve done is teach them songs.  It’s the best way to stay in favorite zone.

I usually have a couple breaks in the day where I would be a disturbance to go see the kids or the people working, so I go to the special school where at least I am at least a likable disturbance.  I write and study more if I didn’t get enough time in the morning or write on here or email my fam. 

Then I teach dance. It really is fun, but pretty exhausting.  I sweat just standing, so I get all kinds of nasty dancing too.  And a lot of the kids don’t understand English very well.  But that’s fine, because I love adventures.

Then lunch, usually a spicy vegetable mixture with chapatti and rice. 

Teach more dance classes.

Duty to God with the boys!  We are just finishing up their deacon section.

Teach seminary!  Love that every single time.

Then I go play with the little kids on the playground or try to help the wardens with something.

Dinner.

Then I go to the boy’s dorms or the girl’s dorms and hang out with them for a bit. 

Escorted home by security so they can kill the scorpions and snakes on the road.

Shower, journal, bed readying.

There it is folks.  Exciting, right?  Sundays are my favorite, because there isn’t much of a schedule.  I just end up places with people and love it.  Sundays are always that way.  They are a universal favorite.

I taught the ninth standard girls about how to dance to have fun and be yourself like I did with the eighth, but it seemed to really click in a cool way.  I just ended up playing songs and the girls just danced.  I had a dance party with my girls!  We were rockin’ out to “Firework” and various hip-hop songs – Indians love a good beat – and they were matching my crazy!  We all know that is a hard thing to do.  I taught them to booty shake and how to salsa, and they were just cracking each other up with it.  That’s what dancing is supposed to be: Free-spirited, laughable, and enjoyable to all in an individual as well as collective way.  I was about to die of oversweating (the power was off so no fans) so we got to sit and talk.  We ended up talking about how cool they are, and how they deserve a great guy, and what a great guy looks like.  It breaks my heart that so many girls have no idea what to look for in a man.  I have a dad who is truly a man of God and who treats me like I am someone extraordinarily special.  I don’t know what it’s like to have no clue what a good man looks like.  These girls not only don’t have a dad like that, but they don’t have dads.  They don’t even have a bad example to say that’s not what I’m looking for.  So I used a lot of examples from my life.  I have been blessed to know a lot of incredible men that would make great husbands.  I used very specific examples about how they treated me and their special characteristics.  I live for these times: girls getting together and bonding over being crazy and letting go, and loving on girls who so deserve it. 

Today I had a blast playing with the younglings before dinner.  Magesh taught me two hand games and a weird little song, and he gave me a power ranger bracelet to fight bad guys with.  Then Akash was cracking me up; He was showing another, slightly older boy a ninja pose.  Then out of nowhere he hit the kid’s chest like really surprisingly hard and started cracking up, like he just tricked him into getting hit.  I so wish you all could have seen it.  And Meetalesh would every once in a while come up to me and tickle me and run away.  He is the so freaking darling!  It was so much fun playing with those kids.  I know them now, you know?  It feels like I belong there singing songs about speckled hens. 

I have stolen a friend’s copy of “You Are Special” and accidentally brought it to India.  Whoops?  What a very convenient accident that was.  I have been going to the different girls’ dorms to read it as a special goodbye thing.  They gather at my feet and I read the whole thing upside down.   I explain each page in simple words and find for them the meanings and the analogy in it so there is no (I should say less) confusion.  I get choked up every time I read it.  Then I sing them “Walk Tall.”  That is what I remember my mom singing to me at night, so it holds a place in my heart as the lullaby of choice.  I have decided something: every child deserves to be sung to sleep.  It is one of the motherly things, and so tender to children.  I wish I could sing them to sleep every night.  Then I do the goodnight kiss on the forehead to protect against bad dreams, and I tell them that any time they get scared at night, they can remember that I gave them that kiss.  I tell them how much I love them, and do my best to explain how much God loves them. 

Seminary:  It’s incredible the added measure of Spirit given when you are teaching about the Atonement.  That is truth and love and the gospel in its purest form.  We watched a bible video about it, and I have been doing nothing but bear my testimony of it for the last few days.  To better understand the Atonement is to better understand everything, especially how to be happy.

Sanjana is this baby girl who is so hilarious.  She just, makes me laugh so darn much!  She is pretty easy-going, and really not attention seeking.  But she gets plenty of it because of that.  She makes the goofiest faces.  Whatever she is thinking is on her face.  That’s hard sometimes because most of the time for me I believe she is thinking, “Homegirl’s an idiot.”  But we love each other nonetheless.

I got to talk to Saravanan one-on-one for like an entire half hour.  That is unheard of around here.  I thought you were never alone at BYU, but this place trumps it so good.  We talked about the future and life and hopes and plans and India and America.  His dream is to become an astronaut.  And then he wants to start a school similar to this one, but one that is all about the dreams of the kids, and doing whatever he can to help the children fulfill their dreams.  Don’t you love that? He is so great.  The way he talked about how he learns from each person he meets and the way he is turning his difficulties into motivation is so inspiring.  I just know in my heart that his heart is so good.  I so love those times when you get to know people and have time to really talk to them.  I have grown to be extremely grateful for those here, since you seem to never have time to just talk. 

Sunday night was so fantastic.  It was probably my favorite evening of my whole stay.  Some of the older girls teach primary instead of going to Young Women’s, so I asked them if they wanted a lesson.  And surprise, they jumped at the offer.  It was Manju, Esther, Monisha, Ammu, Seetha, Bhavani, and Vidhea.  The ages ranged 15 to 18.  I asked them if they had questions related to the gospel or their lives, etc.  At first they were a little shy, but it quickly became comfortable.  I so love when getting others to open up is as easy as opening yourself up to them.  One question would spark a story, which would spark a scripture, which would spark another question, and soon we were leaning on each other, all sitting outside on top of one of the buildings.  It was like I had my very own young women surrounding me just wanting to talk gospel.  They trusted me enough to ask questions that had been weighing on them, and I trusted them enough to tell them how I came to discover the flawed answers I had for them.  We talked about heaven and sealing power and humility and repentance and the power of God’s love and eternal happiness and everything that falls under any of those categories.  They listened so intently, and treated my stories like they mattered.  Then the conversation transitioned to guys:  specifically, what they deserve and should be looking for and what I would do to a man who didn’t treat them correctly.  The word for an intense punch is “kuthideva.”  And the phrase for punch him hard in the nose is “muku kuthideva.”  Suddenly I was grateful to have that in my Tamil vocabulary.  If I could somehow turn this, informal teaching and giggling, into my career, I would in an instant.  I guess that’s what you get to do as a mom, huh?  What an awesome adventure that will be.  When it was time for us to go to dinner, Esther said, “We are friends aren’t we?”  And I said, “Only the best of!”  Monisha asked why we didn’t do this at the beginning of the trip.  And I asked her why we didn’t do it every day of the trip.  My love grew so much for these girls.  I finally felt as though I had real friends there.  I want to keep them my friends.

I had that moment: The one when you realize that if you had come all the way to India just for that one thing, you would have still come.  I have had a few like that, and I still would have come here if this hadn’t have happened.  But this was just so special.  The Spirit has been hinting to me the challenges one of the older boys is facing.  And tonight I got to talk to him.  I can honestly say that it was one of the most I have felt like an instrument in God’s hands.  Christ has so much love for us.  It is the most tender, sweet kind of love.  He is the Savior of the world, but He is also our friend.  He is near and so wants us to know that.  He didn’t just die for us, He lives now for us.  The thing I wish the most is for these kids to understand that love: to know how much they are loved by their dad and brother, personally.  God cares about each person.  Why else would He inform a highly imperfect twenty-year-old blonde girl about specific problems a wonderful sixteen-year-old indian boy is facing and tell her to chase after him?  There is so much evidence to be found of His love.  But we often have a better chance of finding something if we are looking for it.  I can tell you, as I have searched, I have found.  I have found over and over and over again, and I will continue to.  How blessed I am that one evidence is getting to feel it for others. 

Take home:  I will remember my special moments, and not let them fade in importance.  I will remember to never accept less than my best, but that sometimes a day’s best won’t be yesterday’s best.   I will remember the way God takes care of me, no matter how lame I may feel.  I will remember that this is what makes me happy – loving on people in very direct ways.  I will remember this place and these kids and their dreams and the love I feel for them.