All~in in INDIA! : (Dis)orientation Week

Wait a minute, are we still on a mission? Our world just got rocked big time and we're still reeling as if the polar magnetic shift already occurred. For one thing, we're so very used to the austerity of missionary life that to suddenly be thrown into a life of opulence doesn't even feel normal. Our new flat is a former Mission President's apartment and it's palatial! It has picturesque views out the 17th floor window and a wide screen TV and draperies and floor rugs and many other niceties. Now that we are experiencing "life elevated", we ask, where is the daily dust and ash seeping through every crack, the floor and counters crawling with micro-ants, the smell of open sewage on the streets, the neighborhood garbage piles, the driveways painted with tumeric colored cowdung, the street vendors hawking their wares, the 4:45 am prayer callers, the blaring of traffic horns, the incessant wake-up squawks of the birds, everything that we'd grown so accustomed and familiar to in our previous mission life? And where is the perpetual toe jam and mosquitoes and my daily bites, huh? (jk, I don't actually miss those.)

And what about our existence now? Think Terrestrial! We have lush Eden-like surroundings, soft cool breezes wafting through our windows (actual climate change), flowering shrubbery everywhere, meandering walkway paths, work crews that pick up not only garbage, but any stray leaf that happens to fall! The traffic horns are still audible but so faint, it's like a quaint brass quintet concert warming up in a distant amphitheatre. Assuredly, there is a constant pounding of a metal machine shop to bring us back to reality or we might have wondered if the Millennium had already started and no one informed us.

The ascent from Telestial to Terrestrial

Welcome to royal living in Earl's Court

Birds of Paradise now awaken us

Our protected enclave (with more security personnel than the White House) is called the Metro Brigade. But there's no crime or mischief or "unseemly behavior" to contend with that we've ever seen. After dinner, folks of all ages come down to the common areas to visit with each other in the cool of the evening. We marvel at the scene of serenity. It gives us a near foretaste of Zion living.

Included in this shelter from the storm is The Arcade, which is lined with small shops and eateries, including one of our long time favorites when we've visited before with American style salads and pizza.

la la la la "Lolas"

Our work space is a mere 3 minute walk once you're off the elevator also in this protected neighborhood. Through those windows of the main floor lobby you can see the church's mission office all a'bloom and a'buzz.

In our Lovely Deseret

A beehive of swarming activity

The mission office shares the space with all the church employees who work for various departments in India. We aren't the only worker bees in the hive!

No drones here. (Or queenbees for that matter!)

Despite it's charm, another major shift in our move has been ultra-jarring to us. Suddenly we've been upended and switched to a corporate environment, sitting at desks behind computers for most of the day for jobs we never aspired to nor even qualified for. My neck is protesting this change the most. "Help Mr. Wizard, get me out of this place! I don't want to be a missionary secretary anymore" If it wasn't the Lord's kingdom we're laboring for, we might've self-exited the first day. So we've clung to the promise that "whom the Lord calls, he qualifies." Please Lord! Qualify us quickly! Another promise from Him also applies to our immediate situation.

"I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me... for if they have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong into them." Ether 12:22

We are clinging to that promise that things are going to get better and true to His word, I'm already seeing it. Thursday and Friday were no-cry days for me. But Elder Dunlap is still overwhelmed and swamped with work and in stereotypic harried husband fashion, had to stay late at the office on Friday to meet some deadlines. So we're still in the thick of it. We will humbly submit to this assignment and I will feel blessed if the Lord will take away even a modicum of my ineptness. Turning it into my strength? That's a stretch. Gratefully, I still had help from dear Sister Robinaugh via Zoom and I know the same goes for Elder Rob with Elder Robinaugh. We would be floundering without their virtual tutoring! Additionally, I am grateful for 3 in-house mortal angels who also happen to be technology wizards that answer all my in-the-moment stupid questions- Brother Micheal and the two APs, Elders Guntu and McSwain. When they realized that they were working with "a special needs" secretary and a speedy click-click-click explanation didn't make things immediately crystal clear, they have slowed their instructions way down and given me step-by-step help. Bless them, Lord for their patience and long suffering!

Our angelic cohorts

Two aspects of our new life that have yet to occur and will greatly help us to feel more missionary-ish will be attending our new Whitefield ward tomorrow and hopefully attending District meetings with the young Elders and Sisters of the Bengaluru Zone if we can occasionally squeeze that into our weekly work schedule. We predict we will make new friends at church and we'll love the missionaries here too with the same affection. But presently, that is what our hearts are missing the most; the people of Coimbatore. Our final Sunday, we said our goodbyes to the cherished friends and branch members we'd formed bonds with, promising we'd find a reason to come back, hoping those weren't empty words. Relationships are truly one of the greatest blessings of missionary service. Each one has enriched our life in some special way. Here's an album of but a few of the many people we've come to love. If you've been reading this blog weekly, their names and faces may be familiar by now to you too: