A preponderance of preponing.

  I'm assuming you know what I'm even talking about. In past posts I explained a fabricated word the Indians invented that we hear our President use quite regularly. To "prepone" something is to move it ahead of schedule. True enough, we've had a plethora of preponements this week. Our friends the Pauls from Coimbatore were scheduled to visit us next weekend but asked if they could come this weekend instead. Richard is now in the District Presidency and had to travel to Erode for a Young Adult activity. Could he just tack on their visit with that and he'd be halfway here? All it required was for him to chase down the bus that his family was on in a cab to meet up with them. No problem! Indian traffic is so predictable, right?  Incredulously, he managed to do it and they all arrived en masse, navigating 3 kids and their luggage on the Metro to show up at our door. Wannakum! We're glad you wanna come!

Jade, Richard, Wren, Jennifer, Erin

Despite having 3 beds and two couches for the 5 of them, everyone took a turn by choice to sleep one night on the thin rug on the tile floor. (Let's admit it, they are just heartier folks than us.) Also we had some tricky juggling of only 1 shower and sink in the house for the 7 of us but we made it work and had a fabulous time relishing in our cozy togetherness. 

We're all trying to convince Elder Dunlap he needs a loongi. President Paul is sporting a shortened version called a "waisti", the ultimate in Indian male leisure wear.

Jennifer, ironing the girls dresses for Sunday, making herself at home

To add to the cwaziness, we were asked to speak in church while they were here. I thought we were going to be able to sneak out of India without ever being asked but they nabbed us at the bottom of the ninth. I didn't mind being overlooked because I never sleep well the week of a speaking assignment, as I tend to give my talk in my head round the clock. I'm weird that way. It's like I'm rehearsing my lines for a play performance. Have you ever planned your talk well in advance and have it pretty much composed only to wake up in the night with only a couple of days left and think, "this isn't the talk I'm supposed to give" and then write a brand new one in frantic mode? #metoo. I was all set to talk on the Doctrine of Christ when I switched to The Culture of Christ. It just seemed like a topic that nobody had addressed during our time here and it was up to me. It may sound like the two topics are similar in nature but they were based on completely different scriptures and conference talks. So my quotes and notes were all over the place and Jennifer is helping me Sunday morning get things off my phone on to a dinosaur paper format, like she didn't have anything else to do that morning getting her 3 daughters ready for church. What a friend in my need. She's truly a marvelous work and a wonder!

Scooby the Miracle Dog was our

 church door greeter

I was pretty sure I was going to be unpolished  and all over the place but the Spirit helped fill in my gaps and smooth my transitions and it was well received and the feedback I received was positive. Our friend Dan from Japan that we met 6 months before down in Coimbatore was in town for work again and was in the congregation. How perfect. Even Joel, our investigator, said it helped answer some questions he was having about merging his existing culture with this new ideology he was studying and what things can stay and what things needed to be sacrificed. Maybe that's why the sudden middle of the night switch? Who knows. Rob's thoughts and message were eloquent as always. He can speak off the cuff without writing much down. I wish I had his talent. Afterwards, we were completely bombarded with an outpouring of love and acceptance and kindness. The Culture of Christ abounded! I felt so much love in my heart for our international mixture of friends knit together in our ward family. With that major task behind us, now we could really relax and enjoy ourselves with our friends. 

One big happy family 

Ajji and Baba (Substitute Grandma and Grandpa) took the girls out to play on the 6 various playgrounds while Richard and Jennifer took some well deserved Sunday naps.

The not so Merry-go-Round only turns 12 inches

           But they got into the swing of things

                 Jade, showing off Mr Domino

We fed them lots of various fruit, and homemade mushroom soup and they ate about 5 loaves of bread. Not exaggerating! They proposed toast at every meal. Jennifer made us Biryani once and the Bushis had us over for Sunday evening Indian food. Indians just know how to feed other Indians better. 

                Indian Leadership at its finest

The next day we played cards and dominoes and did puzzles with the girls. Jennifer went with me as a consultant to a "stitcher." More on that later.

We took them out to dinner to thank them for the 6 months of hospitality they showered on  us in the beginning of our mission and to cement our enduring friendship over more food

..and they visited us in the mission office where we work. The office is also the Church Distribution Center so they were able to get some needed supplies. And sadly, the time went way too fast and off they went back home so Wren could start her first day of school in Coimbatore.

Our little Indian grandkiddles

And then another unexpected preponement came up. Knowing how long it can sometimes take to get the ball rolling here, we let the President know that it would be very needful to get my replacement on board so I could train whomever on this last transfer happening next week, especially for me who stresses out every time. Lately I have had so much trouble with Indian websites in ordering flights, trains, buses, even birthday cakes! I swear there are scams in my computer telling me the transaction did not go through making me order things more than once and then charging me twice. His immediate decision was to have the APs take over my travel tasks that were giving me so much grief, and essentially relieved me of all my office duties on the spot. He told Elder D he could be finished too so we could go traveling these last two weeks. Oh! Wasn't expecting that. Except... We weren't actually planning to do any traveling in India and so we told him it would be better for Elder Dunlap to cheerfully work up to the very end. We are both very happy with this arrangement. Elder Dunlap gets to be a worker bee and I get to be a bum. Hah! Oh Sis. Dunlap, I think you

                                   R. JOKIN

 So I took advantage of this extra time off and introduced Felicia to my favorite gospel hobby of grave snapping. She treated me to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant. Talk about a Win/win! For me anyway.

What a good sport!

Ever so clever

                                       Pho sho'

Then even one last preponement happened. We had heard the initial plans for the 3 American elders we flew here with last year would be to fly out with us on the 19th, the last day before all of our visas expire. Now very suddenly, we got word their day of departure is preponed to March 7th, Transfer Day. Oh good heavens. That's in 5 days. That's way too soon! It feels  suddenly so final and we're not ready to say goodbye to them. We hate preponing!

 

I guess change in any form, especially sudden change requires a great deal of faith and trust in our Father in Heaven's perfect plan for our lives, especially when it comes to His timing over ours. Sometimes we want things to hurry up and get here, other times we want things never to end. We all wish we could plot everything that's going to happen to us on a linear timeline and hope it will be very predictable and controlled. But we are learning that our mission life is often unpredictable and we can only go with the flow towards our future. Our Indonesia visas may or may not be ready when our India visas expire. In which case, we will be sent somewhere to wait for the interim. But sooner or later, we have to say the inevitable goodbye and move on. And sooner or later we will arrive at our next assignment. Let us all be in a state of joyful readiness, for everything that is to come. None of us can exactly know the date or time of anything, not even the coming of our Savior. But we know most assuredly it will happen! Will he prepone the day of His coming? 

"For behold, angels are declaring it unto many at this time in our land; and this is for the purpose of preparing the hearts of the children of men to receive his word at the time of his coming in his glory.

And now we only wait to hear the joyful news declared unto us by the mouth of angels, of his coming; for the time cometh, we know not how soon. Would to God that it might be in my day; but let it be sooner or later, in it I will rejoice."

Alma 13: 24-25