Day 5

When I turned my camera on today, I got a white blank screen and nothing I did would make it go away. The Kodak website told me that I would have to send it in for repairs. Sad face. No more taking pictures for me. But with all the cameras around and the joy of facebook, I think my trip will still be well documented.

This morning, some of us got to go to church in Chennai. They have three branches in the city and are building their first meetinghouse. It was great to see Elders and hear that they baptize basically every week. The church still feels like it is in its infancy in India but also like that is rapidly changing. I wouldn't be surprised to come back in 10 years and see many stakes in Chennai and a temple in India. Its exciting to see the potential.

I appreciated the lesson today about Naaman, the rich man with leprosy. He was told to wash seven times in what was considered a very unclean river. When he did, he was made clean. Two impressions have stayed with me from that lesson. First was as I was leaving, I saw that the baptismal font had been filled up. It is basically a small above ground swimming pool. But the water was a strange murky color. I thought of Naaman and how the water doesn't have to be crystal clear to make someone clean. It depends on their faith. And the individual getting baptized had great faith. I have no doubt he will come out of that water pure and clean.

I was also reflecting how small and simple things bring about great works. Even though I am half way around the world, what I am doing seems very simple: reading to a child, washing feet, carrying cement. It can be easy to brush these things aside as insignificant and miss the bigger picture. And what is the bigger picture? I think I'll just end with a quote from one of my heros, Mother Teresa, which I think I need to read once a day.

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for and deserted by everybody.

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.