28 August 2011                       Rain night time, sunny morning, then cloudy

First of all, let me say that I know the blog entries are way too long. I’ve decided many of you don’t have time or want to read a book each time you read our blog, so I am going to try and shorten it up and just hit the light lights. If you have any comments, please let us know.

Rakesh had called and invited us to go to the ‘Trust’ for a “Teej” celebration today. Teej" is the fasting festival for women. It takes place in August or early September. The festival is a three-day long celebration that combines sumptuous feasts as well as rigid fasting. Through this religious fasting, Hindu women pray for marital bliss, well being of their spouse and children and purification of their own body and soul. The women all dress in their beautiful saree’s. When we arrived, Karishma presented both Debbie and I with a bunch of bangles. (Bracelets, all red and green. These are the popular colors women wear for this festival) Now I have quite a collection.

The Saree's were very beautiful. Picture doesn't do justice -

 One popular thing the women do is hand painting. Henna art, also called Mehndi, and it is a traditional art of painting a woman’s hands or feet, mostly for special occasions such as weddings or festivals. We have seen quite a few women with their hands painted. I’ve included a good example.

We had a good time. We felt like we were their honored guests. There were about ten women there, all in red saree’s. The photos don’t do the saree’s justice. They are  They fed us, twice, and we danced. I enjoy watching them dance and hearing their music. We will have to find a CD and take it home with us. They invited us to dance with them. That’s not my favorite thing to do, But I wanted to be a good sport and got up and joined in the ‘fun’.

We returned home about 4:30. Gene is still fine tuning the Summary Report for the Ministries. We are all excited about getting this done tomorrow. At least we hope to finish it up and get it signed later this week. That would be awesome!

27 August 2011                                     Beautiful sunny Sabbath Day                  

It seems that the weeks roll around pretty fast. Laxmi and I went early to visit teach with Sister Kim. I guess in Korea, the woman keeps her surname, so from now on, it is Sister Nam. We had a good visit and she opened up just a little bit. She doesn’t speak much English and I mentioned to her about Elder Esplin and I teaching English at READ Nepal and asked if she would be interested. She said she would be. I need to talk to Sajana about it and we would need to figure out how to get her there, but I think it would be so good for her. She stays at home and doesn’t interact with anyone. She must be bored to death. Brother Kim seemed pleased that we would invite her to class. I think he will try to see she gets there. I hope so.

Church was great. Brother and Sister Patch spoke and did wonderful. The topic was the Priesthood. Brother Patch had his son Yarden come up. He’s a little black boy they adopted in Africa. He told how they had gone to the temple in St. George and by the power of the Priesthood had him sealed to them. He was their son forever. I truly touched my heart and confirmed to me the power and authority of the Priesthood.

President Bishnu asked Gene and I to help Sister Subhadra Bhitrakoti get her mission papers going. She is a young woman here in the branch. Her English skill lack quite a bit. After church she came to our home and we gave her the papers. Devi, the Young Woman president and a cousin of hers, who is also a returned missionary, came with her to help her, knowing she might not understand everything. I encouraged her to read the scriptures and ‘Preach My Gospel’ and to read out loud, telling her that would help her English skills. We talked to her a bit and gave her the papers and told her to start filling them out with a pencil. We talked about getting a physical and dental appointments. Helping her get ready will be an enjoyable experience.

After our meeting block, Branch Council was held. Gene and I were asked by President Bishnu to work with the YW President and the Young Men’s President and plan a YSA conference. They have done that for all youth 14 and up.  We would like to get a committee together and gather ideas and go from there. We will need to pick a date. I know our October and November are both pretty busy, but we will do what needs to be done. All in all, it’s been a busy day and looks busy in the days ahead.

26 August 2011                          Wild night of loud thunder and lightning

What a night! LOUD thunder and lightning and lots of rain. It happened about 12:30 am and took me a while to get back to sleep. This morning is nice but I imagine we will get more rain today. I’ve had enough rain – anytime now these monsoons can taper off. I will be happy.

Gene has worked on the presentation for the meeting at the Ministry of Women’s and Children’s on Monday. We are excited about it and sure do hope that it is the beginning of the end and that soon the Agreement will come to a conclusion.

I sent an email to Elder Ko and asked about the status of READ Nepal. He replied that the Area Presidency hasn’t meet and will not meet until September 5. That’s when we had hoped to begin the class. I did email Sanjana and let her know. She was fine with that and said to let her know as soon as we find out.

We walked over to Standard Charter Bank’s ATM and it was down. Typical Nepali. We went over to Saleway’s and bought a few canned goods. It’s the one place we’ve found Campbell’s Cream of Chicken Soup and also Parmesan Cheese. An 8 ounce container of Parmesan was $10.  Things like that are really pricy here.

Early evening Rakesh called and soon after stopped by. He had talked to Gene about what to expect at the meeting with the ministry. Gene had written up a summary and Rakesh went over it with him and made a few suggestions. He knows better than we, what they are looking for. He told us that when he had heard the meeting for today had been canceled, he went to see Mr. Bhattarai and the Final  Evaluations hadn’t been delivered to each Ministry. Rakesh gave a ‘runner’ 500 NR’s and soon the meeting was on again - for Monday this time. We sure do appreciate all he has done for Latter-day Saint Charities.

25August 2011                          Rain a lot in the night, pretty nice day, warm

It’s been a great day here in Kathmandu. We woke up with still no internet. I sure rely on it and it’s really hard when it’s down. We can’t even do our missionary work as everything is online. And I’ve missed being able to talk to the kids and staying in touch with the outside world.

Since we were ‘grounded’, I started off by doing crocheting. I’ve got a couple of feet done on the leper bandage and am on the second hot pad of the second set. It’s good to see some progress on those projects.

About 10:00 Mr Bhattarai’s office called and wanted us to meet with the ministry people tomorrow at 3:30 pm. This is on the Two Year Agreement. We were thrilled. I called Deppongs and gave them the good news. About 15 minutes later, the phone rang again and the meeting had been canceled and they said they would get back to us. Disappointment!  Rakesh called just then and said he was going to Mr Bhattarai’s office and see what was going on.  About 45 minutes later we got another call and the meeting is on for Monday at 3:00. We are still excited. They want Gene to give a little report on the Agreement and also a one page summary of what is in the Agreement ( a copy of each ministry). We worked on that together for quite a while today. I am the typist and Gene does most of the composing. He is the one familiar with what is in the agreement. I called Deppongs again and told them to put Monday afternoon on their schedule. They are excited to do that and go with us.

About 11:00 am, the guy from the cable company came back. He was here for quite a while and finally decided the modem was bad. They had tried a new modem last night but couldn’t get it to work. This guy today had trouble getting it to receive the signal, but finally, success! I am so happy. We had got an email from Alison, saying she imagined we were without internet service, at least she hoped that was the problem. She said she realized they didn’t even have a phone number for us. I had realized that too – and sent President Jackson and President Bishnu’s email address to her. Also Deppong’s and the Patch’s Skype address and our home and mobile numbers. Anyway, I’m glad to be back online and connected to the world.

This afternoon Laxmi and I went Visiting Teaching, going to see Kamala. She is also preparing to go to the Manila temple in November. And the lesson today was on the blessings of the temple, so we had a very good visit. She is in the process of getting her passport. President Jackson said passports are the number one thing preventing people from going to the temple. I sure did encourage her to get that passport. She is excited to finally get to the temple.

24 July 2011                                                          Pretty nice day

We woke up still no internet. Laxmi called them about 9:00. They are trying to find the problem. I would really hate to be without the internet all the time. We are both lost – we can’t check email, the news, and we can’t do any missionary work as everything is online anymore. It still wasn’t working by the time we left to go to KTC and the ‘graduation’ program being held today.

It was a delightful program and day. Jeffrey and Sarah was co-chair and were conducting the meeting. I was so proud of them and they did a wonderful job. A lot of the students participated, even some who really hung back in class, were on the program, reading a poem and one even danced. Of course, Mr. Giri gave some remarks and he did talk about the long relationship with LDSC and hoped that we teachers would return to teach again. He said we would start in December and finish the end of July. After the program, Sister Deppong asked him if he hadn’t received our letter of termination. He said yes he had, but he rejected it. Debbie thought that was pretty funny.

Certificates of Participation presented to 38 students

Angel, Sarah, Jeffrey, Tina, Alan and Babs - Their English names

Proud of their certificates.  Great young people.

Deppong's and we handed out the certificates and little gifts – one for each student. We gave the girls little jewelry sets and the boy a small wooded box with a bracelet inside. They seemed pleased. After the ceremony it was picture taking time. We went up on the roof and took pictures for a long time. They ALL wanted their pictures taken with us. And they wanted them taken singly with us. As soon as you would point the camera, everyone jumped in. It was pretty funny actually. The students were a little sad and we were too. We will never see them again. We do wish them the best and hope they find success in their future.

Saying goodbye one more time.....

When we got home, we still had no internet service. Early evening a couple of young men came and stayed for over an hour. They were here with the Cable Company. Gene wanted to go out and take a picture of their ‘truck’. I later asked him about it and he said it wasn’t really a truck, but an old bicycle with a ladder. Anyway, the guys tried a lot of things, but no luck. Still no service. They said they would be back tomorrow about 11:00 a.m. I called Debbie and asked her if she would send an email to Alison. I’m sure she is wondering where the heck we are, or what has happened. Debbie said she would be glad to do that.

Laxmi told us that Mr Bhattarai had called from the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare office. He would like to set up a time when we can meet with him and discuss the New Agreement. Hooray! We hope to hear from him tomorrow and get this ball rolling forward.

23 August 2011

We went to KTC for our last day of teaching. Before class, we did meet with Mr. Giri. He wanted to go over the agenda for the program tomorrow. Then he wanted to talk about our not returning to KTC. He talked about how it’s been a long relationship with LDS Charities and a good one. He wanted to know what they could do to get us to change our minds and return again in December. We talked about the new books we use, about the expense to get there and other things, but still, he would like us, even just one couple and however many days a week we could give. We feel a little bad for him but at the same time, feel that it’s time for us to go in another direction. He told us to take a little time and think it over. We told him we would. At the same time, I think we should let him know for sure, before too much time passes.

School went well. The students have mixed feelings and said it was a little sad. I feel the same way. We will have our program tomorrow and then we will never see those kids again. We really hope they succeed and have a better life than their parents had. We look forward to tomorrow and know it will be a wonderful experience.

Our internet service went off about 3:00 pm. We unplugged it quite a few times, but no luck. We had Laxmi call the company and they finally said it was their problem. They said they would call us in fifteen minutes. After a half hour we called back. Of course you get a different person every time you call. Long story short – still no internet.

22 August 2011                                        Mostly cloudy but nice

It’s been a great day! We talked via Skype to Brent, Alison and Chad and Konnie this morning. I love talking to the kids and don’t know what we would do without being able to see and talk to them. It’s so much easier to be here.

We put together our English lesson using some of the things we had learned from serving at the Logan Employment Resource Center. The English book we are using has some excellent material in the back of the student’s manual about jobs and help in finding one.

School went well. The students were very interested and attentive. It was fun to talk to them about making a good first impression, a ‘me-in-30-seconds’ statement, resumes or bio-data sheets, interviewing and follow up skills. This is information they want and need. There are some really sharp young people in the class and we hope all of them will be successful. We do wish them the best. On the other hand, only one more day of teaching at KTC and we are happy for that. We are still looking forward to teaching the women at READ Nepal and hope to hear something back from Hong Kong with week regarding that.

Mr. Giri (KTC) called tonight and would like to meet tomorrow to discuss the final arrangements for the program. We will meet with him before school tomorrow. (I did send him an email today, just to make sure he received the letter about our not returning to KTC in November.) He hasn’t even said anything about it. So be it……