January and the first week of February brought two wonderful events.
Wedding of (Elder) Wilson Vijay Alosias
I was asked to perform the civil marriage ceremony for one of our former assistants - Elder Alosias and his to be wife. As often is the case with our Indian missionaries, they use several variations on family names, so as a returned missionary he is Wilson Vijay. His new wife is Usha Kiran Prasad, known by her friends as Sophi. The wedding, held 28 Jan 2015, went well, other than the fact that I was 1/2 hour late due to having the time incorrectly entered in my planner.
This was a very LDS wedding, as both the bride and groom are returned missionaries. Consequently, it was very different than the Hindu wedding described in a prior post.
As a result of my late arrival, the Chapel in our Whitefield Road meetinghouse was full, with much anticipation. The wedding was wonderful, as these two marvelous young people started their life together. The program included a brief introduction or biographical sketch of both the bride and groom, a talk on marriage by a good friend who also is my counselor in the mission presidency, two songs by a small choir, and then some counsel from me, followed by the marriage ceremony. The bride was wearing a white wedding dress much like you would see in a temple wedding and Wilson was wearing a suit.
After the wedding, the couple changed into traditional Indian dress for their reception, held in the cultural hall and parking lot of the meetinghouse.
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| Sophi and Wilson |
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| Waiting to Greet Guests |
One of the wonderful delights of Indian weddings is the beautiful attire of the guests. This row of beautiful women and girls is typical. In contrast, note the two young boys in their very traditional western attire.
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| Wedding Guests |
The happy couple departed a few days later to travel to Salt Lake City to attend the
temple where they are making eternal that which was begun in Bangalore.
New Mission Home
During the past two weeks we also have "enjoyed" moving into the newly constructed mission home. Our previous home is located about 1-2 hours drive from the office. In as much as the new home is on the top floor of the building which houses the mission office, we have been anxious to reduce the commute from 2 hrs to 20 seconds.
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| Mission Home and Mission Office are housed in this building |
The mission office is located on the ground floor, right side of the above shown building. There is a distribution center on the ground floor left side, and a couple of offices also on that floor. The middle floor contains the administrative offices for the Church's Indian entity. The top floor is the mission home.
When we came to India 18 months ago, the living and dining room of the mission home looked like this:
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| Mission home, June 2013 |
Tonight it looks like this:
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| Sister Berrett enjoying a quiet Sunday eve |
One of the big advantages is that we now can hold mission leadership meetings and other missionary events in the mission home.
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| MLC in the mission home (before drapes were installed) |
Already we are loving the new location. Though the wait has been long and there still are several problems to be resolved, we are very grateful for the wonderful new house.
