Elder and Sister Condie Mission Blog: September 6, 2015

Here we are! In Bangalore, India! We are having a senior couples conference with the Mission President. There are 2 couples that have been waiting months to get their visa to come to their mission here and finally got it! So exciting for them! They got here on Saturday, just before we did! It has been a wonderful end to the week! We did a lot of teaching this week! Tuesday, we went to Naveen, Gayani, Mahasevam and then to President Nishans! We brought them KFC and had a great visit with them. Wonderful family. Wednesday my middle son Curt turned 29 years old! So proud of him and sure love him! We visited Nandika and then with Inoka and her family. Naveen made a nice lunch for us. We picked up the elders at the church and then picked up Sheramy from work before taking her home for our visit with Shanika and the kids! It was a fun visit! They are such great people! She made us some dinner and had a great time! Thursday, the twins turned 2. That is unbelievable. We got to talk to them and it was fun to see how old they are getting and how they enjoyed babbling with us and looking at us! So sweet! We ran all our errands that morning and then had piano and English class. I picked up 2 new piano students so I am now teaching over 20 people. We invited Raj and his parents over for dinner after English class. Harsha and Praveen came too and the elders. It was yummy! We really had a nice time with all of them. I had more piano lessons on Friday. We then visited a new referral from Inoka....her friend Tania! She is really great and has been really interested! She came to the RS party last week with Inoka. She has started reading the Book of Mormon and really feels something when she reads and about the church! It was such a great visit! Saturday was a wonderful day! We had a baptism! Sister Esther! We have been so excited for her! She has really been excited! The special thing about this is that she changed her date of the baptism from Sunday to Saturday.....so that we could attend! Steve conducted the baptism and it was so nice! Her good friend, Domica, gave a really sweet talk. She is the one that brought her to church and started her wanting to know more! Such a great morning! Steve thinks that Esther looks like the lady boxer in Meet the Mormons! She really does! Really pretty lady! We packed our bags after the baptism and Kumar took us to the airport! We had to go a little early but we were able to have a Burger King dinner! And it was very delightful! They have Burger King here in India but they do not serve beef! It is mutton burgers and things like that!!! YUM!:?! It was a short flight...only 1 hour and about 15 minutes to get there! The Bedke's were there ready to pick us up. They are the office couple. Pres Berrett and his wife went an hour earlier and picked up the 2 new couples that were just arriving from the States! It was great visiting with them for awhile. The Grundys from Seattle and the Newtons from Morgan, Utah. The Grundys will be the new office couple and the Newtons are humanitarian missionaries and will serve north of here. We got up this morning and had breakfast and then went across the parking lot to church! The mission offices are on the ground floor. There is a distribution center and the mission home is on the top floor. The mission home is beautiful! It is very new and really nice! The 2 new couples and us are staying here. The Bedkes live close by. Church was really nice. The church building here is gorgeous! They are still a branch here but they are getting close to having a stake here in the near future. The meeting was packed! Lots of people were getting callings and there was a baby blessed! It was fast and testimony meeting and we enjoyed the sweet testimonies of these Indian saints! They look different than the Sri Lankans but I am still not sure I could tell which is which all the time. All I know is that they are such beautiful people. Gorgeous girls and women! Most every one of the women were wearing Sari's and they looked so nice! We went to Gospel Principles class and the young girl that taught did a really great job. Relief Society was great too! They did part of the lesson in Tamil for the older women. They had about 3 American families in the branch. All here for work. We came back to the mission home and had a wonderful chicken and rice dinner with salad, veges and ice cream! Really nice! We had a meeting later on! Nice to have meetings in cushy sofas and recliners! Pres Berrett and Sister Berrett both gave great presentations. They are such great people. Sister Berrett is so loving and kind. I loved our dinner that night....popcorn, fruit, oreos, cheese, m & m's, peanuts...! It was really great! Had an evening devotional where we shared our favorite scripture and bore our testimony. Such a wonderful spirit! These new people will be great missionaries! As much as I loved being in church here, I sure missed our wonderful Sri Lanka saints! We just love them so much! It is now raining pretty hard outside and we are going to the zoo tomorrow! Hopefully it calms down a little! Fun Pday ahead with these couples! Love this mission! Love these people! Love my companion!