This weekend had some high points but there were plenty of
low points as well. We said goodbye to Dance Master on Friday night. I keep
expecting her to come out of her room and wonder why I am not seeing her
exercise every morning. Then I remember that she is gone. Lame. Our new Dance Master is named Katie, and we
are all absolutely in love with her, it is just sad that we can’t keep both of
them with us.
We spent this past Saturday in Chennai. In the morning we visited
St. Thomas Mount, which is a catholic church located by the beach in Chennai.
St. Thomas is the apostle that was sent to preach the gospel in India, so there
are a lot of things dedicated to him around here. The cool thing about this
church is that it is supposedly where the actual remains of St. Thomas are
located. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the actual shrine, even though
his remains were underneath that shrine and not visible anyway, however it was
still really cool. There was a boys and girls side to sit at the shrine (the
boys and girls are separated for a lot of different things in India) but not
all of us realized that, until after we got up to leave the shrine and realized that we had been sitting on the mens sides. Oops! Sorry
homeboys. Besides the shrine, we visited the cathedral that is part of the complex as well. It was all really ornate and beautiful. Katie, is a strong catholic, so it was cool to visit these places with her because she gave us explanations and perspectives that we would have missed out on had we not had her with us.
I didn’t know this but there are apparently only three church in the world that are built
over/contain the remains of one of the original 12 apostles. There is St. Peters in
Rome, James (?) in Spain, and St. Thomas in India. I realized today that I have
visited two of those three places. Sometimes I’ll pause to think about the
opportunities I have been blessed to have and I feel so grateful to have had so
many different experiences. I don’t know how I got so lucky. It is very
humbling to think about.
After St. Thomas Mount, we went to Phenoix Mall. We ate CPK,
found another American market that had treasures such as Twix bars and pop
tarts—only I didn’t buy the pop tarts because they were crazy expensive. The Twix didn’t taste exactly the same, but
it was still worth every rupee I spent on it. I also found some raspberry
sorbet—which I could of eaten ridiculous amounts of but didn’t. It is probably
a good thing the sorbet was expensive as well. While at the mall we got the sad news that Ashley and Jace
would have to leave for home early. Like home as in the USA. :( None of us like that very much-not even Jace and Ashley.
Katie and I had quiet the adventure on Sunday too-trying to find her an English speaking mass service. We were told there was one at 11, so she came with us to sacrament meeting and then she and I left to go over to the mass--which wasn't in fact at 11, it was at 11:30 and it wasn't in English at all--it was purely Tamil. There was a garden on the grounds that had the different cross statues in it--basically it told the the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. The plan was to kill some time there, but before we even made it to the statues a security guard showed us to this locked door, which is unlocked and gave us a "private" showing of what was inside. There was a bleeding cross that St. Thomas had carved into a stone, as well as the fountain of healing waters. Just outside that there was a gate around a large stone that according to the gaurd had St. Thomas footprints on. I couldn't really see them, but neither could Katie so I quickly got over feeling bad about that.
I didn't know what to expect from my first mass, and unfortunately I had to leave a little early to touch base with the rest of the group, but it was pretty interesting. The thing that got me the most was the florescent lights everywhere. The cathedral would of blended in nicely in Las Vegas. Katie assured me that wasn't standard, but it made both of us chuckle some.
The rest of Sunday was spent driving home and helping Jace and Ash get ready to leave. Ashley has been having a hard time with her medical issues and it is only getting worse. I understand and am supportive of her doing what she needs to do, but it still makes me really sad. It made all of us really sad. The worst part is we found out Saturday and they left Sunday night. We had a great time the month they were here, so I am trying to focus on those memories, but if I’m honest I am pretty bummed about it. I just hope they are able to get answers to the list of questions they have so that Ashley can finally start to feel better. We are still really sad about it though.
