{"id":2837,"date":"2015-01-18T06:51:46","date_gmt":"2015-01-18T13:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rnsmith.com\/?p=2837"},"modified":"2015-02-08T18:27:50","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T01:27:50","slug":"church-in-mumbai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rnsmith.com\/?p=2837","title":{"rendered":"Church in Mumbai"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chapel<\/a>
Chapel Area<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As readers know, Nina and I are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly called The Mormons. Wherever we travel when Sunday comes around it’s Church day (unless, like last week, I was in the hospital undergoing angioplasty). Nothing got in the way today as we attended the Mumbai Branch of the New Delhi District of the India New Delhi Mission. The Branch meets in a newly constructed space configured for their needs. There is a main area with a rostrum at the front and space for about 100 chairs. The main area divides into three smaller areas by glass sliding partitions. In addition there are four classrooms.<\/p>\n

Yesterday as we were driving back from Lonavala, Ty texted Heather from Branch Presidency Meeting (which is held via Skype since travel time is an important consideration) that they didn’t have speakers set up for Sunday and would Nina and I be willing to take ten minutes to bear our testimonies and talk about whatever? We agreed. We both spent quite a while last evening getting thoughts and scriptures together.<\/p>\n

While many of the Branch members understand some English, even to those the Church vocabulary is new and difficult. There are others in the Branch that speak or understand no English. As a result, the standard practice at the Branch is after someone gives a speech in English, someone conversant in English and Hindi stands up and gives a summary of what was said. At the moment one of the missionaries has been given that summarization task.<\/p>\n

Thinking of him, I wrote out an outline for my talk and printed a copy of the outline for him. That worked very well. Nina talked for just over eight minutes (ten minutes by the time the summary was delivered) and gave a lovely sermon on how the Lord loves his children all across the world, in every clime and nation. I talked about how the Church is the Lord’s Church, he knows what is needed to save his children, and that it is applicable around the world. Our talks seemed to be well received.<\/p>\n

The Sunday School class was presented very well. The teacher conducted a lively and well-balanced discussion on the birth of our Savior. Priesthood was also well done. The instructor was well prepared and the discussion was very interesting. This was one of the better Church block of meetings we’ve attended in a while.<\/p>\n

The Mumbai Branch baptized 23 people last year and hopes to baptize 40 people in 2015. The first one was baptized last Sunday and seems to be well received by the members of the Branch. There was one other American visiting (a student in a Masters program at MIT in Boston) and a French person from Strausborg, Germany (attending a conference in Mumbai).<\/p>\n

Some pictures from Church today:<\/p>\n