D&C 50:24 That which is of God is Light, and he that receiveth Light and continueth in God, receiveth more Light and that Light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.

"As a citizen of sunny earth it's hard not to take light for granted."  In this weeks blog, I honor you, light, "for a lightless world would be a gloomy place indeed."  I probably took Light for granted until the first week I was in Nepal and learned about load shedding, Nepal's way of conserving energy. There has only been load shedding here since 2005, but you'd think these people had always gone without Light and now it is just an everyday occurrence, or to some of us a nuisance that we live with.  When you walk into shops or office building they are usually working without any light. Here's what I've learned, if you have lights on when the power goes off, you don't remember which ones you've left on and it's hard to tell by the switches, they are all different.  There have been a few nights in the middle of the night while we're sleeping the power goes back on and all the lights in the house are on, so needless to say we have learned to work without much light on, ever.
Here is our new load shedding schedule (times when the power is off):
Sunday   5:00 - 10:00 a.m.     3:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Monday  5:00 - 9:00  a.m.      1:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Tuesday  12:00 - 4:30 p.m.     7:30 - 11:00 p.m.
Wednesday  11:00 - 3:00 p.m.     7:30 - 10:00 p.m.
Thursday   9:00 - 1:00 p.m.      5:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Friday   7:30 - 12:00 p.m.      5:00 9:30 p.m.
Saturday   6:00 - 11:00 a.m.   4:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Oh and by the way, in the wintertime it starts getting dark about 4:30.
The trick is to figure out the best times to get water for washing dishes, because I need electricity to pump the water through the filter before I boil it,and  to use my blow dryer and curling iron.  Everything else we can usually work around. Rukmina has to figure out what times she can wash the clothes and vacuum the carpets.  We have a battery that keeps our computer working and one lamp otherwise it would be very difficult for us to get our church work done.
Last Friday we went to Om Hospital and met with Dr. Rita and the director of the Om Hospital Foundation to talk about a venue for our March HBB training.  I came home and had to make rolls for our Thanksgiving dinner at the Patch's house the next day after church.  Guess what?  No electricity, so I had to make them with only the light from a flashlight.  I think I did okay for having to cook with very little light and luckily my oven is gas.

 Saturday, I had to get up very early to get my hair done for church.  The Nepali women all have beautiful long hair so curling irons and blow dryers are not an issue for them.

 After Church we went to Christopher and Gretel Patch's home for a wonderful dinner and lots a great company.  They also invited another family in the branch that works with an INGO, helping mothers and children.  Three of these women work at the International school some the American kids attend.  The two Nepali girls on the couch work with Gretel in the Primary.  We had all the best of Thanksgiving, turkey, stuffing, rolls, potatoes and gravy and of course real pumpkin pie, but best of all new great friends.

Sunday we planed on leaving early for a 3 day trip to Pokhara for a wheelchair distribution and a celebration of National Disabilities Day the next day.  The plan was to leave at 8:00 but there is a bandh so we can't leave until 12:00.  The bandhs are the strikes that mostly just disrupt traffic.  If cars are out during a bandh, the protesters throw bricks at the cars and make getting around difficult. They are usually, but not always, just a few hours long.  On this day the protest is against the latest census that failed to recognize about 10 ethnic groups.  If it had been me, I might have protested too.
The trip is about 8 hours long on bumpy roads, but we have a good driver and a nice van that has both air  and heat.  We use both.  Pokhara is a nice break from Kathmandu, less dust, wider roads, no barking dogs and no honking horns.  Best of all it's a little warmer.  When we got to our hotel, load shedding, of course, but the shower is the hottest shower I've had since I've been here and our room is not freezing.  We walked around a little and stop for a cup of hot chocolate before going to bed to get ready for the next day.  The power in the morning is off at 6:00 a.m. so I got up early to get my hair blow dried and curled.  We went to breakfast and had a couple of hours before the parade started, so we walked over to the beautiful lake.

Rakesh and Kent in front of our hotel.  Rakesh is the person we work with for wheelchairs. He gives us the information we need to send to the church to get the wheelchairs. He employs physical therapists who evaluate wheelchair recipients before they get the wheelchairs and then he is in charge of the distribution of them.  It's quite a process but he is an excellent partner to work with.  Whenever we travel he makes sure we have safe vehicles, good drivers and nice places to stay.

Greg, Rakesh and Kent at the lake

Can you see the snow capped Himalayas in the background?

Up on the mountain in the upper left hand corner is a Buddhist temple that we're going to hike up the next day.

A closer view of the temple

Greg and Carol, Rakesh, Me and Kent

This little Tibetan woman has come to sell her wares and Carol and I are always on the lookout for a good deal.  We both bought some jewelry from her for our granddaughters.  She gave us a deal but was very careful that it wasn't too good of a deal.  As soon as we left another woman wanted to sell the same jewelry for about half of what we paid.    If you  haven't noticed in most of our pictures, I am actually tall in comparison to most Nepalis.  

We're off to the rally, we'd call it a parade.  

Loading a few of the participants into the back of truck to take them to the front of the parade.  I was worried that they were going to dump a couple of these people out of their wheelchairs as they lifted them in.

We made sure the wheelchairs were ready for distribution.  About 60 were handed out on this day in Pokhara

The Parade Begins!

Traffic just travels around us so we have to be careful to  watch where we're going and especially make sure the group of blind students stay in line so they are safe.  This group of men are the marching band.

As I walked and talked with these blind students I couldn't help but think about light once again and what it means in my life.  Won't it be wonderful when one day the light is restored to their eyes?

Namaste!

Kids all over the world are the same, it doesn't matter where in the world you are.  These girls are deaf.  The only deaf signing I remember is "I love you"

We do stick out a little don't we? 

Now on to the ceremony.  I'm going to try to explain this as best as I can.  There are about 800 people at this ceremony, there are government officials that will speak, groups of disabled children that will perform and pretty much total chaos.  Nobody is listening to the speakers, people in the front who are the dignitaries are sometimes on their phones, getting up and down and moving around, people coming up and talking to them.  It was the most interesting thing I've seen, not much respect, certainly not a lot of interest except when the children performed.  You had to have been there.  I just do that Nepali bobble head thing.

Aren't they beautiful, these children are all deaf.  They are about 6 and 7 years old.

These cute children were mentally disabled.  What a great job they did!

 

Elder Greg Remmp was asked to say a few words.  He gave a great SHORT speech and asked everyone to sing to Kent for his birthday.  That was fun!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

This group of young men were all blind and performing, notice all the commotion going on in the background.  This is where the dignitaries were sitting, I'm not so sure we were dignitaries but they had us sitting up front. 

 

 

 

Kent, in his element, surrounded by all these beautiful Nepali children.

This cute girl was blind and wanted to teach Kent how to play this drum, it's pretty tricky but he figured it out! It's not like playing a normal drum.  I love watching him with children.  He loves them and they love him.  He is my light and this was a very fun way to spend his birthday.

These next pictures are some of the wheelchair recipients what a blessing wheelchairs will be to not only them but also their families who care for them.

 

I don't know if you can tell but this woman has leprosy.  There were quite a few who had this disease and were able to receive a wheelchair.

This woman had recently been burned in a house fire

 

 

 

 

When this young man received his wheelchair, he was way excited.  He has crawled to get around, not sure how long, he was heavy rubber chap like things on his knees and wore flipflops on his hands.  What a blessing this will be to him.

Crutches were also distributed from LDS Charities and blind sticks too.

They all want their picture taken with a white face.  These girls were both deaf.

We had some time after the distribution so Rakesh took us to a Mountaineering museum, it was very interesting, I learned  about the different mountain people, their dress and customs have not changed much over the last few centuries.


 And for my special Wasatch friends, I have had to use one of these on a few occasions. 

Later that evening we did a little shopping, I found nice warm knitted socks for Hari, Hitson and Rukmina for Christmas.






 We then went to dinner where Rakesh surprised Kent with a birthday cake.  What a nice guy!

Happy Birthday Kent!     

On Tuesday morning we got up at 4:30, we're going on a hike to watch the sun rise over the beautiful Himalayan mountains.  This hike is about 1300 steps, uneven steps mind you, they are certainly not up to code.  It was a long hike but when we reached the top, it was well worth it.

 This mountain peak is called Fishtail.

In real life they actually look like they are floating in the sky

The light of the sun just coming over the peaks. It was amazing! I was so glad to be able to see this with my own eyes. The pictures do not do them justice.

 

 

 

These next pictures are of the hike down to Pokhara.

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 These women were getting their water for the day.  We were told that they are only able to get water for a couple of hours in the morning.

 

They live in the tops of these hills, they call them hills, I call them mountains, very tall mountains.

We stopped at this place and had a cup of warm buffalo milk, sweetened with honey.  The beehives and buffalo were both out back.

This woman was hiking with her load of straw

We then went back to our hotel, showered, packed and went on one last adventure before we left.  The Buddahist temple at the top of the hill.

Kent, me, Rakesh

Greg, Carol, me and Kent

Look at the beautiful view behind us.

By the end of this day my legs were like rubber, I could hardly walk back down the 475 steps to the van.  But it was an amazing day. I'd do it again!!!  A long drive home followed.

On Wednesday we spend the day catching up on some office work, grocery shopping and running a few errands.  Kent needs a new zipper for his backpack, we head to the local thread, ribbon and zipper shop down the street.  Notice there is one dim light bulb in this store.  I don't know how you'd match a color of thread if you  had to.  

This is another customer who jumped in to help Kent find the right zipper.  He had  a new one sewn in his backpack for 150 rupees, about $1.75.  He also took two pairs of shoes to be repaired.  The little repairman sat on the floor of his dark little shop and sewed Kent's hiking boots and fixed the soles of his Sunday shoes for 400 rupees. 

Today we worked on house stuff,  Carol and I are working on a little Christmas project for the branch Christmas party, and we also found a new little Vietnamese restaurant within walking distance that was yummy.  It's been a good week :} 

Light - never take it for granted.  

". . . and he that receiveth light and continueth in God, receiveth more light and that light growth brighter and brighter. . ." 

I know this to be true, I've witnessed it  in my own life,  I've been blessed in many ways and the light brings peace to my soul and joy to my heart.