E-mail Feb. 8, 2016: "Can you say Bengaluru?"

Because that's now the official name of the Mission I'm serving in. Let me explain why: when the British took over India hundreds of years ago they changed the name of many of the capital cities. After India gained it's Independence the government changed many of the cities back to their original cultural names. Bombay was changed to Mumbai, Madras was changed to Chennai, and Bangalore was changed back to Bengaluru. It took time for the change to catch on but now that it's beginning to sink in the Church authorized us to change the name of the mission to reflect the original name of the city. When my return home my official release will be from the India Bengaluru mission. Just a fun fact. :)

I learned something interesting this week. As I've been doing my laundry these last couple of weeks every time I take out my whites and hang up my shirts there's one shirt that is full of holes, the collar is wearing out, and the fabric over the whole thing is starting to get torn up. For the longest time I couldn't figure out why it was like that. I bought it at the same time and it's the same brand as all the other shirts I took on my mission, all of which are still in good condition. As I sat puzzling over my haggard shirt I realized what had happened. Almost one year ago when I was serving in Bengaluru my companion accidentally polished his BLACK shoes with one of my shirts thinking it was a junk shirt. Not wanting to lose one of my good shirts I spent an hour bleaching, washing, and heavily scrubbing all the shoe polish out of it until it looked like new. After it was clean it looked just all the other shirts, but I realize now that all the scrubbing I did caused it to wear out before any of the other shirts. I think there's a lesson for life there: Often the little sins and mistakes we make today don't show any immediate damage but destroy us later on. Breaking the Word of Wisdom is an excellent example of that; drinking and drugs can be fun in the moment but 10 years down the road it leaves lasting damage. With other sins the effects are more subtle; breaking the law of chastity, not being honest with each other, being disobedient to your parents even, they'll leave lasting effects if we don't repent and change now. Unlike my shirt which will soon have to be thrown away though the great thing about the gospel is that we know that through the atonement of Christ we can be forgiven and made whole again no matter what we've done. Remember it's always better to prevent than to repent, but no matter where you are today or how torn and tattered you may feel if you'll turn towards the Savior He can heal you. :)

Until next time everyone, stay strong and rock on. :)

-Elder Cloward

Coimbatore skyline

Saw these at the airport. Those flowers are onions.

those flowers are potatoes

He's a watermelon.

And happy frog made out of a- actually I don't remember what fruit that is. Gotta love Indian creativity. :)

These are sand murals for republic day also in the airport. They're pretty cool.

Here's another one.

Gosh that's cool.

Another side of an Indian street.

Arun's baptisms!!!

All the YSA's from 3rd branch.

Us, Arun, Sister Raman (tall), and Sister Gantimi (less-tall).