Film + Fun

Mmmmmk.  So life has been pretty great here in the I-N-D-I-A.  Because my little blog has been neglected, today you get an overload of phooootooooooos! Yes little blog. You're welcome. 



We have gone on many adventures lately!  Some of my very favorite places that I've been here in India.  Most of these photos were shot on film.  A few weeks ago we went to some Buddhist ruins called Totlakonda and then we went up to an adorable little fishing town called Bheemli.  (these will look much better if you view them in slideshow view so you can see them bigger!)

 the men tying fishing nets

 you are going to see lots of Emily's yoga poses in random places... sorry! hahah.  The other day our translator Rajyalakshmi called Emily the 'yoga bunny'. Yep. New nickname!

 our lovely translators :) they put up with so much from us... hahah.  That's Maddhu doing his signature hand gesture as he tells us 'shanti! shanti!' which means peace or basically 'calm down' hahaha.  He is so hilarious. vvv

 these kids were so nice! we randomly ran into them in 3 different places in this little town that day

 Recently was a big festival here in India for the god Ganesh--he is the remover of obstacles and has the head of an elephant.  Everyone has been doing rituals and lighting fireworks, singing, dancing, etc. every night in honor of the celebration, and for days after the holiday people take their statues of Ganesh and go out to the beach and push them out into the ocean.  This was puja one day at the Krishna temple near our house in honor of him.

 Puja (which is just a ritualistic ceremony) always involves many small and symbolic rituals, always involving flowers, fire, and fruit for the gods

 We went and toured an awesome university called Gitam University where Professor Krishnayya's brother is a faculty member.  He took us all around the school and showed us everything!  We went twice and it was such a great experience.  When I got my film processed the film lab messed up the development and a lot of my photos have sprocket marks... I may not be trusting that lab with my film again, haha.  But at the same time I don't mind it because that's the funnest part about film... never knowing what you're going to get!  The good thing is that it's all just 35mm film so I don't care as much if crazy things happen to it, haha.  I'm just glad I can get it developed here for cheaper and will only have to take care of all my 120 and 4x5 when I get home!

 this is the cafeteria in one of the boys' hostels (dorms) at Gitam... we ate here and it was delicious!!

 These are manuscripts--they are chants written out on palm leaves and preserved.  Cool!!

 another boys' hostel at Andhra University, where my friend Vijay lives

 I am in love with this photo. vvv

 sorry for the overload of similar photos here.. I'm not taking time to cut any out haha but this is the beach near our house.  These cute girls came up to us and hung around for a little while as we were photographing one morning

 two of my favs ^^^vvv

 braids braids

 a jelly coconut!! first we drank all of the milk out of it with a straw and then he sliced it open for us and sliced out the actual coconut part for us the eat :) this type of coconut is just picked super prematurely which causes the coconut to be a lot more full of juice and the actual part that you eat is much softer. Sooo yummy!! :)

 yum. (I know I know, great picture of me right??? haha)

 For Telugu class we went to the market to learn the names of fruits and vegetables. Above is one of our teachers Madam Lakshmi with Emster and Becca Boo!

Soooooo, this is Araku Valley!!  WOW.  What an adventure!  First of all, it is BEAUTIFUL here!

 poor little Becs got car sick on the way up.  She looks so sad! :( haha

 we went with some friends from our branch--this is who we drove up with

 just your typical herd of goats in the road. it's whatever.

 WE SAW WILD MONKEYS. seriously. and this guy was so funny, he was just chilling there forever and he let us get super close! (look at how big he is!! like, the size of a toddler!)

 on the way down to the Borra Caves. Amazing!! (this is me saying 'chala bagundi' which means 'very good' in telugu... everyone makes this sign with their hand when they like something or think it is good.  I do it wayyyyy too much now, haha)

 with Satish.  Somehow we lost Vijay and Santosh on the way... hahah

 poor little Satish trying to be just a little bit taller...... hahah

Ok so here begins the adventurous story.  This is me and Santosh on the craziest jeep ride you can imagine.

Please notice below the special bond that I have with my lovely iPhone. This is just shortly before my poor little baby was stolen by two mountain-scaling tribal boys. :( :( :( :( 

 Yep.  You read that right.  STOLEN.  The first time I have ever gotten anything stolen!! Here's how it went down...

 Our friends wanted to take us up to this ^^ waterfall.  So because the way to get there is first by traveling through the jungle on a crazy rocky dirt road, we had to hire a jeep driver to take us there.  (unfortunately the best video I had of this crazy jeep ride was indeed saved on my phone) It beat any roller coaster I've ever been on.  SO fun, and maybe just a little bit dangerous and scary.  I'll spare the dirty details so mom and dad don't worry, haha. 

 So, we reach the point where we have to get out and start walking.  But it's raining! (tender mercy from God, seriously) so I decide to leave all of my camera equipment in the jeep with our other friend who wasn't going to hike up to the waterfall with us.  Bless his heart for watching my stuff for me... otherwise I would be missing a lot more right now rather than just my phone!

 So we hike all the way up this mountain... at first it's a walk, and then it becomes uphill switchbacks (you all know how much I just loooooove hiking right?? that was sarcasm, btw.) But it's ok because it's worth it--the waterfall is beautiful!! So here we are, 3 hours away from home, way far away from civilization, halfway up a mountain, in the middle of the jungle that is only surrounded by some small villages filled with tribal folk--most of which don't even speak the state language of Telugu here, let alone English!  You know... we're just here in the heart of India, exploring.  Your typical jungle safari that you would ever imagine to have in a country like India... filled with trees, pathways, monkeys, birds, crazy jeep rides, and indigenous tree-climbing tribal folk in loin cloths. (ok. they don't all wear loin cloths. but sort of... haha) [btw just a quick caption for the photo above. we attempted a jumping picture.... this is the best we got. haha]

 So once we see the waterfall we all jump in and start playing around, right?! It was so fun!!  Here we all are sitting on a rock--Satish, Emily, Vijay, Santosh, Rebecca, and myself

 Literally, during this exact moment of when these photos on the rock were being taken, is when it happened.  So our jeep driver hiked up with us and was kind enough to take these photos for us.  We were all just enjoying the waterfull so much that we didn't even notice him take off after he finished taking these photos.  When we were ready to leave we walked over to our stuff and realized something: Emily's backpack was gone, and so what our driver.  Nooo, our driver didn't steal it, he is actually a hero in this story.  What happened was earlier, two tribal folk (2 teenage boys) had walked up to the waterfall and walked past it.  We didn't think anything of it... in fact, we just greeted them as they walked past.  But while our driver was taking our photo, he looked over and they had taken the backpack and started climbing up the mountain.  So he started chasing after them.  Now when I say chasing, I don't mean running.  I mean literally climbing up this mountain. Like, scaling it.  There was no pathway.. these guys were scaling the mountain!!  Then when our 3 friends noticed what had happened, they also started chasing after them!  So here we are, us 3 white girls standing by the waterfall, and 4 indian boys (one of which we had just met that day and couldn't even communicate with because he didn't speak english) are chasing after 2 tribal folk by scaling up this mountain in order to save our backpack (which by the way contained some of Emily's and Rebecca's clothes, Emily's pocketknife, and my iPhone).  Unfortunately, the teenagers are professionals at this kind of stuff (these tribal folk are like monkeys and literally climb the trees and the mountain and everywhere... that's how they live!) and they made it up to the top and split up so that our driver couldn't chase them anymore.  :(  Even though they weren't able to get the backpack back, I am so grateful for those 4 noble boys who scaled the mountain for us!! Haha.  If that wasn't enough, Satish and Vijay stayed in the valley late that night with the jeep driver, talking to all the tribal folk in the villages in order to hunt down the thieves and find the village on top of the mountain that they were from.  They rode around on their motorcycle in the dark in the rain and hiked through jungles for us.  They didn't have any luck, and even returned days later to try again, but had no luck.  Talk about good friends!!!

Soooo, that was a great adventure.  Definitely never gonna forget that one. :) I'm sad I don't have a little camera to take pictures with (I used my iPhone for that) but mehhhhh, it's just material!  If I'm learning anything here in India, it's the importance of being non-attached to the world and to material or carnal things.  It takes a lot of control over yourself to be able to let those feelings go and not worry about what your body says it 'wants' or 'desires', but it's worth it because those things really don't matter much.

 So another happening the other day was district conference.  Elder Larry Wilson came and spoke to us and it was awesome!  This is us above with Ravvi (ohhhh Ravvi. Such an interesting fellow.  He doesn't speak english well but he still manages to express that he is 37 and unmarried still every time he sees us hahah. He follows us around a lot, and some of the other members kind of laugh at how much he is always trying to talk to us and sit with us, hahah. Poor guy.) and the other guy is our friend Ganesh who is a great piano player!

 I don't know who the woman on the right is... she just came up and asked for a picture with us (story of our lives) hahah but the girl on the left is our friend Nilima.  She served a mission in the Philippines and we got home at the same time!  She is awesome.

Then the other day we went to the beach early in the morning and shot some yoga photos.  I shot mostly film, but here are a few digital test shots I took...

 and these are a few shots at Gitam University

 on our way home we fit 12 people in a rickshaw... this is us hanging out the back. Hahaha. I love India. :)

K folks that's all!!  Sorry for the picture overload... just had to catch up a bit :).  Our time is passing by quickly.. it's almost been 2 months, which means only 2 months left! :( :( :( I am seriously heartbroken just thinking about going back to the states.  I love my country, but I love India so much and feel like I could spend a lifetime here and NEVER get bored.  There is just so much to see and feel and experience and learn.... I know that this is where I need to be right now and I am learning things that I specifically need to learn.  God is pretty great. :) K chau-cito!

Testimony

Last week I was asked to write down my testimony.  I thought about what things I know to be true and why, and I wrote them down.  I know that I am young and I have much to learn.  I know that some may read this with a doubtful heart, untrusting and unbelieving.  I don't blame you... some of the things I have written here probably seem pretty crazy!  But I do want to declare that everything I have written here is sincere and honest and truly comes from my heart.  There are many truths I don't know or haven't discovered, but what is written here is a personal testimony of what I have seen and experienced in my life and these experiences are things I could never deny.  I challenge anyone who reads this to search for truth.  Ask God.  Don't just decide what you think is true or what you want to believe.  I can promise with all of my heart that if you sincerely want to know and are willing to humbly act on the truths that you discover, God will answer you every time.  It may not be at the time or in the way that you want, but He will answer how He knows that you need to hear it, and by accepting it and following it you will feel a special peace and joy that nothing else in this world can give you.

Here is what I wrote down...  

My name is Linsey Hunt.  I am 23 years old.

And this is my testimony of truth.

I know that God exists.  He is real.  He is my Father.  I know that He loves me infinitely, cares about me, and is constantly aware of my situation.  I have a relationship with Him.  I feel Him in my life.  I know He exists because I have felt His love for myself and for other people.  I know that He loves each and every person that exists, has existed, and ever will exist—no matter who they are, what they believe, or how they choose to live their life. 

I know that He hears and answers prayers, because He has heard and answered mine in ways so special, unique, and powerful to me that I could never deny that they came from God.  I know that He always has my best interest in His plan.  I know that I have the ability to choose what I do with my life, but when I consult Him and follow what He wants for me, my life turns out far better than it does when I believe that I know what’s best for myself.  I know this because I have tested it in so many ways, and have seen both ends of the spectrum.

I know that Jesus Christ is real.  I know that He was not only a mere man, but was the Son of God who came for a very special purpose.  I know absolutely with no doubt in my mind that He performed the atonement, which allows me to recognize my weaknesses and change them.  It allows me to transform.  I know this because I have learned how to utilize it in my life and I have learned that I can not do it alone, that I can not do it until I truly and sincerely trust in Him and humble myself to Him, and give my heart to Him.  I know that humility is the greatest form of strength and that it is absolutely necessary in order for change and progress to occur.  I know this because I have tried to change and progress without it, and have failed miserably every single time.  I know that Jesus Christ is my brother and He loves me because I have felt His love.  I also have a relationship with Him.  I know that we can feel His love if we put ourselves in His shoes and sincerely try to be like Him.  I did this every day on my mission, and it allowed me to understand His love and come to know him better than I ever had before.   I also know that He is real because I have asked God, and He has answered me.

I know that there is such a thing as the Spirit, or the Holy Ghost.  I know this because it is the way in which I am able to have a relationship with God and Christ.  I know the Spirit is real because I have felt Him guide me, comfort me, witness the truth to me, and also leave me when I have not been worthy.  The lowest times of my life have been when I have pushed the spirit away and not allowed Him to stay with me due to my poor decisions.   I have seen Him change people’s lives as they learn to listen to Him and understand what He teaches.  I know that in order to understand Him we must look on a higher level.  We don’t know of His existence through proven facts or science.  We can only know of His existence if we humble ourselves and recognize how little we actually know and understand, and if we pay attention to ourselves and how we feel, rather than what we see or what man teaches us.  I know this because I have tried to find truth solely through logic and learning of man, and I have learned that my ability to progress is incredibly hindered when I rely solely on this without the aspect of spirituality.  There is an extra strength and power that comes only from humbling myself towards God. 

I know that it is always important to keep our minds and our hearts open in order to learn truth.  I know that truth, or reality, can be relative but there are also eternal truths that are absolute and do not change according to the beliefs or decisions of a person.  I know that truth is light and allows us to see things more clearly and understand things.   I know that truth is what truly sets us free, every time.  

I know that God calls prophets and spiritual leaders in order to help guide us.  I know that Christ organized a church when He was on the earth, and I know that this church is now restored to the earth as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I know this is true because I sincerely asked God, and I received an answer from him so powerful that I could never ever deny it.  After Joseph Smith had the first vision he stated “I knew it, and I knew that God knew, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it”.  I feel the same in regards to the answer I received from God about this church.  Not only do I know that I received it and that it came from God, but I also know that He knows it, and to deny it would be a pathetic attempt to lie to myself and to God.  I have studied many religions.  I really enjoy studying religions.  I have participated in many different religious services all over the world.  I have asked God about the truthfulness of other religions, and this is the only answer I have received about the truthfulness of one religion.  It is the only church that has complete truth because it has God's authority and power, and I know that this is true from the answer that I received from Him.  I do however also know that truth can be found in so many different places and many religions hold a lot of truth, and I sincerely enjoy discovering that truth all over the world through different cultures and belief systems.

I know that having commandments or disciplines in different aspects of life are important and vital in order to be truly happy, have real peace, and be free.  I know that there are consequences for making wrong decisions, but I am also grateful for all of the mistakes that I have made because I have learned through opposition.  I also know that obedience makes me stronger and happier, although it is always so difficult.  I know that life will continuously be a struggle, but it is meant to be that way because in order to learn we must work.  Everything that is worth anything requires work.  I know that by being disciplined, I have more agency or more options of what I can do, therefore I have a greater freedom and potential.

I know that both the Bible and the Book of Mormon contain true stories that really happened and were written in order to help us come closer to Christ.  I know this because I have asked God and He has answered me, and I have applied both of the books to my life.  I look to them as a source of inspiration, revelation, and knowledge of the truth.  I also know that many other books contain truth and am grateful for the opportunity I have to study and the desire I have to learn.  

In my life, nothing has made me more content than to learn of and follow truth, and then share that truth with others and watch them learn of it and follow it.  Because of this, the mission that I served in Argentina will forever be dear to my heart because of the truths I was able to learn, follow, and share while I was there.

I know that I am divine.  I know that each person is divine.  I know that it is truly possible to love every single person.  I know that respect is a godly trait.  I know that relationships with people are a grand part in God’s plan because He needs us to see the value and divinity that is in each soul.  I know that charity truly never faileth.

More than anything, I know that I am just a human being with little knowledge and understanding, but a divine potential.  I am not perfect.  I do not know everything.  I don't even know a lot!  I believe things that probably aren't true.  I also probably know things that are true and I don't recognize them yet.  I don't always act in accordance with what I believe or know.  I am a normal human being who struggles, fighting an inner battle every single day.  I have so much to learn, experience, and discover.  But my greatest hope and desire is to do all that I can as honestly and sincerely as I can in order to reach that divine potential that I have, so that I and many others can experience the greatest amount of peace, joy, and freedom.  And I know that the only way to get there is to try.  

www.lds.org

www.mormon.org

Falling in love

ok OK. I know it has been forever since I’ve written. I’m sorry. Listen… it has just been a chill couple of weeks with few grand events outside, but many grand changes that have gone on inside of me.  It may seem kind of silly that I needed to come all the way to India in order to seriously take time and ponder about my life.  However, I am a firm believer in shaking things up, living diversely, and exploring life, which is why I love travelling so much… because each time I go somewhere, I learn things I never could have learned if I would have stayed in the same place doing the same things.  Putting yourself in a different situation where you are uncomfortable and have to learn to live or act in a different way is a great way to open your mind and open your eyes and see things how they truly are, no longer blinded by the culture that we so comfortably follow after staying for so long.  It really makes you think about your life and yourself and who you are, and what you’re doing!

So… like I said, we haven’t been out and about a ton lately.  We have gone a few places. I’m sorry the photos are few.  Most of the places we went to recently I shot almost entirely in film, which is another reason I haven’t posted recently.  But here are a few from the last couple of weeks…

The other day we celebrated Krishna's birthday!  We went to a Hare Krishna festival (yes like the Hare Krishna's in Spanish Fork) and we had to chant 'hare krisha hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare, hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare' 108 times as we stepped on each one of these stones

this is our vocals teacher performing with his friend... amazing!

Then we went to a Hindu festival for Vishnu's wife who they dressed up as a fish, which was very special because it was the first time this has ever been done!

This is at the Sikh Gurudwara... see the story below :)

Some photos from beach road pretty near to our house... this is a submarine that is now some sort of museum

Now, you are probably wondering why this blog post is called falling in love.  I’m sure you are all thinking I met someone. Right?? Wrong.  Sorry.  No boy/girl love story here (don’t worry mom!).  This one is much more exciting and deep and real than your average romantic comedy.  This is something that is achieved through work, trial, conflict, discomfort, respect, awe, deep emotion, learning, change, and those little moments when you stop and look around you and just take it all in.  I am falling absolutely and deeply in love with the culture here.

I had an awesome experience the other day.  For my project I am speaking with a lot of gurus from different religions.  Yesterday we went to visit the Sikhs! 

It is one of my favorite religions to study.  In fact, when I first got here I told Doctor Nuckolls that I love Sikhism so much if I weren’t LDS and didn’t know the truthfulness of the gospel, I would probably be a Sikh.  He told me that was the first time he had ever heard that, hah!

These people are INCREDIBLE.  They are so incredibly kind and inviting and soo down to earth.  We showed up and about 30 seconds after we arrived, two ladies showed up.  One was a Sikh, and the other was a Hare Krishna who was from a different province.  She is also studying religions all over India and happened to be in Vizag right now.  We became great friends! :) She told me all about everything she had learned in Sikhism and how amazingly these people had treated her.  You see, she came down to Vizag and on her way, ALL of her bags got lost.  She arrived with not even 10 rupees.  She knew there was a Sikh Gurduwara (temple) here in Vizag and she found her way to it, because in her town she had been very close to Punjabi people (where most of the Sikhs live) and she hoped to find some help there.  They took her in, gave her food, clothes, and paid for her ticket to go back home.  She translated for us all day and it was fun being surrounded by English, Hindi, Telugu, and Punjabi.  We also represented all different religions… LDS, Hinduism, Hare Krishna, Bramakumares, and Sikhism.  All kinds of different languages and cultures and religions in that one group, yet we all got along so well and enjoyed each other’s company so much!  I interviewed the main priest there and they gave us milk and cookies, and lunch, and performed a little concert for us.  I left just feeling so uplifted.  As we drove home in the rickshaw, the ladies that were sharing with us mentioned to Rajyalakshmi our translator that they had seen us at the Vishnu fish goddess temple the other day.  Then another guy got on and we looked at each other and recognized each other.  He works at Barista—the internet café where I always go.  All of the workers know me!  So we smiled and waved.  We rode home and I watched outside and just had that feeling, you know?  Where everything is just so good.  Where there is hope for the world.  Because there are some seriously good people, and differences don’t matter.  I felt incredibly grateful for this time that I have to be here to experience the things I am experiencing and especially to learn the things that I am learning.

It has been a profound couple of weeks.  I have spent SO much time thinking and pondering.  As I have mentioned before, I love documentaries. Mmmmm. :) So sometimes I get on documentary kicks and just download a whole bunch and watch them all.  The last couple of weeks I have been watching documentaries (and other movies) basically every night.  I have randomly become interested in learning about human trafficking, so I have watched a lot of incredible documentaries about that, along with some other movies that I have been thinking a lot about.  I want to talk about 3 movies/categories that I have been thinking about.  They all interconnect in certain ways.

So the first one, as I mentioned, is human trafficking.  I watched multiple documentaries… 3 of which I would totally recommend—‘Child Sex Trafficking on the Internet—Selling the Girl Next Door’, ‘Human Trafficking Documentary’, and ‘Trafficking of Children in the United States’.  They are all on youtube.  I knew that trafficking is a problem all over the world, and I even knew that it occurred in the United States.  But I did not realize that it supposedly occurs more in the United States than anywhere else in the world.  What???  Ok, this is seriously a big issue.  The documentaries are very informational, and the true stories are seriously heartbreaking.  But I think it’s important to be aware.  This happens everywhere.  This happens in the US.  It is one of the biggest money-making industries next to the drug trade.  This happens in Utah.  This happens in our neighborhoods!  PLEASE.  Learn about it, research it, become informed.  Watch the documentaries… they really are good (although one of them in the end turns into kind of a funny preacher trying to get the audience to pray with him haha but hey, sometimes cheesy is good).  This of course is only one of many many issues going on in the world today, but I think it is worth being aware of because that is one of the best things we can do to stop it.  

The second one is called ‘America the Beautiful’.  There’s also a sequel, and they are in the process of making a third one I believe.  This is available on Netflix.  I just bought it on iTunes because it was so worth it to me.  It talks about America’s obsession with beauty, looking into topics such as make-up, plastic surgery, modeling and advertising, and many more.  It is a must-see.  I feel like being outside of America has helped me to see our culture more clearly.  Now, I know there are always both positive and negative aspects of every culture.  But I have never really realized how deeply obsessive and addictive America and Western culture is with such superficial topics.  Basically it all boils down to our bodies.  How we view them, how we portray them, how we use them.  So many of us focus on fulfilling our carnal desires… needing attention whether it’s positive or negative, doing whatever it takes to make our bodies ‘happy’.

The sad thing is how much the media knowingly plays a role in this, and how much it affects us.  In the first ‘America the Beautiful’, many people in the media industry are interviewed.  They are very aware of the weaknesses of humans, and they use that in order to make money for themselves.  Now, I’m not saying that the people in these industries are purely evil or anything.  I don’t believe they necessarily want people to feel bad about themselves.  But they do continue to do what they do just in order to make money.  Just as in the human trafficking industry (and pornography and drugs and alcohol and whatever else).  In fact, I was absolutely shocked that Craigslist used to be the leading online website that hosted human trafficking (of course illegally and “secretly”).  The interviewee in one of the human trafficking documentaries interviewed one of the company leaders at Craigslist about what exactly is being sold in their adult section of the website.  He had no words, and could not even answer her.  After a long awkward silence, he eventually just cowardly walked away because he couldn’t full out lie to the camera and of course couldn’t tell them that he knew exactly what was going on and that they were doing absolutely nothing to stop it.  This caused an out roar in the news and Craigslist ended up shutting down their adult section.  That same time, the other leading site for human trafficking—backpage.com—had their sales go up by hundreds of thousands of dollars immediately.  It is totally obvious what is going on, but nothing is really being done to stop it.   In the media industry, many people knowingly play on the strings of human weakness in order to make money… causing the society to become weaker and weaker in its morals and values and causing addictions to rise.  Does a person’s ability to perform sexual activities determine their value?  Does a person’s weight, facial structure, or hair determine their worth?  No. It does not.  But what’s sad about our culture is that we are lead to believe that these things do determine our worth and value.  Is it all the companies’ and media’s fault?  Of course not.  We are the ones who are making the choices to listen, to follow, to become obsessive, addicted, and eventually desensitized to the worth of a human soul.  So it is a two-fold problem.  But how can it be stopped or fixed?  Is it even possible??

Being here in India has helped me see that it is possible to have a society where people actually do live morally.  Where people do actually value the worth of the human body.  People respect each other.  We went to a movie in the theater the other day called Chennai Express.  It, like many other Bollywood films, is a love story.  And how much physical contact was there in the movie? None. They never even kissed, not once!!  In fact, Shahrukh Khan, one of India’s most famous and popular Bollywood actor, has always had a rule that he won’t kiss in a film.  He has only broken it once in his most recent Bollywood film for specific purposes.  Compare that to any Hollywood movie on the other hand… even the PG rated ones.  Completely opposite.  India’s society is not perfect and with time it too is worsening (I won’t even talk about western’s current influence on India and how the emerging western culture is in many ways negatively affecting the country) but there are so many people here that follow a standard that is rare to find in the United States, and anywhere in the western world for that matter.  There are people that are sincerely kind and generous, and expect nothing in return.  People who live disciplined lives.  Yesterday I was talking to a Jain nun (see photo).  They are currently in a festival called Paryushana where each day for 8-10 days they discipline themselves in something.  They fast during the whole 8-10 days and practice different disciplines such as silence all day or refraining from anger, etc.  I asked the nun how she does it.  I mean… it is not easy to discipline yourself!  Especially on things that are so carnal and so strong.  She told me that what you must do is not listen to yourself.  Wait… people have always told me ‘listen to your heart’.  Now this Jain nun is telling me not to!  She said ‘whatever your heart desires, don’t do it.  If you feel like sitting, don’t sit.  If you feel like eating a lot, only eat a little.  Don’t give in to your body.  By doing this you become strong and you become free.’  Hmmm… interesting right?  Guys.  There are people that actually do this.  They actively and consciously control themselves and their lives and learn how to treat people correctly.  It doesn’t just come for them, they actually work at it and transform themselves.  Cultures like this still exist!! 

Now, that brings me to the last movie I wanted to talk about.  ‘V for Vendetta’.  Ok, not a documentary, I know.  But so good.  I had seen it before but totally forgot.  There are so many controversial things you can take from that movie, and you can also interpret it in many ways, but there is one specific thing I want to talk about.  After the movie we had a little debate between the 3 of us on whether it was right or not for V to torture Evey without her consent and without her knowing in order for him to teach her a lesson.  There are two quotes he says that I really like. “Artists use lies in order to tell the truth”, and “There is no certainty—only opportunity”.

I used to think that anything at all helps.  Any type of humanitarian aid, any type of service.  Then I started studying development work and I learned that there are not only good ways and better ways to help others, but there are also some ways that appear good but actually hinder a person or a community from progressing.  For example, supporting pan-handling.  Yes, there are those few instances where the person really is just asking one time and the amount of money given is used for something important and a person is really helped out in that moment.  But all too often, pan-handlers earn their livings on the streets, and continue on the streets.  They don’t progress.  Usually, progressive homeless shelters are better places for them to go in order to get out of their situation rather than just receiving aid from people every day and using it every day to only buy the necessities for that day.  If people stopped supporting pan-handling, it wouldn’t exist.  The homeless would have to find other ways to support themselves and would hopefully turn to other options of progression rather than staying on the streets.  This is just an example and of course is not always true… I think following the spirit in each situation with pan-handlers is important so we are able to know whether or not our dollar is going to help that person progress or support them staying on the streets in the same place forever. 

ANYWAY, my point is, that there are SOO many options for us to help out in the world, and make it a better place.  But we also have to be careful with what we choose to do, because sometimes we can think that we are helping when we really aren’t.  Well how do we know??  Studying and researching and observing are all of course important.  We should carefully weigh out our decisions and think them through beforehand.  But at the same time, we are not going to be perfect.  What even is perfection??  No one is perfect.  I don’t believe that people are so black and white… either good or bad.  We are all both good and bad.  We are human yet we are divine.  We have good intentions often and sometimes not-so-good intentions that we usually try to overcome.  Sometimes our actions show our goodness and sometimes they show our carnality.  So here is what I have concluded.  After realizing that there are SO many ways to help and so many things to do, I became overwhelmed and honestly kind of just gave on the idea of doing anything.  Why?  Because I wanted to make sure that all of my efforts were worthwhile and that I was doing the best possible thing I could do.  But how was I ever to know?  There is always so much more we can learn, how can we possibly know if what we are doing is the very best thing we can do?  On my mission, this is what I learned.  We do the best we know how, we consult with the Lord, we trust in Him, and we act.   I became so overwhelmed and lost hope so much that I decided to kind of just give up on it.  I became discouraged.  I thought “anything I do to try and better humanity will just be outdone by someone else anyway and won’t really make a difference”.  But the truth is, if I have the best of intentions, if I research and try to do things the best way I know how, and if I consult with the Lord, my efforts will never be wasted.  There were so many times on my mission where I wondered if I was doing things right.  Times when some people told me to do one thing but others said to do another, and my companion and I would feel that we should do something different.  So what we did was the best thing we knew how to do.  I came home from my mission knowing that I was not perfect, but I did the best I knew how with the abilities that I had.  Now, with our culture and world just spiraling into a state of being totally out of control, we have a duty.  Because we are aware that there are issues, and we are not happy with them.  We may not know the best solution.  In fact, we don’t know it!  As John Legend says “everybody knows that nobody really knows just how to make it work” (ok ok so he may be talking about a relationship, but I think this applies to everything).  We are all just perfectly imperfect human beings as I like to say, trying to do things the way we know best.  In V for Vendetta, was it fair what V does to Evey?  Was it moral?  Was it humane?  No… probably not any of these things.  Did it teach her a lesson?  Did it change her?  Yes it did.  Artists use lies to tell the truth.  But what would have happened if it wouldn’t have worked?  Well, that was a possibility.  V didn’t know if it would have worked or not.  But the truth is, there is never certainty… only opportunities.  There are opportunities all around us.  We don’t know if they will work, but we will never know if we don’t try.  We don’t know if it is the best thing we can do, but at least it is something.  Now, that doesn’t mean just go along blindly doing whatever whenever.  We can be smart.  But we certainly can’t judge, because we don’t know peoples’ backgrounds.  An abusive mother perhaps knows no other way of raising a child, because that’s all she knew herself as a child.  Does that mean an abusive lifestyle is best for the child?  Absolutely not.  But that also doesn’t mean we should judge the mother for not knowing very well how to raise her child or not doing a perfect job at it.  We need to give people the benefit of the doubt.  And the child may resent his mother his whole life, but the truth is, we can’t redo the past.  All we can do is take the opportunities to do the best we know how and hope that things turn out for the best.  If we trust in the Lord and strive to follow Him, then things will turn out for the best.  That doesn’t mean we won’t make mistakes.  We have to make mistakes.  Those mistakes are not only beneficiary to us in our growth, but they often lead us to where we need to be in just the way we needed to be lead. 

So, those are my thoughts.  I have been thinking a lot about all of these things, and feel like I have been learning a lot about myself and my role in the world.  I am capable just as anyone else.  I am powerful and can make a difference in the world for the better.  That doesn’t mean change an entire nation.  It means being an example and a light for individuals.  That is, after-all, how something is truly changed.  A real change is deep-rooted and takes place in the details.  A nation will only change if each individual changes, and it happens one by one.

I think I have decided what exactly I want to do with my life.  I have been thinking and praying and fasting, and I’m feeling good.  Some good and exciting things will be happening in the future… :)

If you made it this far, congratulations and thanks for reading all of my ranting about life and the world and everything else, hah.  I promise all of my blog posts won’t be novels.  It’s just nice to have somewhere I can somewhat organize my thoughts since they are usually all over the place in my head. :) Mmmmk until next time.... Peace outtttttttt!