Kyle's Mission in India: November 2008

A resident of Chennai is called a Chennaiite. As of 2001, Chennai city had a population of 4.34 million, while the total metropolitan population was 7.04 million. The estimated metropolitan population in 2006 is 4.5 million.In 2001, the population density in the city was 63,926 per mi, making it one of the most densely populated cities in the world. The average literacy rate is 80.14%, much higher than the national average of 64.5%. The city has the fourth highest population of slum dwellers among major cities in India, with about 820,000 people (18.6% of its population) living in slum conditions. In 2005, the crime rate in the city was 313.3 per 100,000 people, accounting for 6.2% of all crimes reported in major cities in India. The number of crimes in the city showed a significant increase of 61.8% from 2004.

The majority of the population in Chennai are Tamilians. Tamil is the primary language spoken in Chennai. English is widely spoken especially in business, education and white collar professions.

According to the 2001 census, Hindus constitute about 81.27% of the city's population, and Muslims (9.37%), Christians (7.63%) and Jains (1.05%) are other major religious groups

Chennai is a major centre for music, art and culture in India.^[77] The city is known for its classical dance shows and Hindu temples. Every December, Chennai holds a five-week long Music Season celebrating the 1927 opening of the Madras Music Academy

Among Chennai's festivals, Pongal is celebrated over five days in January, is the most important. Almost all major religious festivals such as Deepavali, Eid and Christmas are celebrated in Chennai. Tamil cuisine in Chennai includes vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. Many of the city's restaurants offer light meals or tiffin, which usually include rice-based dishes like pongal, dosa, idli and vadai,

Climate

Chennai has a tropical climate, specifically a tropical wet and dry climate. The city lies on the thermal equator and is also on the coast, which prevents extreme variation in seasonal temperature. The weather is hot and humid, for most of the year. The hottest part of the year is late May to early June, known locally as Agni Nakshatram ("fire star") or as Kathiri Veyyil,^[32] with maximum temperatures around 38–42 °C (100–108 °F). The coolest part of the year is January, with minimum temperatures around 18–20 °C (64–68 °F). The lowest temperature recorded is 15.8 °C (60.4 °F) and highest 45 °C (113 °F). The average annual rainfall is about 51 in. The city gets most of its seasonal rainfall from the north-east monsoon winds, from mid-October to mid-December. Cyclones in the Bay of Bengal sometimes hit the city. The highest annual rainfall recorded is 2,570 mm (101 in) in 2005.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Now in INDIA!

Kyle arrived in India on wednesday Nov 12th along with 13 other Elders who will be in his area. He sent a short email because he didn't have much time. Hopefully we'll get more out of him next week.

I won't be told and be sent to my new mission until tommorrow. I'm still in Bangalore now, it's awesome. We will have hot water. My mission president said to work hard and be obedient.
My first impressions are the India is weird, it's technology crazy but in a slum... so conflicting ideas here. The people are awesome and nice.

The plane really was nice, but the flights were too long. Germany was crazy. India is beautiful and I'm excited to be here. I did in fact talk to someone for about 2 hours and he accepted the book of mormon and to read it! I have his information so... it was awesome. More info coming soon as I get settled. Love you all!

Update from the MTC

This is sorta late but I still wanted to post his email from the MTC.

My companion and I have been made zone leaders. We got the calling on the sunday we came in and its extremely rare that missionaries here for only three weeks will receive the calling, but it came out of necessity as all of the foreign language elders leave this week from our branch and we don't get new missionaries until next wednesday. So, that's cool news I guess.

In India we will only be teaching english speakers, that aren't muslim, and are wealthy in order to build up a strong foundation for later converts in India. This is so when welfare is needed there will be self-sustained area fast offerings and tithes to contribute to those needs. English because of the urgency and its correlation with wealth (no political correctness necessary.)

I love the MTC so far. It's not too hard to wear a suit every day, although I'm not in India yet, so that may change. And the lessons and progress I'm making in preparation is pretty incredible.

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