“Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity flaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,“… Seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; “Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; “Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. “Charity never faileth.”

I recently had to opportunity to go to India to serve the people in the leprosy colonies. In India they still have the idea that the people who have leprosy are labeled as unclean or untouchable so they are cast out to live in their own colonies.

Many people in India believe leprosy is God’s greatest curse and one who has the disease it is because he/she committed an unpardonable sin in his life.  Once an individual contracts the disease, they are consigned to live in remote colonies losing jobs, homes, societal approval, and often times even family. Our main goal was to try and break the stigma associated with leprosy by spreading awareness, all while trying to eradicate the disease itself.

Our theme among the volunteers for the summer was,” It’s all about love.” This little quote was plastered on every door in our house and I thought, yeah that’s cute little quote that’s easy to remember and I didn’t give too much though about it. And it wasn’t until I got home that I understand how much this little quote mattered.

When we got out to the leprosy colonies we assisted the doctors and nurses. Our purpose for being there was to be able to go out to these colonies and be able to love all these people and help them in any way that we could. Before I got out to India I had seen pictures of some of these leprosy patients and heard about the things we were going to be doing and I was very nervous. I saw the wounds and physical appearances of these people and I wasn’t sure if I could be able to love these people like I was supposed to.

Prophet Joseph said: “Don’t be limited in your views with regard to your neighbors’ virtues. … You must enlarge your souls toward others if you [would] do like Jesus. … As you increase in innocence and virtue, as you increase in goodness, let your hearts expand—let them be enlarged towards others—you must be longsuffering and bear with the faults and errors of mankind. How precious are the souls of men!”                                                

Being in a different country the language barrier is always a difficult one, but the longer I worked and interacted with these wonderful people, the more I came to realize how important that cute little quote was. “It’s all about love.” We couldn’t understand each other but we could feel each others love. I did begin to love these people. And I soon came to realize that this was the most important thing about doing this work. There was this one lady in particular that came through that made me realize how much just loving mattered. This cute, older lady comes in with a big toothless grin and greeted all of us with kisses and hugs, with nothing but nubs for hands. She was so loving and welcoming and she had us all smiling. She went through all the stations and was just as happy as a clam talking with us even though none of us knew anything that the other person was saying. She finally made it to the doctor and the doctor just started right in. After being in India for almost three weeks I hadn't heard or seen any of the patients in as much pain as I felt this lady was. She threw her head back and cried in pain as soon as those scissors touched her and I couldn't even begin to think about how much pain she was in. We all watched in agony as she was being worked on and it broke my heart to be standing helplessly on the side and not be able to try and help take this pain away. I realized then that all I had left to do was love her. Love her for her strength, love her for doing what I could never do, love her for the love she had shown us all. After she got done though and got all of her new bandages in place she came up to the volunteers and started hugging and kissing like crazy. Even after all of this pain that we could have put her through, she was still thankful to be able to have us there to help. She, to me, is one of the greatest examples of having charity.

President Monson teaches: “Charity is having patience with someone who has let us down. It is resisting the impulse to become offended easily. It is accepting weaknesses and shortcomings. It is accepting people as they truly are. It is looking beyond physical appearances to attributes that will not dim through time. It is resisting the impulse to categorize others.”

President Monson tells this story: A woman by the name of Mary Bartels had a home directly across the street from the entrance to a hospital clinic. Her family lived on the main floor and rented the upstairs rooms to outpatients at the clinic.

One evening a truly awful-looking old man came to the door asking if there was room for him to stay the night. He was stooped and shriveled, and his face was lopsided from swelling—red and raw. He said he’d been hunting for a room since noon but with no success. “I guess it’s my face,” he said. “I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says it could possibly improve after more treatments.” He indicated he’d be happy to sleep in the rocking chair on the porch. As she talked with him, Mary realized this little old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. Although her rooms were filled, she told him to wait in the chair and she’d find him a place to sleep.

At bedtime Mary’s husband set up a camp cot for the man. When she checked in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and he was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, he asked if he could return the next time he had a treatment. “I won’t put you out a bit,” he promised. “I can sleep fine in a chair.” Mary assured him he was welcome to come again.

In the several years he went for treatments and stayed in Mary’s home, the old man, who was a fisherman by trade, always had gifts of seafood or vegetables from his garden. Other times he sent packages in the mail.

When Mary received these thoughtful gifts, she often thought of a comment her next-door neighbor made after the disfigured, stooped old man had left Mary’s home that first morning. “Did you keep that awful-looking man last night? I turned him away. You can lose customers by putting up such people.”

Mary knew that maybe they had lost customers once or twice, but she thought, “Oh, if only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear.” After the man passed away, Mary was visiting with a friend who had a greenhouse. As she looked at her friend’s flowers, she noticed a beautiful golden chrysanthemum but was puzzled that it was growing in a dented, old, rusty bucket. Her friend explained, “I ran short of pots, and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting in this old pail. It’s just for a little while, until I can put it out in the garden.”

Mary smiled as she imagined just such a scene in heaven. “Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said when He came to the soul of the little old man. “He won’t mind starting in this small, misshapen body.” But that was long ago, and in God’s garden how tall this lovely soul must stand!     3    

 Appearances can be so deceiving, such a poor measure of a person. Admonished the Savior, “Judge not according to the appearance.”    

Silvia H. Allred said: As we choose to be kind, caring, generous, patient, accepting, forgiving, inclusive, and selfless, we discover we are abounding in charity.The Savior is the perfect example of how to extend charity. During His mortal ministry He showed compassion for the hungry, for the sinner, for the afflicted, and for the sick. He ministered to the poor and to the rich; to women, children, and men; to family, friends, and strangers. He forgave His accusers, and He suffered and died for all mankind.

The last day at Rising Star. The hardest day of this entire trip. I had the tutoring rotation and I was very grateful to be able to have spent the entire last day with all of these kids. I can’t even begin to explain how amazing each and every one of these kids are. They have touched me in a way that they will never begin to know. I thought I was going to come here to help them, but of course not. They have helped me so much. I truly love them with all my heart. Later that night after school and playtime we all gathered in the dining hall where the school choir sang a couple of songs for us and life dance did some performing. It was simply awesome. There was one dance in particular that had me bawling like a baby at the end. The director was going to teach them a dance about suffering and pain and how we have angels who help us and lift us. After trying to teach them he realized that these kids had seen so much pain and suffering in their own lives already that he let them decided how to perform this number. These kids… wow. I LOVE them! They are such an amazing inspiration to me. Leaving them was the hardest thing that I ever had to do. Thinking about the day that we would have to leave, I didn’t think that the kids would be too sad about us leaving. What made it so hard was to see these kids that I love, crying and asking me why I had to go and when I was going to come back and if I was going to write them letters. How could I leave them now? I love them. I want the absolute best for them.

 Basha and Go-go got their necklaces at the star store and they couldn't even wait to show me so they came running over to the elephant house as soon as play time started to give me a hug! It made me so happy to see that they loved the gift! When it was time to say goodbye that night and all of us had been crying, Go-go turned to me and kissed his necklace and said, " I will never forget."..... Neither will I Go-go.

On Monday we had another medical day where we traveled out to the leprosy colonies. It was really neat to be able to get there early enough where we had time to walk around the village and talk with some of the people before we had to dive right into the work. I know I've said it before and I'll say it again but these people are truly amazing! We set up our little medical site in this little church building they had at the end of their village and we had about seven people come through. It is so neat to just be able to interact with these wonderful people. I was at the oiling station after they wash the leprosy patient's feet and I put oil around the outside of their ulcers that they have on their feet. So for you who don't really know, leprosy affects the nerves of the body and it causes them to have ulcers that is caused from infection and decay that happens because they can't really feel if they have a cut or are getting an infection which usually ends up having them lose fingers, arms, toes, feet, and legs. So the ulcers form and they can't feeling anything inside the ulcer but the skin around the ulcer is still very tender and they can very much feel it. So my job was to put oil around the sore skin and dead skin that is around the infected ulcer so that it can be soft and ready for the doctor to cut out the ulcer. Now understand we have no medicines or pain killers for these patients when they come through the line so they can feel everything that we are doing to them. I have never seen anything like this before in my life. When they get to the doctor to have their ulcers cut out it is basically the doctor taking a pair of dull scissors and cutting into your skin. Many of the patients go through this and are very strong because I'm sure they have to get this done to them all the time. But there was this one lady in particular that came through that made me realize how hard this is for them.
This cute older lady comes into the church with a big toothless grin and greeted all of us with kisses and hugs with nothing but nubs for hands. She was so loving and welcoming and she had us all smiling. :) She went through all the stations and was just as happy as a clam talking with us even though none of us knew anything that the other person was saying. :) She finally made it to the doctor and the doctor just started right in. After being in India for almost three weeks now I hadn't seen or heard any of the patients in as much pain as I felt this lady was. She threw her head back and started crying as soon as those scissors touched her and I couldn't even begin to think about how much pain she was in. We all watched in agony as she was being worked on and it broke my heart to be standing helplessly on the side and not be able to try and help take this pain away. After she got done though and got all of her new bandages in place she came up to the volunteers and started hugging and kissing like crazy. Even after all of this pain that we could have put her through, she was still thankful to be able to have us there to help. These beautiful people had beautiful souls. I love them so much.
I wish I had gotten more pictures of the people but there are some of the photos from this amazing day.

 
When we got back from the colony a couple of us decided to take a little walk out to the village that is just down the street from the Rising Star campus. It was really neat to be able to walk down these little streets and see what everyday life is like for these impoverished people. A couple of the kids who go to school at Rising Star don’t actually live on the campus and they walk to school everyday from the village. So on our way to the village we ran into a couple of kids on there way home and we told them we would walk them home. I can’t even begin to tell you how amazingly adorable ALL of these little kids are! I love them love them love them so much!!! :)

 
When we got back to the Elephant house later that night I decided to put something together for my three little boys. When we went to Mamallapuram, I bought of couple of little stone necklaces that I thought would be cute to give to my boys. :) So that night I strung them each a little necklace and wrote them a note to tell them how special I thought they were. Like I said before were not allowed to give hand outs so I have to put them in the star store for them and they get to buy it when they have enough stars. I couldn’t wait for them to be able to get to see them.

Sunday was a good day. :) We left early that morning to travel two hours to Chennai to be able to go to church. It is so neat to think that even though our cultures and our lives are very much different than the people in India's, but that we can still come together and be able to learn about this wonderful gospel and that we are all children of our Heavenly Father! This is just the neatest experience! The people here are amazing! All the church meetings were awesome and the people in it are amazing! I am so so so grateful that I have had this opportunity to be here with so many amazing people! I am so amazingly blessed and I don't even know why! But I am so grateful! I love you all!!! :)

Here are the pictures of the beautiful church building! :)