Taunalyn Rutherford fell in love with India while a student performing there on tour with Brigham Young University’s singing group the Young Ambassadors in 1986. Her affection deepened in 2013, when she spent a month in that country interviewing and interacting with faithful Latter-day Saints who have helped establish and develop the Church there in modern times.

Her presentation, “Subcontinent to Salt Lake City: Voices of Latter-day Pioneers in India,” was the second installment in the monthly “Pioneers in Every Land” lecture series offered by the Church History Library. She spoke March 12 in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

“I want to acknowledge the fact that I am speaking from a position of privilege, from a position of an outsider,” said Sister Rutherford, a doctoral candidate in religious studies at Claremont Graduate University in California who is writing her dissertation on the Church in India. “I didn’t serve a mission in India; I’m not from India, but I am a witness of God’s love for India, the people there and what He is doing there.”

She spoke of being with the Young Ambassadors in India in 1986, when the group spent a day with the famous Catholic humanitarian Mother Teresa.

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