We have 4 American elders going home this week. Two of them had parents that came to pick them up to see some sites in Delhi and the Taj Mahal. The picture shows their backs. I was trying to show their white shirts which are far from white (except for the one on the far left who saved a new shirt to go home in). You can see the ingrained dirt from their backpacks and the yellow-ness of the shirts from the multiple washing here (in real life they look a lot worse than this picture)With these elders going home, we will be down to 8 US missionaries, with no new ones scheduled to arrive. With visa restrictions, we are noticing an increased delay in getting new missionaries from anywhere other than India (with an occasional one from Nepal). There are a couple of missionaries that were "temporarily" assigned to Colorado in September, that we hope will be able to come here the last year of their missions, but it's not for certain. We're even seeing delays for couples. Three couples have been called to come to New Delhi - all from Canada. One couple is temporarily serving in Canada (since December), one was permanently reassigned to Sri Lanka and the third is still awaiting word from the Consulate. So at present, we have us in the office, a couple from Humble (Elder and Sister Black) serving as Public Affairs missionaries, and one Indian couple serving for 6 months from Hyderabad. We seem to have some luck getting couples from Houston, so if anyone from there wants to have a great time (and see one of the 8 wonders of the world), let me know and I'll put in a good word for you to our mission president.
PS - Sister Stevens is looking for a couple with good office skills to replace us. I'll take two warm bodies - we can train you.
Paul, the discolored white shirts of the departing missionaries is not unique to India--you wouldn't believe what the Palau full time missionary shirts looked like after two years in the islands. Part of the problem is that the drinking water comes from a river. When it rains hard there will be some of the red dirt picked up in the runoff. The red color comes from the iron content in the soil. Bleach wouldn't touch it--just turned the shirts grey looking. I started using "iron out" and that seemed to be helpful. Dispite my best efforts however, my not so white shirts made it into the donation bag at the red cross in Palau when we departed. Gary
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