Only in India

We have been looking to upgrade our phones recently.The phones the mission provides are lowest price and quality you can get, and after being on an iPhone, going back to the multi-click process to send a text message is just not working.It takes forever to type something out, and invertibly, I don’t click enough times to get the right letter and then need to back up and start over.So we go to the Vodafone store, to see what they have. Phones and especially pay-as-you-go cell plans are cheap compared to the 2-year plans the US has.The young lady who was helping us, prided herself on her English, so we are talking and Paul said, “so you can pay each month either on-line or in person?” She says, “No, I can’t pay, but you can pay.”So much for our US jargon…

Angela is talking to the Mission President's driver (no one is allowed to drive in the mission for obvisous reasons})  He says in his Indian English, "You are shifting?", Angela looks perplexed.  Well after multiple back and forths, she finally understands he is saying "Are you moving", because we are moving to the building behind the building we currently are in (someday...)

I wonder if I should pass this on to Comcast as a way to answer storm outages (see bottom line of screen). 

Our 37th Wedding Anniversary

Cab with A/C
(notice the deluxe seat covers)

LaPiazza Restaurant

Roman Candle candle

Scenic ride to the Hotel

Tomorrow is our 37^th Wedding Anniversary, so we celebrated today by going to the Hyatt Regency for lunch.  No auto rickshaws for this occasion.  We got a cab (with air conditioning) for the ride over.  Whether on purpose or because he didn’t think we knew where he was going, it went out the “long way” and it cost us a whooping 110 rupees ($2).  We ate at the La Piazza Restaurant and had an excellent dinner of various salads and roasted veggies, a buffalo tenderloin (our first experience with buffalo – cows are sacred here), roasted potatoes and shallots (fancy name for baby onions), and a dessert bar.  Angela ate all her steak which was also a first (it was only about 5 ounces, but tasted just like “cow”).  We happened to mention to our server that we were celebrating wedding anniversary, and he surprised us with a cake with a roman candle on top.  Angela had to take care to keep from getting the sparklers on her skirt.  It was so bright, that you almost can’t see her. 

Hyatt Regency India

Unusual flower in Lobby

Afterwards, we went shopping at the high end shops in the hotel.It was the usual set of shop with everyone selling a variety of the same things (wool and silk scarfs, wraps, rugs, carved animals, etc).Looks a lot like all the other shopping we have seen on the streets, just more expensive.The shop owner of the first shop we came to wanted to show us his ‘one of a kind’ items, but after purchasing some items and continuing on, every store had his ‘one of a kind’ items.

First Missionary Farewell for Us

We recently attended our first farewell for missionaries leaving our mission to go home.  I was presiding because President Sackley is touring the mission in Pakistan with his wife.  So I got the "last word" in at the meeting, since I was asked to say something to these fine Elders.  Elder Bunga to the left and Elder Podi to the right, are very energetic young men and a joy to be around.  My first encounter with Elder Bunga was at the bowling alley for a zone activity.  He was on my lane, and after seeing me gutter the first 2 frames told me he was going to beat me.  Well we know how that went - once you make a challenge everything reverses.  He started doing worse and I got better.  It was a fun exchange.  Elders from India are generally older when they come out, which is the case for both of these Elders.  Elder Bunga is now 27 and Elder Podi, 25.  The farewell included a slideshow of the Elders throughout their missions, and small talks/testimonies of the Elders leaving.  We had about 100 members that came to see them off.

Eating yogurt the hard way

The other night, Elder Stevens was eating India's version of yogurt.  It's about 4 ounces of liquid yogurt.  He took off the lid and was licking the yogurt off the foil lid (surely I'm not the only one that does this...) and without paying attention, poured the yogurt down the front of him.  He just took his spoon and ate it off his shirt (isn't it interesting what you'll do when you're in a strange place).  We found out today that that 4 ounces cost about $1.50 (another good reason to eat it off the shirt).

Our New Favorite Restuarant

It's always amazing to me the "pearls" you can find in the most unlikely place.  Recently we discovered a fantastic Italian Restaurant called Sartoria.  It's located on the local "high end" market that is close to our apartment.  It has some of the best Italian food we have had anywhere - and not at an outrageous price.  We can generally get pasta and chicken dishes for about 400-500 rupees ($8-10) add to that the excellent Brushetta appetizer and you have more than enough to eat at about the same cost as the US.  The VAT and service tax is a killer at about 20%, but the offset is tips here are around 5-10% maximum.  We'll be eating here often.


Dry Fountain in front of Sartoria

Preha Market (Right of Sartoria)

One of the store you can get "American" food

I'd write around the pictures rather than here, but either it's not possible, or I'm still a novice (HELP Sandi). 

This is our temporary apartment from the outside. We live on the 2nd floor (which is called the 1st floor here because the ground floor is "the ground floor").  There are tenants still living on the ground floor.  Eventually (hopefully by January) this will be the main center for the Church in New Delhi with the chapel in the basement, classrooms on the ground and first floors, the Mission President's residence on the 3rd floor (the US 2nd floor - so confusing) and the Mission Office on the top floor.  When we move, it will be directly behind this building) 

CHAOS!!!

Sister Stevens in new mission office
Still Smiling

Chaos - that's the best way to describe the past several days.  We moved mission office locations over the weekend, and we can't find anything.  To add to the newness, we have a new Mission President and his wife who have been here 1 day less than us, we have ourselves, who have just been reassigned as the new office couple (keep in mind there was no 'old' mission couple to train us), and we have a new office.  On the up side the mission office is in the same building as our temporary apartment, so we just walk up two flights of stairs - no more auto rickshaw rides to the office - Hurray!!! 

An example of a typical fire drill that we go through daily.  Two days ago, we get a call from one of the Elders.  He tells us that there are two women members, who have been called on missions that need to be in the Philippines' MTC on July 21, and they don't know what to do (so they called us, the "experienced" office couple").  One of the sisters does not have a passport yet, but she has been "assured" by the passport office that she will have it in a week (by the 17th).  After we get the passport, we need to send a copy of the picture page to the MTC, who issues us a invitation letter.  With thee invitation letter, and the passport, and extra passport pictures, we can apply for a visa from the Philippines (which takes 2-3 days).  Once we have all this we can purchase a ticket.  Any bets on if she's going to make it? 

At the same time we are suppose to be applying for permanent residence in the Philippines (both sisters are going to the Philippines on their missions) - which we will do as soon as we learn how...

Every day's a new story and new crisis, but we are sure we'll get on top of it soon, but for now this is seriously impacting my nap time.     

Today we spoke in church.  We had our new Mission President and his wife visiting for the first time, so they were asked to share their testimonies of the Gospel, then we had a youth speaker, then Angela, a "rest" song (a song intended to get the blood flowing for those in the congregation) and then Paul talked.  During the rest song, Angela looks over at me and says, "you don't have much time to talk".  I just smile.  Without any discussion, all the topics were closely aligned around faith and having faith.  After the meeting we were able to witness the baptism of the Dileep family, whose real name is Massey - it seems everyone over here has several last names which makes generating a church record very challenging.  The father, mother and two daughters were baptized.  They will be confirmed members of the Church and receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost in next week's sacrament service.   

Zone Conference

Yesterday, we had Zone Conference for all the India based missionaries.  Zone Conference is a meeting organized by the elders that have been given leadership positions in the mission and generally includes talks and lessons to teach/train the missionaries on various gospel topics.  Yesterday's meeting went from 8 am to 3 pm, including lunch (the elders' favorite part) and focused on the converting power of the Book of Mormon - Another Testament of Jesus Christ. 

All Zone Conference - India Missionaries

The attached picture shows all the missionaries in India, with the exception of one senior couple (the Crookston's), who went back to the US temporarily to be at daughter's wedding.  Our new mission President and his wife - the Sackley's, are on the far right and the Capener's and us are on the left (in case you forgot already what we look like).  There are a total of 61 missionaries in the mission - 32 India (26 young elders and 3 senior couples), 25 young elders in Pakistan, and 2 humanitarian couples in Nepal.  The mission is somewhat unique in that we will never see the Pakistani missionaries.  Due to current politics between the two countries, India elders stay in India and Pakistani elders stay in Pakistan.  President Sackley travels each month to Pakistan to visit/interview the elders and give them guidance.

We really enjoyed the Zone Conference.  The elders in this mission have strong testimonies of Jesus Christ and are very good at teaching the Gospel.  We felt a great spirit there.