District Conference in Hyderabad

Apostle D. Todd Christofferson and his wife were with us at the conference. Pres Hollstrom (Asia Area President and a member of the Seventy's) and his wife were also with us. It was great to spend time with them and be taught by an apostle.
Most of the people in the photo are part of the choir and wanted this photo to happen. Others joined us just because when a camera comes out everyone wants in the picture. Kneeling by Pres. Hollstrom is Rajev and by Elder Christofferson is Swaroop. You'll hear me talk about them in our emails. Also to my right is Shilpa. She directed the choir and was scared because there is so much she doesn't know. She is a fast learner and takes direction. It was so fun to help her and she did a great job. By Shilpa is Mahesh! He's the one who called me for Mother's Day to make sure I was having a good day and to wish me Happy Mother's Day. He is 20 years old and the best athlete here. He also loves to sing and said, "Sister how am I performing?" He wanted to make sure he was singing to make the choir a good choir!! Then he would ask what time practice would be. If I said 9 a.m....he would say, "Sister, I'll be here by 6 a.m." He wanted to show his enthusiams for being part of the choir. This is one of many individual stories I could share!
To Shilpa's left is Sarisha. We love Sarisha and love to spend time with her. She wants so badly to come to the USA. She serves as Primary president. 28 and single. Next to Sarisha is Saritha. I teach her piano and I really love her! She is one of my most promising students. She's married and has 2 children. Her little boy is Kolab. (like the song)
Karthikey is standing on your right by the wall....tall in a white shirt. He also takes piano. He likes my food and wants all my recipes. Everytime I see him he wants to know if I've brought him another recipe. He is only 20 and teaches early morning seminary. Hema is in pink kneeling in front. She is such a fun person and I like spending time with her.
Mary is in blue right behind Elder and Sister Hollstrom. She's the one who checks out what I am wearing and tells me if I don't look good or if she likes what I'm wearing or not!!! I love her! Her real name is Fatima.
Shaker Bodu is Mahesh's brother. He loved the choir so much that he would sing the songs on the volleyball court! He would sing and then hit the ball and then sing and etc!!! He is married to Vani in purple just in front of him.
I could tell you more about these people but that's probably enough for now! You gotta love them cause I do!!!

A Night On The Town

This is the "Kakatya Hotel." It is one of the nicest hotels in town. The Mission president always stays here when he comes to town. The Woods who are the couple in Visak came for conference this weekend and this is where they stayed. We spent some time here visiting them. Very pricey even for India! $250 a night and that's a deal!!!
We went shopping at city center and saw "Ronald" in front of McDonalds and took some pictures. The LaDukes sitting by Elder Kasper are humanitarian and serve here in Hyderabad, and the Wood's on the right.

I tried to get a photo to capture what we saw but it's just not the same without the noise! It always sounds like you are in the middle of a huge traffic jam! The funny part is, if there is a traffic jam everyone becomes very calm.....horns quit honking (mostly), and the drivers and people are very courteous and calm just trying to do their part in relieving the traffic jam. We went to a restaurant that is across the busy street that you see in the background.
Restaurant is called "Fushion 9." It was very good and very Western. It was a 9 cuisine restaurant and higher priced than most here. We paid about $15-20 a plate each. This was Friday night, the weekend of District Conference.

Beautiful women's clothing

These are typical sites in India. You see women in beautiful dresses riding or driving motorcycles. We have seen as many as 6 people on a bike before. Some of the women wear pants under their dresses. The sari (wrapped dress) is the most popular with the pants and long dress being next most popular. Very seldom do you see a woman in pants and a shirt. Never do you see women in shorts (no matter how hot!!) but occassionally in capri's. They are a very modest people. The men wear long or short sleeved shirts. It's seldom that you see a T-shirt!!
Even the working women wear beautiful Sari's. These are the lower class women or they wouldn't be carrying something on their head! It amazes me how beautiful they dress even in a lower class. Sometimes you will see a little bit of their back as in this picture. These women carry construction items for the men who are building the apartment.

The lady in pink is typical of pants with the dress and always a beautiful scarf draped around their neck!!

Volleyball at the Church

These are some of the kids at 2nd branch. They play a lot of volleyball.
Elder K has played with them occasionally but my 1st time was Monday evening after Family Home Evening. They asked and I couldn't resist. It was a lot of fun....hard to play in a straight skirt and sandals.
There are always a few of the kids sitting on the steps watching the game. These are the back steps of the church. We love these kids.
This is a better back view of the church. If there is an outside activity this is where it is held.
Front view of the West Marredpally Chapel. There are 2 branches here, 1st and 2nd. It's so funny because we will walk to church and as we walk in it doesn't look like anyone is here. There are never any cars parked and usually 1,2 or 3 motorbikes. You walk in thinking no one is going to be there and the place will be crowded with people. We still aren't used to the idea of no vehicles in the parking lot.

This is the gate that seperates the church grounds from West Marredpally street. When we walk out of those gates we remember we are in India!!! The little house is the guard house. Anyplace in India that is nice has a guard! There was a bombing about a year ago and people are cautious of it happening again.

West Marredpally street

This is the main street that leads to the chapel. We walk this street every day. Sometimes more than once. It's just a few blocks from our apartment.
We often buy fruit and vegetables from street vendors like these.
This is our vegetable market. Father is always sitting in the middle of the vegetables when he is there. Mother (in the background) always over charges us so we don't buy from her when we go there. The man in front is their son in law. Their daughter is our favorite and she wasn't there when we took the picture. She treats us really good and we like buying from her. Most of the vegetables they sell are things we don't recognize. We buy the normal carrots, cucumbers, potatoes, onions, mushrooms and etc. They don't speak English but we are learning to communicate our needs to them. The father knows how to say photo! He wants us to bring him a copy of this picture!! We will do that in the next day or 2.

I never Tire of the monkeys/Bedroom Window

I thought I would never see a monkey...Now we see them almost everyday. They love our backyard because they like the playground and the trees. They jump from tree to tree and swing in the swings and climb the monkey bars...If there tired they just sit on a ledge and sleep.

Wet & Rainy

As I stated earlier it's not been much of a monsoon season.
We did have 5-6 days of good rains. This is the river on our street that we had to cross. It was only just above our ankles. Deep enough that Elder Kasper didn't want to cross, especially after watching the car come through!!
He finally got brave and waded the water in his dress shoes. The elders called us when we got home and said they had been in water up above their knees. We avoided those streets. We're not 19 anymore!!!

This guy didn't want to get his feet wet so he pulled up on the sidewalk.

Kayla Louise Peterson

This is the latest news in our family! And the newest addition!!
Her name is Kayla Louise Peterson and she came 6 weeks early. Kristina and Erik were planing a trip to Idaho to vacation and I suspect celebrate Kristina's birthday with twin sister Tia!!! Erik's work delayed the trip and it's a good thing because sweet little baby cakes decided to come as an early surpirse! Born Aug 12th!! I
do believe she was born on my Uncle Norris's birthday!! She must be a little Murdock baby!!
We are so pleased she found her way to our family. This was a delight and we are extremely grateful for SKYPE and modern technology now.
Kayla will be 14 months when we meet in real life! For now the internet will have to do.....and we're thankful for it!!
Anyone who wants to write and tell me how precious she is.....or she looks just like her Grandma Shona.....I will accept your emails! I'll be delighted to hear how she's the most beautiful baby you've ever seen! She doesn't look like a 4 lb 9 oz preemie to me! She's way to beautiful!!! !!

Monsoon Finally Here!!!

Today is August 9th. We have been told since June 1st that the Monsoon Season was upon us and the rains were coming. It rained a bit off and on during the week. Nothing unusual. Then last night it happened! It rained so hard that there was a haze in the air. Everything looked a bit blurry! It started during the day with some light rain but about 6 o'clock it poured buckets of rain!! We had a 7 o'clock dinner appointment. We called Elizabeth and Prema to see if we should cancel the appointment or at least wait until the rain lightened up. (ha! ha!) She said, "Sister, we are waiting for you." So we left the apartment to go catch an auto. There was a river in our street that we had to cross to get on our way. I had my Teva's on (I brought them for this occassion.) but Elder Kasper had on his nice dress shoes!! (No Teva's in his wardrobe) I got to the river and jumped in and waded across. He stood there looking at the river. I hollared to him, "Come on Elder. We have to go." He looked right and left, trying to find a smaller place in the river to cross." The entire street was a river. I was wet to about mid calf! They're constructing a building where he was standing and there was a pile of bricks higher than his head. He took 2 and put them on the ground. He stood on them. Then he reached behind him and took 2 more and dropped them in the water in front of him. They sunk out of sight! He had a look of dismay that is undiscribable! (Is that a word....it should be!!) I was laughing so hard I thought I would die! There was a man standing beside me watching the episode, wondering what would happen next! You could see the idea of dry feet dying inside Elder K's head! He leaped into the water in his suit pants and dress shoes and forged the river of water! What a wet good sport he is! He was wet almost to his knees. I'm sure his shoes won't last long in this weather.
2nd phase of our adventure:
We walked to where there were a few autos sitting on the street. No one wants to go anywhere when it rains like this. The auto drivers are only willing to take you if you are willing to pay. It would normally be 40 rupees to go as far as we went last night. We asked the first auto driver and he said 150 rupees.... We said no and asked a 2nd auto driver....while we were asking him the first driver came and in Telegu told him not to take us for less that 150 rupees. He was sabataging our efforts to get an auto. So we went to the 3rd auto driver and he took pity on us and drove us for the price on the meter. We were so grateful that we gave him almost double what was on the meter. It took us about 40 minutes to go a 15 minute distance. Rains were so hard and the rivers were in almost all the streets that we were driving.
We got to Elizabeth's and met her husband and figured out that Prema is her sister. She fed us the best Chapatti's with an egg dish that was drenched in tomatoes and spices and other stuff!! Then she tried her chicken out on us! It was delicious! She is a very good cook. I would like her recipes.
The drive home was 2 elders and Nikhel,a member on exchange that were teaching in the same apartment building as we were. We managed to run into each other and go back to West Maredpally together. Nikhel and Elder Jones didn't have an umbrella and 5 of us were huttled under 3 umbrellas waiting to get an auto. When we finally did it was 150 rupees and when I got in to sit it was in a puddle of water. I was so wet.
The rain was so noisy last night that I couldn't sleep. I finally closed my eyes at 2:30 and woke up at 6....tried to go back to sleep for an hour. I think I slept part of that next hour. We were suppose to teach institute but when it rains like this people don't go anywhere. So Pres. Guntu suggested we cancel institute. So Elder and I are taking the day off! This reminds us of being "Snowed In" in Idaho!!

We Made a 2nd visit to Holy Bells

Anne said, please come every month. There are over 200 children in her school now. These little street children have a tough life. They start early like this begging on the streets. It's their job and they are expected to put so much time in each morning and evening before school and after. I think it's 5-6 hours. If they get their work done their parents consent to schooling. They really look forward to school. They get 1 good nutricious meal at the school. The rest of the day they steal what they can from the garbage. Or can beg off the street. Annie wants them to have a chance at a better life.

Levels K-5 are taught. She wants to increase it to level 12 so they can get their entire education not just a taste of education.
Each class greated us with a salute and "hello sir and hello madam" and sang us a song. I did a little video of the 2 older groups. It's very typical India Music.

Children sang for us at Holy Bells school. This is the school that was started by Anne and Syam for street children.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUGUST BABIES

Happy Birthday
Tia and Kristina
I know Tia wanted me to bring her a monkey home from India. This is as close as I want to be to the little sweethearts!!!
This is the monkey that kept coming at us while we visited Sangeetha and Praveen last night. We wanted his picture and he would run at us when we went out the door to try to take it. They can be very aggressive. Sangeetha and I would scream and run so Praveen came and took this picture for us.

ENDING OF THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

Family Home Evening we finished up Elder Kasper's birthday celebration with Pizza and birthday cake. It was also Daniel's birthday
This is our family home Evening group. Well some of them. We have a great time together.
Mahesh is a new member of the church. ( on Elder Kasper's right) Ratnam on Elder K's left is not a member but comes to our institute class and family home evening. He comes 1 1/2 hour by bus....changing buses several times to get to the church. That's a sacrafice of time. He is married and has 2 teenage daughters.

Tuesday night for family night we took the 4th branch kids for Ice cream....our way of finishing up the celebration of Elder k's birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU ELDER

Birthday card from Madhu. (explained below.) Madhu works for Microsoft. He puts advertising programs together for companies that hire Microsoft.

Chocolate Cake compliments of the Marriot Hotel Restaurant!!
Elders and Sisters from 2nd Branch (6 of them) came to tell Elder Happy Birthday. They brought him a card, some candy bars, and RICE KRISPIE TREATS! We asked them where they got the marshmellows and they said it was a secret. They then told us that they were a gift from home. We were so honored they shared!!! We love the elders and sisters here!

This picture is of Elder Chilling in the afternoon! Taking a break!

Madhu came early this morning to bring Elder K. a surprise. He brought him a CD of classical music of India, (very nice) also a beautiful birthday cake....and a card that says, "Elder Kasper is an awesome singer and guitarist, an amazing teacher, Never says no, less of talk and more of action, ever smiling, and great sense of humourous! (I wrote it just like he said it on the card. ) He has never had fried potatoes and onions before. This was a first. He loved them especially with catsup.
Lime and Mosumbe freeze for our breakfast drink.
The cake Madhu brought Elder. It was also Madhu's mother's birthday today.
Elder cutting the cake. We didn't do the traditional feed it to the people.
Madhu wanted us to take pictures together. Nitin came for a piano lesson and took the picture for us.

LaDukes came about 12:30 to meet us and go to lunch at the Marriott. We took an auto and arrived about 1:15. As we entered Elder K. met William who sings with us in the choir. They were visiting and Elder K. told him we were there with another missionary couple having a celebration of their anniversary and his birthday. William was having lunch with his boss, the Consulate General of the U.S. of America. William H. Boyle is the first secretary and management officer for the C. General.

The management of the Marriott Hotel Restaurant fussed over our table. One of the managers asked if this was a special occasion. We told him we were celebrating a birthday and an anniversary. He congratulated us and left coming back a few minutes later with a whole chocolate cake! Beautiful.
Then another manager came by and asked if we were celebrating. We explained to him, and he said “I should sing for you.” We said, “Yes you should.” So he proceeded to sing happy birthday! We laughed and applauded.
Pres. Gutty met us at 2:30 so he could take the LaDuke’s to finish registering. We tried to pay and the manager said, “The bill is taken care of.” We said, “There must be a mistake.” Then we remembered meeting another American that had stopped by our table. He was LDS and recognized our name tags. He asked if we were in India to build a temple. We told him we wished that were true, but we were just ordinary missionaries, serving in India. We thought maybe he had taken care of our bill as he came by our table later and wished the LaDukes a happy anniversary. Soon the manager returned and told us that the “Consulate General” had paid for our lunch!!!
What a birthday Elder Kasper is having.

Traditions of Interest

Today in Relief Society the topic of conversation was Tradition! The sisters were asked to tell some of the traditions that take place in homes of India. The following list was made.
1. When you go to someone's new house you boil milk and let it spill over. It is a sign of good luck.
2. If you are leaving to do some work and someone sneezes.....DON'T GO.
3. Never start work (a new job) or project on Tuesday. (bad luck)
4. They also have a tradition that when you walk in and switch on the light, you look at the picture of God. (Making sure the light is pointed toward God so you see it first.)
5. Don't go give money on Friday. Many places if you owe money and go try to pay, they won't take it on Friday. They will say, come back tomorrow. (bad luck)
6. For a good (we would say special) occassion never go in 3's. Go in 5's or 7's.....but never 3's. (again bad luck)
7. Then they talked about the tradition of an arranged marriage.
The final was making traditions that bring us closer to God.

TRAFFIC again

I know you are sick of me telling you about the traffic. We walked to the post office last night to mail a letter. On the way back we caught an Auto because we wanted to go check out the bigger Post office where you can mail packages in Patney Centre. (that's how they spell it! pronounced potnee) We pulled into the traffic and immediately there was a traffic jam. Cars headed in both directions that were nose to nose and sideways too! There was no screaming and yelling or flipping off ones neighbor! Everyone was calm and were hand motioning to help each other to clear the street. It took a few minutes but it was done calmly and gently. Not one person was raving or ranting or screaming. There was still the horn honking, but horn honking is part of being on the road. If you were the only car, auto or bike on the road you would honk your horn because it's India. There doesn't need to be any further explanation past.....it's India.

Electrical and Bank

We got our electrical bill this morning. This is our 3rd one since we have been here. Our first one was 14,000 rupees (about $350). Our 2nd one was 3500 rupees (about $90) and our one today was only 1536 rupees (about $40). We used the air conditioner every day when we first arrived and when we got the bill we couldn't believe how high it was!! Of course we never used air conditioning in Idaho. The 2nd month we felt better about the little bit we used the air conditioner. This month, we are thinking we will use the air conditioner when its hot and be thankful and not worry so much about it.
We also made a trip to the bank. We needed change so Elder K decided to go to one bank while I went to our usual bank. Getting change is impossible here and you take what you can get when you can get it. I got lucky and got all the change we needed today. Elder Kasper got 10's but no 50's or 20's. It's very interesting to go to the bank. There is always 2 long lines of people. The first time I stood in line. A man who works there came to see what I needed. You need to remember, I'm at the back of the line. I told him that I need change. He said, "Come with me." So I followed him to the teller window. He took my money and went behind the counter and handed it to one of the tellers who was helping someone in the line. The teller immediately stopped what he was doing and got my change. I said thanks when they handed it to me and left. Today the same thing. Only this time a man at the desk nearest the teller said, "Madam, what do you need." I told him change. He said, "Come, Sit!" So I did. He asked what kind of change and took my money, walked behind the counter and the teller stopped what he was doing and got my change. The nice man who sits at the desk brought back my change and I said thank you and left. I found Elder K. and told him what had happened. He was in line. There was a lady behind him that was trying to cut him out of the line. (cutting you out of the line is the tradition of how the game is played here) He looked to me like he wasn't in line, but I noticed his hand in the window with his money underneath it! He didn't muscle the lady out of line but he kept his place in the line. We've learned if you don't snuggle the person in front of you, someone jumps in front of you!!
Elder K. says it's easier for me because they think I'm Princess Diana. Thats a joke between us because when we first came two teenagers told me that I looked like Princess Diana!! (Ha Ha!!)