This is so typical of what you see in India. The only time we might see anything remotely close to this in the States would be at a parade! I marvel that this is an everyday sight for us here! This man was so proud of his little cow!! I liked it so much that I gave him a few rupees to take a picture! He was happy and so was I. 
These aren't the best pictures but I loved the kids and I wanted you to see the writing in Telegu. Such a funny little school bus.
I've been trying to get a picture of the bus since we arrived. We love this view. I wish had 3 or 4 different shots of this bus in action. It's hard for you to see the 2 on the outside will only have 1 foot on the bus step when the bus takes off. Once the bus was moving I watched our cab speedometer to see how fast we were going. 40-50 kilometers and those 6 or 7 men hanging on the side of the bus. Every window and seat jammed with people. A seat for 2 holds 6 and the isles are packed with people standing. I can't even imagine the ride from there point of view.
Elder Kunha (left) and Elder Story (right) eating their last meal in this apartment. We move them out tomorrow. This mission is doing away with bigger apartments. 1 set of elders to an apartment. They're are a lot of 4somes in Hyderabad.
One of our new assignments is to find apartments for the missionaries. We have spent the last 3 weeks looking at apartments and getting leases and contracts signed. Communication is sometimes the hard part! Our good friend Shaker (middle) was with us every step of the way. He is a member of 3rd branch and also works for LDS Charities. We've had the opportunity to go to many of the villages with Shaker to see church humanitarian service in action. Shaker also knows all the great places to stop and get something to eat. He took us to a really great restaurant after we were frazzled from looking at apartments one day. I'm growing very fond of Indian food prepared properly.
Our apartment was the gathering place as often as possible during lockdown. This is some of the Elders and Sisters playing our famous game from Family Home Evening, "Don't Eat Pete."
Elder Allred, Elder Otis (black belt karate) and Elder Siyyadri
Elder Siyyadri
Elder Siyyadri didn't know that it was a birthday party for him.
Elder Allred and Elder Jones attempting to make Homemade Root Beer.
This is our vegetable market. We pass it on the way everytime we go to the church. 
This is a picture of the temporary building they put up at the end of the street. The curtain is hiding the statue inside. They weren't done decorating this one with palm leaves and flowers and lights.
This is Ganesh the Hindu God. He has 4 arms and an elephants head.
sold right where they were made. The smaller ones were transported to different areas and sold by the street vendors.
They range in size from a few inches high to 70 feet. The biggest one was 70 feet tall.
This is a 10 day celebration. About every other block you will find a temporary hindu temple that they build in the middle of the street and put the statue inside and decorate with lights, leaves and flowers. Then they light candles and incense and sing and chant. We don't really understand it because it's Hindu. We can tell you they like to celebrate!!
This is an area where the statues were made. The people who make them live in the tarp village you see in the background.
There are hundreds of little vegetable vendors on the streets as shown below.
over a flyover. (like an overpass in the US only much longer with lots of room underneath it) We made an immediate left after the flyover and were driving along side of it. To our surprise, underneath the flyover were 1000's of people preparing produce to go on these little stands you see and to also be trucked to vegetable markets.
I don't want you to have a misunderstanding of what was happening so I took a few close up shots of the people working with the produce.
There are so many vegetables here that we haven't tried because we don't know what they are. We get braver all the time and it's not always a good thing. I suppose it's what you're used to but not all kids like broccoli and cauliflower!! I don't suppose I'll ever learn to eat everything that's available. One day the little lady at our vegetable stand put some chilies in as a surpirse.
They looked just like the green string beans and where cooked with the beans. Our mouths were on fire by the time we finished that meal!!
You can see the scale they use to weigh and measure the produce. They put a block of weight to see how many kg. of produce you have. Not the scale you see in a US grocery store.
The produce market extended on the other side of the street in some areas.
This is a Hindu temple just around the corner from where we live. There are lots of Hindu temples in this city. One every mile or so..... The last picture is my new sewing place! I had "Nas" (prounounced Naz) make me a couple of new shirts. A couple of nights ago I found out she is Muslim. This is how I found out.
started speaking to me. It's unusual for the muslim to be to friendly. I asked her to repeat what she said and when she did I said, "Nas, is that you?" She giggled and said yes. I told her I didn't recognize her. She was asking if I had picked up my shirts. I told Elder Kasper that she totally shocked me! 
As you see the name of her shop is "Top Fashion." On the right is a phone booth. The blue shirt I am wearing was made by Nas.
