Toleofoa and the Bananas

Funny story......Elder Toleofoa (from Hawaii) was walking down the street by the park with his companion and a bag full of bananas. They were headed to their apartment when they were accousted by about 30 monkeys who saw the food. Elder Toleofoa decided the only way out was to throw bananas at the monkeys. It worked, but as soon as he threw the first banana and the monkeys figured out what he had.....they all started to chase him. He and his companion were running down the street lobbing bananas over their shoulder to keep the monkeys away. That verifies the stories we've heard about being careful when the monkeys are around and you are walking down the street with food. One of the sisters told us that a monkey grabbed a banana from her hand as she was walking.....I thought that sounded fishy and never really believed her....Now I've heard several people say the monkeys are very aggressive and it's true. They will grab food right from your hand.

Meet Some of Our Friends

Ammon with his mom Kumari. Her husbands name is Kumar. Many of the children are named after prophets and apostles and some book of Mormon people. Kumari does a lot of translating for the church. They are trying to translate magazines and books into Telugu. She and some of the other members have been to Salt Lake City a few times in regards to the translation. She also translates for our Marriage and family relations class. She and Kumar are fun and keep us laughing and smiling. She has a great sense of humor but when they want to talk fast here they switch over to Telugu and I'm lost! I keep telling them I know it was funny....I just don't know what you said!!

Sudoker in the back right. He's one of our 4th branch kids. Daniel holding on to Elder Kasper. A new member of about 3 months and a wonderful young man. We've written about Daniel and his sisters Kiran and Joslin. We love all these kids.

Solomon and Prasana. Prasana is due to have her first baby in November. They are a great couple. They've had us to dinner and if we need anything Solomon is one of the people we call. These people take such good care of us.

Shaker Bodhu and his wife Vani. They sing in our choir and are such a cute couple. They are in first branch so we have to search for ways to spend time with some of our good friends in first branch. Bodhu is the one who sings "Come Follow Me" in between serves on the volleyball court. When we try to close choir....he's always saying, "One more song sister!" Vani is the New Relief Society President in 1st Branch. She's very dedicated. A wonderful young couple that we are privileged to know.

Mahesh is Shaker Bodhu's brother. He was the one who called me first for Mothers Day and wished me a happy mothers day. That's the only reason he called. I told him he was first. None of my kids had emailed or called at that point.....Truth be known it wasn't even mothers day yet in the USA when Mahesh called. He feels like one of my kids. We have a zillion kids here!!

WEDDING BELLS AGAIN

Rennie and Keerthi got married Friday night. They are a cute couple from 4th branch. He's been on a mission (to India) and when he returned from his mission he served as branch president. He is now Elders quorum president and Keerthi is in the Relief Society Presidency.
Shaker Bodhu next to Rennie is in a traditional outfit. I can't remember the name. Women wear something similar and it's called a Salwar Kameez. You see the women are wearing their beautiful Sari's.

Rennie and Keerthi have plans to attend BYU. They said probably July next year they will leave India. I'm so excited to have them close by for a couple of years.

WEST MARRED PALLY

This is West Marred Pally Street. It runs in front of the 1st & 2nd Branch Chapel. It is 2 blocks from our apartment building. This is a common site here. People sell and deliver out of these little carts. This one is definately Hindu and one that looks like this is often a traveling Hindu Temple. I noticed this one has a little child in it. We love India because of the unique things you see....like this!!
It's unique to us but a very common site here.

View from Our Living Room

This is the club next door. The man in the picture has a goat and he is chopping up the meat probably for goat curry. They chop it up bone and all with a meat cleaver. Same when they do chicken. They whack it several times, bone and all...It all goes in the pot. I have blogged pictures of the big pots but we found the process interesting....(Poor little goat)

RAMOJI FILM CITY

I know this is a lot of pictures but I couldn't decide which ones to leave out....and I did leave a lot of them out!!!
We had a Zone Activity today with all of the missionaries serving in Hyderabad. (about 30 of us) We went about one and 1/2 hour by bus to RAMOJI FILM CITY. It's India's version of Universal Studios....
We had a great time and enjoyed the day together. I can't say it was as good as Universal Studios but I can say the company was great.

This is the gate coming into Film City. I'm so fascinated at all the metal and concrete they use here. Nothing is made of wood. Wood is a premium and hard to get. But metal is cheap, cheap, cheap!!
Fun Elders to be with. Only 2 sisters in our group and 3 couples. This is the entrance.
Sign as you drive in...

Lots of people around to entertain us. And Statues to take pictures with.

Getting ready to watch a western stunt show. That's Sister Arza taking a picture and several of the elders that were with us. We all took of in different directions when we first got there, but many of us ended up spending a lot of the day together.

My Super Man Guy looks pretty good huh?
This is the cute man I brought with me ! We have lots of fun together. I sometimes have fun just watching Elder Kasper because he seems to really be enjoying all of this. Especially the days where we don't run ourselves to death. We don't often get a play day like this and you can tell by his smile he liked this!!
Elder Clark having fun!
Elder Toleafoa left from Hawaii

Elder Evans behind karate Joe!

Elder Nixon sitting

Elder Tyler right. (He's from Jackson Wyoming and he's one of the zone leaders.) All but Elder Tyler just came
Still the actor and makes me laugh every day. I really liked this picture.

We all liked this fat little boy. Elder Kasper bought this hat for me today. It cost 130 rupees. Thats almost $3....It's really a cute hat. Elder K actually bought 11 hats for me. Keep going and you'll hear the story.
These cowboy hats are the other 10 hats we Elder K. purchased. We bought them for our 4th branch line dancers. They were really hoping to wear cowboy hats when we dance. We got them for 25 rupees. That's about 50 cents each. The elders saw us with all the hats and wore them until it was time to leave film city.

India's version of it's a small world. Very different.

Basketball dancers!

Sister Arza left. (from India)

Sister LaFevre (from Utah) She was born in India but she and her 2 sisters were adopted by a family from Utah when she was only 6 years old. Her family consists of 14 children and they are all adopted. I told her she must have a wonderful mother. Sister LaFevre was very excited to receive a mission call to India and she and Sister Arza are wonderful missionaries. I quite often go with them to teach. It's definately my pleasure to work with these sweet sisters.
Riding the rides. Elder Alred was trying to hand of his hat during the ride. Great Missionaries. They know how to work and they had fun playing together. It's good to see they can have fun too! A little fun makes the work go better....at least in my book!

I do believe this is the hallway that never ends! We really liked this picture too! It's actually a painting on a wall in the haunted House!!

Those crazy cowboy elders crossing the bridge that takes you to the haunted mansion! Only problem was every time I would take my camera out to take a picture...out would pop 6 more cameras. Elder K would take 3 and I would take 3....Needless to say it took some time to take all these pictures.


Elder & Sister LaDuke (Left)

Elder and Sister Fullmer (right)

LaDukes are LDS humanitarian missionaries and work with 1st branch. Fullmers were in Sri Lanka but got kicked out because of the wrong visa. (Along with all the other missionaries...Missionary work is closed in Sri Lanka) They take care of 3rd branch. 3rd branch is an hour away for us so we are so happy they are here.

It was a great day as you see!

New Missionaries in Hyderabad

New missionary to Hyderabad, Elder Christensen is helping Satish with the piano. Elder Christensen has about 5 months left. He is serving in 4th branch. We now have 4 elders serving in 4th branch!! The church is growing in Hyderabad and so is the missionary program!!
Satish serves on the Young adult committee for Youth conference. We've had a lot of fun getting to know him. There are some wonderful young people that we get to work with. We are so blessed.

Our Newest Neighbors

These Parrots have moved into the apartment right next to us. It's out our kitchen balcony where the pigeons nested.
We have loved watching these 2. They must be very attached to each other as we never see just one. They are always together.

6 MONTH ANNIVERSARY

It's our 6 month anniversary and no one is more surprised than us! The time has gone by so quickly. We know we will blink our eyes and this mission will be over. In this past 6 months we've met some wonderful people and our lives have been enriched far and beyond any service we've been able to give. We are indeed grateful for the opportunity to serve....especially in India.

The Kids at the Zoo

Jeffery and Karen (in the yellow shirt) are cousins and they were my responsibility at the zoo. Karen is Pres. Venods daughter (2nd branch president) Jeffery and Janice (orange shirt) are brother and sister.
I would really like Jeffery to be Keayen or Porter's PenPal. He is 7 and watches the discovery channel and he knew all of the animals. He's a very smart little boy. (Sister Jothi in the purple)
Janice
Jonathan taking the picture.

Jonathan's mom just had another baby boy. This makes 4 cute little boys. They are all handsome little boys. Jonathan is one of the best singers in primary. He is not afraid to sing out. Today I went to visit AnnaPurna (his mom) and the new baby. He was playing David and Goliath with his homemade slingshot!!
We had nice group.....and this is not everyone. There are 3-4 missing in the picture.

My good friend Sirisha is the primary pres. They challenged her to dance on the bus. She's a good sport.
Sister Jothi is one of my favorite people. She is a new convert....I think 3 months. Her 5 children and also her husband were also baptised. They are a great little family. We love to visit them. She is a superb cook!!

Victor (husband to AnnaPurna who just had the new baby)
Eating lunch I brought peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Everyone else had rice and tried to share it with me. I did end up eating some of Sister Jothi's because she is such a good cook. It was yummy.

Our bus!!!
Robert and his wife, Priyanka were also part of our group. They have 1 child.


2 of Sister Jothi's 5 children. Sister Jothi was sustained as 2nd counselor in the primary presidency Sunday. Working with Sirisha will be a good experience for her.