Entry #8 -- July 1, 2008 - July 31, 2008

In July, we just yearned for a routine, but along with that came challenges and first-time events.
Firsts. We attended our first zone conference (a meeting with the other missionaries) on July 4th and celebrated with pizza and chocolate cake. Kent got his first haircut. It cost $1.50 and included a head, neck and shoulder massage. Carol got her first haircut as well. She asked for a 1" trim and they took off three! She looked just like her school photo from 3rd grade. We took our first train trip, to Rajamundry, to visit two branches (congregations). On the way you can enjoy the view of the countryside and watch the villages pass by. No one is shy about hanging their laundry! We stayed in the Anand Regency hotel (which has a flat-screen t.v.) but the town has no American food, so you pack your pb&j. On another weekend we traveled to Kakinada. They have one branch. There are no hotels, that you would want to stay in, so we hired a car and driver for the day. Another pb&j day.
Challenges. We know that the power can go out at any time, so we each have a penlight flashlight. At first our washing machine took 5 hours to run a load. Now that we cleaned the filter and removed a washer that was obstructing the water flow, we are down to 45 minutes. The toaster oven took 3 hours to bake a batch of brownies, but no one cared and they were eaten quickly. All of the adapters and converters that we brought with us do not work in our outlets. It doesn't make much difference because Kent blew up Carol's hairdryer and her curling iron broke in transit. We don't feel like total idiots because we do know how to work the water filtration system (our life depends on it) and can even log on to Skype and call our children and grandchildren(that keeps us going).
People are all so friendly and want to help. We speak in English to other people who are speaking English, but we can't understand each other. Sometimes we are lost, or just look lost. We stand out so much, that people tend to stare at us; yet we must be staring at them as well. We should have our own reality show!


Train station in Visakhapatnam. Our trip to Rajamundry took 3 1/2 hours and the trip to Hyderabad took 14 hours. The railway system in India employs 1,100,000 people. The trains are a major mode of transportation.

The church building in Rajamundry is two-story. Everyone calls it the A/C church because it is the only church in the city with air conditioning. There is a basketball court in the front which doubles as a parking lot (for motorcycles!).

This is Sister Azra (in the suit) who is leaving on her mission. Her friends went to the train station to send her off. She will travel by train for 24 hours to Bangalore. Then she will fly to Manila, Philippines where she will be at the Missionary Training Center for 19 days. She will be assigned to serve in Hyderabad.

This is President Ratnam, Branch President of Visakhapatnam 1st Branch, and his wife and two teenage children. They invited us to their home in "Steel Plant" for an authentic Indian dinner. We traveled by "auto" and by bus to get there and home.

These are the Primary children from Visakhapatnam 2nd Branch. They were enjoying a Primary activity but stopped to get their picture taken. They love the camera!

This is the George family. The youngest daughter was baptized. In the picture with her is her father, mother, older sister and grandmother.