Hursts in India

Our Girls, Zone Conference, Senior Missionaries Touring Delhi Jeanette and some of the girls; Jeanette, Soni  and Ganga Writing letters to someone special in their lives -  one said, "I  love  my grandmother!"  Another wrote a kind and touching letter of appreciation to us.  L: Arti and Deepanchi; R: Soni, Ganga, Guon-guon & Bhoomi     L:  Ganga & Guon-guon; R: Ganga Playing "ring on a string" game Zone Conference with Elder/Sister Homer (Hong Kong) We met on Tuesday, this was the other half of the mission who met on Thursday - still looking for our photo! Senior Tour of Delhi   Lihn Nguyen and her mother from Hanoi.  We randomly met them at the airport where they asked to use our telephone as their's was not working.  Then, again randomly, we ran into them at the Baha'i Lotus Temple.  Lihn works for the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi.   L-R:  Deakins (Nepal); Hursts; ...

This week just flew!  We spent the first part of it in Delhi.  On Tuesday evening we visited our girls. They really enjoyed creating charades to illustrate how to show kindness to others.  The older girls are so sweet as they guide and encourage their younger sisters. Wednesday we caught this celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi.  Processions like these have been going on all week.  Traditionally the idol is thrown into the Yamuna River at the end of the celebration but in an effort to protect the river, the city has created artificial bodies of water in which to dispose of the idol.  Ganesh ended up in this one in the park across the street. Thursday afternoon we flew to Kolkata to help the members there prepare for the 25th Anniversary of the Branch .  Friday we went with Anita Pyne to visit the Joint Municipal Commissioner of Bidhannagar, the municipality that includes Salt Lake City, and the mayor.  We stopped at Fl...

Birthday celebrations and idols for Durgha Puja - make the idols, perform puja (do worship) and then bathe them, usually by dunking them into a sacred river - Yamuna, Ganga . . . today for environment reasons they make ponds around the city for the purpose of bathing the idols . . . Elder Skidmore and I celebrated birthdays, he  l'enfante  at 62 years aur mera puraana hoon! (and I'm old) at 70!    Packaging baby blankets made by Jeanette and the sisters for donation to a newborn unit in Rishikesh Makers of the idols for the Durgha Puja, near the Palam Flyover, just a few blocks from our apartment  Hand molds -   Face molds -  Toe molds Finished - waiting for their paint jobs Jeanette proselyting with Sisters Matheshu and Meenakshi Muthu in Munirka More help with the baby blankets in our apartment -    Sister Shakuntla and Sister Hansen

Monday morning we visited the South Park Street Cemetery in Calcutta.  Opened in 1767, it is one of the earliest non-church cemeteries in the world and probably the largest Christian cemetery outside Europe and America in the 19th century .  It is full of English soldiers, clergymen, civil servants and East India Company officers, employees and their families, many of whom died young in the unhealthy (for Europeans) climate.    The cemetery was restored and this impressive entry gate built in the 1980s We arrived in a downpour but the clouds quickly parted revealing a beautiful blue morning sky. The cemetery is filled with oversize, elaborate tombs.  Some say that these otherwise "middling" English built these grandiose tombs because here they could afford them.  At home such memorials would be completely out of their social and economic reach.  Small consolation for dying so young and so far away from home! The tomb of Charles "...