I love Red

 This outfit is one of my favourite Indian outfits.  I love it!

Jerome and I picked it out, ready made, from the rack.

 Jerome is super good about doing the shopping, washing fruit, cutting the fruit and washing the dishes.  Some days he even cooks, and I love it. He tells me that I am a kept woman!!  He is correct! 

 He is so happy and lookin' good!  I love the red apron, too.

He has lost quite a bit of weight.  Can you tell?

 It used to be a little tight, but now fits well as I have lost some weight, too.

 The salwar kameez is super comfy, like wearing your pyjamas all day long.

I love the detail of the embroidery and sequence.

Bylakuppe

Bylakuppe is a small town in south India about an hour south of Mysore.

It is where a Tibetan refugee group has settled.

There were some BYU students passing through the office on May 9th heading there to do some research on the music of this group of people from Tibet. They planned to be there four months.

This is Britney on the left and Beau & Lori on the right.

It's been 2 months.  I wonder how their stay and research has been going. 

I'm going to email this photo to them and find out how it's going.

Karthik got his call!

We have been submitting so many mission calls for young men and women to go on missions from the India Bangalore Mission.

Recently there have been so many calls arrive.  When they arrive, we send them out to the excited faithful ones waiting patiently.

Today, Karthik got his call and opened it in the office so we got to see.

 His brother, Rohith, is along for moral support.  It's fun to watch.

 Okay, he's opening up his call packet!

 He's opening....

 Elder Wigg is encouraging him to just rip it open!

Karthik was happy to get his call and is willing to go wherever the Lord wants him to serve.  He will be going to the India New Delhi mission.  

We are sad to lose him as we'd really like him to serve here in our mission.  But he will be a good missionary serving in Delhi, as well.

A Birthday to Remember

This is my only birthday in India, so we decided to celebrate all day, if possible.

It started with flowers at our door the night before. We didn't know at first who they were from.

We found out later that they were from Karthik, one of our Branch members who also drives cab for us sometimes.

Karthik and Selvyn brought them over on his bike (motorbike) and left them at our door.  

That is so sweet!  Thank you, Karthik.

 This is my birthday gift from Jerome.  It is a lovely chain with a heart and 'I love you' pendant.

I totally love it.  It hangs quite long and is symbolic of our marriage.  When you get married here, the husband gives his bride a gold chain and pendant.  It is a tradition. Thank you so much, Sweetie!

This is the name of the store where we shopped for our gold jewelry.  I also got the little gold elephant pendant which you might see in some of the pictures.  I love it, as well.

The Birthday card on the right is from Jerome and is full of hearts.  He knows how much I love butterflies, especially here in India.  One morning a actually ran with some at the park.

The birthday wish on the left was taped to my computer screen when I got to work.  It is from the assistants, Elder Sharma & Elder Vinck. Thank you, Elders!

I have taped these 2 wonderful messages into my Journal to keep to remember this day.

 This beautiful bouquet of flowers arrived shortly after our day started in the office.  They are gorgeous.

The red rose represents love, the yellow carnation stand for friendship and the green means forever.  The white (Lily) stands for purity of our love.  It is a great thought and very sentimental.

 This is my Birthday Cake, Chocolate Almond, from Cake Walk.

 I'm sure everyone is hungry. (Elder Sharma is taking the pictures. Thanks, Elder Sharma!)

 The food is ready.

Let's get the cake part done first.

 Prem lights the candles.

 The tension is mounting!

 Okay, make a wish.

 I took in a deep breath.

 And blew out the candles.

 Everyone cheered for me.

Yes! I got all the candles out!

 I cut the cake.

I fed Jerome first, but he should've fed me first.  We are still learning.

Mmmm....cake

 I fed myself, but Jerome was supposed to do that.

Now we have it right! My mouth was pretty wide.

President Robert William, my boss.

 Sam taking a photo with his Samsung multi-purpose device.

 Shankar, our office worker.

Chicken Biryani

Here is the conference room with the lunch spread.

 Looks like a discussion over lunch.

Sam

 Vivian, enjoying the Biryani.

 Sister Funk visiting with Judy.

 President Funk visiting with the Assistants, Elder Vinck and Elder Sharma.

This is taken outside of the conference room on the 3rd floor balcony.

Later that evening we had Jonas and Sam and their families over for dinner.

Jonathan is such a cutie!

 Asha feeding fruit to Jonathan

 Oh, a dirty face...

 There is the clean face again.

 The remnants of supper. We ordered pizza from Dominos and we had salad, fruit salad and black forest cake with ice cream. It was a fun meal!

 It was fun to have the 2 couples over.  Vivian & Teresa were going to come, too, but couldn't at the last minute.

Jonas, Asha & Jonathan

Sam & Prahdika

 Flowers from Sam & Prahdika.

I had so many nice comments and birthday wishes on Facebook, as well.
Turning 57 never felt so good, or lasted so long, across the world!
Thank you, everyone, for a fun and memorable day!