Good-Bye 2013; Hello 2014



We have shown pictures of autos many times before, but this picture and the rest of the pictures of autos in this week's blog represent an "interesting" experience we had. On Monday, December 30, we received a call from Sister Berrett inviting us to go to lunch with them and the assistants. It was an opportunity to say thank you to Elder Mills for all the work he did as an assistant. He was transferred to Coimbatore, and Elder Coombs is now one of the assistants. Okay, we will return to our story. The Berretts were on their way back from the airport with Elder Coombs, and they were going to take him to the assistants' apartment where Elder Mills and  Elder Ravi were waiting. The Berretts and the assistants would be driven to the restaurant (Chili's) with the Berretts, and we and the Smiths would take an auto. We walked the short distance from the office to where the autos wait outside our apartment complex and hired an auto.

The driver started the auto, and we were on our way. (This is obviously not the auto we were in.)The four of us were in one auto, as it wasn't very far to the mall. Sister Tiefenbach sat on Elder Tiefenbach's knee, and Sister Smith sat slightly forward of Elder Smith so we could all fit in. The seating arrangement is important in the events that followed. Within the first few minutes of our trip, we knew something was wrong. Because Elder Tiefenbach's view was obscured by Sister Tiefenbach, he did not see the extend to the "wrongness" of the situation, but Sister Tiefenbach saw it ALL. The driver began veering off to the left, drawing closer and closer to the curb. Sister Tiefenbach almost called out the driver to tell him to get away from the curb when the driver steered right into the curb. We were definitely jarred by the impact. We thought the auto was going to tip over (remember autos have only three wheels). Well, we did not tip. The driver then began driving again. Sister Tiefenbach thought he was in the process of making a U-turn on the street to head back to the apartment complex to let us off. Ha!!! NO such luck!

Instead, he drove directly into the center median where we experienced the second crash.

By this time, Sister Smith was loudly exclaiming to the driver, "What are you doing?!!!!" We all joined in demanding an answer from him. He said that "someone came out." Hello????? There was no one around - no pedestrians, no other vehicles - no one. The driver was obviously under the influence of something if he was seeing something that wasn't there. Well, we jumped out of the auto; the auto driver was shaking. A huge crowd gathered within seconds. (We never cease to be amazed at how quickly huge crowds gather here.) The crowd was yelling at the auto driver, and people motioned to us to move on to the sidewalk. We moved to the sidewalk and left the auto driver with his auto. We are not sure how or when he left, but he must driven his auto away or pushed it away. We are sure it sustained a fair bit of damage. Back to the sidewalk: While we were on the sidewalk one man started to "scold" us about taking an auto. He was asking, "Why are you taking an auto?" He then told us that autos are dangerous and that we should always take a cab, NEVER an auto.

We told him we were going a short distance to the mall so we just grabbed an auto. He then told us that we should walk then. We are sure he wasn't angry with us; he was concerned for our safety. So, we decided we had enough with autos for the day, and we began walking to the mall. Meanwhile, President and Sister Berrett had been waiting a long time for the assistants to come out of their apartment. President Berrett suddenly had the impression to go to the restaurant and have the elders follow later in an auto. President Berrett thought he should come so we wouldn't be waiting for them at  the restaurant, but in reality, he was inspired to come so they could pick us up. Shortly after we began walking, Elder Tiefenbach saw their car. They saw us and stopped to pick us up. Sister Berrett was wondering why we were walking. They were shocked when we told them why. We are so grateful for an inspired mission president who came to our rescue.

Sister Tiefenbach and Sister Smith bore the brunt of the crashes, as their positioning in the auto protected both Elder Tiefenbach and Elder Smith from any injuries. The sisters, on the other hand, sustained a few bruises on their hips and legs (huge bruises, we might add) and received some scrapes. Sister Smith's lip was hit on something in the auto, so her lip was bleeding for a short while. As you can see from the pictures, autos do not have sides. We were lucky that we were not thrown from the auto. We were also lucky that a big truck or big bus was not barreling down the street when the auto driver turned around on the street before he crashed into the center median. Despite the scary experience, we had a good lunch and continued on with our work day. What an interesting way to end the year.

The next day, we were back to work as usual. My, Sister Tiefenbach has such a nice neat, clean desk!

We had company on Tuesday night. Three sisters from Rajahmundry came to Bangalore to be set apart for their missions. Because of the flight schedules, we had to bring them in Tuesday evening for their Wednesday setting apart. Sister Gujju (left), Sister Mucherla, and Sister Boddupalli were so excited to be leaving for their missions. What a great way to welcome the New Year!

The next day, they joined us at the office, along with Elder Mulampaka from Vizak (who also arrived Tuesday evening - he stayed with the assistants). Here they are viewing some videos that are part of the pre-MTC online training.

Elder Ravindran from Bangalore (beside Sister Tiefenbach) joined us in the afternoon. This is the last larger batch of missionaries that we are sending off to the MTC before we leave; although we have one more batch to get ready before we leave. The batch will consist of only two missionaries. Realizing that these will be our last batches is a very sobering thought. Getting missionaries ready to leave is an exciting part of our work. Receiving them back into the mission (for those returning to our mission) is also wonderful. Well, they are ready to go, and now, we worry a bit, thinking about whether everything will go well for them as they make flight connections and find their way to the appointed pick up location at the Manila airport. Being a parent of so many children is hard work!

Meanwhile, the bruises have become very colourful! Sleeping on only one side or on the back is a must. Ahh!!! the sight of a crane is always great to take one's mind off of accidents and bruises. This crane (not the bird type) sits outside our apartment complex, and we can see it everyday from two of our windows. A LOT of building is going on in Bangalore, and we see many cranes along the skyline around here. These are going to be  tall buildings. Many new tall apartment complexes are being built. The buildings that we saw under construction in Indiranagar were smaller buildings, so cranes were never used.

This is the construction site next to our building. We are sure that in the not too distant future, we will have a crane in our own "back yard." In the construction sites in Indiranagar, where the buildings were smaller, we never saw the workers wearing boots or hard hats, or any other protective wear. Here, at this construction site, we see a lot of hard hats and boots. They may not be steel toes boots, but they are boots instead of sandals.





 This is the security entrance to our apartment complex. We don't know how the security guards know who is or is not a resident, but they seem to do a good job of it. They know us well; and they always seem to be thrilled when we say, "Good morning!" They always have big smiles for us when we return.








We have a good view of the entrance, and we see people coming and going. We think that almost everyone in the apartment complex has at least one maid. Everyday when we go for our walk early in the morning, we see them coming. We also see many coming later in the evening to prepare for the evening meal. The woman in green is likely a maid. We receive "ads" through our email from fellow tenants. We see many ads requesting referrals for maids. We quite enjoy having someone coming in twice a week to do some of the housework. We would love to have the same luxury in Canada, but we know that will not happen.

 We can see our office from one of our bedroom windows. The mission office and mission home is the white building on the right side of the picture with a red roof (no, no NOT the left side of the picture - look on the right side). We have thought that we should build a zip line joining our apartment with the mission office. Okay, picture in your mind Sister Tiefenbach whipping down the zip line toward the office. Well, maybe no one can picture that. Or, maybe you picture the look of horror on her face as she screams the whole way down. Elder Tiefenbach would probably not scream as loud. The problem with the zip line is that we can't figure out how we could bet back to the apartment using the zip line. We would have to motorize it to make that happen.

Today, is a beautiful sunny day. In one area of the grounds, we have a playground for the children. The complex offers a safe environment for children. This is such a contrast to the poorer areas where children are playing in the constructions sites where their parents are working, or where children are manoeuvring through the traffic begging for money (their parents send them out to beg). The difference between those with money and those without money is stark here.

According to Indian traditions, men and women should never make affectionate physical contact with each other. We rarely see men and women holding hands or walking arm in arm, but we are beginning to see it more often, especially among the younger people. We have also seen it more in Bangalore than in Coimbatore. Here we see a young couple walking arm in arm in the grounds below our apartment window.






Just outside the actual apartment grounds, we have a "mall" called The Arcade. It is mostly empty now, but it has a few places that we use. On the corner closest to us is a small grocery store. We often buy our groceries there. We also go to a bread store farther down the mall called "Daily Bread." The main thing that we can't get nearby is meat. We still need to go into Indiranagar for that.





We found a beauty salon in The Arcade. Sister Tiefenbach got her hair cut there. She was a bit nervous to change her hairdresser. She had found a great stylist in a place called "Bounce." But, this haircut turned out to be good. The stylist knew what he was doing. Whew! What a relief! What do you think?








Elder Tiefenbach also got his hair cut, but not at the same place. He got his haircut at a small barbershop where the assistants go. It cost him less than a dollar. The haircut is okay, but the place is not the cleanest. Sister Tiefenbach's haircut cost about $8.00.

These are the first white foreigners Sister Tiefenbach has seen in the apartment complex. Elder Tiefenbach saw some a few days ago. Someone said that many white foreigners live in our complex, but we haven't seen any until the past few days. We often forget that we are foreigners, and when we see other foreigners, we say, "Hey, look there are some foreigners."







As we begin the New Year, we can look back on the year and learn from the past, but we must always look forward to the future with faith because faith always points to the future. Our faith and hope is in Christ, as Paul in his letter to the Philippians says, "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14). Elder Jeffrey R. Holland teaches us: "Faith is for the future. Faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us" (Ensign, January 2010, p. 27). He reminds us that Christ truly is the "high priest of good things to come" (Hebrews 9:11).