After our daughter and granddaughters arrived on Saturday, February 15, we let them sleep for a few hours, and then we headed for Coimbatore. We had hired a driver to take us on the 6 hour trip to Coimbatore so we could go to the FRO and to apply for an exit permit and to say good-bye to Coimbatore. We took our daughter and granddaughters up on the roof of our apartment building. They enjoyed the view and the weather.
While we were on the roof looking down on the surrounding area, we saw a funeral procession, with many people following the ambulance/freezer box.
We attended two of the branches on Sunday, and then returned in the evening to say a final good-bye to some of the members. We also had the opportunity to have pictures taken with some of them. Here we are with the Amalaraj family. We hope to meet them again in this life.
Here we are with Brother Suresh and his family.
What is trip to Coimbatore without going to the bangle shop? The store owner is the mother of Elder Alosias, who is now one of the Assistants to the President. We all had a great time looking through all the bangles to make our choices of the ones we wanted to buy.
At one point in time, we were telling our daughter about the interesting objects we have seen carried on motorcycles and scooters. One of the things we mentioned was that we had seen a TV being transported that way. They thought it would be great if they could see that, and lo and behold, they got their wish when we headed to Bangalore on Tuesday. The driver and passenger were also carrying a lap top on the front and another package (the red and white one that can be seen here), as well as the TV.
On Wednesday, Sister Tiefenbach and the girls went to Bangalore Palace. After paying the admission fee, Sister Tiefenbach found out that she could have paid the fee for Indians. Sister Tiefenbach was delighted that she was considered an Indian. But, because the foreigner fee had already been paid, she could not get any money back, so the people in the castle said that we could take a few pictures inside the palace to make up for the extra money we spent on the admission fee. Normally, they charge an exorbitant amount of money (around $12.00) to take pictures.
Here we have our princesses outside the palace enjoying the beautiful grounds and the wonderful weather. We tried really hard not to laugh about all the poor folk back at home experiencing -40 degree weather.
The grounds were much drier than when we went to the Bangalore Palace with the Smiths, but we were still able to enjoy many beautiful flowers.
We love the bird of paradise flowers, but we think that our granddaughter is more beautiful than these colourful blooms.
We then made our way to Tippu Sultan's Palace. We had a lot of fun looking at the old architecture.
The pillars were great to see, and they also provided a great place to play. We wonder if the children many years ago played around the pillars.
The girls were so excited to see a cow outside the walls of the palace.
Carma (our daughter) and her girls loved their first auto ride as we toured these two palaces. Perhaps, they found the traffic from the view of an auto just as interesting as the palaces.
On Thursday, we had a cake that Sister Tiefenbach and Carma made the night before to celebrate three birthdays: Elder McDonald, Elder Veera, and Elder Tiefenbach. They all have birthdays within a few days of each other, so we grouped them together. This is the last cake that Sister Tiefenbach will be making in India. The chocolate cake was exceptionally good!
We will miss Brother Shajan who works with the finances for the church. He has a great appreciation for Elder Tiefenbach.
We end our blog this week with the arrival of our daughter, Krista, and our son-in-law, Danny. Yes, Sister Tiefenbach's eyes are a bit teary. We were so happy to see them. We thought they looked exceptionally good considering they had been travelling twenty-four hours. Their arrival signals the beginning of a whirlwind tour that we will share with you next week. We are so grateful that some of our family have come to India to see us.
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