Hi Everyone --

It's been a better week -- everyone is feeling better!

Doug had Friday off work for Republic Day here in India. We were going to go to the movies, but the one we wanted to see was gone. We went to the circus instead. We went to the 1 p.m. show and bought 150 rupee tickets ($3.75) and we got to sit on the front row. It was quite an experience. There were trapeeze flyers, unicyclists, sharp shooters, those who twirled the plates on sticks, rope tricks, ring tricks, ladder tricks, juggling, ice skating, dog tricks, parrot tricks -- all kinds of interesting things for 2 1/2 hours. I sat in the only seat in the tent that had sunshine beating down on it. Luckily there weren't many people there and I just changed seats.

They also came by every 5 minutes selling snacks -- popcorn, juice boxes, ice cream, peanuts, chips, pop, cotton candy -- and they would ask over and over if we wanted to buy any. That was part of the ambiance too!

Saturday morning we went to Mumbai. We picked up a family of 4 on the way out of town. They invited us up to their flat and served water, hot milk, cookies, and barfi. How can you turn down such kind hospitality? Their flat had a living room, kitchen, bedroom, balcony, and bath room area. It was very neat and clean and probably large by Indian standards. They were very kind.

We dropped them off at the church to be taught by the missionaries who had flown up from Bangalore to teach all the people in the branch that were investigating -- 15. Apparently, 9 of these are ready to be baptized. They need to finish the rest of the discussions and then they are planning a big baptism event -- possibly at the beach of the Arabian Sea, possibly at a swimming pool. We'll see.

We then went to our friend's house and visited with them for a while then took off for the Hard Rock Cafe. I guess I'm about done there, but I know Hannah enjoyed it.

We went from Hard Rock to our other friend's flat in South Mumbai. Our driver just seems to know where to go to get us where we want to be. We were so full from lunch, we couldn't eat the great roast beef dinner they had prepared. We just had ice cream and visited with them and the missionaries. Then we went back north to the other member's house to sleep.

Today we went to church and we were invited to another Indian's home for lunch before we left to return to Pune. We had byriani that she had made for all the extended family members -- 3 kilos of rice and 3 kilos of chicken in a very big pot. It was very good and she served it with a salad of tomatoes, cucumber, onion, chilis with yogurt dressing. That's to help kill the burn.

We made it home by 5 p.m. We were very tired of being in the car.
It's been very cool here too -- 8C -- about 40 degrees F.

We will try to keep warm -- and we've heard about all the cold weather there -- you try to keep warm too!
We love you and miss you!
Love, Lucinda