What a way to start the new month!
‘Isi has been coughing for two days. He woke up saying that he felt sick yesterday, so I gave him some Alleve. It made him feel better, but he started coughing and it has gotten worse and worse. I did a COVID test on him which was negative. Liana came after work with a flu test and it was positive – type A. So she gave both of us medicine – mine is preventative. I am feeling quite tired so it may be the start of the flu. Both of us have been staying home for the most part.
For Thanksgiving, we had ‘Isi, Emi, and Ali’i over for turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, and pumpkin pie. Then Liana, Ileina, and Siope came later as well as Joel, Jojo, Eryn, and Anna. Jacob, Mandy, Jakey, Zion, and Bella also came. We still seemed to have so much food. The grandkids put up our Christmas tree in the front living room and it looks very pretty there.
We had stake conference in the Tongan stake so I had to sit up on the stage (I really don’t like it). but I am trying to support my husband as Patriarch. Since then, he has done four blessings. I get to type up the blessings and they are very inspirational.
It has been so cold lately with some snow. I don’t really want to leave the house right now because I seem to be colder than usual. I keep the temperature in the house at 73 degrees but the sisters downstairs like it cooler than that so I usually wear a jacket or sweater.
A couple of years ago, our family started picking names for Christmas presents. It really has taken a lot of stress out of my Christmas. It is always fun to shop, but I usually feel like I don’t have enough or the right thing for everyone, so we decided to go this way.
I don’t think I wrote about our trip to India so I am going to now.
INDIA
Never did I ever think that I would travel all the way to India. Our son, Robert is a Colonel in the US Air Force and he is currently stationed in New Delhi, India. So, we took the opportunity to go there while he was still there. It took many hours to travel all the way to India, but luckily the flights were uneventful.
In our party, we had Joel and Anna, Aaron and Losa (Anna’s cousin and wife), and ‘Isi and I. We stayed at Robert’s home about three nights and the rest of the nights we were on the road. Our friend from when we were at BYU-Hawaii, Benson Massey, planned the whole trip for us because he owns travel agency. We traveled by local flight and then by bus the rest of the time as we caught some very beautiful landmarks and heard about their history.
The traffic was chaotic. Horns beeped almost constantly as cars, buses, tuktuks, motorcycles, bicycles, and cows maneuvered their way through the narrow roads. Their driving was on the left side of the road. Cows are sacred in India, so everyone would avoid them and let them do whatever they wanted. Robert always has a driver because it is quite dangerous to drive. We had a few different drivers and several tour guides that were so nice and thorough in explaining what we were seeing.
My favorite place was the Taj Mahal and we got up early in the morning to watch the sun come up and shine on it! it was so beautiful and it is the result of a love story. The hotel we stayed at was so amazingly beautiful and the food we ate at the hotel was delectable.
We got to ride on an elephant, see some amazing forts, the Wall of India, palaces, crematorium, elegant buildings and very poor areas of towns. There were such stark contrasts between the castes – very wealthy and then so poor that it pulled at my heart strings. There were many beggars at most places we went and there was one mother that was holding her nearly naked baby who kept begging from me. Rob kept telling me to ignore her, but it was very difficult for me. I think she knew it, so she was relentless in her begging until I finally gave her some money. I felt somewhat better and then she went after the rest of my family.
There are huge malls in Delhi with many familiar stores and fast food places. However, the food was not the same as the familiar ones we had back home. I ordered some KFC and it was very spicy. I ended up with very bad indigestion for about half a day. So, I was much more careful after that.
I loved seeing the beautiful attire of the Indian women. They wore sari of every color and material and they loved to wear amazingly fancy jewelry. The newest style is like a bell earrings. We met the wife of one of Rob’s drivers and she gave me some fancy earrings. We attended church at a small ward with Rob and I was surprised at how many native Indians there were there. The bishop was from Idaho.
The trip to India seems like a dream, but I know it was real. I’m grateful that we got to go on this journey to the other side of the world. It was beautiful, enchanting, mesmerizing, incredible, as well as enlightening, inspirational, and sad. Humanity in India do not enjoy the freedoms we enjoy in America, but it seems they make the best out of what they have.
It made me wonder why some people choose to be born in India knowing the difficulties they would be faced with. It also made me appreciate the wonderful freedoms we enjoy in the United States.
