I will remember you, will you remember me?

I am a little focused on goodbye this week. And yes I am a bit melancholy. We have become good friends with a couple from Saskatoon, Canada who have been serving a mission here for the past 18 months, Eric and Jean Slocombe. We have served in the Church together; gone sight-seeing in and around Delhi together; have gone to dinner with each other at least monthly I’d say; we even spent a couple of days together in November at Jaipur. Needless to say, they have become great friends. When we’ve had it with India, we always knew they would listen and understand, and vice versa. We’ve laughed with them, worked with them, and cried with them when their daughter died in an accident.

Today, I said goodbye to them. Their mission is over and they are going home on Wednesday. We’re going to miss them.

One of the interesting things is when we have second time experiences, like a second Diwali, or Christmas. It gives one the chance to think back to the previous experience and marvel at how quickly the year has passed and how much (or little) has been learned since then. We had one of those events this week: Lohri. I don’t know if you remember Lohri from last year. Lohri is a festival that started in Punjab and is still most popular there. It celebrates the end of winter. The central parts of the celebration are a bonfire, music, dancing, and throwing peanuts, popcorn, and sweets into the fire (eating them too of course). Here are some pictures of our Lohri celebration on campus Tuesday evening.

The focus this week has been on strategic planning. We are behind, as I mentioned before, due to us going to the US for three weeks at the end of December. Still it has been an enjoyable, rewarding, process. I am almost always optimistic. For reasons that are not entirely clear or logical, I believe we are on the verge of not just the incremental improvement we have enjoyed but an exponential improvement.

Gee, I hope I am right.

Namaste