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Tori
December 29, 2006
Hello friends and family,
I hope that all of you have had a wonderful Christmas. At times it is
hard for me to believe that I am already home. I think that it has
helped.
Here are some of the things that happened in my last month in India.
For one of our papers Abbi and I got the opportunity to attend this very
important Jain festival. This festival was to recognize the monks and
nuns in their community. This was also the time when the monks and nuns
were allowed to start traveling again. So during the month of November
and December people of the community would come and stay with the monks
and nuns for several weeks. So for part of our research we were able to
spend about 2 days with the nuns and monks. This meant waking up at 5 so
that we could see their daily routines. During our stay there we were
able to talk with some of the nuns and find out more about what they
believe. Even though we had to sit through some long speeches I think
that we were able to make some great contacts for our supervisor.
The last two weeks of our trip were spent trying to say good bye to all
of our friends. I can't even explain how stressful this time was for me.
It wasn't that it was an emotional time for me, but every time we would
try and say good bye they would try and plan another time to meet before
we left. To say good bye Abbi and I decorated our apartment for
Christmas and then invited our friends over to say good bye. The Monday
before we left Abbi and I spent about 4 hours making Christmas cookies
to give away to our friends. We later realized that none of our
friends could eat them because they had eggs in them (they think eggs
are non-veg). So our last day in India was spent visiting all of our
friends again and attempting to finish packing. Just picture Abbi and me
trying to finish our packing when about four of our neighbors came over
and then proceeded to push me out of the way and finish packing for me.
What was funny was that all four of them were arguing
about where to pack things. I was just happy to finally be packed.
As part of one of my projects Abbi and I were able to have several Book
studies with our neighbor and some of our friends. In the end I really
enjoyed this time. There were times with it was really hard for us to
explain things to our neighbor who doesn't speak very much English. I
don't know if any of our friends really understood what we were trying
to tell them but I hope that Father will use those experiences to make a
difference in their lives.
Thank you for your yarpers. I know this trip has given me some of the
best and worst experiences of my life, but I know that I have changed
because of it. I want to thank you for being involved in this experience
with me. I greatly appreciate it.
Tori Bethe
Here are just a few pictures of our last month.
http://sbuniv.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2009088&l=9579a&id=177500860
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