Letter 5 - John Got Sick!

 Dear family and friends!

Another week in Thailand has flown by! 

Highlights: 

Lunch with the Kanyaphans (The Mission leaders - aka mission president and his wife), the Taylors (new senior missionaries), and the Belnaps (our co-office workers)!

Walks and metro rides around town to 7-11 (multiple times), the corner (for friend rice and fresh fruit), the post office, Tops (the grocery store), to a Wat (Thai Buddhist Temple), the barber (John got a haircut), and street markets. 

Going to the Bangkok Temple! It is amazing how right outside the temple is a loud, busy, city! But inside the temple, it is so peaceful, quiet, and beautiful. It is a wonderful place to escape the world, serve others, and worship my Savior, Jesus Christ. 

A Thai Massage for Shelly! I am sorry, but there are no pictures of that (maybe next time). But I will say it was pretty much one of the most painful and amazing experiences of my life! I will be doing this frequently if I can help it! (At 250 baht for one hour massage - $7.50!!! I can't not do it!)

Comfort food - we are loving Thai food, but it was fun to find a KFC and enjoy some really fabulous chicken (it was seriously really good!) and McDonalds (John got that Big Mac he has been craving - and it was also a hit)!  

Stair walking - for the first time in ages, we don't have access to a gym or treadmill so we have taken up stair walking. There are 7 floors in our building (with high ceilings) so we listen to a book, conference talk, or podcast and walk the stairs! On day one, I could barely do 8 floors. I have worked up to 30 floors! woohoo! We walk a set of floors and then do a couple of laps around the parking lot (below where we live and the temple), and then more stairs, laps, and so on. It might sound crazy to be walking indoors, but there is a hint of air conditioning and outside is too hot for speed walking and it can be a little polluted at times with all of the traffic, so it works for us!

Fruit - have I mentioned how much I love the fruit here!!

Meeting new people! We met a lovely woman on the elevator who was from India! She and her husband and toddler flew from India to spend a week in Bangkok attending the Temple. They make this trip annually. We had a nice visit with them and it felt like such a gift to meet them and hear their story.

Lowlights - John got sick! We are pretty sure it was food poisoning. He started feeling sick a week ago on Sunday and by Monday he was running a fever. He really couldn't eat all week and speaking of running, he could not keep anything in his system. He left the office around noon on Monday, stayed in bed Tuesday, and Wednesday, finally cautiously came back to work on Thursday and Friday, and was feeling better by Saturday. Yay! 

Which takes us to the final Highlight - John is better! 

Tons of photos posted below highlight all the beauty of Thailand and the fun we have had this week! 

Just a side note - These are pictures we take after work and on the weekends! Next blog post I will be sure to include some of our 8am-5pm pics which will include exciting things like printers, file cabinets, keyboards, etc.! Haha! 

Side note number 2 - If you didn't know, we are senior office missionaries. So our call is to be behind the scenes. We are the ones filling out forms, ordering supplies, helping with the big missionary gathering breakfasts, paying the bills, and making sure houses and bikes are safe (to name a few of the responsibilities). The younger missionaries are out in the field preaching the gospel, inviting others to come unto Christ, and serving in the community. Sometimes we join them in these opportunities. On the weekends, we drive down to Rayong to offer support to the small branch, the members, and leaders serving there. At this point, we mostly help the branch by having conversational English conversations after church and bringing snacks to share! If you have any questions about what we do, we are happy to answer!!

OK - pictures to follow! We love and miss you all!! 

With love, 

John and Shelly

Our visit to Wat Ratchanatdaram Worawihan, a beautiful Buddhist Temple.

Wise words! Plaques on the walls of the Wat.

Beautiful statues, shrines, and gold plated spires!

A bride and groom!

An ancient married couple!

John climbs the beautiful spiral staircase in the Wat.

Mickey fans unite! You know who you are!

Lunch with our Mission leaders (the Mission President and his wife - the Kunyaphans), the new Senior missionaries (the Taylors), and our office partners (the Belnaps).

Elder Nielsen and Elder Brady (John used to work with this Elder's grandma, for 24 years!)

Shelly braves the subway all by herself to go to the grocery store in search of American style saltine crackers for John . . . who got very sick this week. 

John feeling just a little bit better eats some chicken noodle soup, rice, and crackers.

The description on this box of crackers is worth the read! Zoom in! 

Interesting coconut snack. The texture was sort of like eating coconut flavored chalk. 

I could not stop eating them.

I love the vending machines here! This one is on a university campus near the post office.

View of the temple in the distance.

Bugles! In Thailand. I added the chocolate chips because I like them that way!

Wonderful family from India! We met Diana in the elevator. 

They are here for a week to attend the temple!

Random cat on random checkerboard in a random alley.

Sharp glass shards to keep you out! 

A little alleyway.

Neighborhood shrine.

We see so many of these on the streets! It smells so good!

Time for lunch!

Near the Wat we visited.

Time for a haircut!

Random dog chilling out at a street fair in Rayong.

Our hotel's buffet breakfast!

Church at the convention center.

Snacks after church!

Finishing off the crumbs! 

Bangkok at night.

View from the Belnap's Condo next door. 

Bangkok Temple

Letter 4 - We've Made it a Month!

Dear family and friends!

Wednesday the 13th was our one month anniversary! Time is flying by! One month down . . . 22 to more to go!

This week included a lot of walking flights of stairs in the mornings (that is our exercise here), talking to our family via Facetime or Messenger (calls or videos), working in the office, eating lots of Khao Put Kai (pronounced cow put guy - fried rice with chicken) for lunch or dinner at a street vendor just down the block from the temple, going to the street markets for fruits and veggies, going to the lunch market for other yummy lunches.

We've had countless trips to 7-11, a trip to the pharmacy, and trips to the big store Lotus (like Target).

If we don't go out for lunch or dinner we usually eat leftovers from lunch or dinner or Ramen noodles or toast and eggs . And for breakfast: cereal or yogurt and granola. And at most meals fruit! We love the fruit here! So fresh and delicious! Tuesday this week, nothing sounded good for dinner so we ended up buying two meat sticks for 50 cents each and ate a Blizzard from DQ afterwards! The mini blizzards were only $1.50 each. To me, it was a perfect dinner!

On Wednesday this past week, John and I joined a zoom English Class. We will be leading this class in a few weeks so we joined in to see how it was to be done. We will be leading (teaching) English Connect to some native Thai speakers/missionaries each week. These missionaries live hours away all over Thailand so that is why the class is over Zoom. The Mission Leaders were back in town, so they invited the office missionaries (us and the Belnaps) to lunch at a lovely restaurant. They picked out the best Thai food! It was delicious and fun to get to know them better. Wednesday evening, John and I went back to our favorite Corn Som Thum place for dinner. I mean, you have to eat your veggies! Wednesday night is also chore night! We decided to do chores on Wednesdays so we could have the weekends free! So bathroom scrubbing, sweeping, dusting laundry all get done on Wednesday nights. It does not take long to clean our tiny apartment!

An excerpt from my journal: Feb 13, 25 - Thursday - Happy Birthday Emily! I woke up late and called Emily! Haha! It was her birthday here - but not in Thailand! We had a good chat with her. I wanted to go to the big Thursday morning market to buy fruits and veggies, but we slept in! So that did not happen. We went to work and did some morning work. At lunch time, we went with the Belnaps to the Market for lunch. We ate Pad See Ew noodles. They were really yummy! They reminded me of Pad Thai. John found a gyro place and loved his gyro! The place is about a 10 minute walk down Asoke street in the heat of the day! It’s around 90 degrees out! There is a huge lunch room area to eat in that is shady but very warm! Sweat was dripping down my back! President K brought us a treat of avocado smoothies! They were also very good! (that was actually earlier)! Came back to work and worked some more. The Mission Leaders gave us an assignment to attend the Rayong Branch each week. It is about 2 and1/2 hours away from Bangkok. We will drive down on Saturdays and spend the night. The Mission Leaders decided the Belnaps would come with us to Rayong this weekend to help us get acclimated to traveling in Bangkok and being MLS (member and leader support missionaries) at the small branch there. I helped sister Belnap up in the storage room during office hours today and ended up getting a nice shoe rack for our entryway. Yay! After work, we went to the temple. It was lovely. After the temple, we ate fruit, veggies, and toast for dinner. Then I went for a 30 minute walk.


On Valentines day, we went back to the lunch market. John wanted another Gyro and I tried the Khao Soi! Very good! Also very hot! We stopped at 7-11 on the way home to buy some Valentine's chocolate!

On Saturday woke up early, talked to Rikki, went for our stair walk and laps, ate breakfast, showered, packed, and took off to Rayong. We checked into our hotel, ate at a street place - Kao Put (fried rice), then we went to wans and bought snacks. Wans is like a Thai version of Costco! Except without air conditioning and samples. I did buy a lot of snacks though. And I can't wait to go back! After we took a rest at the hotel, we drove to the beach with the Belnaps, watched the sunset, ate Som Thum at a beachside restaurant, and went back to the hotel.

On Sunday we ate a wonderful buffet breakfast at the Hotel. At 10am we attended our little Rayong Branch. It was such a lovely group of people. John and I were asked to introduce ourselves and share our testimonies in Sacrament meeting. There is an interpreter who can translate from Thai to English and visa versa. After church, there was a linger longer where we visited (some of the members are from the Philippines and speak English) and ate snacks. Snacks after church seems to be a common tradition for the branches here. I really enjoy it. It is a wonderful time to make new friends and enjoy yummy food. After church, we made the long drive back to Bangkok. 2 and ½ hours. John drove. We survived. The steering wheel is on the right (wrong) side of the car!! And you drive on the left side of the road here! We were so tired after the long weekend, we got into our Jammies and ate some fried rice from 7-11. We forgot there was a 9pm devotional over zoom, so we had to put nice shirts on to pretend we were dressed in our Sunday best (PJ bottoms were not seen - we hope!)!

And that about sums up our week! Pictures below!

We miss you! God bless you all!

Love John and Shelly, Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, Elder and Sister Brady

Waiting for lunch! 2 plates of fried rice costs less than 3 dollars total!

Tastes as good as it looks!

Bougainvillea! One of my favorite flowers!

Such a beautiful view just a couple of blocks away. Do you see the water taxi on the right?

Trip to 7-11! You can find a wide variety of products here. Prices are the same as a regular grocery store. And 7-11s are everywhere so it is very convenient to drop in and get whatever we need.

So many motorcycles! They will come up on the sidewalk to get around traffic when you are walking!! 

12 Thai Baht for an ice cream cone = 36 cents. There is no option. We must stop and buy one!

Dinner last Tuesday night began with 2 meat sticks!

And ended with DQ Oreo Blizzards! 

English Connect Zoom Class!

Lunch with our Mission Leaders, the Kanyaphans and the Belnaps! Delicious and delightful!

Avocado Smoothie! Thank you President Kanyaphan! John peeking over my desk :)

Lunch with the Belnaps. Thai food and a Gyro!

Dragon Fruit

Breakfast time! (The dragon fruit is the white one with black dots.)

John loved the Gyro so we had to go back the next day!

The temple atrium.

These looked very interesting to me. But we did not buy them!

In case you were wondering, they do have "regular candy" here. 

So many colorful options for your eggs! And they are not refrigerated here. 

Rayong at sunset!

The Rayong branch poses for a picture after church!

Sisters in the Rayong Branch

The hotel lobby. Church is held in a room in the convention center, so it is on the screen next to us!

John driving on the left side of the road (with the steering wheel on the right!

We survived!