Letter 20 - Cruising and Conferences

 Dear family and friends!

Oh! How we love and miss you all! I have a lot of pictures and, of course, if you scroll on down, you can see the pics and read all the details. In short, last weekend was filled to the brim. 

Here are the highlights:

We had a special Women's Conference on Saturday with our General Relief Society President, President Camille Johnson. The chapel and cultural hall were filled to with women from all over Thailand. Sidenote: for our friends who don't know what Relief Society is, here is a little help from our friend google: 

The Relief Society is a women's organization within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, founded in 1842. It is dedicated to charity, support, friendship, and education for women, with the motto "Charity Never Faileth". The organization emphasizes sisterhood and responsibility for each other's well-being. 

With over 7 million women in over 188 countries, I believe it is the largest women's organization in the world. This organization spends millions of hours serving in the church and in our communities worldwide! It was wonderful to sit in a room filled with women who love the Lord, love to serve, and love each other! Even with the language barrier, I feel loved when I am with my Relief Society sisters!

Sister Johnson was the keynote speaker at the Thailand Women's Conference and she also spoke the day before (on Friday) to all of the missionaries in both Thailand missions (East and West). Her words were inspiring and motivating. 

Also on Friday, we joined the Meekers (Office Seniors from the West Mission) and the Taylors (MLS Senior missionaries from our mission who were in town for the Women's conference) on a dinner cruise along the Chao Praya River (the big river that runs through Bangkok). We had a great time seeing the Bangkok skyline lit up at night and reflecting on the river. The company was a lot of fun! And the food was great! (I forgot to take pictures of the amazing all you can eat buffet!!!!) The cruise started at 8pm and we are typically in our PJS and ready to crawl into bed at that hour, but we survived and had a really good time! PS - The buffet line was hysterical as it was absolute chaos trying to get some food. Things calmed down and we were finally able to dish up! 

Sunday we did a day trip down to Rayong (because of the Women's conference the day before). Normally we drive down on Saturday and spend the night. Traffic wasn't bad both ways, so we spent less than 6 hours driving for church. We love our little Branch so it was all worth it. We drove the 4 Elders back up to Bangkok Sunday after church so they could attend their Zone Conference Monday and Tuesday.

Which leads me to the final highlight:

Bangkok Zone Conference. Our mission has 4 zones. Since we are office missionaries we are in the Bangkok Zone. We have other Senior missionaries (MLS - member leader support) missionaries that are in the other 3 zones (ranging from 4 - 9 hours by car away). We work with the missionaries here in Bangkok. We help out at their Zone Conferences and when we do our house inspections, we go to the Bangkok houses. The other Senior missionaries visit the houses for us in their zones. Elder Brady gets messages around the clock from missionaries with housing issues (from all 4 zones). Sometimes he solves the problems, sometimes the other seniors help, often he encourages the missionaries to talk to landlords or he helps with that sometimes too. There are repairmen to call, housing supplies and furniture to order and on and on. It never ends! We have gotten to know all the missionaries via Messenger threads (when they need help) but we have enjoyed getting to really know our Bangkok missionaries (and every 6 weeks some of them leave - and we miss them, but we have new ones move in and we get to know the new ones - so that is great!)!

Back to Zone Conference - the Zone Leaders Elders Kipibane and Wood asked us Seniors to help with the breakfast which we happily said yes to. Then we found out it would be at a different building (not at the annex where we live and work - where it usually is). By the time we found out, we had purchased all the fixins for bacon, eggs, and pancakes! We were a little panicked . . . but it all worked out! We prepped a lot of it the day before, rolled out of bed at 5am, got ready, loaded up the car, and headed to a chapel across town. I made the bacon on Monday (baked it all ahead and had it ready to warm up), John scrambled the eggs (beautifully I might add), and the Belnaps whipped up some perfect pancakes! We enjoyed the breakfast with the missionaries. John got roped into singing (last minute) and so we drove with the Belnaps back to the annex to unload and clean up breakfast supplies and then we headed back to the chapel so John could sing and then we stayed for lunch (and it was delicious).

The zone conference was inspiring and had us reflecting on why we chose to serve a mission. We love the Lord and want to help our young missionaries succeed in sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We miss our friends and especially our dear family, but we love the missionaries here and the beautiful people of Thailand. We are so grateful to have this opportunity to serve, make so many new friends, and enjoy this fascinating adventure. 

I'll share about the rest of this week in next week's post because I think I have said enough and I have so many pictures to share! 

We love you and miss you! Thank you for reading! 

Love John and Shelly (mom and dad, grandma and grandpa and so on)

Subway ride to the River for the Dinner Cruise with the Meekers and the Taylors.

The ladies pose at the Asiatique Riverfront Mall. We did some exploring before we got on the cruise.

The clock tower at the mall.

Super Elders!

Sister Meeker on the right. Cruise ship performers in the background.

Another Dinner Cruise performer.

It was a cloudy, rainy night. But we are Oregonians so we could take it. Also, the umbrella helped!

However, John went back inside to escape the rain . . . 

River views.

More views of the skyline. 

Wat Arun in the background.

There is a little shrine in the shadows beneath the flag.

The Bangkok skyline.

More views.

Another Wat in the distance. 

Icon Siam (the fancy upscale mall) all lit up by the waterfront.

Back inside and out of the rain. 

So . . . there is a story here (if you made it this far). There was live music on the ship and there were some people, our friends in the back of the picture (who looked like they were really enjoying the music and dancing). Anyway, John and I decided to jump up and dance a little routine to the YMCA song. This got our new friends very excited and we could see people with their phones out videotaping us. Elder Meeker took his phone out to get video proof of our great dance moves. But alas, he "filmed" us the whole time and then "turned off" off the video, only to find out later that is when he actually turned his phone on and there was an 8 minute video of his feet and the sidewalk as we walked off the ship. 

So unless some of those other videos show up on tik tok, 

there is no proof that we actually danced the night away! hahaha! 

Saturday morning before Women's Conference started, we took some pictures. Here I am with Sister Poon and Sister Farmer (Senior Missionaries from the West Mission).

Members of our Rayong Branch made the trip up to attend the Women's Conference.

Sister Johnson enters the chapel.

Sister Johnson speaking to us. 

A quick picture from the day before at the missionary meeting. 

My little translator in my ear! Sister Johnson spoke in English, but the rest of the Women's Conference was in Thai. Thank heavens for technology and translators. 

I was able to hear the conference in my ear in ENGLISH! 

The crowd lines up for lunch. I wondered how they would feed all of us, but they served us box lunches and people spread out all over the building and temple grounds. I went back up to my room and shared my lunch with John and then went back down for the conference. 

The lunches were way up at the top of this crowd. 

After lunch there was a cultural show. Relief Society Sisters from all over Thailand shared their talents. 

More Thai dancing.

The sister in the middle is helping to translate the Book of Mormon into Burmese. And Sister Farmer (on the right) got asked to dance too! 

This was a beautiful number with beautiful costumes. 

Well, the conference was over and Elder Brady was craving a hamburger. 

So we went to EAT AM ARE!

And got a burger. Well John did. 

I got chicken and salad and some sort of garlic bread that isn't really garlic bread. 

On the way home, it started to rain, so we had to stop and get ice cream. To get out of the rain. My cone was bigger than Johns. He was not pleased about that! :)!!

Sunday morning we drove to church and I saw this fruit stand on the back of a motorcycle on the side of the road! Ingenious! 

Sunday School in Rayong.

We have one primary child in our branch! Hyrum is 10 years old and wanted to practice his Kung Fu moves on Elder Brady. So of course, he complied!

More Kung Fu moves. (We miss our grandchildren).

Sunday night Senior Missionary meeting over Zoom. We hold this once a month to connect and report on what is happening in our areas. 

Missionary Devotional over Zoom. This is held at 9pm after the Senior meeting (yes, that is our bedtime - but somehow we survive - haha)! These devotionals are usually talks given by the missionaries who will be completing their missions soon. 

We love hearing about their experiences, their testimonies, and their growth. 

Monday morning I cracked open 60 eggs for the Tuesday morning breakfast. The eggs here are organic and sometimes gross. So I crack them one at a time and pick out anything inedible. That took 2 hours, but it was a great time, because I was able to Facetime with most of my children and talk to my mom! I was going to call my dad too, but he goes to bed early like me! :)

The eggs all ready to be added to pancake mix and scrambled!

Baking the bacon took 6 hours! It was great to get things done at home - I did the laundry and scrubbed the house and studied my Thai and did some office work from home. The only problem is the laundry came out smelling like bacon and the smell lingered most of the week! But it isn't a bad smell, so . . .

We took a short break from bacon and eggs to go to the Market and get Kebobs for lunch! 

Tuesday morning - Cooking breakfast! John is the expert at scrambling eggs!

Belnaps made some awesome pancakes! 

The Elders and Sisters were happy and enjoying the meal!

We came back later so John could sing with this talented group. Nearer My God to Thee with Elders Collado, Belleza, and Jones!

Lunch time! Delicous Kao Soi! So good!!! 

Look at these cute little Thai bananas! 

They are so sweet!! And delicious! 

Since 4 days had passed without a burger for John, we thought we should check out a new burger place! This was Snax Burger. It was pretty good. 

If you made it to the end, you are a true friend! Thanks for reading! See you next week!