Letter 36 - Root canal and Transfer week AGAIN!

 Dear loved ones,

I'm a day late on posting this week's letter but we have been going nonstop! This past week was filled with apartment inspections, a root canal, missionaries finishing their time in Thailand (joping), new missionaries arriving, and transfers! We were on the go nonstop! As always the pictures tell the story best. So read on for this week's adventures.

Before you scroll, I just want to say we love you and we miss you and we are so grateful to hear from you! 

With love, 

Elder and Sister Brady (Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, John and Shelly, and so on)

Elders Lowry and Jones from our branch in Rayong get an A+ on their house inspection!

Great job Elders!! 

There is a friendly competition between some of our missionaries. I have to say that our Sisters in Bangkok have been known to have super clean apartments. And now some of the Elders have wanted to get in the game! And we love it! Seriously, look at how they shined the fixtures! 

And no spots on the mirror!! Cleanliness is next to Godliness! 

Out to lunch to celebrate clean apartments! Elders Saunders, Sevilla, Jones, and Lowry.

Enjoying burgers at Humble Burger in Rayong.

I love these little cats and dolls that wave their arms all day long! 

After months of tooth pain that spread to my face pain (this all started around the beginning of July), I finally went to the dentist. I needed to get a crown removed and have a root canal. I'll be getting a new crown in a couple of weeks once the infection is gone. The Dentist told me to only eat soft foods after the procedure. So I had to follow the Doctor's orders. Nutella for the win! 

The view from our upstairs apartment often has a new surprise! 

Let me zoom in for you:

This rooftop job looks scary to me. 

Meet the Nuffers! They are Senior Missionaries serving in Nepal. They are in Thailand for a few weeks. Elder Nuffer is the brother of my good friend, Coral Hammond (a flight attendant friend from SkyWest). And they are related to the Nuffers from the Gresham Stake where we attend church back home. It is such a small world! We plan to have lunch with them and hear about their adventures. 

It is new arrival week. One of the many things we do to get ready for new missionaries is to create these Welcome Books to give to them. 

These booklets have all kinds of helpful information for new missionaries. 

On Wednesday, Elder Brady gave a patriarchal blessing to Deepak. 

He is a 32 year old Stake President from India! 

This was in the news and all over facebook here in Bangkok this week! I did not actually see this new hole in the road, but thought I would share it here anyway! 

Thursday was joping day. We are so sad to say goodbye to our beautiful, faithful Sister Taylor! 

She was so much fun to spend time with! 

We will miss our pickleball games with her, cookie bakes, and her great sense of humor!

Lots of hugs and tears! 

Some smiles too! 

Group hug with Sisters Taylor and Johnston who is leaving too! 

Tears and laughter all day long! 

Sister Johnston is from Australia! She was such a lovely hard working missionary. She had a great sense of humor and we loved our visits, lunch and cookie making with her too! 

Oh how we love these Bangkok Sisters! Sisters Johnston, Siri, Taylor, Lundberg, and Peterson!

Elder Belnap is waving hello behind us! 

Lunch time at the Market! This street food market has the best Pad Thai! The Senior missionaries were in charge of breakfast for Friday morning Transfers. So on Thursday, we took a trip to the market to eat lunch and pick up the fruit for Friday morning's breakfast.

Elder Tamayao also left on Thursday! So we needed to get a goodbye picture! Elder Tamayao has a great sense of humor, a love of the gospel, and he is a fabulous artist! He did pencil drawings of Elder and Sister Brady and gave the to us. He did a great job! 

Sister Johnston's family flew to Thailand from Australia to pick her up! Mother, father, brothers, sisters, and their children all came for a trip of a lifetime! 

It was so fun to watch the Johnston family's joyful reunion! 

This is Elder Serna from the Philippines. He is serving his mission in Cambodia, but was in Thailand to get his Visa renewed. He had never received a patriarchal blessing and Elder Brady was able to give him his blessing on Thursday!

Thursday evening, Sister Taylor comes over to our apartment to say her final goodbyes! 

She is nervous and excited! We are happy to spend time with her, but also we are sad to see her go! 

Friday morning! Time to train the new arrivals. It's really more of an orientation. We welcome them and go over housing and medical information! And we spend a little time introducing ourselves and getting to know them! New missionaries: Elders Dixon, Hiltscher, Phokk, Bun, Knapp, and Morgan, and Sisters Brunt, Merritt, and Siri! 

Lunchtime in the mission home on Friday. It's the scrumptious Cow Soy!!! 

White shirts always get ruined when you eat Cow Soy, unless you are smart like Elder Brady! 

All of the new missionaries and their trainers (companions) gather for a picture on the mission home balcony! The Bangkok temple is a beautiful backdrop! 

Leadership training in the mission home. 

Friday night dinner in the mission home! Nok (I will get a picture of her next time) is an amazing cook. Dinner was Pork (moo yong), sticky rice, Som Tum (papaya salad), watermelon, and guava! 

I am in heaven here in Thailand! The only thing missing is our children and grandchildren! 

And our friends! Let's all move to Thailand! 

Thanks for reading! 

We love and miss you! 

Letter 35 - Mission Tour Zone Conference and Happy 8 Month Mission Anniversary

 Dear family and friends, 

Happy Mission Anniversary to us! Can you believe we have been missionaries for 8 months?? That means we are 1/3 of the way through our mission! Honestly, the last 8 months have flown by. We will be leaving Thailand before we know it! So we are going to enjoy every minute of it! 

This week we had our Area President Elder Tai and his lovely wife here in Thailand for a Mission Tour. We had a chance to meet with them and go out to dinner with them, our mission leaders, and our office co-missionaries (the Belnaps). 

We also had the pleasure of joining the Bangkok Zone for zone conference. This joyous occasion included waking up before 6am and making a pancake breakfast for the Elders and Sisters. It was a lovely day were where were physically and spiritually fed. 

In other news, we did a house inspection (where the Elders did an A plus job) and my tooth started hurting this week like crazy! 

Root Canal is scheduled for Monday!

Well, you will be relieved to know there are way less pictures this week. Scroll on down for pictures and details! 

We love you and miss you all! And we hope to hear from you! Thank you to those who take the time to read this! 

Love, 

Elder and Sister Brady (Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, John and Shelly, and so on)

Thai food for dinner with the Tais (visiting general authorities), 

Kanyaphans (our mission leaders), and the Belnaps. 

Pad Thai! It was as good as it looks! 

Rise and Shine! Time to make some pancakes for Zone Conference! Belnaps and Bradys!

Time to dish up! By the way, this breakfast is happening in the old Asoke Building where John attended church when he was a missionary half a century ago because our building was in use. We found out at the last minute so we scurried to cart everything over to the church so we could make the breakfast. I forgot the extra pancake mix, but there was enough and more! A loaves and fishes miracle! 

Lunch time with all of our wonderful Bangkok Missionaries! We sure love these servants of the Lord.

Time to play a game! We transferred a pomelo (giant grapefruit like fruit) using only chopsticks and teams. We learned how to work together 

and how to transfer responsibilities. It was a great object lesson!

And here we are - the entire Bangkok Zone! Oh how we love these missionaries! 

Fun fact - we had a special musical number and the entire zone sang! 

The audience consisted of the Tais and the Kanyaphans! 

Walking home from the Asoke building, I had to take this picture! These are bougainvillea. I mistakenly called them azalea in a recent blog post. 

Checking out some local dentists. 

I hope this is not the equipment they will use for my root canal! 

Sometimes you jus need to have pizza. And we had to celebrate our mission anniversary! We have a special coupon at The Pizza Company. We can buy one get one free. Every few weeks we go buy two pizzas (one is free), eat a few slices and bring the rest home to freeze and eat over a week or two. 

On our way to do a house inspection, the GPS directed us to take some back roads to avoid an accident. The scenery was so beautiful! 

I love this little back road! So much nicer than the traffic we get in Bangkok.

I love this story one of our RMs (from the seminar) posted! 

Congratulations to these Chachoengsao Elders for having an A+ clean house! 

Elders Runia, Tupou, Olson, and Kiphibane are such great Elders! 

Remember last week when we were dancing on the cruise ship?

Well, these cute sisters saw the dance on our stories and sent us a video of them doing the dance! We love you Sisters Colver and Brooks!

A little flashback fun! Then and now! Still dancing 41 years and counting!

You made it! Pizza is on us when you come visit us in Thailand! 

Thanks for reading! 

Letter 34 - Blessings Galore and RMRT Seminar

Hello friends and family! 

It's Friday night in Thailand. But honestly by the time I download the loads of pictures I have this time it will be Saturday!! 

This a friendly public service announcement. Ladies and Gentlemen: This blog is basically my journal of pictures to remember our mission! We love that some of you actually take the time to read through it all and even leave us a comment or send us an email! It makes our day! In the meantime - welcome to another week in our missionary life! 

This one was jampacked! Between Tuesday and Friday John gave 10 patriarchal blessings to people from Pakistan and India. I cannot begin to tell you how special it was to meet these dear people and get to know them a little bit and hear their stories. 

Additionally, it was the RMRT (Returned Missionaries Return to the Temple) Seminar that we had been asked to help with. We were supposed to attend and serve as mentors to the recently returned missionaries - spending time with them and attending the temple with them. We were also asked to teach a workshop at the Seminar. With the added 10 blessings, we joined the RMs as much as we could and were back and forth to the seminar, the temple, our apartment for blessings, and to the office to type up the blessings! It has been busy!

For all the details and pictures - read on! 

We love you and miss you all and pray you are well!

Love, 

Elder and Sister Brady (Mom and Dad, Grandpa and Grandma, John and Shelly and so on)

Dinner Cruise! (More on that below!)

With the busy week looming, I thought I would "treat myself!" I haven't gotten a pedicure in a year! And it was time (believe me!)! It cost about $9 USD! And this gal did a fabulous job! I usually paint my toenails myself. I had a lady ask me once who did my toe nails and I answered, "I do them myself!" And she responded, "I can tell!" True Story! hahahaha!

After the pedicure, I did a little grocery shopping. On may way home from the pedicure, purple bag of groceries in hand, I wait for the Subway.

Pretty toenails! 

Our first blessing of the week was on Tuesday. This nice man, Sarnawaz, was from Pakistan!

Another Tuesday blessing. This lovely lady, Samiya, was also from Pakistan. She is married and has 3 children. Her family was coming to Thailand to attend the temple and be sealed (a special ceremony in our temples were families can be married and be together forever).

Wednesday Blessings: Another darling family from Pakistan. This is Moniqa and Norman! Their son's name is Mormon! They were the in-laws of the Sister above. They were also here to be sealed and have their young son sealed to them.

We headed back to the office to type up the blessings and look who we ran into! Sisters Peterson and Johnston on their way back from immigration (visa renewal for Sister Peterson). They had been up since 1am in the morning and looked as beautiful as ever!

It's lunchtime! 

Beautiful evening view of the Christus! 

The hallway near the temple entrance all lit up at night. One of the perks of attending this conference was being able to go to the temple 4 days in a row. We usually go once a week so it was a special experience to attend so frequently.

Another view behind the Christus. 

Dessert! Wednesday night's dessert was Ice Cream Sandwiches . . . Thai Style! 

Toppings (or actually some went on the bottom) 

are sweet sticky rice, fruit, bobo bubbly things, and nuts!

But first lets eat dinner! It was so delicious! 

Hanging out with some darling RMs from Vietnam and India! 

Here is a pic of the yummy dinner! Massaman Curry was on the menu and it did not disappoint! 

Here is a close up pic of a Thai Ice Cream Sandwich! Did I mention all those toppings and the Ice Cream go on actual bread! Like this is seriously a sandwich! 

I have to tell you! It was very good! And now I don't think I am going to want any other kind of sandwich! The only thing missing was Nutella! Haha!

This RM (Boss) decided a cone was a needed topping! 

This RM went with a traditional cone! 

Thursday Blessings. This wonderful couple (Martha and Ilyas) from Pakistan are the parents of Norman who got blessed the day before and are in-laws to their daughter in law who was blessed on Tuesday. 

Time for the Thursday workshop. We forgot to take pictures, but one of the RMs took a picture and shared it with us. (My face when I speak - do NOT zoom in! Haha) I shared the Bill Porter story with them and talked about the challenges that Bill had and how he overcame them and applied them to some of the challenges that these RMs have when they come home from their missions. 

John was my tech guy. The RM caught this picture of him and thought it was very sweet. 

This is Sai! He is such a special young man from India. The story he shared with us moved us to tears. He was such a bright light and he was so excited to get his Patriarchal Blessing. 

John is waiting for me on the bus! Making a funny face - haha! We were joining the RMs for a trip to the river for a dinner cruise! More food pics coming! 

John smiles! I love the reflection of the temple annex and the palm trees on the bus! 

Ready to go! 

It's a sunny day in Thailand! 

Bangkok Skyline!

The famous giant Asiatique Sky Ferris Wheel at Asiatique. This is where we got dropped of for the dinner cruise. It is a market full of shops along the river. 

We had about 2 hours before we had to board the boat. 

We discovered Jurassic World at Asiatique and thought the grandkids would love this! 

This is inside the elevator! (Looking up)

More Dinosaurs! 

Yes! I came to Thailand to take pictures of REAL Dinosaurs!!

The dinner cruise was 2 hours away and we were hungry! So we had to get some ice cream! 

Hello! 

Elders Farmer, Brady, and Davis waiting for the cruise, taking a rest from the heat and humidity! 

Sisters Davis, Farmer, and Brady! Smile :). The Davis' are serving in Hong Kong and were in charge of the event. The Returned Missionary Return to the Temple Seminar is an opportunity for returned missionaries from countries where there are no temples to come to the temple, to be physically and spiritually fed (workshops and temple attendance), and to make new friends! Sister Farmer and her husband are serving as Humanitarian missionaries and are involved in all sorts of wonderful projects that help and serve the people of Thailand! 

Picture time with our new friend Sai! 

Waiting to board the boat with these beautiful ladies who work in the Country Office (the office that supports the LDS Foundation here in Thailand). They work on the 2nd floor near our mission office.

On the boat at last! 

Time to eat!! Yum!!!!

View from the boat! Icon Siam - the gigantic high end mall all lit up at night! 

Time for dessert! The green soup thing was yummy! 

Another boat passes by! 

Wat Arun is so beautiful! All lit up at night! 

Another view! 

The Rama VIII Bridge is beautiful against the night sky!

Me and Sister Tata. :)

The Bradys!

Do you see the massive Asiatique Sky Ferris Wheel in the distance?

There was a beautiful lightening storm off in the distance! It looked like fireworks! 

I took a video and grabbed a screenshot to post here! 

It is so fun to hang out with these amazing young adults! 

Tata and Airin (Pronounced Irene) work in the country office. Belle and Ratmaet are RMs. 

In fact, Ratmaet served in our mission! How we love these young people - some we just met! 

Another beautiful family from Pakistan got their blessings on Friday morning. This is Nisha, Abida, and Fiaz. This dear family joined the church a few years ago and shared the gospel with their parents, siblings, and extended family! Now their little branch has about 50-60 family members!

In line for lunch!

We came back to the office to type up blessings and I found this note on my desk from one of our sweet sister missionaries who is leaving soon! If I could figure out how to put a crying emoji on this I would!  

Sweet RMs from Indonesia! 

Here is the group of 24 RMs from India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and more! In the front row are the Senior Missionaries who led the event and helped with the event! 

We have adopted a new granddaughter, Sister Belle! 

Does this picture capture us?

I think so! 

Elder and Sister Brady, General Authority Elder Johnson and Sister Johnson (Hong Kong), 

Elder and Sister Davis (Hong Kong- led the RMRT event), 

Elder and Sister Farmer (Humanitarian Thailand)

And like I said, it is now Saturday. We got up this morning and typed up the 3 blessings from yesterday and went downstairs to deliver them. While we were on the first floor, we got word that one more RM from India needed a blessing. He wanted a blessing so badly, but his name had not been in the system. There were some technical problems. He prayed and his prayers were answered when after weeks of trying to get his name in the system it finally happened. And so this afternoon, Elder Brady gave his 11th blessing this week to a wonderful young man named Sanjay. It was a pleasure to meet him! 

And now we are putting on our PJs and calling it a week!

Thanks for reading this far! If you did, you win a Thai Ice Cream Sandwich when you come and visit us in Thailand! We love and miss you all!