Letter 33 - Bottled Bird's Nest and Blessings

Dear family and friends,

I cannot believe it is September already! It has been continuous summer time here, so I am shocked when I see a calendar from time to time! The biggest adventures this week included: inspecting missionary apartments, spending time with the missionaries, eating delicious food, sampling a Thai delicacy, meeting a couple from Bangladesh and giving them their patriarchal blessings, going to the temple, facetiming with our children and grandchildren, and wishing Charlotte and Nick Happy Birthdays. 

As always the pictures tell the story best! So for now we love you and miss you and would love to hear from you! 

Love, 

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

Sunday after church in Rayong, we ate some delicious Thai food prepared by our master chef, Noi! 

Back to Saturday morning, I saw this horse and handler in the back of this truck 

speeding down the freeway! 

Driving down to Chonburi to inspect Elder Matsui and Elder Fairey's apartment!

Elder Matsui has a Thai delicacy for us to taste (drink). It is called Bird's Nest! 

Sure! We were game to try it! It smelled like Coconut! And it had lots of chunks in the thick drink.

It was a chewy drink. We gave it a thumbs up! 

I posted our taste test videos on Stories and the last slide told the rest of the story! Those chunks we chewed were NOT Coconut!!!!! It was calcified bird spit!!! The birds spit and the spit hardens and that is how the birds make their nests! And then someone got the crazy idea to cut up the nests and make a drink out of it???? And then - crazy us - we drank it!!! 

Elder Fairey had to wash that bird nest out of his system with

 a corn pie and egg salad/teriyaki burger at McDonalds!!

Shopping for a few household items for the Elders! We liked the Mr. Clean waste bin!

Samples!!! So of course we had to eat some. They were hot dogs filled with some kind of cheese (we think) and lunch meat that looked like bologna but with something in it (we don't know what)!

You know how I feel about free samples, so of course I tried everything!

The front of our hotel in Rayong looks so pretty lit up at night. 

The lobby entrance has these beautiful statues! 

We decided to go to the gym Saturday night to lift some weights. We don't have a gym where we live so thought it would be nice to take advantage of the one at the hotel once a week. 

After 7 months, we finally gave it a try! Haha! The sunset view was beautiful! 

Elder Brady and Elder Jones teaching Sunday School.

Lunch potluck after church! 

Lunch is ready, but members are busy sitting together with friends who are visiting our branch in small groups teaching and learning about the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

In the meantime, lunch is served! 

Dark stormy skies on our drive home! 

The skies got darker as we got closer to Bangkok! I posted a video in stories earlier this week of the rain that started pouring down when we were about 5 minutes from home! 

The view from our apartment window of the modern sky train above 

and the old train on the ground leaving the station. 

The view of the Klong on our way to a doctor's appointment. I love that these azaleas bloom year round here. They looked especially pretty this week! It must be all the rain! 

John walking to the hospital. 

After the blood work was finished, we needed to eat breakfast! This healthy restaurant is located inside the hospital!! We haven't had a McDonald's big breakfast in a long time! It was pretty good! 

The sidewalks have a lot of interesting obstacles here! 

This one has a giant tree growing in the middle of it! 

We had a couple of hours between lab work and the doctor's appointment, so we took a walk to Villa Market (the store where you can get food from home) to replenish Elder Brady's Kraft Mac n' Cheese supply. Villa Market is the only place we have been able to find certain foods from home! It has been shipped in from America and the prices are high. But sometimes you just have to pay a pretty penny for comfort food! We did not buy any Spam, but I had to take a picture of the price! 

245 Baht is USD $7.64 for one can of Spam!!!! Yikes!!!

More sweetened condensed milk in a squeezable tube! 

Pop Tarts for 295 Baht - $9.20 USD for one box!! No thanks :(

On our way home from the hospital, we stopped at a roadside restaurant for some fried rice and corn som tom. Next time I will take a picture! It is so delicious. 

And lunch for the two of us was less than $4 total! 

After inspecting the Elder's apartment, we all walk to lunch.

We landed at some fine dining - McDonalds! With Elders Jones, Elliott, Collado, Parker, and Bird!

Heading to the train to go back to the office. Elder Collado, our office Elder, joins us! 

This lovely couple is from Bangladesh. They came to Thailand to go to the temple and be sealed (married for eternity). They also received their Patriarchal Blessings from Elder Brady. 

It was such a pleasure to meet them! 

Selfie on the 6th floor balcony of the annex with Rubin and Jharma! 

Beautiful Thailand Temple under blue skies! 

Just finished my breakfast before we head out for another missionary apartment inspection! 

This time we visited Elder Tang and Elder Nelson (one of our brand new missionaries!)!

Pepper Lunch, of course! With Elders Kaiyafai, Hutcheon, Nelson, and Tang!

Elder Hutcheon showing off his hammock! It only cost him about $3 USD! 

Cheaper than a can of Spam! 

Good job on the apartment cleaning Elders!

Iced Chocolate Milk! At Cafe Amazon! 

Our friends, the Taylors (another senior couple), said this was a must try! 

It was delicious and just the right treat on a hot day of traveling around Bangkok! 

The walkway to the temple is so beautiful! 

We felt blessed to attend the sealing of our new friends from Bangladesh! 

Friday house inspections with Elders Gibson and Propromma! 

Walking to the train I saw this cute bird near the sign that said "mind your head." 

Another fun lunch with the missionaries! EAT AM ARE! We enjoyed our burgers and fries! 

I passed my phone to the Elders to get a group selfie and found this photo waiting for me on my camera roll! Haha Elder Htoo and Elder Prop! 

Group photo with Elders Freedman, Gibson, Htoo, and Propromma! And look who we ran into! Bangkok is a huge city and somehow we always bump into the sisters! Sisters Lundberg and Taylor happened to be lunching at the same restaurant at the same time! They came over to say hello! 

Sisters unite!! 

Elders Peterson and Htoo give us a thumbs up inside their A+ clean apartment! 

Good job Elders! 

One more photo! 

Ending the photo dump with what literally used to be a dump! Every time we walked by this lot on our way to the Elder's apartment we were so sad to see so much trash piled high! It looks like some clean up was done and I really thought it was so beautiful that it needed a picture! 

Last but not least, here is another beautiful view of the courtyard in in between the temple and the annex where we live and work! This place is so beautiful even in the rain.