Dear loved ones,
Happy Chinese New Year from Thailand! Thailand is all about the holidays! I love how they have adopted so many different culture's celebrations. We saw pink hearts and flowers for Valentine's Day! We saw spring/bunny decorations last year for Easter and Halloween decorations in the fall. They celebrate the traditional New Year on December 31st and January 1st. Christmas is sort of wrapped up into the New Year's celebrations. Chinese New Year is very big! And Songkran - Thailand's New Year's celebration is HUGE! And wet! That will be in April! But this time, we have squirt guns - bequeathed to us from the Belnaps! I digress, as I am jumping ahead to April - which will be here in no time. So, back to the present we go. And the best way to do that is to take a journey with us through our pictures!
As always, we love you and miss you and are so grateful for your kind words and prayers!
Love,
Elder and Sister Brady (mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, John and Shelly, and so on)
Happy Valentine's Day! On Saturday, we went to the mall and decided to try out a new restaurant.
Coco Ichibanya was recommended to us by the Sisters a long time ago.
There was a Thai Boy Band performing when we were at the mall!
Sunday, we had two patriarchal blessings. This is Sister Raweploy. She is from Thailand, but loves English and requested an English Speaking Patriarch.
Sister Jenelyn got her patriarchal blessing on Sunday as well. Her son, Jenson leaves for his mission in a couple of days. John gave him a blessing a couple of weeks ago. It was special for mother and son to be together both times.
On Monday, after our day in the office, Elder Brady asked me if I'd like to head to Chinatown for Chinese New Year! We are old and tired and often put our PJs on early, but we decided to be adventurous and headed out for an evening in Chinatown! I love the beautiful art on the tiles of the walls of the Chinatown Subway Station.
An alley in Chinatown.
Walking through this Alley, we so this young woman all dressed up for a photo shoot! People were having photos taken and/or taking selfies everywhere!
Beautiful puppets on a stick to purchase and wave around.
Food cooked and displayed like art!
I loved this picture of these children donating coins and respectfully bowing to the dragon.
On our way back to the subway, we passed a "fish spa!" I have seen these around Thailand and I really wanted to try it! It was 100 Baht (about 3 USD) for 20 minutes. As soon as you put your feet in, the fish immediately start nibbling at your toes and feet and legs! Apparently they are eating the dead skin!! It was the craziest feeling! Elder Brady was tickled - literally - by the entire experience! I could not believe how soft my legs and feet felt afterwards! 10/10 - I would do this again!!
We also saw several of these machines roasting chestnuts. I really wanted to buy some, but we didn't.
Lucky for us, on the subway ride home we sat next to this kind lady who had two bags full of the freshly roasted chestnuts. Elder Brady struck up a conversation with her and asked her if they tasted good. She immediately pulled some out and gave them to us. She even peeled several of them on the MRT and fed us all the way back to our stop!
Tuesday, we were off to the Hospital for our doctor's appointments. More follow ups - all is well.
Well, you probably can't see it, but I get these spontaneous blood vessels that burst in my fingers and palms on occasion. Tuesday afternoon, I bent over to pick up something off the floor and Bam - pain in my finger!! It only lasts for half a minute and then there is a little bruise.
It happens from time to time. I googled it. I am fine!
Elder Brady and I were asked to speak to the youth at the Bangkok International ward for their activity night. Elder Brady gave a great talk and the youth were so engaged. I shared a few stories at the end.
Wednesday, we headed out to Chachoengsao for a house inspection. We take public transportation for most of our housing visits around Bangkok, but three areas require us to drive. Chachoengsao is one of them. We were at a red light and before knew it, we were surrounded by about 50 or MORE motorcycles. It is so crazy!
We messenger videoed with Kevin while we were driving.
Well, I did . . . John kept his eyes on the road!
Hello!
After the house inspection, we celebrated by having lunch at Burger King! We have been in Thailand for more than a year. This was our first visit to Burger King here.
It was good, but not the same as back home!
Wednesday afternoon, back at the office! We had all of the Senior Missionaries in our mission together! The Howards (who have been serving in the office since the Belnaps left and have been training the Calls will be leaving Saturday to head back up to Ubon for their MLS calling), the Bradys (you know who we are!), the Stennetts (in town from Udon to get their Thai driver's license, go to the temple, and some other meetings and appointments. Stennetts are from Kauai. I love that connection! Sister Stennet is our mission health nurse and she and her husband are also MLS in Udon), and the Calls (our new Senior Office Missionaries from Utah. She is the referral secretary and he will be over finances).
Please note: these are the missionaries that are based in Thailand. We have two senior missionary couples in Lao, and unfortunately we don't get to see them very often.
The Senior Missionaries head to Terminal 21!
Here we all are at Coco Ichibanya! I told you 10/10 we'd go again!
This was a delicious green salad I ate at Coco Ichibanya. I miss my vegetables.
Here I mostly eat carrots and cucumbers, nearly everyday, because:
a) I need to eat my vegetables and
b) I am too lazy to wash veggies and I can peel carrots and cucumbers
If you don't wash the veggies in Thailand, you could risk getting sick. So I generally don't eat a salad unless I am in a restaurant. And I trust that they have washed everything. And I may or may not have gotten sick after eating a salad in a restaurant anyway. But what are you going to do??
Cool view of the "Golden Gate Bridge" and escalators at Terminal 21!
Thursday evening, we headed to the Hyatt Regency at the Bangkok Airport where the July 2026 Asia Area English Speaking YSA Conference will be held. We toured this hotel in January, but Jess had not seen it yet and needed to see the ballroom and breakout rooms to help her with her planning. Left to right: Ice (who works in the country office and helps with travel and activities at the event), Europa (who works in the country office and is the main translator for the Burmese language and will help with the YSA event), Jessica (our choir director friend who will be the lead Chair at the YSA event), and us.
The hotel rooms are beautiful at this hotel. And we loved the towel animal on the bed.
The beautiful hotel swimming pool.
Gorgeous real orchids!
Ping pong in the gym! Jess vs. Sister Brady!
We probably need to get a massage while we are here!
When we were finished with the tour, we invited to enjoy the fabulous buffet dinner. This was a surprise complimentary treat and the food was delicious!
Round one!
Round two!
Round three! Haha!
Once we were completely full, the staff brought over these gorgeous pots of Dim Sum! There was an extra Happy Chinese New Year's theme going on.
We were so full, but I managed to try every single one of them!
The hotel lobby!
On the air train, heading home! Europa, the Bradys, and Jess. And other random people! Haha!
A view of the temple peeking through the trees after we got off the train.
Friday morning, we headed to Srinakarin to do a house inspection where the APs and the Office Elders live. They told us that they their apartment was going to be Celestial Heavenly level clean. Elder Brady responded that we had high expectations. Elder Nash quipped back, "Expect Higher!" They did NOT disappoint! It was the cleanest we had ever seen it! Bradys and APs Elders Nash and Hiatt and Office Elders Collado and Wright! Elder Nash holds up his A+++ inspection paper!
And that is a wrap! Thank you for reading!
We love you and miss you all!
No comments:
Post a Comment