Dear family and friends!
It's Friday! Since we are back in the office for a few minutes to catch up and also type up 3 more patriarchal blessings, I thought I would try to get the blog post done!
I don't even know where to begin. So much has happened since we left you last weekend, and since the pictures tell the story best, I will get right to them.
But first - a fun fact: Last weekend our plans changed since the Platts ALL GOT SICK! I believe we left off with Nick getting sick on Friday. Well, like dominos, the Platts fell ill to whatever it was they had! I will spare you the details and any graphic photos, but the grand total of throw up Friday night through Tuesday was 42 TIMES!!!
Another fun fact: this week was (and still is) the long anticipated week of the Asia Area YSA Conference. Elder Brady and I were supposed to attend as Senior Missionary Chaperones and give patriarchal blessings. Elder Brady and I were praying we would not get whatever it was the Platts had/have!
Read on for more fun!
But first, we love you and miss you and thank you for your love, support, prayers, and kind notes!
Love,
Elder and Sister Brady (mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, John and Shelly, and so on)
By last Saturday evening, most of the Platt children were not feeling well. No photos and no additional details need to be provided. So Katrina, Gordon, and Henry, Elder Brady and I decided to have dinner at Barney's Burgers where you can eat yummy tater tots and the best smashed burgers in Bangkok!
Sunday morning, I ate some yummy steamed bread! This is Indonesian Roti Kuku that my mom made in Oregon! She gave some of it to Katrina when Katrina and family visited mom in Oregon a few weeks ago. Katrina put it the freezer and then she brought it to me in Thailand! It made me so happy! And it was delicious with a little butter and warmed in the microwave! It reminded me of my mom and my childhood! Don't you love foods that bring back such warm memories with every bite?
Sunday in church, our good friend, Patti, spoke! She was from our ward back in Oregon! And now she lives in Thailand! She is one of the best speakers I have ever heard!
Her talks are inspiring and they really light a fire!
Anytime I listen to her talk, teach, or preach, I want to be a better disciple of Jesus Christ!
We love Patti and were so glad Katrina, Gordon, and Henry were well enough to make it to church.
After church, Nick stopped throwing up long enough to receive his Patriarchal Blessing from Grandpa!
We are seriously grateful he felt better for a short period of time! We can't believe how tall he is getting! Nick will be 14 in September and will be a Freshman in High School in Beijing. He is such a great young man! And he has many wonderful things in store for him!
We had planned to have a big Sunday dinner of Spaghetti with meat sauce for the family! No one was feeling well enough to eat, so I went ahead and made it for me and John and froze the leftovers for next Sunday's dinner. It was yummy! You could probably count on my two hands and one foot the amount of times I have actually cooked in Thailand!
Henry was the only one not sick at their Condo, so he asked if he could please come to our place and hang out with us. He wanted to be as far away as possible from his sick siblings and now sick parents!!
We had fun playing Skip Bo. Henry is our oldest grandchild and will be a Senior next year! He is also a great young man and fun to play with. Although he and grandpa get a little competitive in games. haha!
After a game, we ate popcorn and watched a movie!
Monday morning breakfast! Coconut milk, straight out of the coconut!
How am I ever going to leave Thailand?? I will miss the yummy fruit so much!
We had planned to do some fun things with the Platt family on Monday, but most of them were very sick, weak, and other details I will spare you. So, we basically spent most of the day in the office getting caught up from being out with Katrina and family the week before.
But around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, Henry begged to come over again.
He still felt well. Henry was the last man standing! So, of course, we said, "yes! come on over!"
We played Five Crowns and watched Paul Blart 2! All the time we were hoping that Henry would stay well and we would not get sick!! In the meantime, the Platt family back at their hotel were still unwell. Aaron was especially not doing well.
I woke up Tuesday morning to this picture of Aaron. Katrina and Gordon were worried about Aaron getting dehydrated (to name one of their worries) and so they took him to urgent care.
The doctors kept Aaron overnight (for about 6 hours), took some blood tests, gave him some meds to lower his temperature, IV fluids, released him from the hospital, and cleared him and the rest of the family to go ahead and go to Chiang Mai as they had planned to go Tuesday morning!!! The doctors told them there are doctors in Chiang Mai. Oh, and Henry threw up.
I got out of bed and walked the Platt family across the street to get them on the train that would take them to the airport. They traveled light with just backpacks since they would be coming back to Bangkok on Saturday. Most of them looked pretty washed out and weak, but everyone was starting to feel just a little bit better.
Elder Brady and I spent the day working in the office and catching up! Elder Hutcheon (I guess we call him Clark now) stopped by with his family who came to Thailand to pick him up and said goodbye! He was such a great missionary! We will miss him.
Meantime in Chiang Mai, the Platts made it safely to their Condo. They look like they are having a lively time. Laying on the sofa and recuperating.
Wednesday morning, we got up, did a little exercise, said a prayer of gratitude that we weren't sick, packed our bags, and headed to the train station. Here we are waiting for the train that will take us to the airport where we are staying at the beautiful Hyatt Regency for the Asia Area Young Single Adult (YSA) Conference.
This is Sister and Elder Rencher. We ran into them at the airport. They are helping out as chaperones at the YSA conference. Elder Rencher served in Thailand back in the early 70s and knows Gene Platt (our daughter's father-in-law), who also served in Thailand and later taught new missionaries how to speak Thai. Gene was Elder Renchers teacher in the LTM (language training mission) in Hawaii! The Renchers are MLS missionaries in the West Mission.
Meanwhile in Chiang Mai, the Platts are spending the day mostly resting, but also visiting a few Wats. Here are the Platt boys. Gordon, Henry, Nick, Brady, and Aaron.
Here are the Platt girls. Katrina and Charlotte. Charlotte has a pretty skirt on that was provided by the people at the Wat.
Wednesday's YSA Schedule! It's going to be a fun busy week!
This is our hotel room. We were put in a room that had a living room attached so Elder Brady could give patriarchal blessing in a more home like setting.
Meanwhile in Chiang Mai.
And back at the Hyatt. We stopped in the lounge to get some yummy snacks!
Have I mentioned how much I am going to miss the fruit in Thailand!
This is Ashani from Sri Lanka. She was so sweet.
She was very happy to receive her patriarchal blessing.
This is Piumi, also from Sri Lanka! She was also very happy to receive her blessing and was so sweet as well. We feel so blessed to make so many new friends from around the world.
This is a random picture of me with Bob Denver (Gilligan from Gilligan's Island). I was about 15 years old and living in Hawaii. A friend who worked at the Coco Palms Hotel tipped off me and my friend Laurie that Gilligan was staying at the hotel, and so we called his hotel room, and he answered! We told him we wanted to meet him and he said OK. We told him the time we would be there and he said OK! This is a true story!! So we got to his room and he was NOT there. But we were patient and persistent teenagers, and we waited. Finally, we saw him walking up the path with his friend Patty Maloney. They were staying together in a private suite (hut/cottage). He walked right by us and went in the room. Looking back as an adult, I am confident he was not happy we were actually there, but Patty was so sweet and talked to us for some time. Laurie and I had made the Plumeria leis they are wearing in the picture. I had even put on my best dress, a muumuu I had made that summer. Yes, I sewed that dress! Do not ask me to sew you anything today. After we visited for awhile outside the hut, Patti called into the room and told Bob to come out for a picture. My friend Laurie was so excited she said to Bob, "You are my biggest fan!!" (Haha - she meant to say she was Bob's biggest fan). The reason this picture came up is because I always thought Bob Denver and Patty were married and told my children that Gilligan was married to a little person. I got a random text from Katrina and Gordon on Wednesday regarding this fun "fact." Gordon had done some google searching and found that Bob Denver had not actually ever been married to a little person. I scrolled through my 10,000 photos and found my proof, I mean my picture, and sent it to them. Then, I did a little google searching of my own. It turns out Bob and Patty were in a Sci-fi Comedy Series in 1975 called Far Out Space Nuts. And as it turns out, they traveled to Hawaii together. So, you do the math.
OK, back to the mission! Here I am in my YSA t-shirt! Yay!!
The beautiful hotel lobby!
The Welcome Banner! The theme this year is "Faith Above Waves!" Stay strong and choose faith even when life throws challenges and "waves" at you!
The first gathering of all of the attendees.
Yay, he made it back!
Danny from the Bangkok International Ward helped us find the room we would be presenting a workshop in the next day. Elder Brady gave Dan's brother a patriarchal blessing before he left for his mission. Dan and his brother are from Hungary! He is such a nice YSA!!
This is Masana! Last year, Elder Brady gave her a blessing at FSY and now she is at YSA! It is so fun to see some of the young people we have met over the past year! By the way, over 42 countries were represented at this YSA conference! I love it!
Meanwhile in Chiang Mai, Aaron has made it clear he will NOT go to another Wat. Last week, he told his mom, "if Grandma tries to take us to another Market, I will NOT go!"
The Thursday YSA schedule - Part 1
Part 2
Meanwhile in Chiang Mai!
The Platts and elephants! I must admit, I am having a little FOMO! I really wanted to go to Chiang Mai too! But we had this commitment to be at the YSA Conference and I really wanted to show them Bangkok the week before! We did go to Chiang Mai 32 years ago, so I have been there.
And it was good to be here with these wonderful YSA!
Workshop 1 done!
Picture time with friends from the Philippines.
Workshop 2 done!
This sweet sister came up and said she enjoyed the workshop! She is from Africa but lives in Beijing and attends the Beijing Branch! I told her our daughter and family were moving to Beijing! She said she would tell my daughter, Katrina, that her mom is funny! Haha!
Workshop 3 all finished!
Time for a snack!
Elder Brady talks with Navodya from Sri Lanka who is about to get a patriarchal blessing. Navodya asked if her friend could come in to interpret as she did not speak much English (she will be able to translate her blessing from English to her language later).
Navodya was so sweet and happy to receive her blessing. And we were grateful to still had energy! This blessing was supposed to be at 7:15pm after the YSA got back from an activity at the mall, but there was some confusion and major delays (from late YSAs to Bangkok traffic). We ended up connecting around 9:15 which is ordinarily past our bedtime!
Navodya and her friend Darshika smile for a picture with us after the blessing.
French Toast!
Desserts and pastries for breakfast! Yum!
Since we live at the temple annex where service projects were being held, we did our two scheduled Friday blessings back in our apartment. This is Dilshan from Sri Lanka. He was so excited to get his blessing. I asked him what his favorite thing at the YSA conference had been and he said the blessing was what he was most excited about. We loved him and his sweet spirit.
Good morning! It is now Saturday morning and this is the schedule for today! It is 6:30am as I write this. I woke up at 4:00am and could not fall back asleep, so I decided to come out here and finish up the blog! I will save the rest of Friday's pictures for next week's blog!
In the meantime, Katrina and family will get back to Bangkok today (this Saturday afternoon). We will probably end our time at the YSA conference a little early so we can be with them. We would have stayed through the whole thing ordinarily, but we want to spend as much time with the family before they move to Beijing.
If you have read this far, let me know and I will pick out something delicious from the buffet and eat it for you today!
And on that note, I am going to post this! And I think I am going to take a nap!
We love you and miss you! Thanks for reading! See you next week!
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