Thailand Letter
(This was received as a paper letter and Bob scanned it and emailed it to the family)
August 10,1997
Bangkok, Thailand
Dearest Family;
Thank you SO much for your wonderful letters - they mean SO much to me!!! I just finished having a bowl of rice with butter and salt on it and while I was eating I read the "Daily Herald" -thank you Annie. It brings me back to reality to read an American Newspaper and with news I am interested in - Virginia found a woman she knew in the obituary!!! I hurried through it when I first opened your letter because I was worried there was a calamity or something I needed to know about - I was relieved to find out that you sent it just for the local news. I will love the bubble gum too and will think of you with every "bubble". Russell's backpacking trip with his Dad sounded cold and fun - anything cold sounds fun to me - Ha!!! I am glad Susanna and her friends had fun in Mexico and it's exciting to hear about furnishing her dorm room - do you remember those days? I'm sure you all do and it's a WONDERFUL., time in her life. Jessie -how NEAT that you get paid for entertaining with your violin at wedding receptions - I KNOW you enjoy that more than you do working at Hogi Yogi. I'll bet Russell will be a good football player this year and Lee Anna and Jimmy playing soccer - they play soccer here too but they call it football - it took me a long time to figure that one out!!! Jimmy - I haven't seen any snakes yet and if I do you may find me back in Utah!!!
Brett - I loved your note where you said, "Hope you are having fun in China or where ever you are" - I don't know where I am half the time either. Michael - I want to hear all about EFY - I wish you could be staying with me and then have me take you to register like I did last year - that was fun for me. Laura - I can't believe you are 14 either and I laughed when I read that your folks didn't recognize the fact that you had been a teenager for a whole year. Katie - I'm sorry some of your quails died - which one was Jumper? Bob - thank you SO much for your advice about my ear wax - I bought a baby nose syringe and thought it was dumb but now 1'm glad I have it and t can buy baby oil, alcohol and vinegar without any problems!!! Roy - I COULDN'T BELIEVE IT!!! All the teachers got together yesterday morning and when we met at the hotel Dr. Hall came up to me and said, "I have an e-mail letter for you". I said "You can't have one - no one I know can send me letters via e-mail". Then, he handed me the one you had sent to him saying, "This is a test. ". How in the world did you find his e-mail address? That is SO like you. I always remember the time Daddy and I left our heavy coats at your home in route to Chris and Wayne's home in Alabama. We knew they didn't have a street address at that time and we knew you couldn't send them to a post office box number and yet when we drove into their home, the UPS Van was there delivering them. I was SO thrilled to get it and it has prompted him to help me get a modem - he is going to meet us at a computer store tomorrow evening and get a modem and come home with us to hook it up. I think my letters have been a real "pain" for Bob and Claire and I truly appreciate all they have done to get them to everyone of you. We have to get connected to an Internet company here in Bangkok and we probably won't be able to do that until later in the week but as soon as we do I will send you letters that way - I don't know how Ann and Jean will get them!!! Ann says Ron has their computer at his office and I don't believe the Weinerts have an e-mail address - do you Jean? It will cost us $12 a month to send e-mail and that's cheaper than all these stamps.
I had a sweet letter from Chris today and she told me that Roy and Patrice had address labels printed up with my address on them - HOW THOUGHTFUL OF YOU!!! I may receive letters from people I haven't heard from in years - Ha!!! I had written that you had to put Moo2 on the addresses but my mail has been coming through fine without that on them so don't change the labels. I had a WONDERFUL letter from a man in our Stake who has served three missions in foreign countries and he was SO complimentary - it makes it all worthwhile.
Thailand is celebrating "Mother's Day" this week because it is the Queen's birthday on Tuesday. You should see all the gorgeous displays throughout all of Bangkok - everywhere you look you see beautiful portraits of her surrounded by glittering lights. Some of the portraits of her are in regal gowns, some when she was younger, some in a military type uniform - it is SO unusual. I have a hard time not confusing the King and Queen with Buddha. They had Mother's Day at church this morning and presented all the mothers with those wrist leis and then they had Mother's Day talks - Virginia and I couldn't figure it all out for awhile. Tomorrow at the school where we will teach, all the mothers of the students are invited to the school for a program and then they have classes in the afternoon.
Thailand is truly a country of contrasts. They are building a five-story building at the Sai Mai School here where we spend a lot of our time and we see men digging deep, deep holes by hand and then a few blocks away we see heavy equipment doing the same thing. They have built tin shacks night outside the school and they are built over a khlong that is filthy dirty and they are for the families of the workers working on the building. I can hardly look at them without crying because there are little children playing in them on dirt floors. We see men in the khlongs (canals) up to their necks catching fish by hand. Most of the teachers dress very elaborately and the students are ALWAYS neat and clean - even living in dire circumstances!!!
We had such an interesting day yesterday (Saturday). We all met at 6:30 at the Mauri Hotel which is a very, very expensive and nice hotel and then we went in a chartered bus to the River Kwai place. That was such a sad, sad time during World War 1 I and if you think it is appropriate I wish you would rent the movie and see it.. We also visited the cemetery where there are at least 8,000 graves of the war dead. We went through the shacks that served as places for the Prisoners of War to live (survive) - sad!!! We also went on a boat ride on the river.
Ann - thank you for remembering Daddy's birthday and for putting flowers on his grave. It was Bob's (my brother) birthday on Saturday, Granny Mellors is today and Grandmother Forrests is tomorrow. I don't like to see too many of the things that happened during the war - the pictures of the Japanese building the bridge and then having it blown up were very graphic. So much of that was hand labor too and it was a huge bridge. The scenery around it is just beautiful - in fact, I said many times yesterday that it could all be in Arkansas - it reminded me of the White River and the places we used to go camping and fishing.
I had a sweet letter from Chan - your friend, Patrice. I would SO love to meet her while I am in Thailand but I can't see how that could happen. It takes us two hours to even go to a decent place to shop and I have no idea how to get any place - I just follow Virginia. We had to spend the night with the other single sisters on Friday night and it took us 3 hours to get there.
P. S.
I wasn't going to start another page but I need to tell you that Bob doesn't want me to write anything on the letters I send - something to do with having them scanned and sent to you e-mail. SO I will need to end my letters without writing anything on them.
Ann - I was with a cousin of Jessie Tanners yesterday on the trip. She and her husband were sent to Cambodia to run a cannery the church has built there - there is still so much turmoil over there that they can't return. They are kind of discouraged because they are having to stay in a hotel here that is costing them a lot and they also have to pay rent on a house in Cambodia. Anyway - she told me about the grandson of Jessie’s who died. She said it has changed Maxine's life - she is Jessie's mother and the grandmother of the boy who died. They said it was suicide and Maxine won't accept that and thinks it was foul play with some friends he was with. 1 guess Maxine and Wally were sent to the Nauvoo Visitor's Center as Public Relation Directors and it was a very stressful calling and Maxine has not quite recovered.
I hope you will "white out" the phrase I used in my last letter using the "N" word - how dumb of me!!!
I was given this picture yesterday and I look like a "baby Blimp" - I really am not that fat. I should wait to see if the one that was taken with my camera is any better but I don't know when I will get my film developed. The Governor looks SO good. I didn't know until yesterday that he received his doctorate in microbiology from BYt1- he loved the atmosphere so much that he has sent his daughter there and wants the church influence here in Thailand with his teachers.
I am going with Virginia to meet the executive with the Marriott Hotel here tomorrow. That should be interesting. She received a letter of introduction from Bill Marriott. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day!!!
I am doing just great and I hope each one of you is doing great also!!! I believe Jean and Rick go to Sun Valley this next week - be safe and have a WONDERFUL time. John and Julianna - I hope you are having delicious tomatoes and cucumbers by now!!! I wonder how the raspberries turned out - Ann said she would go and pick them but she hasn't mentioned it - if you don't pick them they stop producing. I know it is HOT in Utah too so I don't envy you.
I love each one of you so very, very much. PLEASE BE VERY CAREFUL. IN EVERYTHING YOU DO. I won't write anything on this letter.