Dearest Family, August 29, 1998 1:40 p.m.

I am finally able to get on the computer - I announced to Helen about an hour ago that what we really needed in our apartment was another computer!!! She is SO inconsiderate and I believe I notice it more than the others because we are always together so our free time is at the same time!!! I REALLY don't complain in our apartment - just in my letters - Ha!!!

I have had the funniest experience this past week. Helen and I decided to start teaching our “Holiday Envelope” and we want them to sing the American Christmas songs for the Christmas programs in their schools if they have them - last year they sang “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” as they danced around their Christmas Tree. Most of the schools want to have these programs but they don't want them to be spiritual so we have to be very careful what we teach. A teacher asked us to teach Silent Night one day last week so Helen explained how that came to be written and then she sang it and many of the teachers had tears come to their eyes - Helen has a beautiful voice. When she sings “I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas” I leave the room - Ha!!!

I taught “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' and “Up on the House Top” and I just couldn't believe that not one of them admitted to ever having heard those songs. I hope they will learn them well enough to teach them to their students before the Holidays. I took some of the Christmas cards I received last year (John and Julianna sent them to me) and they just loved looking at them. They have Christmas cards here and the ones I have seen are just gorgeous but they are very different from ours and they don't send them to as many people as we do - they are VERY expensive.

I had another experience I will tell you about. They took Helen and me to see a “funeral preparation” - a woman had died and they had her casket on a type of altar with banks of flowers around it. There weren't many of her family members at the Wat yet but those who were there were very busy preparing paper clothing including shoes that would be burned on a walkway somewhere to insure that the woman who died would have clothing to wear “on the other side”. They also were preparing beautiful gold envelope type things that either represented money or money would be placed inside them (I believe it was paper counterfeit money) to be burned at the same time as the clothing so she would have money in the after life. I found it very interesting that they would spend so much time in the preparation and then burn everything - they would be burned at the same time as the cremation took place but they would not be put in the casket. The bodies are kept in the place where the flowers are for times ranging from 10 days to 100 days according to the prominence of the deceased - the more prominent the person the longer the time. This was a Chinese-Thai funeral.

I am constantly amazed at the superstitions they have here. I have to ask myself if they compare with our superstitions like “walking under a ladder” or having a “black cat cross in front of us” to bring us bad luck. We laugh when we talk about our superstitions though and the “real believers” here take it very seriously.

One of the schools where Janet and Darlene teach had a surprise birthday party for Darlene here last night. Her birthday is next week but she won't be here so they had it last night. It was very, very nice and she was REALLY surprised. I had gone to teach with them and was gone until 5 o'clock and then my students came at 6 o'clock. The air conditioner in my bedroom is “on the blink” so I couldn't take my students in there and I couldn't ask Darlene if I could use her bedroom so I just held my class in the living room as usual. The teachers got here about 6:45 - they had flowers and baskets and baskets of food and it was very festive. I then moved my class into her bedroom (her bedroom is as large as the living room) and finished my lessons. In between all this, Vicky came with her suitcase and things to put in my hot bedroom.

I am teaching the children of the people I teach at the Ministry of University Affairs and I was very happy last night because the Father of one of them came up to the apartment to thank me - he is an attorney for the ministry. The party lasted until about 10 p.m. and I was SO tired. These teachers who gave the party are very special - they are the ones who took us to Hua Hin and, Noi, the man who helped me come off the mountain came last night and brought me a cute little elephant box from Chaing Mai. He is the man who said he would take Bob, Claire and Michael to Hua Hin but it didn't work out. I REALLY like him!!!

I am enjoying going into the District where I will be with the new missionary teacher - the teachers there are very nice and I know it will be a good experience for me. The superintendent of schools who is looking for an apartment for me came and said he had found one but it wasn't finalized yet and he would come get me to go see it as soon as he could. He said it would be within walking distance of the school and that will surely be a plus. Someone told me it is very close to the “Weekend Market - so that will be fun too!!!

I sent some t-shirts to Ricky this morning - I hope he gets them before he leaves the MTC and I hope they are big enough - they only had one size. I sent them airmail. I thought it would be fun for him to have something from Thailand to wear on P-Days. I hope he is still doing good - Jeannie writes and tells me that he is happy but kinda' tired of studying for 10 1/2 hours a day and I don't blame him. He is really enjoying going to the temple with his friends - that is such a choice experience and I always loved when I was there on Tuesday mornings because that was the day reserved for the MTC missionaries. It has probably changed now because of the new Mt. Timpanogos Temple.

I think of Barji and Jessie at Utah State - I am SO excited to hear how they like it and if they like their new roommate - I believe they told me they would have someone else live with them. When does school actually start? Logan is so beautiful in the Fall. Will they have a car to drive?

SUSANNA - are you home? I was SO happy you sent my friend's e-mail address to me - actually Ron forwarded it to me. I wrote to her and she answered right back and told me how beautiful she thinks you are and how much she was enjoying being with you. Liesel is such an outstanding woman and I am glad you were able to meet her and her husband, Gary. She said in her letter that she didn't think you would be able to go to Egypt so I am assuming you are home by now. Liesel said “There will be a better time for you to go to Egypt” and that sounds so much like her - I know you were disappointed. We don't ever get any news so I don't know very much about the situation there. We try to get news on the computer but it is difficult - we can get connected but we don't get much news. I am also concerned about the hurricane in North Carolina - our newspapers here hardly mention it but one of our teachers told us they had evacuated 500,000 people - I believe he misplaced some of the zeros - Ha!!!

BOB - Thank you so much for helping arrange for Ann to order my prescriptions. It is amazing how easy it is for doctors to get through to other doctors and how difficult it is for their patients to reach them. I saved an article in one of the Bangkok's newspapers about the efforts of a doctor here who goes into the hill tribe poor people to do humanitarian services - I will send it to you if I can still find it. They tell me there is a great need for medical help here for the poor people. Our friend, Nut, would be a perfect person to contact for more information but I would hate for you to come this far and leave your family for the time it would take.

We only have three more weeks to teach in the schools here and we have SO much to do - my head is constantly spinning when I think about all I need to get done. Janet and Darlene leave Monday to go to Songkhla (in the Southern part of Thailand) to teach in an English Camp. It will be fun for them and they are looking forward to it - they will go by night train. Helen will wind up her night class on Monday night and she and Janet finished their teaching at Channel 9 so their missions are coming to a close. I have told all my night students that I will teach until the first of October.

I LOVE YOU ALL SO VERY, VERY MUCH. PLEASE BE SO VERY, VERY CAREFUL. Grandma B