Thailand Letter
Dearest Family, October 19, 1998 7:40 p.m.
I REALLY appreciate all your WONDERFUL letters to get me up to date about my grandchildren and all of your lives. - I think of you constantly and wonder how you are "keeping up"!!!
BOB - I worried about your trip with the Teacher's Quorum to Zions and going into those narrow canyons. I wouldn't be responsible for a group of young people in those dangerous places for all the rice in Thailand and that's a lot of rice!!! I hope you had a good and safe time. Michael - when you go on your mission you will be such a help with your computer skills - this mission could use a full time computer missionary and we don't have even one that I know of. Brett - can you play soccer in the snow??? Katie and Laura - their lives will be full of activities for the next 15 years so you had better get used to it and I think that's the only way it should be. CLAIRE - Thank you for your note about the framing of the condo - don't worry about sending pictures - what happened to your digital camera that it had to be repaired? How in the world do you "waterproof your driveway"?
JOHN - I am SO happy that you and Julianna were able to take a break and go to Mesquite, Nevada. You should do that more often. THANK YOU AND BOB FOR WINTERIZING THE CABIN - I had forgotten all about that. Thank you for the information about the charges for an airline ticket going on yours and Bobs' itineraries - I believe that will be too expensive but I will let you know. The Mission Office was closed today so I couldn't call. I am SO excited to have you come and I am counting on you to bring extra suitcases - I look at all the things I have to take home and I think I am crazy but I surely don't want to leave them here.
ANNIE - I was SO glad to hear from you - I have wondered if maybe you had gone on a trip or something. I know how very busy you are - your BYU classes sound exhausting to me. Your friend Joyce Nelson is exactly the kind of person they are looking for to come over here - WOW - could we have used her in the first phase of this program. I will give her name to the people in Salt Lake. I will always remember those fun candy classes at Shepherds and I hope you and your classes of young women will learn all the candy making skills and then teach me when I get home. I'm proud of Ron and his work with the Bishopric - that is such a big job and he is perfect for it. I can't imagine Ron making 5 more offices in his building - I hope you and your family got it all "spruced up" for him this weekend. I'm SO happy that you were able to go see Ricky off at the airport and I can just imagine how excited he was - I can hardly wait to hear some news about his first few days in the mission field. I know that Jessie is feeling the effects of winter in Logan - it really is much colder there than it is in Provo. I would love to see Russell play football, Jimmy play tag football and Lee Anna cheer - I look forward to that when I get home!!! I don't dare go close to "Gulati's Tailor Shop" - if you would like me to help order you something when Bob and John come I will be happy to do it. He is SO good!!! Helen's daughter had a cute suit made while she was here and it is different from anything you had made - I could ask him to make you one of that style.
JEANNIE - Thank you SO much for your letter telling me about Ricky's farewell at the airport. He is so busy and happy about this time that I can tell you he doesn't have much time to be homesick. I see the missionaries here quite often and I always try to envision Ricky in El Salvador - have you heard from him yet? I will be so anxious to hear about his companion and EVERYTHING!!! I hope your new home is coming along exactly like you want it to - when is it supposed to be completed?
I have SO many things to do I will never get them all done before I have to go home. Myrth and I are doing fine - she made her a gallon of American cream soup so she doesn't have to eat any Thai food - Ha!!! Some of my friends came by yesterday and took us to the nicest restaurant by the river - they ordered and I said just order Myrth some "fried rice with crab". They ordered about ten accompaniments for the rice but she only ate the fried rice. I just love the Thai food and they love to see me eat it - I must go on a diet soon!!! They stayed for 8 hours along with four friends from Saimai. Everybody thinks I am lonely so they come and bring food and stay and visit.
We were assigned to go to Lopburi and I am determined to be a good trainer so I told Myrth we MUST go. Two of my friends from Wat Pai, (Somjit and Lamchuan) came to our townhouse at 5 a.m. and took us to get on the bus. We left Bangkok at 5:45 a.m. and got to Lopburi at 9:10. The bus ride was very comfortable and Myrth enjoyed it. I just LOVE the branch in Lopburi and they are so very appreciative and happy when we go there. I play their piano for them. Myrth went to their Primary and they just LOVED her!!! Nurack will organize a group of people for us to teach English to starting next Saturday so we will go on Saturday and spend the night in his home and then go to church on Sunday - that will be much easier than getting up at 3:30 in the morning. Somjit and Lamchuan stayed for all three meetings and they said they enjoyed it - this in an old, old building without air conditioning - I was proud of those Buddhist friends.
We start in the morning to check the resource center boxes in 53 schools - I sent an e-mail message to Janet asking her to tell me what we would find. She wrote back and said she didn't know - I KNOW - they just didn't do them!!! This is the biggest zone in the entire mission and do you remember when I wrote to you and said I didn't think Janet and Darlene were working like Helen and I were? When I would ask them about this they would just look at me and laugh. The funny thing is that they were considered the BEST teachers here!!! Oh well.
Myrth wants to use the computer. She can't get her lap top to work and I don't know anything about lap top computers - I believe she is going to wait until Bob and John get here. Marc tried to fix it for her but it still doesn't work. I can get it all hooked up and everything but it just won't type. I have to get this one all fixed for her to write a message and then send it, etc. etc. and it TAKES SO DARN MUCH TIME!!!
I love you all so very, very much. PLEASE BE SO VERY, VERY CAREFUL. Grandma B