OUR BANGKOK APARTMENT

Our apartment is no more than 800 sq. feet.  It is 2 bedroom, 2 bath.

It is comfortable enough.  Each room has a AC control, except the kitchen and bathrooms.  When we are not using a room the AC goes off.  When we leave for the day, the AC is off.  We have heard that utilities are pretty expensive.  We also have three large fans to help keep us cool. We can not drink the water in our apartment so we have a water cooler that we drink from and I wash our fruits and vegetables with, we also use bottled water to brush our teeth.  It is so different, but we are happy to be here and have met so many nice people.  Other Senior couples and Khon Thai have been so kind!

That is our front door that Elder Grange is pointing to, just to the right is our kitchen.  I am standing in front of our sliding patio door.

                                                            This is our short little hall way that leads to our bedroom on the right, another bedroom on the left and a bathroom on the left

 This is the master bedroom, pretty small, but it has a built in
dresser and a small closet.  Also a master bath, but we can't really use the shower because water goes all over the floor.  We want to figure that out soon.  I did buy a nice new shower curtain for it.







This is our view from the front door.  That is our eating area to the left.  I am standing at the kitchen entrance.  The little hallway to the bedrooms is on the left, just past the little table.

Our kitchen has a smaller refrigerator, a microwave, no dishwasher or disposal,  we have to heat the water in a small coffee pot thing to wash the dishes, so we only do that 1 or 2 times a week.  We have a small 2 burner stove top that we have found works quite well.  At the end of the kitchen you can see a door that leads out to a "mostly inclosed porch"  That is where our oversized toaster oven is found.

This is the porch, you can see the light shining in on the right, it is open there, about 4 feet wide, floor to ceiling.  There is a little rail.  A sink is on the left in the front of the picture, then our washing machine.  The oven is on top of the air conditioning unit.  We have many drying contraptions out there.  It gets a little crowded on wash day.  Because it is somewhat inclosed and the AC vents out hot air, things dry pretty quick.
The downside is that our towels dry crunchy and even wrinkle free shirts have pretty good wrinkles to iron out.  Upside, lower utility bills.

OUR FIRST P DAY

A p day is our preparation day, or our day off.  We still dress in missionary clothes, but we have a chance to do shopping, laundry and other errands.

We checked out of our hotel, YEA! and moved into our apartment, YEA! 

This is the view from our 22 floor, the university is right below us.

We hear that Mr. Kay Suit for Elder is a good place

to get custom made suits made.  Sister Meeker had a jacket made for her and it looked really well made.  Suits are only $160.OO.  We may have to visit Mr Kay later.

This was a place across from Mr Kay.  Notice the shoes at the bottom and on the stairs, it is custom here for people here to take their shoes off before entering their homes, no matter how humble.

This is the fruit stand that I have been buying fruit at that is close to the church office building. Wonderful Watermelon, Mango, Mangosteens and Papaya and Pineapple (also a few other strange fruits).  It is all trimmed up, so when you buy it, they cut it up and put it in a nice little bag for you. All for 20 Baht, which is 67 cents.

We also went to Makro, a Costco type store, but no membership required and a good bye meeting and lunch for the Meeker's at the church. The Meeker's are very well loved and will be missed.  We walked down to a small market and picked a few things to last us for a few days.

Those Dang Motorcycles!!

Bangkok is full of motorcycles, they are everywhere!  If you need to get somewhere really fast, you can hire one and they will take you cheaply. They weave through the traffic to get to the front of the pack, so when the light turns green it is like the start of a motocross race. The worst part is that in many places they go on the sidewalks so you never know when one will go flying past just missing you.

We made it to Thailand

We arrived last Saturday and have been in a state of serious jet lag for...well we are still lagging!

We checked into a hotel that is very close to the Church Office Building.

We attended church in the Asoke ward on Sunday and we were asked to speak at the end of the meeting and introduce ourselves and bear a short testimony.  We both used our very best Thai.  I know they understood John just fine, and at least a little of what I said because they laughed when I said in Thai that "I speak Thai snake, snake, fish, fish"  (a Thai idiom for just a little bit)

Monday we started training and there is a lot to learn.  The Meeker's have the office very well organized and though we are slow, we are making progress.

We had dinner at the Meeker's on Sunday night and on Monday at President and Sister Senior's, along with the other Senior Couples. 

Imagine 6 suitcases full of clothes that have travelled halfway across the world, might need a little

ironing, right?
So, our room does not have an ironing board or iron, so we call up and request one and this is what shows up....
I tried, I really did!  
It appears this is the only ironing board in the hotel!
Luckily the next night the board was being used and we just got an iron.  
Turns out it was easier to iron on the very firm bed!
Welcome to Thailand!!










This is our first day of work at the Church Office Building

It is a pretty nice building.  It is only a 10 minute walk to our apartment.  We will move in to our apartment for the next 17 1/2 months on Saturday.



We have had a little street food since we have been here.  I especially like the fresh fruits that you can buy, all peeled and cut up.  John likes the skewer meats and bags of sticky rice that they sell with it.

Today for lunch we shared fruits and fried rice.

Pictures of that next week.

Have I mentioned how hot and humid it is here?

Oh, and that this is the rainy season.,,,

OUR WEEK AT THE MTC

We arrived at the mission training center on Monday, June 1st.

And here is the photo that every missionary MUST take to show to the people back home.  It is simple, point to where you are going and smile!

How'd we do?

This is our district.  We had, I think 12 or 13 districts in our group of Senior missionaries.   about 50 couples and 5 single sisters.
These are our new friends, L-R, The Birch's from Green River Wyoming, serving in the SLC family history center - The Katherman's from Irvine, CA, serving in Macon, GA - us - The Lukes, from Springville, UT serving in the San Deigo Mormon Battalion Visitors Center.
We grew to love them all in such a short time!
We met so many impressive people going to Germany, Australia, Hawaii, Japan, South Africa, from west to east coast and everywhere in between.

We were in class from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM.  We had lunch from 12:00 - 1:30.  They kept us busy.
John and I met the 5 young missionaries heading to Thailand in about 4 weeks.  3 Elders and 2 Sisters.  We ate lunch with them one day and attended their language class with them until it was time for us to go to ours.  So Fun!

We start our office training this Monday and go through Thursday.  Then we head out to Thailand on Friday the 12th.

WE HAD THE BEST THAI TUTORS EVER!

Riley Creer skyped with us for 3 months for 2 hours each week.  He gave us a great start and we were sad that we did not get to meet him in person and have him teach us during our week of immersion!

Curtis Adams was our learning coach from February through immersion.  He was positive and encouraging........ always

This is Ryan Tirrell.

 He came in just talking Thai and smiling at us........like we should know what he was saying.  By the end of the week, John did understand almost everything and was pretty impressive (at least to me) in his language skills!  If I had enough time, and he used short sentences, I could understand some.

Sister Betsy Zatarain....
John thought she was the toughest, and she did challenge us both, and we have to say we were better for it!

OUR JOURNEY BEGINS

We were sent off in style with a hand carved watermelon,  lots of delicious thai food and many warm and loving wishes from friends and family.

We will be serving in
BANGKOK THAILAND
for 18 months.

The count down begins today, June 1st, 2015