Transfer Meeting...and a few other things

Transfer Meetings are a big part of mission life.  They consist of new incoming missionaries, missionaries going home (we call them cobbers, pronounced jopers, to jope is to leave), changes in companionships, pep talks, financial tips and instructions from Elder Grange, health tips from our mission nurse, musical numbers and talks from the President and his wife.  There are training meetings before and after.  Elder Grange does reimbursements, and we take care of phone changes and problems.  It is a lot of fun, as many of you saw in the last transfer video.

 

This is Sister Mon, she is from Myanmar and we met her in Provo at the MTC.  She learned Thai and English while she was there.  She calls us her "paamaah", which means parents and I call her "lugg-sow",  child-daughter. She misses riding her motorcycle and says she likes ride it very fast.

These are our 9 new missionaries, we actually had one more from Thailand that arrived a week earlier. We were responsible for keeping them hidden until their introduction in the meeting.

jj

"If you add what you have in your house wallet with your receipts, that will equal your monthly house kitty"  "Got it"?

SOME OF OUR NEWEST ELDERS.....

Elder Allen with his new companion, Elder Stone.

Elder Joyem, in the air, and Elder Chamberlin.

Elder Lindley, with his new comp.

Elder Reid with new Elder Walker on the right.

 

These are the Din Daeng Sisters.  Sister Tau, Sister Satatip and Sister Alley.

They serve in our area so we see them often and they are super missionaries. Sister Satatip is Thai and being taught funny English phrases such as "supercute".  

 

 

This is the boat you ride on the Klong (canal), it is commonly called the Klong Monster. The Klong is stinky and dirty, and these boats go so fast that you need to pull up the plastic to protect yourself from getting a little drink of klong along the way.  These boats are a bit tricky to get in and out off, and they often take off before you are in or out.  They are really for the young and limber.

 I am putting these in for Ryan, there is a lot of graffiti art along the klong.

This is actually when we were off the boat and walked to the Jim Thompson house museum and restaurant.

 

STREET FOOD

 

 One night walking home from BIG C (it is kind of like a Kmart) we passed all these food vendors.  We only bought some fruit, though I was temped by the fish...........I am sure you will be also!

 Elder Wolfley will be returning to the states this Friday, he has been an assistant to the president while we have been here.  We will miss him.

 Our Patio is looking better since we inherited some plants from another senior couple that will be returning home next month.

HUMANITARIAN TRIP TO RANONG

Last Saturday/Sunday we flew to Ranong in Southern Thailand with Elder and Sister Ure.  They are the Humanitarian Couple here in Bangkok.  The church had donated several machines to Princess Mother's Foundation to help with cataract surgery for those who cannot afford it.  The Ure's needed to go to see how the machines were being used.  Princess Mother's Foundation travels to out of the way places, to those in need.  There are 6 - 7 eye surgeons that volunteer their time, countless nurses and others who come to the 2 day event.  Five of the doctors were from Bangkok alone.  They did 138 surgeries on Saturday.



We flew in on Saturday morning and were met by our hosts Thong Chai and his wife, Moo.  They took us to an outdoor restaurant before we went to the hospital.  The food was real Thai, and Elder Grange loved it.  I liked the rice and some sort of steamed vegetable that looked like spinach, but wasn't.  We could see across the river to Myanmar.

We watched a few surgeries, I did not get too close.

 The church donated one of these machines.  They call it a Phaco and it is an $80,000 machine.

Elder GrangejE

The barefoot surgeon. The foot pedal controls certain parts of the Phaco.

The church donated these fast autoclaves and they were being well used.

The patients were lined up out side the operating room.

This is where they stayed the night if they did not live close enough to go home.

Cute little girls!

 The next day the families lined the outside of the room waiting to take their parents, grandparents home.

The doctors checked.

 Then checked a little further with this machine that LDS charities donated.

 We got to go through the room and place sunglasses on them.  Very sweet, as they thanked us and grabbed our hands.  We were so honored to be there and be a part of such an amazing effort.

A happy reunion with Grandma!

Elder Grange talking and getting the stories of some of the patients.

This sweet lady wanted lots of pictures with us.

Love what this picture says.

Elder Grange chatted it up with the men also.  These men were waiting for their final discharge.

 

We were so impressed with so many skilled volunteers who made this happen.  The people there treated us like we were visiting dignitaries.  We were so humbled by the fact that we just showed up and received so much love.

Oh, and it was good to get out of Bangkok and see a different side of Thailand.