TBM - Welcome to Thailand

Dear Ones, What an amazing week this has been!  As I ponder words to describe how I feel today, after one week in Thailand, the best I can come up with is "awesome wonder."  And I have found that being on a mission lends that quality to almost anything we are doing.  I love being a missionary! My heart reverberated with love as I heard Elder Faust, in the Relief Society Broadcast, say:  "A sister missionary serving in Thailand wrote about sitting with sisters in Bangkok for last year's broadcast. She said, 'I felt such a strength from this tiny group of Thai women, doing their best to follow counsel from women in Salt Lake they have never met. Isn't it remarkable to feel the bond of sisterhood that spans the oceans and rivers in many countries as we join together in this meeting!'"  There I was, a Sister Missionary, sitting shoulder to shoulder with my dear sisters in Bangkok Thailand, listening to a prophet of God talk about us!  The meeting came alive!  It brought a sweetness to that gathering that was fed by the Holy Spirit.  My heart echoed the very words that my beloved friend, Barbara Lockhart, had offered in the opening prayer, "We rejoice, Father, in the privilege of being gathered together as Sisters all over the world." We have had a wonderful week of new experiences.  And when I say new, I MEAN NEW!  One quick example, I will call a "monsoon roadie."  Here's how it happened.  We go out to eat every day for lunch.  At first we were going to the more "established" restaurants with more "established" prices.  (None of the food we have found is very expensive, really.)  Then the Office Elders talked us into (challenged us?) to try one of their missionary haunts for lunch with the accompanying cheaper budget.  We tried it and loved it!  So they've been taking us to different places each day.  So fun!  ... and so good!  Well, we heard about a dessert made by the street vendors called a roadie (spelled phoenetically).  But you never know if you'll be able to find someone making them on any given day (kind of like the ice cream truck - you just have to wait until you see one).  So, Elder Lindorf came bursting into the office all excited last Friday, because he had seen one down the street.  So we rushed out the door (it was still lunch hour), and down the street to catch him before he moved on.  What we hadn't counted into the equation was that we had been having lightening and thunder for about an hour and the storm was about to break wide open.  And so it did!  As we were running down the sidewalk (of course, in our haste, we had left the umbrella back at the office), the deluge began!  When it rains in Thailand, IT RAINS!  We were ducking in at every overhang we could find (along with everybody else on the sidewalks) and giggling the whole way.  When we found the roadie vendor, we were completely soaked.  So we just abandoned any concern for staying dry and watched as he made our roadie.  Let me describe this little wonder for you.  He begins by rolling out a dough to very thin, which he then fries in a large wok with a little oil in it.  The dough puffs up as it turns golden brown.  In the meantime, he takes a banana (he has all of this down to an art form, and performs this "dance" with great finesse), slices it finely and places it in the pastry after he has turned it over.  Then he adds sweetened condensed milk (a favorite sweetener here) and rolls it up all fancy.  We stood under his extra-large blue umbrella in the middle of a "monsoon" relishing every bite of our roadie and enjoying his company.  We thought we'd wait until there was a little let-up in the storm before we headed back, but there was NO break.  You can imagine our appearance as we entered the office for our afternoon's work.  Now, to add insult to injury, that afternoon at 1:00 happened to be the BIG 3 hour meeting (with all the office members - 10 of us), where our Mission President announced to everyone that we would be the new Office Managers!  Us!  The two who were a giggling, wet, soggy, frumpled mess with roadie on our faces!  Such fun! To conclude, let me tell you about the baptism we went to today in our little Pakrett Branch.  Since our branch is in a District (instead of a Stake), with no satellite facilities, we had church as usual, instead of General Conference.  We had been to Downtown Bangkok, where the only Stake Center in Thailand is, for one taped session of Gen Conf.  But the members of our branch didn't go.  Because we had to cross town, we arrived at the baptism a little late.  As we quietly entered the meeting, one of the sisters was giving a talk on baptism.  As Elder Holley translated for us, I felt transformed.  I knew that here was one of the most important events that can transpire on this earth.   And that this humble ordinance was taking place in like manner all over the earth.  I knew that the Holy Ghost was speaking to each brother and sister in that room, just as He was speaking to me - NO TRANSLATION NECESSARY!  I knew that as Sister Juan came up out of the water, that the look on her face was being duplicated at baptisms all over the world.  ...Different languages, different skin colors, same look!   God lives!  And as Pres Faust said in this Conference:  "President Hinckley richly enjoys the guidance of the Head of this Church, Jesus Christ." God bless you! Love, Sister and Elder Lindorf PS  The attached pictures are a couple of shots of our new little home.  We're in an 11th story apartment, with a view!  Who would have thought?  We're very comfortable and have more room that we even anticipated.