First Photo and First Update from Thailand

Our first glimpse of the missionaries!
This photo was sent to Sadie from Debra Mellot, her sister in law is serving in Thailand and
sent the photo to Sadie

Dear family,

Sorry we didn't get to you sooner but it has been a whirl wind the last 24 hours. We arrived in Bangkok sometime after midnight on Feb 24, 2016.  That meant that we had been going since 3:00 am on Monday.  We did get to sleep this morning at about 2:00 AM.  So we got 4 hours sleep and we were up for a day of orientation. We left SLC at about 7:30 am and flew to Chicago.  What a zoo transferring planes to Cathay Pacific.  I think we went through security at least twice in Chicago.  We left Chicago for Hong Kong.  I thought that we would fly west but next thing I knew was that we were flying northeast.  We flew over the top to Hong Kong.  It was a big plane.  The plane was not full so there was some room.  Before we boarded the plane we, we were sitting with the crew of the plane.  They were all young Chinese.  One of them over heard us talking about Mom and her swollen feet.  When we boarded the plane, this young man come up to us and asked if we would like to move to a seat  that had more leg room and where Mom could put her feet up.  We of course were all for that.  They put us by the galley that had no seats in front of it with about five feet of leg room.  It really made the flight bearable.  One of the stewardesses came up to us and said Elder Barlow the captain would like to come and talk to you after the flight is underway.  So after the flight was on its way, the captain came and introduced himself as Brother ______.  He talked to us about where we were from and where we were going.  He was from Australia. The flight was LONG!!!!!!!  We flew over the top of the world.  I'm on the top of the world looking down on creation.  We went over Greenland and I think Siberia.  The flight to  Bangkok was about 2 hours.  It was fun to sit among Thai and hear the language.  When we got to Bangkok it was then go through passport control and get the luggage and meet up with the mission president.

We met with mission president and he gave us our assignment.  It will be to help with the Chiang Mai district.  We will meet with the branch president in each branch.  We will train them in their duties and help them with abilities to not only administer but to minister.  We will meet with the District presidency and help and train them.  We will help and meet with the young Elders and Sisters.  We will do house checks on the Elders and Sisters.  We will be traveling from Chiang Mai 3 hours to the north and 6 hours to the south to visit these branches.

We will be on Bangkok for about a week trying to get our work permit.  We will then go to Chiang Mai and get started.  While we are here in Bangkok , the mission President wants us to do some research on two cities, one in Laos and one in Mirinmar and one in Laos. The information we are finding and the maps that we are creating will help with the expansion of the church in these two areas.

We are happy to be here and to be about the Lord's work.  Mom is doing so good and she is starting to pick up words and her pronunciation is very good.  We love you all.