1 Month!

Can you believe it?  It has already been one month since we were at the MTC.  

We were just dreaming then.

This is the meals on wheels that comes every morning to the soi(lane) that goes in to our village.

There is a group of families that live in huts just over the fence from where we live.

This is the other guy that comes every morning and lays his good out on the road 

so the people can come and buy.

How is this for a contrast?  This is the inside of one of the malls in Chiang Mai.

This is what it looks like when we go walking in the morning.  It is really hot now.

It is the dry season and the farmers are burning off the fields.  This makes for a red sun in the morning.

It is really smoky so it looks like there is an inversion all the time.

If you thought there wasn't any crawly things around here you are wrong.  It may not look big but it is.

We are having a great time.  The work is wonderful.  We are having opportunities to go with the Sisters and Elders to help teach.  Have met some wonderful people.  We love the work.  As time goes by we are getting more involved with teaching English each week and meeting with all the members in the District. 

 Sawat dii from Thailand.

Service Project in Chiang Rai - Pipe Hauling

These are pictures from the service project that the church was involved with in a town called Chiang Rai.  It is a 3 hour drive from where we live in Chiang Mai to this place.  The pipes were about 12 feet log and 4" in diameter.  Sister Barlow and I did our part in hauling the pipe to the dam and other places along the 1.25 miles of rice paddies.

This was what was in our way as we carried water pipe up the hill. Yes, I was that close!

This was how we carried the pipe up the hill.  It was a little over a mile to the dam that had been made to retain drinkable water.  The pipes will be glued together so they will stretch the mile distance to connect to pipe that has already been laid to the village.

This was the group that helped.  Missionaries and members.  The village people were not able to come that day due to a wedding in the village.  

This is the dam that the local village made to retain the water from the spring.  The church was involved with the local rotary club to help get this project done.  The church helps with the purchase of supplies and the rotary is the vehicle to coordinate to help finish the project.  This project will supply drinkable water for about 220 people in the village.

8 March 2016

Another week has flown by.  We have been in Chiang Mai for one week!  We have had to do a lot of shopping to get our place in order.  We finally have some food in the house and we have cooked a few meals here.  We did have to get another Toaster oven.  That is what is used for the oven.  Mom is usually not too hungry but Dad seems to be hungry more than not.  On Sunday we went to the church at 0830.  Meetings start at 0900. There are 2 branches here.  The meetings are 0900-1200 and 1300-1600.  

Our House in Chiang Mai

During the first meeting, I did get up and share my testimony.  My first time in Thai this time, 45 years after I gave my first one in the same city.  After the meeting the Elders came up to me and said that there was someone that wanted to talk to me.  They said that they had met this guy when they were teaching at his neighbor's house the week before.  They found out that he was a member but had not been to church in over 42 years.  He told them that he was first taught by Elder Wall and Elder Barlow.  They told him that Elder Barlow was at church.  I met him and he asked if I remembered him.  We did teach him but we did not baptize him.  A coincidence?  I think not!  His firstSunday back after 42 years and our first Sunday here in Chiang Mai.  Heavenly Father knows His children and knows what they need.  The Elders are going to invite us to help teach him.  He has forgotten a lot about the church and wants to get back to church.  All the Elders could say was our first miracle in Chiang Mai!

After each branches meeting they have a linger longer and they have food to eat.  The first branch saved us some food because I was having interviews and Mom was in the meetings of the second branch.  So we got to eat the food for both at about the same time.

We have met a lot of people and have seen a lot of inside stores and malls.  We haven't got to venture out too much yet.  Mom is doing real good.  She has such a great attitude.  We will be doing some service this week and we will be going to Chiang Rai this weekend to check out a water project that the church is involved with, meet with the Elders and check out their and go to church there.

My Investigator from 45 years ago

Chiang Mai

We are in Chiang Mai. We got here on Tuesday evening around 5:00. It is green here and the weather is lovely.  Not as hot as Bangkok but it is still humid but in a different way.  It does get sticky during the day.  We just got the internet hooked up.  When we arrived here in Chiang Mai, there was one set of Elders here but they live north of the city and they couldn't be reached.  The Sisters had gone to Bangkok and the Zone leader and his companion had gone to Bangkok.  So here we were not knowing where our house was and the only thing I had was a google map that the mission President had printed out to show us kind of where we would live.  

We landed and got our luggage and went to find a taxi.  It was a struggle but we finally got one.  From being on google I was able to recognize the place when we got there.  We had a bag of keys and a gate that was locked.  Found it!  It is a nice place.  It is in a development that is a gated community.  It has stand alone houses and then it has rows of houses that are connected.  When we get pictures downloaded we will send one of our place.  It has 2 bedrooms, 2 baths(shower), an office.  There are three air conditioning units.  On in the bedroom, one in the office, and one downstairs in the living room kitchen area.  We are going to get plenty of exercise going up and down the stairs.  We have a car.  When we got here we looked out the back door into an area that is covered and is where we do the laundry and there were about 25 - 30 dead cockroaches laying all over the place.  These are cockroaches about 2 to 3 inches long.

I tried to start the car and it wouldn't start.  I called the District President and told him we were in town and then told him about our car.  He said that he would get a hold of a member and have him bring some jumper cables.  When he got here we could not get the car out of the car port because the battery was dead and it wouldn't let us  put it into neutral to push it out.  The member went and got a technician and he came to the house, said the battery was no good and put in a new one while I stood there.  It cost me 50.76.  that is for the battery and installation at my house.

The next thing was the internet.  We were supposed to have it but the username would not come up on the wifi.  I had paper work from the former couple but i did not have the vocabulary to explain in Thai.  We prayed for a miracle and got one.  I was sitting in the living room and I saw one of the neighbors come home.  I had the impression to go ask him if he could help us with our problem.  So I did.  He could speak English and Thai.  He came over but could not fix it but he called the support number and explained what was happening and they had someone scheduled to come the next day, that is today.  They came to the house and did something that Kirk does and they were off and on their way.  No charge.

Today I drove for the first time in Thailand.  I was a little anxious but we made it and we are still alive.

Mom is feeling great except for swallowing.  The more she uses her voice the tighter her throat gets.  She loves the weather here.  We are up at 6:00 AM and are out and walking by 6:30.  Mom is doing so good.  She has such a great attitude.  We have taken the last few days to get settled.  I have a meeting with the District presidency tomorrow evening to find out how things are going.

We love you and are praying for you.

It's A Small World!

This is Kristin speaking:

Our friends Tom and Michele Gledhill who used to live next door to us are traveling in Bangkok right now. I told Michele to keep an eye out for the missionaries on the streets. I was halfway joking figuring Bangkok is a really large city. Saturday night I received a text from her saying that they were sitting in sacrament meeting and she had turned around and saw Brother and Sister Barlow in the back of the meeting.

She sent a few photos of them and said "It was so fun seeing your in-laws! We had a nice little chat with them and they seem to be doing so good!"

Sometimes it seems like the world is so small!