Mr. and Mrs. Volk: Visiting Thailand

Aaron served his mission in Thailand 6 years ago and has dreamed about going back ever since returning home. Having served a mission myself, I felt like I understood his love of serving a mission in another country, but it seriously wasn’t until I saw Aaron interacting with the people of Thailand that I fell more in love with all of his heart – specifically the part that has remained in Thailand since his mission.

The Air Force has a language emersion program in which Aaron took online classes for a year. He did well in the class and qualified for a trip to work in Thailand for a month as a translator at an Infectious Disease Research Center. When his assignment finished, Aaron's parents and I traveled to Thailand to tour Aaron's mission areas and see the country Aaron loves so much.

Since Aaron’s plane ticket was paid for by the Air Force, this really was the cheapest way we could ever enjoy a trip to Thailand. Aaron knows I’m a succor for saving money so when he presented the financial benefits of taking a trip together now, I was convinced we should go. Well, kind of. We weighed out the pros and cons of taking our boys with us. I didn’t know if I could really leave them for so long. My in-laws were willing to travel with the boys and me, so I thought we’d make it a family trip. Then, Alex offered to watch the boys while Aaron and I went. Although I know Aaron would love for the boys to visit Thailand some day, I didn’t think right now was the best time to take them. One reason being that the travel time is over 24 hours with layovers included. The second reason was Aaron put together a rather in-depth travel itinerary which included visiting several areas where he served. We were originally going to sleep on a bus overnight and then arrive to a new destination early the next day and begin exploring. When we discovered we could catch domestic flights for $30 each, we opted for that travel route instead.

I did pay an extra $85 for flight insurance on my ticket incase I decided to cancel my flight last minute. Everyone kept asking me if I was “so excited to go” and several times I broke down into tears replying that I felt so guilty leaving. Hours before my flight left, little Austin woke up crying in the night and as I fed him a bottle, tears ran down my face wondering why I was leaving him. My mom, Alex and Angela were seriously so supportive and reassured me that they would be just fine. It really has been a blessing living close to Alex and her family and Eli was ecstatic to have a 12-night slumber party with his cousins. Several times after we facetimed the boys while in Thailand, I hung up the phone and cried. I was so homesick for them!

The highlight of the trip was meeting all the members that Aaron worked with. He served as a branch president for a year in Buriram and now it's a ward! The current bishop was baptized right as Aaron left and it was amazing to see how the church has grown in Thailand. The church has been in Thailand for only 50 years and the saints there are excited for the temple that was announced in the April 2015 General Conference. Currently the saints attend the temple in Hong Kong, over 1,000 miles away.

The members asked me what I thought about Thailand and I told him that I loved it, but it's so far away! I commented that I can't imagine having my boys serve there someday as missionaries and one of the members told me that she will take good care of my little Volk boys if they are called to serve there! With tears in my eyes, I committed at that moment to better prepare my little future missionaries to be ready to serve missions someday.

We also enjoyed eating lots of Thai food, riding Elephants, petting Tigers, attending church, riding a bamboo raft, visiting Wats, going on a dinner cruise, taking a cooking class and learning more about the Thai culture.

I have over 400 pictures, but here is a snippet of our trip! We visited Bangkok, Burriam, Chiang Mai and Lampang.