Async Method

I need a vb.net method to perform the following function. I want to return a response status code of 202 back to the client and in the meantime write an async method that will perform an operation in the background on a separate thread. The reason for this is that azure will only wait 60 seconds for a web request before it times out. I have an emailer than can take up to 120 seconds. Azure says to return status of 202 and process the request on a separate thread using async. I am looking for vb code to add to our site. Thanks.