Last Week at the MTC - 8/29/17

Today, on our last temple visit with Bro. Sugi

The Zone: My Thai District and the other one leaving with us; also, the Hmong District,
the 2 Vietnamese Districts, the 2 Cambodian Districts, and the new Thai District

My district

Hey everybody!

It's finally the last week here! It feels like I've been in the MTC forever. The two Thai districts that are leaving finally got travel plans! We're leaving from Salt Lake at 8:40 AM on September 4, and land in LA at around 10. We then leave LA at 12:55 and land in Hong Kong at 6:55 PM, after a 15ish-hour flight. We have another layover until 9:30 Hong Kong time, and finally arrive in Bangkok at about 11:25 PM. It's a lot of traveling, but I'm super pumped to finally go.

This week has been about the same as the past few. Thai is coming along pretty well, and I feel like I can't get too much better without being immersed in it.

I was able to get into the real world for a while this week though! Elder Ference had a tooth that was killing him, so we checked with the MTC doctor. They sent us on a shuttle to a dentist - deeper in Provo - to get it checked out. Turns out that a nerve under one of his teeth died, so he had to get a root canal - hahahahaha. Elder Todd and I sat in a waiting room for about three hours not knowing what was going on, until Elder Ference finally came out. We then took the shuttle back to the MTC and had to return the next day for the second part of the root canal. Fun stuff. 

Today our whole district went to an endowment session at 5:40 in the morning. We had to wake up at 4:45 to do it, so that was a good time, haha. Afterwards, we had breakfast at the temple with our teacher, Brother Sugi, again. 

Fun fact about Thailand: There's a superstition that when you whistle, you are calling ghosts to you. I've whistled a lot in the past few weeks in the MTC whenever I'm bored, so I should probably stop before I terrify the people of Thailand.

I'm super excited to finally be going into the field! I will be travelling over the normal missionary P-Day of Monday, so I won't be able to send an email next week. Sorry, everybody!

Hope you all have great weeks! Keep being awesome!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Ridd​​​​

District again 

Fun district pic

Around the MTC in 50 Days (Plus 13ish More, But Who's Counting?)

Watching the eclipse - Elder Ridd, Elder Todd, and Elder Ference

My new name tag

Hey Everybody!

Week 7 is done, and yesterday was our 50th day in the MTC. I only have two more weeks left here, and I'm very excited to go to Thailand. On Friday, we get our flight plans for when we leave. We should be leaving early September 4th. 

This week has been about the same as most. We got our name tags in Thai yesterday, which is pretty cool! Sadly, we're not allowed to wear them around the MTC, because apparently it would confuse people. They spell my name pretty similarly in Thai. The first big chunk says “Elder,” and after the space, the squiggly question mark-looking thing makes an “R” sound, the turtle shell thing above it is a vowel that makes the ee sound. Then the last two letters are a “d” sound, but the second one has a kill symbol over it, which kills the sound of it. If it didn't, it would sound more like Reedod. With the kill symbol, it sounds like Reed (for "Ridd").

We got to see the eclipse yesterday, thanks to Elder Todd's mom, who sent us special glasses. It wasn't too crazy or anything, but you could tell that it got darker and cooler, which was nice.

Elder Neil L. Andersen came to speak with us on Tuesday, which was awesome. It's cool to be able to hear from apostles, especially after the first few weeks, where none seemed to be coming - haha. I don't know who is coming tonight, but hopefully they'll be a good speaker.

Today we were able to go to the temple and do some sealings with our teacher, Brother Sugihara, and his wife. Afterwards, we ate breakfast in the temple cafeteria, which was nice because it was the first food in a month and a half that actually tastes like it was made by humans. Then we did laundry, exercise, and all that other fun stuff to get ready for the week.

I hope you all are doing great!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Ridd

More eclipse pics

Week 6 Down: If I Were Going Anywhere Other Than Russia or Asia, I'd Be Gone - 8/15/17

We took group pics because Sister Khaumoingnoi left to go back to Thailand.
The Thai girl is Sister K. and the other is Sister Smith, who is another of our teachers. 

Hello everybody!

Hope that you're all having great weeks! This week has been like most of the others. We get about 9 new Thai missionaries and 21 new Cambodian missionaries in our zone tomorrow, which should be pretty cool. We are now done with week 6, so if I were going to anywhere that's not Russian-speaking or Asia, I'd be out of the MTC right now. 

Something cool that happened this week is that Elder M. Russell Ballard came and gave us a devotional on Sunday. He talked about how important it is to be loyal to the church and the Lord and to keep your standards high so that nobody ruins everything that you've worked for on your mission. A lot of it was centered on making good decisions and not being stupid. 

It is heavily rumored that we will also have Elder Neil L. Anderson speak to us tonight, which would be awesome because then we'd have two apostles talk to us in one week. 

One funny story that happened this week has to do with the tours that are going on for the MTC. Sometimes it feels like we're zoo animals because of how some of the people act around us. My companions and I were sitting outside at a table studying, and a group of about 5 tourists walked up to our table. They were probably about 2 feet or less from us and they start saying to each other, "Wow! Look at these missionaries! They're studying the scriptures! Wow! That's so cool! Wow!!!" It was very strange, but we kinda just laughed a little, and then we said hi to them. They completely ignored us and continued to stand there for about 20 seconds. They finally walked away, without acknowledging that we had the ability to talk. It was a very strange experience.

We helped host some of the tours here on Wednesday. It was pretty ironic because we're supposed to guide them around the new buildings, but we don't even go in them ever. They put all the 9 weekers (besides Chinese) in the old buildings. We pretty much have 13 Elders in a space a little bigger than a custodial closet - haha. Apparently, they save the new buildings for English, Spanish, Italian, and other languages with shorter stays. It doesn't make too much sense to me because we stay here for literally 3 times as long as some of the people in the new buildings, but oh well, haha.

Here's a fun Thai word for you guys: ตื่นเต้น it is pronounced like “dunten,” and means excited. It literally translates to "wake up and dance," so that's fun.

Love you all! I hope you are all doing well!

Elder Ridd

Here's a comparison of the size of an English triple combination and a Thai one.