Zone Conference #1 and Switch Offs - 9/27/17

Elder Dugquem at AKA

Me, with a fashionable umbrella I found in the apartment

Thailand has noooo idea what to do with their power lines, so they do this.

This week was awesome!

I had the opportunity to go on switch offs with one of my zone leaders this week, and I was with Elder Dugquem. He's an awesome missionary, and he was good friends with Lukas in the MTC, so it was super cool. We did a lot of contacting and got a lot of people's numbers. We also went to AKA, which is a kinda expensive all-you-can-eat, grill-your-own-food place. It was a pretty solid meal.

Another amazing thing this week was Zone Conference. It was really cool, and President Johnson is such a good leader. We talked a lot about using the Book of Mormon to its full potential in teaching, and how to make effective goals and plans for our investigators. We also talked a lot about making sure our attitude and desires match in order to be the best servants of the Lord we can.

Not too much else went on this week! Our investigator, G, is set on being baptized this Sunday and I think I'm going to be the one to do it, so that's pretty neat. One of our other investigators with a date, B, isn't too sure about his date anymore, because his family really wants him to become a monk so that they can receive blessings...classic Thailand problem, apparently. It was a super good week though, with lots of spiritual experiences! Miss you all and I hope you are all doing well!

Much Love,

Elder Ridd

Awesome Week in Thonburi - 9/18/17

The elephant was apparently about 90 years old and very hairy.

Hey everybody!!!

This letter is coming super late in the day, because we decided to go to Ayutthaya early this morning. It takes about an hour and a half to get there, and it's north of Bangkok. It used to be the capital of Thailand until it got absolutely ravaged by Burma, so there's tons of temples everywhere. We went from the elders from Bangna, which included a few guys from my MTC group, so that was cool. 

This week was pretty great. We have a bunch of baptismal dates for October 1st, including one really cool investigator who started bringing her friend to church too. We found a new group of Pakistan people, but I don't know how promising they look.  Understanding people here is stilllll super sketchy, but I think that it's getting better. This week has been pretty busy with lots of appointments everywhere, but there were also a bunch of people who didn't show up to any appointments and just fell off the face of the earth.

We had to do a bunch of random paperwork for everyone who was baptized in the last year that hadn't been done yet, so that was a good time. Pretty much it's been a pretty tame week.

Oh yeah, today in Ayutthaya I got to lay down with a tiger and chill with an elephant, so that was pretty neat! It was a good week this week!

I miss and love you all so much! I hope you are all having great weeks!

Love you!

Elder Ridd

Pics: The elephant was apparently about 90 years old and very hairy. 

The huge white temple is Wat Aruna in Bangkok, most of the rest are from Ayutthaya

PSA: The tiger was definitely inhumanely kept​, but I tried to make it feel better with hugs.

Wat Aruna in Bangkok

First Week in the Land of the Thais - 9/11/17

Elder Ridd (left), with his trainer, Elder Holland. They're serving in Thonburi, Thailand. 

Hey everybody!

I'm finally in Thailand now!!! My area is called Thonburi, and it is in western-ish Bangkok. My trainer is Elder Holland and he's a super cool guy. He is from Portland, and he played a year of basketball for Southern Virginia University. We're the only elders in the area, but there is also a pair of sisters here, along with a senior couple.

Thailand is crazy! I can understand a lot of what people say, but I also don't understand a lot - haha. Everyone here speaks super fast and sounds kinda slurred, but that's probably because I wasn't taught to speak by native Thai people.

The plane ride here was suuuuuuper long and pretty boring, haha. I only got about three hours of sleep on the whole thing because my throat was killing me, and by the time I got off I had an eye infection which was a pretty fun time. The eye is all good now because you can get like any medicine over the counter here, and my throat is better which is good. It was super weird to say goodbye to all my MTC friends, because we'd all been together for two months.

We have taught a few lessons already. We taught a kid who wanted some tutoring in English, so we helped and then slipped some gospel in there as well.

We also taught a super cool investigator who has been investigating for awhile and has a baptism date for the 1st of October.

The other day, we got a call from a family who had met with the missionaries about three years ago and randomly had the thought to call us pop into their heads, so they did and we went over to teach them. They live about an hour away from us - with traffic (because traffic is wild here). They live in a very small house with no walls, kind of tucked away in some trees. We taught a guy who was about 50ish, along with his wife, his 40-something-year old brother, and a grandma - about prayer. They seemed pretty down with it, so we'll go back again to teach some more.

We also found a Pakistani family that we got as a referral from Salt Lake. They had a maaaassive family and apparently were referred by a friend of theirs who was learning about the church in Germany. They are super into the Bible, and said they might be interested in learning more. They lived in a random, super crowded Muslim community, but they were Christian already.

The members here are super cool (from what I can understand from them, lol). Church was wild, because I didn't catch a lot of what was going on, but I got up and bore my testimony and introduced myself. Most of them understood, I think. My head hurt afterwards from all the attempting to translate in my head - hahahaha. 

Today we're probably gonna check out a Wat (a Thai temple; click here for more info). We also are going to visit a guy who is the son of an ambassador, who was friends with President Hinckley. President Hinckley promised that we would keep on visiting him, so that's pretty cool.

Well, that was this week! 

I love and miss you all! Keep being awesome!

Elder Ridd <3

MTC Comps: Elder Todd, Elder Ridd, and Elder Ference