ສະບາຍດີ​ປີໃໝ່​ - 4/19/19

Lao New Year with theYSA. We were the only people drinking Pepsi instead of beer. 

It was pretty crowded. 

Hey everybody!

This week's been pretty interesting. Starting on Sunday it was Lao New Year, which is a giant water festival where the entire town starts throwing water everywhere and parties as hard as they can. We didn't have English class this week because nobody would go due to being drunk or going to their home provinces. We're gonna start classes again on Monday, so that should be good. 

The New Year partying was pretty amusing. We saw so much random stuff haha. Lots of drunk people, lady boys, and water. Something that we did with a bunch of members was set up at a street corner with buckets and completely destroy any biker, walker, car with a massive wave of water from all of us at the same time. Watching how they would react was always a good time. Don't worry, it's what people do here, we're not just being hoodlums. 

We also had a sister missionary return home from her mission in Thailand, so that's neat. 

That was pretty much our entire week because the only people here who we could visit were celebrating, so our work consisted of celebrating with them. Pretty fun week. 

Sunday is Easter!!!! I hope all of you have a great Easter weekend and remember the purpose of the holiday. I'm so thankful for Christ and his Atonement in my life. 

I love and miss you all!
<3

Elder Ridd

Lao New Year - 4/13/19

Pizza with our students

Some cool north people

Hey everyone!

Another pretty typical week this week haha. We taught English, and then on Tuesday we took one of our classes out for a pizza party and they liked it a lot. The Hamsteads left this week to go back to Australia, so that was a little sad. 

Starting today is the festival celebrating Lao New Year. They pretty much do what most of the other Southeast Asian countries do and have a big water festival. It'll last about a week here, so that should be a good time. Pretty much everyone here gets super drunk and just parties for a week straight. We don't have English classes this week, because if we did nobody would show up. 

General Conference was pretty kool. I've only seen the Saturday sessions so far, but I'll be watching the rest this weekend. 

So, yeah, another kinda basic week haha. This next one should be pretty interesting though.

I hope you all have a great week!

Love and miss you all!
<3

Elder Ridd

English Tests and Baci Blessings (Thx Buddha) - 4/6/19

Hamsteads' last supper

Birthday lunch for Brother Bom

Another Rocket Festival pic

Hey guyz,

This week was pretty solid. It was way average, with not too much going on haha. I made a bunch of English midterm tests on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then we gave them to our students. They did pretty solid, so that's good at least. 

The majority of this week was just English classes and some fun member visits sprinkled in there. Of course, member visits are mostly just us saying hi and eating their food due to all of the communism here. 

On Friday morning after English class we had what is called a Baci Ceremony. All of our students set it up for us and for the Hamsteads, since they go home on Tuesday. We pretty much all sat around a plant thing that was tied up with string and held onto it while some friendly men chanted blessings at us. Good times. Afterwards, everyone came up and wished blessings on us, while tying lots of strings around our wrists. It was neat. It's sad that the Hamsteads are leaving though. They were pretty cool.

This next week is Lao New Year, which should be fun. That's the big water fighting festival, so we're pretty hype right now. 

Also, I hope all of you have a good time watching General Conference. 

(To watch or listen to General Conference this weekend, click here).

Well, yeah, that's been my week! Have an awesome week and try to get the most you can out of General Conference!

Love

<3

Comrade Ridd