Buddhist Weddings are Neat - 5/18/19

The wedding, with Elder Eckersley's mom

Some raw beef that I had the pleasure of consuming.

The plane we took up north.

The river

The wedding - with the bride and groom

Hey guys. 

This past week has been pretty interesting. On Saturday, Elder Eckersley's mom came to Laos, so we went out to eat with her. It was kinda weird haha, but it was cool. She's originally from Laos and came to go to a wedding for Elder Eckersley's cousin up north. Elder Eckersley and I actually went to that as well, so that was pretty swell. 

We took a plane up to Luang Phrabang after church on Sunday and then drove about two hours to the province of Sayaburi. We stayed there with their family for two days. On Monday we woke up and went to go to the Buddhist wedding ceremony. It was kinda interesting. It involved a lot of chanting and sitting awkwardly on the floor. After that everybody proceeded to get drunk (except us, of course) and eat a lot of food.

Later that day we went to the wedding reception. It was also pretty crazy with a tooooon of people. I got to wear a more flamboyant shirt than I'm used to, so prepare your eyes. After watching a bunch of drunk communists dance and drink for a few hours, we went back to the house and went to sleep. 

The next day we drove back to Luang Phrabang and waited for our plane that got delayed twice. Good times. 

All in all it was a pretty cool trip. The rest of the week was spent teaching English. We actually got to run to Thailand on Friday to pick up suits we were getting made though. They turned out pretty well. 

We went to a branch activity today where we drove about 2 1/2 hours a way to a river and ate some food/watched members swim around for a few hours. It's always a good time, and the members here are such funny people that they keep us well entertained.

It's raining a lot more now! That means it's the start of the rainy season and instead of having 100+ degree weather, we'll have 90+ degree weather with rain all the time! In excited for it to cool down. 

Well, that's pretty much been my week. We have President Ballard coming out to visit our mission this upcoming Saturday, so we'll be going to Bangkok. That should be a pretty solid time. I'm excited to see what he has to say. 

Hope you all are doing well.

Stay zesty.

Love, 

Elder Ridd