Thonburi Got Lit - 10/6/17

We floated some lanterns down the river, which was cool. 

Hello Everybody!

This week was pretty solid! We started off on Monday by playing a bunch of laser tag which was way fun. Then we went to visit Brother D. He's about 30ish and had an accident about 15 years ago, so he has special needs. His dad was friends with President Hinckley, and President Hinckley made a promise to his dad that we would visit him every week and talk with him. They aren't members, but it's a really nice thing to be able to do. We switch off with the sisters to visit him every week. He's awesome, haha. Apparently he's met the past King of Thailand, and also the current King of Thailand, because his dad is a pretty high-up government official. D's a funny guy. After we visit him, they always give us a way nice meal which is always really good. They live in a kind of secluded compound with very large, high-class houses.

We held an English class Halloween celebration on Tuesday. It was cool. We played a bunch of Halloween games and took them trick-or-treating through the church. 

On Friday the sisters had a baptism for Brother CW, who's a way funny guy. We then went to a light festival. If any of you have seen Tangled, the festival in Tangled is based on this holiday in Thailand. But since we're in Bangkok, they don't do the air lanterns here. If you're in north Thailand they do a lot of them, though. Here we floated some down the river, which was cool. We all bought these neat flower things that hold candles to float down the river. (Click here to learn more about Loy Krathong, this special light festival). 

A lot of members threw a surprise party kind of thing for me on Saturday, which was way nice. They bought a pizza and put a lot of candles in it, haha. DC drew a pictures of me, Elder Holland (my mission dad), and Sister Courchaine (my mission mom), so now our entire mission family has portraits. 

Yesterday we were able to take G and B to our bishop’s home, which was way good for them. It's great to see them welcomed into the ward with such open arms. B still hasn't been baptized, but he has a way strong testimony.

I hope you all have a great week this week!

Love and miss you all! 

Elder Ridd <3 

This Week We Baptized the Whole Earth - 10/30/17

Earth's baptism - pictured here with 2 member friends, Sister Da and Sister Bing

A bunch of people under a Thai flag (made of flowers)

Some changs (elephants), made of flowers

We went with a bunch of other elders,
including Elders Jorgensen and McWhorter from the MTC

Hey Everybody!

This week was pretty strange because a lot of stuff was going on in Thonburi because of the King's funeral/cremation. On Thursday everything was shut down and it was wayyyyyy crowded. Everybody wore only black this whole week and was super sad. We were told not to go out inviting much because it's disrespectful to the culture. It was wild.

Last Monday we went to this flower market thing in honor of the king. It was pretty cool! We didn't go through the actual exhibit of it because it was really crowded, but we saw it from the outside and it was pretty cool. (Note from Mom: for info about this special ceremony for the king, click here or here). 

We then went to the hospital to bless the son of a member who had Dengue Fever. He's better now, so that's good. 

This week was pretty similar to others besides everybody being sad and wearing lots of black. Yesterday Earth was baptized! He's way awesome and has such a strong testimony of the gospel. 

It was a pretty solid week! This week we are going to do a Halloween activity for our English class which should be pretty fun. 

Today for Pday I think we're going to play laser tag. It should be pretty solid. It's about 99 baht or so per game, which sounds expensive until I remember that's literally 3 dollars. 

I hope you all are doing great! Thanks for the birthday wishes! Have a good week!

Miss and love you all!

Elder Ridd <3

The Thonburi Trio - 10/23/17

At the zoo, with some bear statues

Elder Xai, walking down a pretty neat street

Hello Everybody!

This week has been pretty short since the last email, so not too much has happened. We went to the zoo on Wednesday and that was pretty neat. The new elder in our district is Elder Xaiyawong! He's from Laos and he's way awesome. He speaks Laos, Thai, some Chinese, and is learning English, so we help him with that. He is a convert to the church and was baptized about 2 1/2 years ago. He has been on his mission for a little over a year. He's way good at teaching and is a beast.

Not too much has happened in the last little bit. We've continued teaching our investigators and they're good. Yesterday somebody wondered into the church after all the meetings were over. He apparently took lessons with missionaries about 14 years ago and wants to start learning again, so we started teaching him. His name is HN. He seems pretty solid. 

This week EA is planning on being baptized on the 29th, which is awesome! He's way into the gospel and loves asking questions. 

Today we are planning on going to a big flower market that's in honor of the king who died last year. It should be pretty cool. The funeral ceremony/cremation of the king is going to be this Thursday, and it's in Thonburi, so everybody will be super sad. It's probably gonna be a pretty tough day for the work.

I hope you are all having a great week! Keep being amazing!

I miss and love you all!

Elder Ridd <3

Good Things Come in Threes - 10/18/17

The district cleaning 

Elder Ridd, with a member's cat

Hey Everybody!

Apparently on transfer weeks, our Pdays are moved to Wednesday instead of Monday. So yeah, this week was transfers! Sister Courchaine is staying here in Thonburi for the last transfer of her mission. Sister Kham is going to go to Chaing Mai. Elder Holland and I are also staying in Thonburi...But! We are also getting another companion! I'm gonna be in a trio again! Weird, haha. He's apparently been out for about as long as Elder Holland, and he's from Laos. It should be a way awesome transfer.

Lets seeeeee...Oh yeah, I gave an 8 minute talk in Thai on Sunday. That was a good time. All of the missionaries in Thonburi spoke, and it was way good. We talked about member missionary work, and right afterwards we got a lot of referrals, so I think it must've worked a little bit at least, haha. 

There was a lot of flooding in Bangkok this week. On Sunday, we were able to help out three families with some flood damage. That was a pretty good service opportunity this week. 

Something weird that went down on Sunday morning: Both Elder Holland and I packed changes of clothes for seemingly no reason without talking with each other about it. After church, we heard that a member’s house had flooded, so the sisters and Elder Holland and I went over and helped with the flooding. The sisters only had their nice dresses, so they didn't think they'd be able to help out. BUT! Elder Holland and I each had brought a spare change of work clothes. So the sisters were able to use our spare clothes to help out. So yeah, that was a random prompting we had I guess, haha!

This week we found two really awesome investigators. Both have been exchange students in America in the past. One is about 30-40 years old and lived in America for a year in high school. He lived in Idaho with an LDS family and went to church every week for a year, saw the Mormon Tabernacle Choir perform for a Christmas program at Temple Square, and loved the church. When he came back to Thailand, he didn't think the church was here. He finally learned it is here, and contacted the missionaries! His name is PT, and he, along with his wife and his kids, will come to church later this month (his wife is still recovering from giving birth two weeks ago). 

The other student is named PM. She is about 20 and is a referral from one of our really awesome RC's named D. She lived in California and is pretty interested in learning about the gospel. Mostly because D is a flippin’ awesome member missionary. 

So yeah! Pretty solid week this week! I'm excited to see how this transfer goes! It's gonna be crazy to be back in a trio again, but I think we're gonna do some awesome work in Thonburi!

Love you all! I hope that you all have great weeks! Miss you!

Elder Ridd <3

Eating at Brother DN's house
(the guy President Hinckley promised we'd visit every week)

D, DC, and Sister Gadye celebrating DC's Birthday
(He's awesome and speaks fluent English)

Conference Was Cool - 10/9/17

Outside of Asiatique

Hey everybody!

I hope you all have had good weeks! This week was pretty solid, but the highlight was definitely being able to watch General Conference!  Let's see, what happened this week...On P-day we went to a fish spa and had fish eat skin off of our feet and hands. I may or may not have also dunked my head under so they would dead skin from my face as well. Then we walked around this outside mall called Asiatique, but it was mostly closed because it usually opens up at nighttime. 

We found some really cool new investigators this week! We found B and M while we were inviting on the street, and they are way awesome. We also had a woman call us, saying that her life wasn't going very well. She said that she needed a miracle and asked if we could help and we were like...“Yeah, sure!” So we taught her how to pray and ask for help from Heavenly Father. Her name was J and she seems pretty interested in learning. 

BK is still an awesome investigator; he just has to be a monk for a little bit in February before he can be baptized. We also taught an investigator named K. K has always come to church meetings for about the past year, but never wanted to be baptized. We started teaching him again, and he has a date to be baptized in November - because he has to go be a monk for a few weeks this month for his parents.

Conference was awesome! One of my favorite quotes was from Jeffrey R. Holland. He said that we need to "be a little more Godlike in the little things." In order to truly become like our Heavenly Father, we need to change the small things in our lives that will allow us to align our will more closely to God's. (Click here  to read or listen to Elder Holland's talk). I also liked the focus on the Book of Mormon in a lot of the talks. A lot of people talked about what we need to do in order to help maintain our testimonies and activity in the church, and I feel like that's one of the key things in the gospel. We need to endure to the end, or everything else we've done in the church is in vain.

That's about all that happened this week! I hope you all have awesome weeks this week! Thanks for being amazing people!

I love and miss you all!

Elder Ridd

Fish eating me

The Slip and Slide of the Mission Field - 10/2/17

G's Baptism

Elder Ridd and Elder Holland
(Photo credit: Sister Johnson) 

Zone Conference with President & Sister Johnson
(photo credit: Sister Johnson)

Heyyyoooo Everybody!

I hope everybody has had a good week this week. This week was pretty solid! For Pday on Wednesday, we went to a planetarium and a random science museum in downtown Bangkok, which was pretty cool.

On Saturday we had a sports day for our stake, Bangkok West. It was pretty awesome. We all got matching jerseys. Elder Holland dunked on a bunch of kids, which was pretty sick. Our ward did so good. I went hard at volleyball which was way fun. We almost won in soccer and volleyball. The last thing we did was a tug-of-war, and our ward won that. Everybody is super sore from that, haha.

Yesterday our investigator, G, had her baptism! I got to do it, so it was my very first baptism. She is 20 and is so awesome. It was amazing to see her learn and become converted to the gospel. Initially, Elder Holland and the missionary before me, Elder Knudson, taught her and her family the Restoration after English class. Then transfers happened the next week and I helped teach her the rest of the way. Her family hasn't been as interested in the gospel, but G was super interested, so we continued to teach her. We're going to try to meet with the rest of her family, but apparently her dad isn't too into it.

The baptism was way good, and I could do it in Thai which was cool. Afterwards was interesting though, hahahaha. As I was in the hallway, going to grab my clothes to change, I completely slid across the hallway and landed flat on my back. It was super loud and scared a lot of random Thai ward members, haha. There was another baptism after G - for an investigator of the senior couple here, The Graffs - and apparently all they heard from the hallway was a massive thud and then G shouting "ELDER!!!" Hahahaha. Don't worry, I'm all good. Now I have a sick story to tell my posterity about my first baptism!

Today I think we're mostly gonna chill and then go somewhere and have a bunch of fish eat dead skin from our feet. Haha.

I hope that you all have a great week! We are going to watch all of General Conference this upcoming weekend due to the whole time difference here. Keep being amazing!

Much love,
Elder Ridd <3

Pained looking tiger statue at the science place

Fish from the Science/Aquarium 

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