Seventies, Secretaries, Secret Love

This was quite the exciting week. Elder Gong from the seventy came to visit Laos, followed by Hillary Clinton the next day. I spent some more time in the mall/marketplace and found some other pretty cheap stuff. I taught a bunch of English classes, had some good laughs, and sweat a lot, as usual.

This is one of the pictures in the English workbook. The sentence for 4 was supposed to be "When he was little, he couldn't spell a word." My first thought wasn't that: it was that he was getting a little angry because his car broke...

Sunday: First time translating a church talk since my mission. It was pretty rough.

Monday: English class, Lunch, English Class, Ran out of gas (again) on the way home. I think I’m finally getting the hang of how many liters last how long, because the next morning at the house it didn’t have enough to start yet again.

During English class that evening, the reading we were doing was a letter that someone had written to a classmate that they were missing. At the end of class, we usually play a game to have something to look forward to. So after writing a normal letter following the pattern in the book, we came up with a love letter. I think they tried to use a few Lao songs that didn’t really translate well, but here’s what they came up with:

Tuesday: Originally the plan for Elder Gong’s visit was that I’d just be at the church and help get ready for the evening fireside/devotional for the members. But, on Monday evening, Elder Luangrath invited me to go with them during the day and take pictures so that everyone else wouldn’t have to worry about it. It was so fun to follow them around all day and take pictures. I had to explain to Sister Senior (the Bangkok mission president’s wife) about the beard… I just imagined meeting Sister Wade with a face full of hair like this and what her reaction would be. The devotional in the evening was really fantastic. The mission president and his wife spoke and Elder and Sister Gong spoke (Thankfully they had someone else to translate the meeting.) After the devotional was over, the members had prepared a dinner for everyone. Special occasion=extra good food. It makes you feel really important when a general authority taps you on the shoulder and asks you to help him talk to the members.

Wednesday: Started with English class. We came out of the building to people cutting up the coconuts they had just dropped out of the trees there, so we all bought one (for 2.000 kip, about a quarter) and I drank right out of it. Once I was finished with that, the lady chopped it open and I scooped out the meat with a spoon. 

On the way home in the tuk-tuk I was invited to the branch president’s house for the afternoon. I was thinking it was just outside town, so I jumped on the back of the AngKham’s motorcycle (after I got my helmet, Mom) and started driving. It was actually about 60 km away, but the scenery was amazing. Until it started raining. Then I couldn’t really see the scenery very well. We stopped under a tent for a few minutes when it was really bad, but eventually we just had to keep going. Once we made it to the end of the rain, I looked like I had just jumped into the river with all my clothes on. But we still had a pretty long way to go, so when we got there, it just looked like I wet my pants. It was a really good afternoon; we had lunch together on the floor (which I hadn’t done since my mission) and I got to be on the inside the house while people came to buy some of the stuff that they were selling out in the front.

Thursday: I spent most of the afternoon in the talat sao mall. Parking was about 25 cents, the “puma brand” (they look pretty legitimate) sunglasses were $6.25 after I talked the guy down a few bucks. When I got to the electronics section I asked the people what each of the tablets were. For every one they replied that it was an iPad. There was even one that had an apple sticker on the back that said “iPad 10.” It’s internal memory was about 4 GB and I think it was actually running a fake Android OS. There were a few others that looked a little more legitimate.

Before English class that night, I was a little hungry so I bought 2 skewers of chicken hearts for a quarter (2,000 kip). I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to start cooking chicken hearts once I get back to school: they’re super cheap and if you cook them right, they’re pretty tasty.

Friday came, and that meant that I have been home from my mission for a full year. Weird. I think I’ll write a full post about that soon, because I don’t have enough time to try and write down my thoughts right now. The day went something like this:

English class, delicious fried chicken for lunch again, and then another run to the store to look at some different stuff. I’m learning more and more how to get stuff as cheap as you want. Here’s a few things I’ve learned: 1. Go to the part of the market that’s set up under tents. The people there have the exact same stuff as the people inside, and they’re willing to sell it for a lot cheaper. The starting price they say is lower than the people inside, but I still have to work it down. 2. Decide how much I’m willing to pay before I ask how much they’re charging. Offer them how much you’re willing to pay, no matter how big the difference is and walk away if they don’t accept it. 3. Speak selective Lao. Speak enough that they’re impressed (or at least say they’re impressed), but once I start walking away I can only understand if they change their mind to accept the price that I’ve offered.

Friday night after English class, I went to get some American food with a couple of the other teachers. The culture here is so different than in the US. When I invited someone else to come along; “I’m going to get pizza with a couple of the English teachers after work if you want to come.”

“What time”

“around 9”

“That’s kind-of late, I don’t think so.”

On a Friday night! As I’m writing this, it’s around 10:00pm on Friday night in Utah, and I know most of my friends are just getting started.

And now it’s Saturday. I’m headed out to visit a temple and maybe do some more shopping. Hopefully it will be fun. And hopefully I haven’t bored you to death with this blog, I was reminded this week that I’m a really lousy writer. Oh well.