Water Festival!

Alrighty, I've got lots to talk about today. But only 30 minutes, so I will try to get it all in. To start off with a bang, I will talk about Rich. We were tracting the other day, and he was sitting on his porch doing nothing, like most people here in Lynn. We started talking to him, and since he was wearing a Red Sox shirt, we thought we'd break the ice with a little sports talk. He said that he loves college football. I told him that I was a BYU fan, and he nodded his head, and said "Yup, BYU's one of the best one's out there. They are up in the top 25 every year." YEAH! Made me happy to hear someone that knows about BYU all the way out here. He didn't say anything about the utes, but I'm sure it wouldn't have been anything good anyway. haha. We talked to him for a while and taught him a pretty good lesson too. He said we could come back, but wouldn't set up a date for us to come back. Hopefully we'll get to talk to him again.

That same day, we met a lady named Bacon. yes, Bacon. She was awesome. She said that she's Catholic, but that's what everyone says, so we ignored that. We left her with a Book of Mormon, and she said that she'd take a look at it to see if it would comfort her at all, since her husband recently passed away. We then, obviously talked to her about the Plan of Salvation, but her phone rang, so she cut us off, said goodbye, and went inside. We continued our tracting, and when we were headed back to the car, we went back to Bacon's house to give her a pamphlet about the Plan of Salvation. We were hoping she wouldn't be mad at us for coming back, but when she answered the door, she said she was happy to see us again, so we talked to her a little bit more, and gave her the pamphlet. She didn't want to set up a return appointment either, but she said she'd read the stuff we gave her, and give us a call if she's interested. Chances of that happening are slim, so we will probably try back there soon too. She was really cool.

So remember Dr. Kandusi? The man I baptized my 4th day in the field? I was thinking about him the other day, and wondering when he was going to text us again, cause he did a lot, right after his baptism. Guess who texted us this week? yep. and he's coming back from Tanzania to visit for awhile! He'll be here tomorrow. His text was so funny. It said "My dear brothers in Christ, I will be back in Boston area on 24. I would like to visit with Elder Hammer and the rest. I will be staying at same place as last time. -Dr. Kandusi" haha. Made me feel pretty good. He's so funny. I can't wait to see him tomorrow.

Alright, now for the Water Festival. It was awesome! We went up to Lowell friday afternoon, which was my first time actually being in the city. We helped set up a bunch of colorful flags and stuff at the river where they were doing the program that night. We got to hang out with a bunch of Buddhist monks too. haha. they are awesome! They were such nice guys, and they gave us some coupons for free food and stuff. It was pretty cool. For the program that night, they had a traditional Cambodian band play for a while. that was interesting. haha. I liked it though. They also had a lot of traditional dances from Laos and Thailand too. It was pretty cool. They also had a candlelight ceremony, where they put a ton of floating candles into the river, but we didn't get to see that, cause we had to go to the other place where the festival actually was, and set stuff up for the next day. On Saturday, we got to the festival at about 7. We set up our booth, which looked awesome (I'll send pics when my album is full). We had a ginormous Bible and Book of Mormon in the back, with a sweet banner on top. It was cool. Basically, we stood at the tent, and handed out passalong cards and stuff to tons of people. I think we passed out about 500 cards! Plus, Pres. Evans got 300 pens that had Mormon.org on them, that we passed out too. We took care of the booth in shifts, so others could walk around and talk to people/look at stuff. It was so cool. There was so much awesome stuff that I wanted to get, but didn't. I got some shirts, and a mini flag, and some CD's, that you will all laugh at when I get home. haha. There was a ton of food and stuff too. It was great. Overall, it was a big success, and we had a ton of fun. Except for the music from the stage was ridiculously loud, so it was extremely hard to talk to people. But, it was awesome. Can't wait for next year.

So I'm running out of time, and I still need to send an email to Pres, so I'm gonna make the rest super fast. Found out that in December, we have a native Cambodian coming to serve here, and chances are, I will be training him. that would be sweet cause I would learn the language so much faster. We had to say goodbye to E. Thompson yesterday too. I'm gonna miss him. He was in the Cambodian program, but now he's home. Luis on FB is one of the kids below us, so yeah you can accept him on fb. Kurtis - Tell me about Football!!!!! congrats on your 1st game, but you should tell me about them, and not make mom do it. Lastly, yes I would love some Zucchini bread. mmmmmm. Alright, I must go now. I hope you all have a great week! Love you all!!!

Love ,
Elder Hammer