Hello from the North!

Yesterday we made it to the town we'll be staying in and it is absolutely gorgeous! This part of the country is so different from anywhere that I had ever served on my mission. We are surrounded by beautiful green and lush jungle and there are huge ragged mountains jutting out from the trees. The roads are narrow and winding and there are small tribal villages surrounding the major towns. Heaven!

Day one on the job was amazing! After breakfast and a morning group meeting we headed out to the Lahu village to a daycare to meet the children and the teacher. The children were so enthusiastic and excited for us to come and we spent a good amount of time playing games around the school. We also got a little tour of the village, which is situated in the hillside among the foliage. At the top of the hill the team has been working on creating a soccer field for the children. I'll get some pictures of that tomorrow when we go back again! Tomorrow we're also going to go back and finish up some paint jobs around the school!

After the morning spent at the Lahu village we headed over to the Akha village to play some soccer with the villagers and to work on improving their dirt soccer field. This area gets a lot of flooding, which affects their field because it leaves small canals through it. We worked on laying down sandbags to prevent water from entering the field. Three boys from the village also gave us new volunteers a tour and many of the children joined us as well! This village has many rice and corn fields surrounding it with a man-made reservoir nearby.

Today was such an amazing day! I'll give more details about the people and places that we go as I learn more about them. For now, this was just a quick update of day one! So excited for the weeks to come!