Housekeeping

When Sarat had a heart attack several weeks ago, I got to do the mopping of the floors. This took quite awhile on the top two floors. Someone else does the Mission Office on the bottom floor. I'm responsible for my home. By the time I got done I was wet with sweat and even more appreciative of Sarat and all that she does here for us.


This is proof that I did the work and not just pose for the picture!

Spit Spot!

This is Sarat. This was taken before her heart attack by Kali. She is now back with us and doing well, however taking it a little bit easier.

Fruit and Missionaries

I got these three pictures from Kali's pictures. If you've seen her blog, you've probably seen these pictures, maybe. This is a picture of the fruit I described on a recent blog, or rather one similar to it.

Two of our missionaries: Elders Donnelson and Christian walking down a road where the church is located in Kampong Thom. I just like seeing our missionaries walking, or riding their bikes as they work. So, this picture is for me!

The former Elder Horl, or Mun as we call him now. He is the one who took the cyclo pictures. Thanks, Elder Horl, or rather Mun!

A Dream Come True

Scott has always wanted to ride one of these Cycloes. He talked the man who owns this into letting him ride it, for some rial of course! This man always parks this cyclo across from the mission home and often takes maybe a 3 hour nap in it. Mun Horl, one of our former missionaries, now a guard here, took the pictures of this great event!

The owner of the bike is shows Scott how to stop. The brake is in the back behind the seat. You reach around and lift a bar up, which stops or slows down the cyclo. The bag on the side is his lunch. All he adds are noodles or rice to it.

Seminary and Institute Graduation Central District

Saturday, August 21, everyone here completed at least the first year of Book of Mormon Seminary or Institute. The older ones were teachers and also received graduation certificates from Seminary or first year Institute. They also received Teacher certificates. Two of those teachers were branch presidents of 3rd branch, President Dong (say yoom) and President Dinh of the 10th Branch.

Afterwards they all feasted on a fruit called Plai Mian (say pl aye me un in Khmer), but I don't know the English or Vietnam name for this. It is a round -shaped fruit, that has a soft brown shell-like cover, which you break open and squeeze out the fruit. It is a sweet white grape-like fruit with a hard seed you spit out. I like it, it is very tasty. I call it the Cambodian grape.

Hong Kong Temple Trip-August 16-21

We had this group of about 20 in to the mission office Sunday afternoon August 15th for a little meeting about temples and what to do in Hong Kong. For most, this is a first time in a car, first time on a plane, and first and last time going to the Temple until we have one here. The Housers were the Senior couple supervising this trip. We had two translators going. Sister Chan from the 5th branch and she also received her endowment. The other is President Viasana from the Kien Svay Branch. He is a returned missionary and was being sealed to his wife and his son sealed to them.

I caught some of them coming off the plane. The branch president and his wife from Kampong Cham Second branch: Khong Lim.

The Rivong family from Siem Reap, and Sister Chan, also in the background, the Hun Lim family from Kampong Cham. Elder Houser is also on the left helping with everyone's luggage.

President Viasana and his wife and Mom and son all went to the temple. I caught them coming off the plane, but a family member had already taken their little boy. So I put the picture we took at the mission office before they left on here too.

They all look pretty happy and satisfied.

The Bonan and Socheata family from Siem Reap. They all loved it, but were very very tired, and said they did not ever want to go that far away again, because they were all carsick every time they got on a bus, car, or plane. This was their very first time traveling on any of those modes of travel. But she said it was a more than wonderful experience and they are so grateful to be sealed as a family in the temple.

August 11th Wedding

We were invited to the wedding festivities for Sister Harrison's brother. The Harrisons live in Hanoi where Shane has his own business. Sister Hannah Harrison is the Relief Society President in the Hanoi branch. So it was wonderful to see and their cute kids at the party. Yes, that is a pig you can see. That was the first course after the appetizers for the meal. I did not get any pictures of the bride and groom this time.

Brother Dom (not the Vietnamese spelling, but it's how you say it), is in the 6th branch for Vietnamese here in Phnom Penh.

A closeup of the pig. We were all surprised to see this pig come out and be put on the table. Everyone had to take a picture of it. Since it was a small one, there was not much meat, but I guess many Cambodians and Vietnamese like the fat attached to this. However, only one person at our table ate alot of this. It was a Cambodian woman who knew the Harrisons. It tasted pretty good, but I could not force myself to eat the fat. I just couldn't do it!

Clock Pillow Arrangements

Scott decided that everyday he would put the pillows on a different time, like a clock. For 12 days, he faithfully and might I add, carefully, arranged the pillows. Somehow I am missing 4 and 8 o'clock. So, I'll probably have to redo this. But for now it's a nice memory of his creative thinking.

First Leaderhip Training- Aug. 10-14, 2010

All of our mission leaders and trainers all got into Scott's office for a cram course on 8 simplified lessons that I have explained below. We had 30 of us in there. I think that's about the limit and still make it so you can do role plays which are a big part of the teaching process. As you can see, I am no professional with the panoramic. I gave Elder Son 1 1/2 heads! The second and third takes were clearer as you can see than the first picture. I tried to line up his head with the camera, but alas, not good enough. Luckily he is the only that that is 1 1/2 or 2! But at least youc an get a good idea of the group we had!

We tried to make it fun by offering candy to those who participated in front of the group. Also we threw a rubber strawberry for questions and answers, and role played a story from the Book of Mormon, and used a bell to see who could answer something first. The last day, I had extra candy and was passing it out. Elder Phan got a few extra for which he totally loves.

A group of Vietnamese speaking and Cambodian speaking missionaries relaxing before the afternoon session started. From L-R: Elders Eagan,; Meas, Mae (he was recuperating from an illness and was just visiting), Seang, Ly. Sisters: Robertson, Sok and Tay. Sisters Robertson and Tay are new sisters and working together while their trainer Sister Sok was learning with us.

Elders Da, Phan, Va, Try, Samat and now former missionary turned guard, Mun Horl, visit outside during a lunch break. Notice how Camobidians love to point their hands for a picture. These are all very, very good missionaries and some of our leaders. Mun Horl was one of our Zone Leaders when he served as a missionary.

The Church has asked all current mission presidents to start teaching their missionaries 8 simplified lessons to improve Gospel Teaching among missionaries. These 8 lessons will start in the MTC in May of 2011 and they want all of the current missionaries to be comfortable and using these teaching skills all taken from Preach My Gospel. They wanted us to start teaching our mission leaders first and teach them all the lessons, having two a day. We started on a Tuesday evening with one lesson and ended up on Saturday noon with the last lesson. We had all of our leaders and trainers come in from all over the country. Lucky for us, the furthest ones came about 5 hours on the bus. We all had a great time and learned alot. Scott and I taught all the lessons with help from our Assistants to help us with the Role Plays. They did a great job helping us all get the concepts down. We have these all Leadership trainings every other month and Zone Leader Council every month. Zone conference and Interviews every 3 months and Specialized trainings every month. We are excited about it all and can see improvement already.

Mekong and Tonle Sap River trip with Senior Couples

August 10, 2010 we set out in the early afternoon for a leisurely ride on this little boat. We had enough life preservers for all of us in case the boat proved unseaworthy. But, no worries, it was a good craft. We all brought our own lunch and food to share. We all enjoyed the scenery and the visits.

What appears to be a homemade fishing craft. It looked like perhaps some lived there some of the time and that the boat was an effective fishing craft.

We got off and walked up this path (actually this picture is heading back to the boat-same path just different direction!) to see a home business of silk weaving. It takes 4-5 months to weave I think she said 40 meters of material.

Through that path there were some banana trees. I told some of our grandchildren that bananas grow upside down, and they just couldn't figure that out, so here is a picture to show how they grow upside down on the trees.

Heng Naysim is the business owner and this is her home where the weaving takes place. In the picture with Elder Thalman, she is in the middle and the weaver is her niece. Elder Thalman is displaying some of her beautiful material that they weave. She employs about 4 weavers and their products and other Cambodian products are displayed below. We had a couple of church auditors along with us on a break for them and they enjoyed supporting this home-grown organization. I also bought some beautiful red and gold silk material. Not shown, however!

While I was admiring all the beautiful silk, Scott wasn't as interested as me and saw an empty hammock where he proceeded to rest. The woman on another hammock is our guide. I called her our leader (duknoam). She just laughed about that, and said, well, when you are ready come and get me and she laid back down on her hammock! Some of the senior missionaries and the two auditors also were done shopping before any of the women.

Sunday District Conference-Kampong Cham

Sister Nih wanted a picture with all of us. She is the member missionary that I have posted about. I need to print this picture for her and send it up because she doesn't have a camera. L to R Elder Wun, me, Sister Nih, Scott and Eng Bun Hoyt, Scott's counselor over Kampong Cham District.


This sister was taught by Elders Allred and Haws, but had the elder that interviewed her do the baptizing: Elder M. Boyd. (we have two Elder Boyds, one is Z. Boyd and the other is M. Boyd.)
She has a good support group of these very faithful member sisters. The one on the left is the District Primary President.


We were invited to eat Sunday dinner at the Thalman's home. It was quite the Sunday Dinner with funeral potatoes (a rare treat here), pork roast and chicken, brownies, zucchini, salad, rolls. Wow! Those in the picture are: L to R Elder and Sister Snyder, Tay Phirun, Elder and Sister Thalman, Scott and me, President and Sister Soy (sp. is wrong), President Eng Bun Hoyt, Scott's counselor and Elder Wun. The Snyders and Tay were there to check out housing problems there and in Kampong Thom.

Visits with Elder Wun at Kampong Cham

This wonderful sister that we visited with Elder Wun is the district Primary president. She is making a hammock out of rags. She cuts them in strips and knots two together, then loops them through and ties a knot to the next loop. This is one she is making for Sister Thalman, the senior sister there in Kampong Cham. She and her two sons are active but her husband and other son is not. Scott gave ties here also, but we just saw her and her one son to conference. She is a very faithful wonderful woman and we enjoyed our visit with her and her family.

This is her family along with the 1st branch president, district president and 3rd branch president on the right, Elder Wun in the middle and us. You can see their ties. Scott tied their ties for them and they slipped them on for the picture.

I took this picture of the 3rd branch president, President Sorin, because I like his shoes. Whenever he is working or not in church he wears this shoes. They are waterproof and so perfect for this climate here when you can get unexpected rains. With those shoes, the rains won't bother him, he'll just carry on! He is a very good branch president and also returned missionary.

On our way back up the lane from this home, was this farmer keeping his brahma clean. The brahma was just loving all that water and getting clean.

Visits with Elder Wun in Kampong Cham

It's become a tradition that when an Area Seventy visits a district for district conference or a General Authority, we always plan on visiting families that perhaps a visit would strengthen them. After driving down a few dusty lanes, turning right, then left, we were told by the branch president to park the Prado and walk up this little pathway. We were so surprised to see a little community of maybe 5 homes, all members which included 3 sisters and their families. One of these sisters sews. She makes shorts to sell at the market for 6,000 riel which is $1.50. She has this serger to secure her seams and works it so fast. There is no electricity for her machines so she has the tread machine where she moves the pedal back and forth. She sews fast. I was amazed. I talked her into sewing for me while I took the picture.

Elder Wun was so interested in their home. It has three sides and then open where he is standing. They have a picture of the Hong Kong Temple hanging on one of their posts.

Inside the cabinet, Elder Wun was pointing out to us was their Book of Mormon and other church materials they wanted to protect. He was very pleased

We got this group picture after we had a prayer with them. Very sweet people. Scott have ties to two of them. The man on the right is the district President, President Soy. He is a very good District President. Also on the back left is President Sorin, 3rd branch president and also the branch president of the first branch. He and his wife are at the Hong Kong Temple this week getting sealed and receiving their endowment. The sister standing by the District President came to the conference the next day. The rest say that they have to work, or they are just out of the habit of going. I hope they come back, they are very, very good people and we loved them.

Kampong Cham Temple Interviews and visits.

We drove on to Kampong Cham from Kampong Thom so Scott could do two final temple interviews and we could visit branches one and two. They all just were so glad we came and followed us out to the car when we left. The sisters really loved Varci and made her feel so welcome, she was sad to leave.
The room where we stayed has quite ornate beds. I think Varci was a little more impressed with it than was Scott. We drove just out of Kampong Cham in a community called Cut (say Jute)where Scott interviewed this wonderful family for the Temple on this August temple trip. The brother went to study in Russia and speaks Russian, so he and Varci enjoyed communicating in Russian, not Cambodian. He teaches school and also knows a little English. Their little boys are so, so well behaved. I was impressed. By the way, we had been in a rainstorm and you can tell by my hair! She had little fruits for us to take home with us. We ate it all. In the hotel they brought us a roll away, but no sheets because they said they were only for the big beds, but we said that was okay. They were insistent there were no sheets, but brought extra towels for Varci's blankets. Scott finally had them take them to where they got the sheets. That was in the laundry room and we finally got the bed made. The sister holding the baby blanket with me knows how to crochet and she told me I was crocheting crooked and showed me how to make it go straight. It was very helpful and I appreciated her. Her and her husband also are going with the August group to the temple. Her husband is the branch president of the first branch.

Sunday, after our meetings there in Kampong Cham, we went to visit the sister in white's home. Her name is Nih (say knee). She has been a member for about 3 months and is just a whirlwind. She goes to all of her neighbors and tells them about the church. The baptism above is her nephew. So far, I think she is responsible for maybe 10 baptisms there. She is a terrific member missionary and is a no nonsense person with a pleasant way about her. The middle picture is her family. Three of her five children are pictured. They live in the two homes shown here. Wonderful woman!