Special Families

President Bunno and his wife after the dinner. They have been to the Temple. Just a great couple. He is the new District President in Battambang.

Rattana on the right works at the service center. Her and her husband are both returned missionaries. He owns and runs a dry cleaning business and she works at the service center as a receptionist. They both speak English pretty good and are teaching their children to speak and understand English. Her little baby girl looked at a picture we have of Jesus here in the mission office and she pointed to it and said "Jesa". In English! She's not even two. I told her she had pretty shoes, so she looked down at her shoes. I said that in English! And she understood. I was astounded that they are doing such a good job teaching English to their children. They brought us a New Year's gift. It was all full of wonderful fruits. This is the first time they have taken a New Year's gift to someone and we got chosen! What an honor. She said she wants to get to know me better and she appreciates that I always asked about her injured leg. Right after her baby was born, someone knocked her off her moto in order to steal her purse. It threw her off and fractured her leg. It took at least 6 months before she could walk on it decently. She was three months in a wheel chair and another three months in a boot.

They also have been sealed in the temple. It was such a nice gesture on their part to bring us this wonderful gift.

Special Dinner

We had a special dinner for all District Presidents and wives, mission presidency, mission clerk and executive secretary on Friday, January 14th. Scott thought it would be good to invite the Minister of Cults and Religions and his number 2 and 3 people so they could see how many Cambodian leaders we have in the Church here. They accepted. The night of the event the two other ministers came, but Min Kinh was running a little late. So we waited, but then he got lost coming here and we were saddened because he couldnt' make it. We had moved the dining chairs and some tables downstairs for Min Kinh's health, but it ended up being a good thing because we all could sit at the same table. The above floral arrangements were taken care of my Elder Pinvises, one of our Office Elders. He told the floral lady what he wanted and what colors and she did the rest. I love them. All fresh flowers. We gave them to the ministers that came.

The lady on the left in the blue and below with me is the number 2 person in the ministry of cults and relgions. Whenever Min Kinh is out of town, she takes over. We get along very well with her. She is a really sweet woman and she likes it when we try to speak Cambodian. They both talked and we feel like there are warm feelings there for the church and the good things we do. Her name is Udaa wun (say one) and his is Um Dari. I probably have the spellings all wrong. Um Dari's wife is in Canada visiting so he was happy to get a good meal.

Here we are with Um Dari and Uudaa Wun (spelling?)

My end of the table with President Eng Bun Huout and his wife and Sam Saphon and his wife and the two government ministers. Everyone is eating or have eaten a cinammon roll I made for them. This is the first time they have ever tasted them. Most liked them, some didn't.

The other end of the table. Tay Phirum and his wife, Srey, and the four District Presidents and wives in order after Tay: Presidents An Tham (South District), Bunno (Battambang District), Chanta (North District, Soy (Kampung Cham). At the table in the distance are Elder and Sister Curtis and Kim Sang and his wife. Kim Sang is the new Service Center Manager. We have always had a missionary couple managing the service center and Kim Sang is the first Cambodian to take over the job! He will do a great job.

The whole group. I've pretty much named them in the above pictures. So, any questions feel free to ask!

Kahk Kao and Leadership

A couple of weeks ago, Scott went out to Kahk Kao where Elders Draper and Oleson are teaching alot of people. Because all are not learning on the same level, Scott is going to have the missionaries teach them by family. There are many out there. They come into church to Takha mao and are faithful to come. Several have been baptized. Scott really enjoyed his time out there
with them.

More pictures of the Leadership training. A member sister who cleans the mission office organized all the elder's shoes in an orderly fashion so that people could come and go through the door without going through lots of shoes. After the last meal of the leadership training, we fed them ice-cream and brownies. Sarat made the brownies. We actually had a Gheradelli brownie mix that one of the parents of missionaries brought us just for fun. So, these Elders benefitted from that. On January 9th, we did a fireside for investigators from our International Branch. That is the 13th branch. In the right hand corner is a picture of investigators from the 13th branch, the Elders teaching them and the branch president and his wife, President and Sister Ellsworth. We had a great time. It was wonderful speaking in English and having investigators who understand that language! I fed them caramel popcorn. So, I guess you could call it a Popcorn Fireside.

More Pictures from Scott

He caught on camera another beautiful Cambodian sunset. The two women above left are wonderful faithful sisters. Sisters Him (say hum). They came in to the office to visit with Scott one day and so he took their picture. The Sister Him on the right was one of our missionaries. On the moto, they were members who had come to the airport to see our last group of missionaries off. The salad was supposed to be for 100 people. So we took a picture of it because it barely fed 25, maybe. The caterer, Jacob's Well, forgot to send the salad and so sent it at the end and didn't charge us for these two salads. Scott interviewed two of the sisters getting baptized. He felt like they were very special young women. Sisters Harlan and Va taught them. They are in the 10th Vietnamese branch here in Phnom Penh.

Just for Fun

These are pictures Scott took. He was really proud of two more pillow arrangements, which I have to admit, were very creative. Also, he loves to take pictures of the creative ways Cambodians move things, whether it is people, produce, or merchandise. The top right hand picture he took one Sunday when we were visiting Sen Sok (say sine soak). I forgot we would probably do some visits and wore a black straight skirt. At this particular home, the young couple had put up a permanent gate that you had to climb over. Their little boy had fallen in the cess pool below the home, so they protected him by putting the gate up. If you had a full skirt or Khmer skirt on, you could climb over, but it just wasnt' going to work no matter what I tried. The missionaries and the new members even closed their eyes to see if I could climb over, but the skirt was not going to allow me to get in. So, in this picture I am backing down so that Scott could go in. Then I climbed back up and looked over the gate! Well, at least I got to be "in" on the meeting!

Specialized Training and Proselyting with the Sisters

On Monday, January 10, 2011, We met the North and Central Zones to teach Lesson #3 in a specialized training in order to teach from the Fundamentals of Preach my Gospel. This lesson #3 is on Revelation through Prayer. We have 8 lessons that help the missionary be a better teacher. We have taught the leaders all of them but are on the 3rd one to all of the missionaries. We felt like it went well. Afterwards we fed them a sandwich and pop/water.

Scott went with Elders Walker and Conway. I went with Sisters Pen (say bine) and Erekson. Sister Erekson is one of our new sisters. The little gal by Sister Pen is a member they are working on helping and she went with us to teach a couple of people. The above family on the right live just off the RR tracks in a rebuilt home. Their's got burned down. The Mother and daughter in law were recently baptized and they went to read scriptures and talk about the Book of Mormon. A very neat family. On the way home in this tuk tuk, Sister Erekson felt something hard on her leg, she went to brush it off and she felt its claws on her finger. She screamed and shook it off. IT was a BIG cockroach. As we were laughing how all of us did not like cockroaches, Sister Erekson started pointing at Sister Pen and said you have it on your blouse. There was that big thing walking across her shoulders. She screamed and brushed it off. We didn't see it again, but Sister Pen suggested to the Tuk tuk driver that he watch out for those cockroaches! Anyway, these are two very good sisters and teachers. Although Sister Erekson is new, she did really well in her teaching and I even got to do some teaching also. It was a great day!

Leadership Training and New Couple: Spencers

The day the Spencers, below, flew in which was Wednesday Evening, January 5th Scott and I were in a Leadership Training with all mission leaders and trainers. Here they are eating, one of their favorite things!

I have no airport pictures of the Spencers because we were in trainings. The Snyders picked them up and brought them here. We met them on Thursday morning when I fixed them breakfast. This is a great couple and so willing to serve in any way. They will be a great help to us. We are so happy to have them here. We ate at William Tell. A favorite restaurant here of the Senior Couples.

Thursday night all Senior couples that could come, met at William Tell to welcome the Spencers. It also happened to be Sister Liggett's
birthday. Sister Peterson made her a most delicious strawberry cake. I don't know what she put in it, but it sure was good! How old is Sister Liggett? I don't know, I never asked. But I'm pretty sure she is younger than me!

Elder Snyder's back, and Elder and Sister Peterson, Elder Spencer. Sister Peterson is the one that made the cake. Sister Spencer is in the background.

Missionary Gifts.

For Christmas we gave the missionaries a Book of Mormon and colored pencils to highlight 4 things about Christ: different names for Him, His attributes, Doctrine and principles, and His words. We also gave them this plaque above and the famous worm pills. I tempered them down with a candy cane! This above plaque, if you get the right focus spells JESUS, but you have to focus just right and it also has to be at the right angle with the right amount of light.

From a certain step you can see the word now. Can you see it?

And kind of here, if you focus on Jesus, you can see it. Can you see it here? I guess you can see the analogy and in what they are doing in the Book of Mormon. Our focus is on Christ, yep, you guessed it!

A street of Plastic Wear

I never tire of what I see on the streets. I am always quite fascinated by all the plastic wear you can buy. We have alot of those blue chairs right here in the misison home. I wanted to go check out the far plastic conatainers, but I do believe it was the Sabbath day, plus there is always a time issue....there is not too much of it!

New decorations and a Gift

We went to a Wheelchair handover for LDSC to the government. It was at the main place for people with disabilities in Cambodia. There is a gift shop there run by the disabled and I think many of the things are made by poor or disabled and proceeds go to them. Among my favorites were these deer. They are made out of Cambodian silk. The one above is bigger than the one on the tree. I also bought another tree ornament deer, but it is out of sight, obviously! But I do cherish them and am happy to be able to help in some way.


At our mission Christmas Eve FHE we did a Secret Santa exchange and this is what we received. It is totally carved out of coconut. I wanted to show you the back, but it seemed a little rude to put on a blog page. Come to my house, and I'll be glad to show our little monkey to you. The Curtises who are the Missionary couple service center manager, know the member sister who makes these. She is quite the talented lady!

New Year's Eve Phnom Penh

Royal Palace area during Holidays

Cambodiana Hotel Restaurant. Pretty empty, except us. A couple of tables were full by the time we left. The food was superb. They gave us the less expensive menu after we looked at the specialty one and said we would go elsewhere. Then they found a better priced menu. That was a relief because traffic was pretty bad and we really didn't want to drive a long ways to go somewhere else. So, where was everyone?

Outside at the Cambodiana New Year's Carnival. People just kept coming and coming. We stayed inside where it was safe! We got home just after 9:00 p.m. (in case you were wondering if we stayed out of the mission home to welcome in the New Year!) Now you know!

Mission Christmas Eve-FHE

We all gathered to give Secret Santa gifts, had a health presentation by Sister Liggett on hygiene, and had skit/talents. The skits were all creative and involved situations with missionary work.


This middle skit involved what a branch council might be like. This was Kampong Cham. The skit on the bottom is from the Viet zone showing that they were all trying to find a way to go into Viet Nam to do missionary work. But in the end, they decided it was best to stay in Cambodia until further word from the Mission! They also sang a good Christmas carol for a talent: Jingle Bells in Vietnamese.
Other zones pictured are the South Zone, North Zone, Siem Reap Zone, and Battambang Zones.

The two Elders in the center sang a beautiful rendition of a favorite Christmas carol. They harmonized wonderfully and did it all Acapella. Elders Eagan and Michelsen.

All Mission Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

We had Christmas Eve Hamburgers. Mike from the local Mike's Burger Barn, his wife and two of their employees came personally with their new big grill and cooked 100 hamburgers and everyone got fed in an hour. That's pretty good. Mike is not a member, nor his wife, but they are so good to all of our missionaries when they go in there to eat. He loves the missionaries and has them pictured on a tee-shirt to promote his restaurant. He gave them all a free one. It is a clean place to eat. He lived in the USA for 20 years, retired and came here to do his favorite hobby, cooking. He cooks a real good steak and has the best Loc Lak in town. Loc Lak is a Cambodian dish.

After the meal we re-enacted the Nativity and then watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional, which I was very moved by all of the devotional. Pictured here are scenes from our Nativity. It is interesting that all the costumes, except for the sheets, are things I've collected over the years. They come from Israel, Vietnam, Indonesia, USA. So it is appropriate that it is International since Jesus Christ was born for the world!

Christmas Day we had a conference similar to a Zone conference where all the Zone leaders gave year end reports, the assistants showed the old goals and then the new goals planned with each Branch President. They then had a special movie on missionary work in Cambodia and on Christ that they created. Then talked about 3 ways that President Smedley gave to help accomplish the goals. I talked on the Nativity and picturing yourself there as a shepherd. I told them about a special experience I had testifying that the Shepherds really did see the infant Christ. Also challenged them to Build their faith like Enos did. Scott talked on miracles, obeying with exactness and locking your heart (that's if they have girlfriends back home or boyfriends). Then the missionaries had 1 1/2 hours to bear testimony. It was a great meeting. We ate Shepherd's pie, salad, ice-cream and cookies,gave gifts and they went back to proselyting. A great spirit and great meeting.

Sisters, upper left are cleaning up from Christmas Day cookie bar and the Elders are "cleaning" up the ice-cream Christmas Day.

These are the gifts the missionaries received. I wrapped each a plaque with the word JESUS on it. You have to look at it just right to see that is what it is saying. I will post a picture of the unwrapped gift. They also got worm pills. On the left are colored pencils I wrapped for each missionary so that they could use them to do a Book of Mormon Activity on Christ by underlining 4 different subjects in each a different color. They appreciated all. We also gave them a new paper back copy of the Book of Mormon to do their activity with.