Upgrades in the Mission Home

We have this beautiful new rug in our living room. Love it.  I hope to take one home just like it!

These are our new shelves in the pantry.  I love them too, but I can't take them home with me!


We got rid of these unsturdy bamboo shelves that were getting warped and worn out!  We will get to enjoy the new things for some months before the new mission president and family come to enjoy them too!

Central District Conference March 24-25

Our first family visit was to this very kind man who teaches school. He has family in Vietnam, but hasn't seen them in years.  He is very very clean and tidy. Scott gave him this tie.

Also visiting with us was the 6th branch President Kiet, District President Trieu and his counselor and 1 0 branch president, President Ut Thi.  President Kiet had a daughter in the hospital with cancer at that time and he still was so faithful to come and visit with us for a couple of hours.

Our last visit was to the former district president and his family. They were very gracious and kind to us and we enjoyed our visit with them. All whom we visited came and particpated in the conference.

The auxiliary leaders in the district and branch who came to the training that I did. Afterward, many wanted pictures with me because this is the last training I will do for them.  There was a great spirit there and I hope some learning took place.

Sister Mai was one of our missionaries as one Sister Vo on the right. Sister Thui was also a missionary, but with President Winegar. I feel like she was one of ours too!  We love all of these young women. They served well.  And are now a strength in the district and in their branches. Sister Thui loved the starfish story I told. So she wanted a picture of me with the star fish so that she could remember the story.  It touched her heart.

Sister Hai holds up a temple card that I gave all who wanted one. Some chose a card with a picture of Jesus. Some of the children wanted to take picture cards home to all of their siblings. But I had to not share all of my pictures because I still have 3 more District trainings and I want to have enough pictures to share with all of those sisters also. All of the rest of the pictures show women who wanted to get in the group.

The Sister on the right is the District RS President. She is a kind and very generous person. Willing to help many and she has three small children. She took in 6 children of the sister who passed away while the widower went to Vietnam. She treated them as if they were her own and they love her. The two little girls on the left are two of the children of the diseased sister. They sang I Want to See the Temple, to their Mom right after she died.  Their Primary leaders helped them and there was not a dry eye in the group when they were through. I love the beautiful Vietnamse dresses. 

The District Presidency.

President Kiet, 6th branch.

President Lam, 3rd Branch. 

President Smedley with 4 of our fine Vietnamse speaking missionaries.  Elders LeNguyen, Sanford, Phan, and Humpherys. Elder Phan just got transferred to Ho Chi Minh.  He is Vietnamse, but raised in the USA as is Elder LeNguyen.
We had a great conference and can see progress in unity in the district.

A Visit to the Farm

March 23, when we were out checking on the land as a possible donation to the church,  we went to a member couple's home afterwards.  They faithfully come in to church and often will sleep over Saturday so they can be there on time.  They also work with the missionaries once a week or more often. They went through the temple last year.

 Sahmnang also went along with us.  The couple have all these pigs, plus a little garden, raise baby chicks, do a rice mill, and  some fruit trees.

I think he is ready to eat!

Yep, definitely , he wants to eat!

These are pregnant sows.  They just eat in these pens and it looks like stay in these pens too. IT was very clean and efficient.

 The member sister who has the farm is on the right of me.  They have been asking us to come out for a long time. It was just about 20 minutes further from the land, so off we went. They were happy to see us come and wanted us to come back one more time.

They also raise chickens and the have a place that has a rice harvester.  People bring in their rice, they run it through the machine which takes the husks off the rice.

L to R:  Sahmnang, the farm sister and her husband, Elders Blocker and Nelson, the less active sister, and Scott.

 This is where they do the rice

 Chicken coop.

 They also incubate eggs and raise the chicks.  
New mango trees.

                           

Inside the mill, just waiting for the season to come.  We sure enjoyed our trip out to their little farm. They are doing everything they can to improve their lives not only temporally but spiritually also!

A Trip to View Land

 Friday, March 23, 2012 we took a trip out of Phnom Penh about 30 minutes to see some land that this woman wanted to donate to the Church.  It was a hot day, but some of this was muddy enough that we could only drive so far then we walked to the Eastern boundary.

 We took a member with us who helped translate and also we wanted her to fellowship this sister, since she is less active.  We also took the Pochentong Branch Elders, Elder Nelson and Elder Blocker, with us because this woman is in their branch. She agreed with Scott that the Elders could come to visit and help teach some of her family who aren't members.

 We were on the walk. It was so hot and dry!

This sister invited us to one of her homes and her family came ahead of time and cooked an all authentic Cambodia food including the Durian, which wasn't too bad.  The woman on the left cooked the food.

They also presented me with 3 1/2 dozen roses?  I don't know what was so special about me coming that they wanted to give me that many roses.  The only thing I could think was that because I am a companion to the mission president! Anyway, I enjoyed them for a good week. I even shared some with Sister Snyder!