Killing Fields

I have learned a ton about Pol Pot and his genocide.  Everyone one who is older lived through it.  After we met with our Branch President yesterday, we sat and talked for a minute about his life.  He has had a crazy life.  He has a bullet hole in his leg from when he was a soldier and some crazy other stories I will have to tell you when I come home.  He compared his life to Nephi – full of suffering.  I had to agree. Our plan today is to go to the Killing Fields just outside Phnom Penh.  We contacted one lookpuu (man), and he is the only survivor out of the five members of his family.  That is why I want to help them so much.  The gospel will help them so much, and it makes me so sad when they tell us about their experiences.

Pit where they dug out bones and remains of people who had been killed. There are about 450 of these pits around the Killing Fields.

We continued with contacting a ton this week.  Even more than last week.  Everyone we contact, we ask for a return appointment.  We have a lot of return appointments.  Now we just need to find out if they actually want to learn or not.  Problem is that Cambodian people are so nice a lot of times they will say, “Yeah, you can come back,” but they do not really want to learn.  It is fun through to just go to a new area and walk down the street trying to talk and share with everyone.  

 Killing Fields

Little personal note.  I feel like the scriptures are really opening up for me.  I am learning new ideas and insights on topics and scriptures I never thought of before.  This morning I tore over Mosiah chapter 2.  Before, I just liked the classic scriptures.  I am learning so many new things.  It is true.  We always need to be reading them again and again because we will always learn something new.

By the way, I saw a snake this week!  We were biking out to an area away from Sen Sok, and before we got to the village, Elder Den saw the snake.  Then I saw it.  It was not big, maybe 3 feet or so and really skinny.  One of the local farmer/village guys came over and was calling for his friends to come and help him kill it. He was freaking out a little bit because he did not know if it was poisonous or not.

Killing Fields