Garrett Says Goodbye to Elder Sok

 We got new nametags!  They just translated "Elder Gibson" to Khmae, so people can read it.

The week was pretty good.  First off yes, I will talk about transfers.  We got transfer calls last night.  Elder Sok is going to another branch in Phnom Penh, and I am staying here for one more transfer.  I am getting another Khmae companion, and I have heard mixed things about him.  One returned elder told me he is super annoying. Others say his English is good and some say it is bad.  Either way, he is my companion, and we should do well together.  I must admit I was hoping a little bit that I would be transferred.  I love the members and the branch, but I was looking forward to a new branch, fresh faces, new investigators, new house, etc.  Oh well. I am still excited, and it should be good.  I know this will be my last transfer in the area.  6 months in one area is somewhat normal for new missionaries, but then the amount of time gets shorter, and they always leave after 6 months.  It should be a great transfer though. Transfers really do fly by.  I am a little nervous too as now I am the main elder who has to tell the new guy where we should go and when – not the best timing too when we have recently lost or dropped a lot of our investigators.  We still have a good amount though, and I have some good plans to really strengthen the branch through teaching members.  Our new goal as a mission is 40 lessons a week - 20 with members present and 20 member/less active/recent convert lessons.  So, that is that.

Our investigators are doing really well.  This is the situation on Rado and Rada.  President does not want them to be split up because they are still relatively young and they are a family.  So we plan on baptizing them in the Vietnamese branch, but we will tell them to go to both branches.  Probably what will happen is that Rada will go to the Vietnamese branch.  That is where she has been going because she has friends and such.  Rado will most likely come to the Khmae branch.  He wants to understand, and he has been coming every week.  So they will technically be in the Vietnamese branch, but they can choose which branch they want to go to.  As long as they are at least going and the family is strong, it should be good.  

Elder Sok, a member who helps us out a lot, and myself. He is preparing to serve a mission. 
We took the picture on a little wooden bridge.

The way they fix tires here.  They pull out the tire tube and put a new piece of rubber over the hole and burn it on to the tire tube with a hot iron or an open fire.

James came to church yesterday, Chanlina did not.  We are working with them.

One great blessing we saw was in a less active member’s life.  She did not come to church, so we went to her house last week.  Her husband had beat her up and took most of the money and left.  She had some really nasty bruises and scratches.  We talked to her, and prayed with her.  We prayed for her that night, and she prayed for herself as well.  The next day she went to work at a richer man’s house (she is a maid).  He found out what happened, sent her to the hospital for free to make sure nothing got infected.  He gave her 200 dollars and told her that if it happened again that his brother was a lawyer and they would send him to jail.  All for free.  Really awesome story and a great blessing of the power of prayer.  



Every Vietnamese person here knows Khmae as well.  Except a few that just got here, but almost all of them are pretty much fluent in Khmae.  They speak Khmae with each other in the home.  A big thing, however, is reading.  The Vietnamese cannot read Khmae.  The mom cannot go to the Khmae branch because she only knows basic Khmae.  She does not know spiritual Khmae words or any advanced words at all.  She also cannot read.  The dad cannot read, but his Khmae is really good.  He could probably come to the Khmae branch and gradually learn the words he did not know.  So they speak Khmae at home, but the mom and dad and every Viet cannot read Khmae, and even if they know Khmae, they do not know church Khmae or more advanced Khmae than just the everyday stuff.  So, that is why.  Rado only knows Khmae.  He can pray in Viet but only because he has it memorized.  Rada kind of knows Viet, but not that much.  Their parents want them to learn, but it is never going to happen.  They live in Cambodia, and except for a few places Vietnamese is worthless.  So, it should be all good now.  Just have to finish teaching them and make sure they understand where they should go to church.

Luen is still drunk.

The Som family is really awesome.  We have started to teach them all together.  There are two parents and two girls in their twenties.  The father already knows Joseph Smith is a true prophet. He prayed and told us he felt goose bumps and an energy - a warm energy from his head to his feet.  He said he felt happy.  He was really happy when we told him that was an answer from the Holy Ghost.  He told us he has had some of the same questions as Joseph Smith.  Both the mom and dad came to church yesterday.  We just need to teach them and get them to church more and then they should be good to go.  They are really awesome.

McKenzie is Transfered to Taichung!

I am writing you from Taichung; it is so weird.  On Sunday morning I got the call that I would be moving up to Nantun.  Leaving my area was exciting but also really sad.  It was just so sad to say goodbye to all the people I love so much.  Zhou Jiemie was super funny in Sunday school.  I asked her where I was going to see her in a year.  She thought for a second and then said, “The Celestial Kingdom.”  I sure hope we both don't die in a year.  I told her that I was going to see her in the temple. We both laughed.   

 

The saddest and hardest thing was saying goodbye to Jenny.  It was just so sad because I know that she is going to pass away, and she knows she is going to pass away.   

It was also really hard to say good bye to Fang and her kids.  They had a family obligation, so they weren't able to come to all of church, but they came for a few minutes.  We were able to say goodbye out in the hall.  Her sweet daughter started crying, and I started crying.  It was just such a tender moment.  Fang said that she will defiantly be getting baptized and that she was going to do all she could to bring the rest of her family into the gospel with her.  I love their family so much, and it was really sad to leave them. But I know they are going to be ok because they have the gospel.      

We have a new investigator recently named Lin Jiemie.  She showed up at the church the day I was on sister exchanges.  She is very funny, kind of difficult to teach, but really cute.  She has a Buddhist background and in almost everything she says she includes that she is Buddhist.  For example, she often says, "Well, I am Buddhist so I have a question."  She is interesting because although she is really concerned about Buddhism and how the Gospel will fit with Buddhism, she also loves the Gospel.  She doesn't really acknowledge it, but she comes to church and to everything we invite her to.  She reads as well.  She keeps trying to drop us, but we just kind of don't let her.  Of course we are respecting her agency, but she will say things like I am going to think about this for a while and then get back to you.  Then we will say, “Hey can we meet on Wednesday?”, and she is like, “Okay.”  It is interesting.  She has a long ways to go, but I really think she is progressing.  She just can't totally give up, and we aren't going to let her.

I am excited to be in my new area.  It is up by the mission office, and it is a really major city.  My new companion is Sister Lethco.  She seems really nice.  We have only been together for a couple of hours, but I am really excited.  I am so grateful to be able to do this work.  I love this people so much, and I just feel privileged every day to be able to work with them and to see the work of the Lord.  One of my favorite scriptures as of late is 2 Nephi 22: 2.

Our Christmas Conversation with Garrett

We have been trying to find inactive members from our CBR book.  We have searched for a family before, but they were not home or their house was too flooded to get to.  Saturday we biked over the Cambodia Japanese Friendship Bridge and biked to their house.  We found that the road/surrounding area was still flooded.  So we took off our shoes and rolled up our pants. The walk through the water which at times came up over our knees was not comfortable.  Many unseen rocks were hard on the feet, and I must admit I had flashbacks to watching River Monsters with McKenzie. I wondered if maybe I would be attacked and Jeremy Wade himself would come and do an episode.  But don't worry, it was not connected to the river; it was just a flooded road/field/area of the outskirts of Phnom Penh.  All the people walk through it to get to their jobs and the main road everyday.  The water had been there for over 5 months.  Stinky, but it was cool.  Plus, the family is awesome.  7 kids! 3 are over 12 and are potential investigators.  We will hope to bring the mother back to activity and the kids to the church as well.  

Notes from our Christmas conversation with Garrett:

• There are various forms of poop everywhere (rice, mice, lizards).  It is unavoidable. 
• On the 23^rd, they had a mission-wide Christmas event. They were fed and watched Mr. Kruger’s Christmas. On the 24^th, they had a mission conference, and in the evening a senior couple in his area had Garrett, Elder Sok, and some other missionaries over for dinner. On the 25^th, they went caroling for a couple hours after church with some of the teenagers in the ward. Garrett really enjoyed this. Other than the caroling, Christmas was a normal day. 
• They get limited member help because the members work a lot and have school. Some of the members help a lot though – especially some of the youth who are preparing to go on a mission. 
• Garrett corrected our pronunciation of his companion’s name. Elder Sok is pronounced Soak.  It means happy, and Garrett says most of the time he is. 
• Mom asked Garrett if he thought he would be transferred soon, and Garrett told her that he didn’t know, but that he thought either he or Elder Sok would likely be. The Assistants to the President make recommendations to the Mission President as to transfers after a lot of prayer of course. The Mission President then prays more and changes things. Garrett told us that he didn’t realize just how big of a role APs play in everything until he got to the field. 
• Transfers happen in about two weeks. 
• Garrett likes his area. They have good, solid investigators and good members – especially young members. 
• Garrett lamented that his stomach is getting flabbier. 
• Their typical breakfast and lunch involves rice, vegetables, and meat (pork and chicken). They eat dinner at 8:45 PM, which is usually a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He thinks that is why he is getting chubby. He eats and then goes to bed. 
• Eating spiders is against the mission rules. Garrett expressed that while he wants to be adventurous about food, he is careful because he doesn’t want to get sick. He wants to be able to keep working. 
• He doesn’t like the fish he has had so far because they have a tone of bones, which are nasty and hard to eat. 
• A lot of missionaries get sick. Garrett used to get diarrhea everyday at the beginning of his mission but now it is only every once in a while. It doesn’t keep him down though. 
• He has eaten frog and octopus. 
• All of the missionaries are taking anti-worm pills right now. They got them for Christmas! He wonders if he had ringworm because he wasn’t feeling great for a couple of days.  Plus, he said his stool “just wasn’t right, if you know what I mean.” The pills seem to be helping, and he is feeling good again. 
• There is no toilet paper in Cambodia. They have a hose that you squirt your bum off with. Typically, he takes his daily bowel movement in the morning, squirts himself off, and then takes his shower. 
• Garrett, doesn’t like to wait for the warm water heater to work, so he takes a cold shower. 
• They have a washing machine in his apartment but not a dryer. 
• A typical toilet in Cambodia is a hole in the ground. Then you pour water into it from a bucket to flush it down. If a toilet doesn’t have a hose, you just get some water on your hand and clean yourself with that. Then you wash your hands by pouring more of the water from the bucket on it. Garrett said he has never had to use the bathroom while out and about. 
• They get about $30-40 a week for food and things. They eat out in the mornings for about 75 cents. Then they make their own lunch, and do PB&J for dinner. 
• The traffic is crazy. Garrett says he has almost been killed in traffic about a thousand times. However, no missionaries have ever been killed in Cambodia. 
• Garrett particularly loves a desert they make – palm fruit mixed with rice to make porridge of sorts. 
• They have some vegetables he had never heard of before, but most of the vegetables they use and eat are pretty normal to him. 
• That one hernia pin still bothers him. 
• He likes the Wats (temples) including the neighborhood Wats. They are very beautiful. 
• Garrett says that the people are very nice in Cambodia; however, they are very critical if you don’t speak their language well. They will tell you what they think. Sometimes they make fun of you if your language skills are weak. 
• He says that the work is not at all like it is portrayed on the Other Side of Heaven or in the Best Two Years. When would you ever just be sitting on a beach? 
• He says he sees people with shirts that have American things on them that he knows they don’t understand. For example, he sees shirts like Angry Birds, Facebook, Google, etc. 
• Overall, Garrett says his mission has been great, but it is very hard. The hardest part, Garrett says, is realizing you didn’t do as well as you could have or wanted to in a particular lesson or something. 
• Almost every day is very hot, and right now it is dry. 
• Garrett corrected our pronunciation of Khmea. It is pronounced Ka – ma – I 
• Their kitchen is outside of the main house.  It is open.  That adds to the rodent problem.   
• Garrett’s P-days are switching to Monday. 
• Cambodians get up earlier than Americans do, and they go to bed sooner too. The mission has adapted to their schedule. 
• Garrett’s mission schedule is: 
• They get up at 5:30 every morning. They pray, do the dishes from the night before, do some light exercises like jumping jacks, sit ups, etc., takes a dump, showers, goes out to the street to get food for breakfast. 
• 7:00 to 8:00 they have personal study 
• 8:00-9:00 they study as a companionship 
• 9:00-10:00 they have language study 
• 10:00 to 12:30 they try to teach and meet with people 
• 12:30 lunch 
• The rest of the day they are out teaching and trying to meet with people. 
• On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 5:00 they teach English as a Second Language. 
• 8:30 they return to their apartment, eat dinner, plan the next day, etc. 
• 9:30 they go to sleep. 
• At the end of his call, Garrett told us he wanted to share something with us. He said that sometimes we think that things in the church aren’t that important for us to do, but they are. He said that everything the prophets say is straight from God. He told us to be good and to do what they say. He kept telling us that it is what God wants. The scriptures and the words of the prophets are all from God. It will make you happy to follow God. 
• Garrett, ended his call by saying that his very happy where he is and doing what he is doing. 

Our Christmas Conversation with McKenzie

On the bike.

                                       Sister Smith and I in our elevator. 

We talk to people whenever we are at stop lights. This picture is of me slowly backing up when I overshoot.  I do this a lot, and we look really awkward. Sometimes the person you are talking to drives away, and then there are only people behind you. Then you have to back up!

Notes from our Christmas conversation with McKenzie

• McKenzie said she has lost weight because she rides her bike so much and because they exercise in the mornings. She has ripped thighs.
• On Thursday, December 22^nd they had a mission wide Christmas outing, fireside, and dinner. They visited a beautiful architectural site. The pictures sent out by her Mission President are from that event. 
• They also had a combined Christmas Eve party with the two wards that meet her in building. Mc thought that this was really special because all of the people she loves and works with were there. On Christmas day, they only had Sacrament meeting. Other than that, it was a typical day. 
• Mc says that her language skills are improving. She feels comfortable doing almost everything, and she generally gets the gist of what people are saying. She also can typically say what she wants to say in return. Of course, she has a much easier time with church conversation than with small talk. 
• Sister Smith, her companion, is from Highland, UT. She went to BYU, and is in her 7^th transfer. Mc is in her 3^rd. 
• Mc loves everything about her mission. She said that the people are wonderful and that the wards have a lot of good members. Unfortunately, there are a lot of inactive members. Ultimately, she said that people in Taiwan are happy but immensely busy. They work and go to school for really long hours. 
• The members are really supportive of the missionaries. 60% of their investigator lessons are taught with a member! 
• Eating out is very much a part of the Taiwanese culture. The missionaries in her mission eat most of their lunches and dinners out. Breakfast, however, they eat in their apartment. Mc assures us that the food is delicious. Because she orders her own food for the most part, she hasn’t eaten anything too bizarre. 
• The apartment that they live in is okay, but there are a lot of cockroaches in the bathroom and kitchen. She thinks of Garrett though and tries not to complain. 
• For their living expenses, they are given about 4000 New Taiwan Dollars a month. 
• Mc told us a story of a recent convert’s baptism. Mc and her companion filled the font up a little too high, so they let out a little water. There was a miscommunication and some of the ward leadership tried to help by letting out a little bit more water. They didn't put the stopper back fully. By the time the baptism was about to occur, there was only about a foot and a half of water left. The 16 year old priesthood holder who was going to perform the baptism, walked down into the font. The lady laid down in the water and was baptized.   However, due to the small amount of water, the 16 year old, after the prayer, had to push down her cloths in various areas which did not get under the surface of the water when he helped put her head and torso under.  This took some time, all while her head was under the water.  Mc said that the lady expressed how quickly it all happened, while Mc was thinking it was the longest and most bizarre looking baptism she had ever seen. 
• Mc’s mission follows a typical mission schedule. They wake up at 6:30. On Tuesday, Thursdays, and Saturdays they go running. On other days they stay in the apartment and do sit ups, stretches, etc.  Then they get ready and study 2 ½ hours until 10:30 when they leave for the day.  They return to their apartment between 9:00 and 9:30.
• On Pdays, Mc and her companion do their laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning, and email writing. For fun, they might go shopping or take a nap.
• In her mission, she is only allowed to take pictures on Pdays or at baptisms.