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.