Pictures

Baby powder and water bottle fight in honor of Khmer New Year"s 

 Every missionary sent to Cambodia get the opportunity to have a traditional Khmer photo shoot. Sister Christensen joined us. So fun/funny! I can't wait to see the actual real photos.

Week 44-*Hand guns* Don't believe me just watch

Hello friends and family! I cannot believe that April is almost over. It blows my mind. This was by far the fastest trasnfer I have ever had!

This last week we got to help our mission President get ready for trasnfers, picking out trainers, and talking about all the new missionaries coming into the mission! I am so excited for them! Anyways, it has been so fun to work so closely with my Mission President/ Mission Parents. I remember when I got my call someone told that I was called to this mission for many reasons including because of my Mission Parents. They are so great. I know I talk about them all the time but I just love them so much! I can't wait for my family to be able to meet them!

I swear it looked a lot prettier in person. 

We got to do an exchange to Battambang which is a place out of the city! We took a 8 hour, hot, sweaty bus ride! We had two miracles happen on our bus ride. The first one was when you ride a bus, there are no signs or assigned places the bus stops. You have to tell the driver where to stop. We really had no idea where to stop and didn't even really know when we were in Battambang. I got a feeling to go ask the driver to stop at a certain place that we were told, thinking that we had around an hour or 30mins more before we arrived. Right as I told him he slammed on the brakes and said, "You are lucky!" ( in khmer of course.)   The other miracle is when we bought out tickets for the bus we just thought that the place you buy the ticket is where the bus picks you up. We sat there and waited and saw no bus. A man told us we were in the wrong spot and said he would drive us over to the place for free! We ended up barley making it in time. (As I retell this story I realize how careless/dangerous it sounds we were being. I would never take a random ride like that in America... but the spirit was there and I knew we were okay!) I know God watches over us. It is very obvious through out the day. Missions are so cool!!

A girl I started teaching in my last area got baptized! She is so good! Because I am in the neighboring area I got to go to her baptism! She was so happy and so prepared! I know God really does find people and prepare them for us. Even though at times my mission is difficult  because there is no one that is ready to learn about Jesus Christ in this Buddhist country, when you do see the few who find the Gospel, it makes it worth it!!!

This is Nika! She is amazing! I started teaching her in January and as of yesterday she is offically a member! She is now preparing to serve a mission in a year! SO COOL! 

Going along with what I said above, this week was hard because our golden investigators had to be handed over to another area due to the investigators going to different sacrament meetings. It was so hard to do! So please pray for us because we are trying so hard to find new investigators now!  We still have 2 who are golden and will be getting baptized next week! Yay

These are the coolest investigators ever!!! Only the one on the far left is our investigator now though... sad.

President Funk is over the Southest Asia area and we are having a mission tour with him this week so we are busy helping President Christensen! It will be fun! When I first met President Funk I told him that I remembered seeing his name in conference! He told me, "Yes,  a lot of people remembered it because it was around the same times as when the popular song Uptown Funk You Up came out." He then he did gun fingers at me and quoted, "Don't believe me just watch." hahah! After that experience I realized he was a pretty cool guy and I am excited to hear from him this week!
Thank you!! I love all of you!

One of the mini missionaries received her Visa and within a few days she was sent ON HER OWN to fly all the way to America!!! We prayed so hard that she would be able to make it and change flights and be able to read the signs even though she knows no english!! If you can't tell, she is the one in the middle, her face explains really well of how she felt leaving!  I made her little signs she might need to hold up in the airport like "I need help finding my flight." and  "I need helping finding the bathroom."  and so on. She made it safe (thanks to God's saving grace!) and is now in the MTC! She will be serving the in Long Beach, California mission and will be speaking Khmer and English. There is a Cambodia community there! So cool!

Week 43- Happy Easter and Happy Khmer New Year!!!

Happy Khmer New Year and more importantly Happy Easter! This last week everyone left the city to go party so the city was pretty quiet but yet we had a ton of fun things happen this week. 

We went on two back to back exchanges this last week! It was tiring but way fun! It was hard to continue to stay busy doing missionary work when everyone was gone but we figured stuff out. It was also so hot. Hot season is coming up and I have found that they hotter it gets the more clothing I put on to cover my skin from head to toe! 

On one of my exchanges my companion was biking super fast and I was trying to keep up with her! While we were biking she started pointing back at me and I was super confused. The next thing I know two water balloons and baby powder smack me! HAHA I was so shocked! Apparently this holiday they like to throw water balloons and baby powder at people biking by! Super safe right? Don't worry, I didnt crash. 

One night we came home and the house was all quiet and we went to find where the other 2 sisters we live with were. They came out of no where and started attacking us with baby powder and water! Its a Khmer New Year thing. They have baby powder and water fights. It was so fun! But our house got destroyed! 

Luckily, the next day was all dedicated to cleaning! I was not kidding when I said there is no one in the city during this holiday. Our mission President had two days of activities to help keep up busy during this holiday. One of the days was deep cleaning the apartment and a movie/game night! We played Khmer Games all day. It was great! When I get back we are going to have a big family party and play Khmer Games because they are the funniest games ever. My favorite one was when you are in pairs and one person sticks their head into a bucket of water and gets a mouth full of water and runs to the otherside of the room and spits the water into a water bottle and the partner takes off running from the water bottle to get a mouth full of water, run back, and spit it into the water bottle. So gross, yet so funny. People start laughing while they have the water in their mouths and once one person spits out the water from laughing, no one can hold it in. It was hilarious to play/watch. We got to watch Lion King also! I love that movie! I don't remember it being so funny, or maybe that is because I'm a missionary now.. Either way I loved it! 

The next day was another activity but more on the spiritual side. We did a read-a-thon of the Gospels. I have read but never really studied the Gospels before. The Gospels is in the Bible and is the books of Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John. These four books are the records of Jesus Christ and his Ministry on the earth. Reading about Jesus Christ and His life and all the miracles he did was so enriching. I have been reading Jesus The Christ (If you haven't read it, READ IT.) and it helped me understand so much clearler all that He did for us. One of my favorite stories was when Christ healed the Palsy. When Jesus sees him and his faith He tells him that his sins are forgiven. People around them started to mock and question the Savior asking "Who can forgive sins but God alone?". Christ responded, "Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say Rise up and walk?" to which Jesus heals the man and he is able to walk again. Christ did so many miracles while he was on the earth and sometimes we focus a lot on the healings that he did but we forget the greatest miracle of all. Because of Jesus Christ and His Atonement, all of us can be forgiven for our sins which is the greatest miracle of all. I am so thankful for my Savior
​and the opporuntiy I had to study His life this Easter weekend. I know that He lives and that He can help us all if we let him. 

A pre look at our khmer pictures we took today... HAH they painted our face with makeup. So funny. There will be more pictures once they give them back to us. SO FUN! 

Week 42- Conference in Cambo

I want to give a birthday shout out to my little brother Dallin! Happy Birthday Dallin! I can't believe you are 9!!  So big! You may be taller than me by the time I get home!  I hope you have a great birthday this week! 

We grilled in our house... hahha there was so much smoke, i cant believe the fire alarm didn't go off. #blessed It was worth it. So good. 

This last week we had MCL which is a meeting when all the mission leaders come together and meet with our Mission President. I conducted the meeting. Pretty proud of myself. Felt so professional. After the meeting we had an exchange with two other Sisters and I got to go with Sister Sum for the second exchange. I love her so much. She is a friend I met when I came to Cambodia the first time. She taught me so many cool and simple ways to teach different lessons! One reason I love Sister Sum is because she is so willing to help me learn the language. She loves to read with me even though I read really slow! She is a true friend. I am so sad because her mission will be completed next transfer. We were talking about prayer and how God answers our prayers. I asked if she had an experience she wanted to share in the lesson regarding having her prayers answered and she told me that she prayed that I would become Senior Sister Training Leader the day before transfer calls, and God answered her prayer! She thinks she is so funny... hahah We laughed and laughed at her little joke.

Sister Hall and I were waiting for the Elders at the church to go to a member's house and these two white girls were in the church and we started talk to them and oh man, I am so incredibly awkward. I kept doing weird Khmer things, pointing with my lips (it is rude to point with your fingers so you point with your lips... like doing duck lips), bowing, saying khmer words instead of English, and shaking hands with two hands (you do everything with two hands or it is rude. Example, if I handed you a bowl, I would either hand it to you with two hands or I hand it with one hand and I put my other hand on my elbow while I pass you the bowl. Sorry if that doesn't make sense. ) Carson is going to get a good laugh out of my awkward Khmer things I do when I get home. 

So, I'm pretty sure Cambodia parties harder than any other country. This week is Khmer New Year, Aka everyone leaves the city and it becomes a ghost town. Basically, Spring Break but on steriods. In the past, missionareis have said that this is the hardest week of the whole year because there is not a single motto on the road in the city.. So Sister Hall and I will have a lot of fun trying to find people to contact this week! Anyways the Stake celebrated Khmer New Years this last week! Our investgator wanted to go with us and then later we were talking to a member who is unable to walk. We also invited her to the party but she responded she had no way of getting there. Sister Hall and I decided to rent a tuk tuk and have the member come with us and the investagtor! She was so excited to go to the party! As we were on our way home we thought of another member, a widow who's story I shared last week, and so we stopped by and asked if she wanted to come with us! She was SO happy! She told us that becasue her family has all passed away, the holildays are really hard because she has no one to be with. She was so excited to come with us to the party. We basaically had the coolest group when we showed up in our tuk tuk. We brought the party to the party! It was so fun. Khmer games are crazy also. We played a game where they hang up clay pots full of powder and candy and you are blindfolded and you get three chances to try and break the clay pot. It is so funny. The best part is no one wears shoes when they do it so they are just running across chunks of the brocken pot. Another game was they wore a headband with a needle on top and they had three balloons above them and the first person to be able to pot all three balloons by jumping wins! The problem was it was windy and the balloons were all over the place! Very entertaining to watch! Khmer games are the best!

Funny story. We were teaching about Joseph Smith and sharing his expereince and a member told Sister Hall and I , "One night I looked up in the sky and I saw two shooting stars and in that moment, I knew Joseph Smith was a prophet."..... hahah (I'm pretty sure I heard/understood him right)  We told him that was a cool expereince (?) but that he should read the book of Mormon also and try to gain more confirmation through the Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith was a prophet.  He said he would!

Conference was so good! For missionaries, Conference is like Chirstmas, but even better! When it ended I was shocked! It was already over? I swore before my mission conference lasted wayyy longer! Before conference I had five random questions I prayed about and was trying to find answers too. While watching conference,  all five were answered which is always reassuring to me that the 12 Apostles, the quorum of the 70, the Rel Society Presidency, the Prophet, etc are all called of God. They are here to help all of us. I am thankful for them and the inspiring messages they all shared. 

Week 41- April Fools!!

On April fools I taught one of the Khmer sisters how to say, "You have food on your shirt.... April Fools!" It's pretty hilarious when they say it. I love the Khmer Sisters so much!

One of my former companions who completed her mission last February, came back to visit and took us to lunch! It was fun to see Kendal (haha i will never call you "Kendal" in person. You will always be Sister Semones to me..) 

Yesterday we were teaching an investigator about the Ten Commandments. We were going through them all and she had a lot of questions about some of the points. We came to the commandment, Thou shall not kill. I asked her if in her past she had a problem with this point. She then explained to us that sometimes she kills mosquitoes, but never kills spiders. I totally lost it....couldn't stop laughing!!! We told her that it was okay to kill mosquitoes because they are one of the worst things ever created and she's also allowed to kill spiders because they aren't far behind. She told us she just feels too bad to kills spiders. HA!! She has a much kinder heart than I .... But dont worry, we cleared things up with her. 

We went to another interesting lesson with a recent convert who is also less active. In the lesson we reviewed the 2nd lesson wich is over the Plan of Salvation. When we started teaching about the Kingdoms of Heaven. I asked her which one she wanted to go to and she told us, "the 2nd kingdom because if you go to the first kingdom you have to be perfect and not have sinned." She then said, "I try so hard but sometimes I get mad at my son because he does dumb things and I can't help it. I don't want to disappoint myself so I juist want to go to the second kingdom." (NOOOOOO) We then reviewed more in depth the Atonement and how we are able to go to Heaven and be in the presences of our amazing and perfect Heavenly Father because of Jesus Christ and his infinite Atonement! Because we are human, we are all going to mess up occasionally. The Lord knew we would.  We all sometimes act inappropriate and do wrong. These actions are called mistakes. BUT, we can always repent and change our attitude and desires to strive to be a little better every day. All of us can make it back to Heaven and live in the Celestial Kingdom with God if we follow the example of Chirst. All we have to do is receive baptism, strive to repent and try a little harder every day, and partake of the sacrament on Sunday. I am so thankful for our loving and mericful God that has provided a way for all of us to make it back to him.

For April Fools we had a meeting with President to talk about our mission.  The AP's were also there.  We all dressed up like President. It might not be as funny for you guys but President and Sister Christensen got a real kick out of it! 

Stay tuned for next week's letter.... there are going to be some FUNNY looking pictures in my email. You won't want to miss... It will be major blackmail on me for ​the future... You have no idea what I'm talking about... Just wait for next week.

Thank you fro all your love and support. I often feel them from way over here on the other side of the world!

Week 40: I Love My Mission

Sister Hall and I successfully went to the Market and were able to get all of our food this week without being ripped off! YES!! (we have to bargain for everything we buy at the market and when they see our white skin they tell us the food is about double the amount it actually is! It's super frustrating.)

 

This last week has been great!  Sister Hall has been Training me on my new calling/assignment in the mission. The best part of this calling is being able to work so closely with our Mission President and his wife. They are so amazing and I have learned so much from them! I also have laughed a ton with them this past week. It's going to be a fun couple of transfers!

Saying goodbye to my last area wasn't too horrible because I am just in the neighboring area! I told all the less actives I love that if they come to church every week they will see me! (Because these two areas use the same church building!) So I hope that will help give them a little extra push to come!  The new area is so fun! A few transfers ago I actually was put in this area for two weeks so I was able to help my companion find some members houses I remembered since we're white washing (when you have two missionaries come into an area at once and neither one of them knows anything about the area.) 

This ward has amazing members who are so strong. One of them is Mak Yaay. She is the strongest woman I have ever met. She is around 80 years old and has so much faith. She shared with us her story of how God has helped her thorughtout her life. She was married and had three kids. While her husband was at war he passed away and then shortly after, the Khmer Rouge (the communist party of Cambodia) took everyone that lived in her area and beat them on the head to a state of unconsciousness. They then threw everyone into a ditch of bodies where they would eventually bleed out and die. She told us she woke up on top of the pile and somehow lived through it all. She lost all her family and everyone she had ever loved. She told us that she asked herself all the time why she survived and so many others died. When she was in her 60's she found the Gospel and she told us how much hope it has given her. She told us this last week that the ward is helping her get to the temple so she can be sealed to her family for all eternity. This makes my heart so happy. She believes that God saved her so that she could be introduced to the gospel and do her family's work for them here on earth and seal them together. She is an amazing women and I look up to her and her faith. I love her faith and purpose.

This is Mak Yaay! She loves when we give her pictures! haha 

Thank you for all the support. I'm so sorry if the stories are hard to follow. I'm not the best writer and I don't have a lot of time! Be grateful for what you have! Sometimes we forget how truly blessed we are in our lives! I love you all! 

This is at one of the schools in our area! The teacher got mad because I totally distracted the class... haha But the kids are just too cute.