Week 58- Siem Reap

Hello everyone! This has been a crazy week. Saying goodbye to TTP members was haaarrd and sad... but don't worry, I'm gonna come back someday!!! Moving to Siem Reap has been insane! I feel like I am in a completely different mission to be honest! I love it though and we have so much to do! We are covering two branches right now that are HUGE and are progressing so much! The members are amazing! They are really into missionary work and are finding so many referrals for us! It's fun! Since there were no Sisters in this area before, we still haven't worked out with the Elders who takes what investigators (Kinda awkward) but we will be very busy once we figure all that out. 

 Saying goodbye to Mac Yay! So sad

 Saying bye to Sovanna

I picked up my koon (child) from the airport! She is so cute! Her name is Sister Davis and she is from Utah! She is so good at Khmer! Every day she amazes me with how much she knows! She is super smart! After she traveled for 24 hours we got on another bus to travel around 7 hours to Siem Reap and she was so motivated to stay awake the ENTIRE bus ride to help her adjust to the time change! (keep in mind Cambodia is around 13 hours ahead of Utah)...and She did it! For me though, anytime I'm not doing something, or if I am in a car, I will fall asleep, no hesitation. I felt bad falling asleep infront of her so I forced myself to stay awake. You know, me being "a mom" now I have to sacrifice sleep for my child. I'm pretty sure I was having a harder time staying awake than she was! We stopped at a bus stop for a few minutes and we got off the bus to buy some stuff. As the bus was leaving I realized I lost my phone so I made the whole bus stop as I ran after it yelling for it to stop and then Elder Ouk came running after me and told me the phone was in my bag... haha What would I do without him? The whole bus ride I did a seven hour language story of sing Khmer Karaoke with Elder Ouk. The bus plays songs the whole seven hours so I thought it would be nice to practice reading on the bus ride. It was super funny. 

 Meet Sister Davis. Isn't she cute?

 All the trainers and koons! 

 Elder Ouk being a good dad. ​Poor Elderv Tuft. He's exhausted.

In Siem Reap the elders are Elder Ouk and His koon (who is from Idaho named Elder Tuft), Elder Orton and Elder Chaipinit (who is from Thailand!), and Sister Davis and I. We cover all of Siem Reap. Elder Orton and Chaipinit showed us some houses in the second branch of Siem Reap. It was a lonnnng bike ride. While we were biking we had to get permission from the guards at Angkor Wat to go in without having to pay $37 or something like that. As we were biking the Elders yelled, "look back!" and there it was... ANGKOR WAT!!! So cool! Just causally proselyting in front of Angkor Wat-no biggie! We are planning on going there soon! I'm excited! That day we started teaching a whole family! My dream come true! I haven't had the chance to teach a whole family before! They are amazing! It is a couple with two kids and their granfather who is 91 years old! He is adorable and so happy! But every time I talk to him I have to yell in order for him to hear me and it is really hard for me to yell in Khmer. I was trying to teach him how to start a prayer by saying "Dear Heavenly Father" and in Khmer he ended up saying "where is your house?" hahah It was prettyy cute. They even came to church this last Sunday! Sadly we are giving them over to the elders because they can teach the family and they are handing us over a ton of girl investigators the elders taught before we had sisters in the area. But we are going to continue to keep in contact with them.

Church was a little crazy! We go to two branches and during sacrament we have to have translate, and I was in charge of it! There are a couple of members and some travelers who need translation so we give them a head set and someone has a microphone and we translate for them. It was so hard to speak English! Khmer is not easy to translate and you can not translate word for word or it wouldn't make sense. The first sacrament was a little rough but by the second sacrament I did a lot better at remembering English words. I'm sure the English visitors were entertained by my fumbling for words.

The members here are amazing! After our 9 o'clock church all the members eat together outside! They all bring food and we sit and eat it together! It's so cool to see how much unity these branches have with their members. They really are a branch family! I am excited to work with all of them.

I don't have a ton of stories to share. Right now we are just trying to find houses of members and investigators! Thank you for everything! Have a good week!

Sister Benson and I on trasnfer days!  I miss her!!