Well, January is already coming to an end!
I guess this was the perfect winter for me to be gone! It sounds like things are still not a winter wonderland! That’s a bummer. Here in Cambodia the "winter” season is almost over and its quickly turning into the HOT season where the water is all gone and everything just burns! I’m excited to suffer through my first Hot season. Right now the temperature is climbing steadily and I haven’t run into any flooding in weeks. I haven’t had to bring any rain coats or plastic bags with me in a while for rain protection either.. Just lots of water.
Ok, so now for my week--
We did a lot of inactivity work with the senior (missionary) couple this weekend. Elder Christian and I had an exchange that went wrong! And Sunday we had some interesting visitors. So, this week Elder Christian and I planned an exchange where we would focus our efforts on using the Book of Mormon. So, we spent all our study time planning lessons and planning… Then, in the middle of the day, the other elders call us and say the senior couples are here and we don’t have anything for them to do with us, so we left them at the church for you to go pickup. Great, there goes our exchange. It turned out to be pretty good anyway, but we had to completely change the plans and we didn’t get the training/learning opportunity we wanted.
However, on Saturday, we went with the senior couple to go visit a man and his family who have actually been to the temple! That’s pretty rare! Right now he is less active and has no calling. That’s a problem. We drove in a car for a half hour. Think if we did that on the bike! We had a lesson planned to share with them but the senior couple wanted to share some thoughts with them first. I had to translate. We talked a lot about the Covenant of the Priesthood and his covenants he has made and we encouraged him to be active again. He did come to church the next day.
Saturday night we had a meeting with the Elder’s Quorum President to talk about home teaching and visiting teaching - which has not yet been established in Cambodia. Nobody has ever been around long enough to get these people to start it and stick with it. But here we are determined to do two things in Siem Reap and have Siem Reap be an example to the rest of the Country. We want to start Home teaching and using the Branch mission leader and branch missionaries to their full potential.
There are a lot of false assumptions right now about these callings and as many times as we nudge them in the direction to study about these callings, they never do. And we don’t have the authority to straight up tell them what to do. It frustrates me. Anyway, we had a special meeting arranged this Sunday to have all the men and young men meet together and we had a big meeting about the responsibility of home teaching and how this calling is given to every man who has the priesthood and it is a calling that you are never released from! That along with being a father. Those are the two callings you can’t ever be released from. The home teaching program was first mentioned in the D & C when revelation was given to Joseph smith in 1830!!! This apparently is important to the Lord. Sunday at church the crazy drunk woman who makes us call her mom actually came to church sober!! This week she had a "wedding" at her house for her daughter and she wanted us to join in on the drinking and Buddhist festivities. We politely showed them our nametag and said we respectfully decline. But she came to church!! After sacrament meeting we saw her leaving and we asked her what she thought. She says she felt at peace and has felt the most real love she has ever felt in a long long time. Who knows what will happen from there.
Dad about the Referral I got last week I haven’t been able to contact them yet because the directions she gave me were crazy! So tomorrow she is going to direct us there. I don’t know how anyone finds anyone in this country!! I bet like 80% of the country doesn’t have an address. I also looked up that statistic again in my Cambodia book I told you about over Skype and it actually says that 50% of the population in Cambodia is 16 years old and under!! and that 80% plus of the country is still agricultural. That was really random but I wanted to tell you.. And it’s so true.. I don’t know if I have said this in any past letters but when I sit at church and I look over all the faces of the members I think to myself it looks like a center for women and their children who have no fathers! for every 5 kids there is 1 woman and a half of a father.. Generally not all the time but that is kinda how it is..
Ummmm, as far as attaching photos and stuff, I know I’m horrible, but I’m trying to get organized here and I only have like 2 hours a week to think about this stuff. I’ve got a system now, thanks to the memory (hard drive) from dad and I think I’m all set now. I don’t even remember what I last sent you on a flash card.? By the way I loved the photos you sent me on the flash card of the house! I can’t believe you painted over that red wall!!! I would have died! But it looks nice!! That’s a much smaller countertop in there. I’m glad to hear your actual furniture is coming soon! I hope Jared will get his crew of men to help you move it all just like I used to do.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you! At church we had two families come to church that were from Utah and California.. They are currently living in Singapore for business I guess, but it was super weird to see two big Mormon families again!! And you know what else I noticed..
They had a few girls and a bunch of boys… the girls all made friends with the youth here, even though they can’t speak the same language. But the boys, on the other hand, had their noses stuck to iphone 4's the entire time!! playing games and checking status updates all through church and for a few hours afterward when the members and the families mingled and we translated for them.. The boys all sat together not saying a word to each other or anyone else... To be honest, I saw myself! I had flashbacks of when my parents would tell me to put the electronics away and I didn’t see it hurting anyone so I ignored it. But now I felt like I was on the other end. I looked at these young men and my heart just broke.. I think there are a lot of parents who feel that way a lot now a days! I know mine have.. It made me think for the rest of the day.. What have I missed because of some stupid electronic?! I don’t even know because I wasn’t paying attention.. I can think of dozens of experiences in school and in church, just like these young men, experiences at family parties where I should have been mingling with those I love getting to know them better but I didn’t... Who knows if I will get the chance to do that again.. ? It was a serious cause for reflection!! I love and hate when this happens to me here in Cambodia when I have experiences like this. I like it because I learn and my vision is broadened. But I hate it because it brings me pain. It’s painful to know that there have been so many opportunities and experiences I’ll never get back now because I chose to pick playing a silly game on an iphone or texting my friends, pointless conversations, when there was real experiences with a much longer lasting effect happening all around me.
That is my soap box and message for you all this week! Again, as we make choices every day I encourage you to think and ask yourself, what’s the worth of this activity vs. something else I could be doing that has a much greater lasting effect on my life and the lives of others. I would give you examples but I think you all know what I’m talking about! Love you all,
BONUS LETTER!
Hey group,
I was just sitting at my computer and another letter came through from Ryan, so the one I just sent was all from two weeks ago, here is this week’s letter.
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OK, sorry about the mishap last week! I’ll try to send those photos still if I have time today! I got dear Elders from Grandma V and Natalie! Thanks so much! I have not heard from Dr Hansen yet, but I think he is here already according to grandma. During the week I feel like I have so much to share and I even take notes to help me remember, when I sit down at the computer but my mind still goes blank! This week was a different one here for me in Cambodia. I’ll start with the beginning. Monday, after Pday, all of our appointments fell through, so we had 100 percent effort that day and nothing to show for it. We were supposed to have a specialized training on Wed., but last second it was moved to Tuesday instead, so we had to cancel a few things and move stuff around. I personally feel the training was a letdown. They had a few good points about planning and not getting prideful, but most of it was about contacting. I don’t like contacting at all and I struggle everyday to open my mouth and do it, so I was just bored and irritated almost.
Anyway. President actually pulled me aside and said, Elder I need you to do me a favor. I am giving you the permission to make a phone call tonight. In my mind I was thinking, oh no, who in my family died! What’s going on! But then he said, I feel like you should be the first to know that Elder Clark is going home for good this time and I’d like you to call him. You are his best friend out here and I think it would be good. My heart sank! I thought to myself why? He was doing so good?! (When Ryan’s group left from the MTC) he went home for surgery for 6 months then came back (to Cambodia)for 4 months, what happened? After a super stressful night, filled with riding my bike like a mad person all over Angkor wat and siem reap, I got a chance to call him. He is doing fine and he said he had some doctor tell him he isn’t fit for service and President Smedly took his advice and they pulled the plug on him. Right now he is probably home looking online for where to go to school.. My heart goes out to him. I admire his diligence.
Anyway- Thursday, Friday and Saturday were HARD days.. Not much success at all! I’m tired of people who say they will be home and we make appointments to go meet them and when we go.. .not there.. in consequence I had a record low across the board this week!! Super tough to swallow! However, we had a few miracles happen this week that made up for it a little bit. We got to visit a few inactive people and invited them to come to church.. They didn’t come, but at least we actually got to have a lesson with them and we made good impressions.. with members there!! Which is super good.
This week at church we had over 200 people in attendance! There was a big tour bus of members that came. A group of guys from Australia that came and the senior couple from Vietnam came.. So they helped us out a lot with attendance.. they also participated in lessons as well as we translated! Sunday is very much judgment day for the week. It’s how you can tell how your week was.
News from home this week was exciting! Luke (Wilson)is home.. And ya know what.. I think I’m with Jared in the fact that its hitting me that I could be home right now. My group that I came with the first time (first MTC group) has three Sundays left until they go home.. It’s going to be a mental barrier to get over that one and continue doing the work.. Sometimes I get thoughts like maybe I’ll get sick and they will have to send me home with my group anyways and that was God’s plan all along? But I really have no idea. God knows I don’t.. I just keep pluggin along one lesson at a time, one day at a time, January is already gone. I’m already half way through my stay in Siem Reap (predicted). And time goes on with or without us!!
Ya know I have a lot on my mind but it’s all just junk about people here and problems that we have to deal with and I think if I told you all it would just be super boring!! It reminds me of when I first came to the country and all the other Elders would talk about were investigators and people they met and boring stuff! I was thinking.. is this all they talk about? But I soon learned after a while it is ALL you have to talk about.. There is no new movie or party people went to.. No new cars coming out, video game technology thing.. In this life soon all you have to talk about is your investigators and the work..
I don’t know if all the little details about people here are interesting to you or if you want to hear about them. We are also told to be careful about what we say about people in our email home and to not disclose too much info. Tell me your input.. Make a list or something of what you want me to tell you about.. That would help me get things organized..
Sorry this week is kinda lame but I am behind in staying organized right now and I need to use this pday time to get some desk work done!
Family don’t worry I am well! Still not sick! There is a thing going around the mission right now, where Elders are getting parasitic amoeba's! Hospital with IV's, ha ha, I haven’t even gotten a tummy ache in months… No worries. Jared I’m proud of you for doing awesome with you talk bud! I wish I could have been there to hear you. Maybe when I come home I’ll ask them for you to speak with me.. What do you think? You’re a man after my own heart as well, choosing to talk about families.. That’s what I would have done.
Elder Anderson
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