Week 3 in the Field: My first Pottifar's Wife Experience

So yeah! We got 96 contacts this week and doubled our lessons from the week before.

I am constantly asking myself, "will I make this area better than when I came?" That really motivates me to do better and better. We are working pretty hard and I am super happy.

I think I will be in Cambodia for at least 3 transfers, probably more.

Khmer is fun and I have contacted in Khmer already.

I love to just meet new people and find out everyone's amazing stories!

OK... not to brag (haha), but I get so many people tell me that I am "pretty". It gets annoying when I am trying to contact. The girls like whisper to each other and then look at me and giggle, which means I am either funny looking...or the other. I did have a couple interesting experiences with that already.

One lady like yelled out while I was riding by, "Goodbye Handsome Man!". Made me laugh super hard (haha) and Then we were contacting and this lady like asked me to follow her and then stopped me and said some things I won't write...my first like Pottifar's wife experience (hahaha). I just said thank you but no, and then said I had to go. Plus I think she was on drugs.

My companion is cool. I actually asked about the whole "beautiful" thing and (according to him) they say that they think Americans are good looking... but they think that half Asians are super good looking or something, I don't understand it at all (haha).

On P day we wake up and go to the phsaa which is Khmer for market ( seiu thi in viet) and get some groceries. The meat is all like hanging on hooks with flies and stuff on it. Then we usually get eggs, rice and fruit and stuff. After that, we do studies and then go to the internet shop to email. Usually we spend like two hours or so which is not enough time at all.

Today we are going to the new market which is like the tourist spot for Phnom Penh and then to soccer. We always play soccer, it is fun but I just kinda mess around cause no one is like super good. I like it a lot though.

Then we come back to change and go out to do the work. We have like seven lessons planned for today... which means we will probably teach maybe two.

Ummm... this last week was super cool. We went on exchanges for a day and I went with elder Coung. He is super. We went out to the kilo's which is like in the provinces of Phnom Penh. There are a lot of fields and cows and stuff. We went out to the these houses over the poop water, walking all along these things they call monkey bridges. They are like little wood planks over the poop rivers. Even scarier than the last one for sure. This water is like up to your chest. They are not sturdy (haha).

Then we went to contact this lady. We were told she spoke Vietnamese. She makes food by the railroad and I started to talk to her all by myself for once, which was super nice. I asked her some questions and then asked her if I could share a message with her about our church. She was super busy but agreed to listen. I asked her about her religion. She said Buddhist, which is super common. When I asked her what she thought the purpose of life here was, she looked at me all teary eyed, and said "I don't know". It like broke my heart and made me excited at the same time. I feel so sad that she doesn't have the gospel in her life... yet happy because I get to share it with her. :). So I told her about eternal families and our life on earth as she listened really well. I was so happy that she wanted a pamphlet and she started reading it right away. She wanted to meet again which is super cool.

Yeah... And then we had a birthday party type thing for these two elders, and that was super fun and one of the elders made a cake and it was super good. well that was my week, hope everyone is doing well!

Week 2 in the Field: Holy macaroni things are getting wild here!

It has been a little over a week now and things are dragging on pretty slowly.  We are making progress though, we pretty much had to whitewash this area and start from scratch. 

We are doing well though... we got 101 contacts this week! We made it a goal to do that. 

Only like 15 or so were Vietnamese, but that's fine and we found a few potential investigators from it. 

— I can't say hardly anything because they speak the hardest dialect here, and I don't understand it at all (haha). So I just smile and say what I can. –

I have had about 5 people ask me to marry them so far, and the guys tell me I'm beautiful... so that keeps my spirits up (haha). It's super awkward for me but they don't think so... I guess.

I got sick already, just a cold but I am getting better so don't worry. 

There is dirt everywhere and I might need to buy like sunglasses because I get so much dirt in my eyes and when I wipe my face off, it’s caked on my face. 

People here love to be naked and the old dudes do everything with their shirts like rolling them up so their bellies are always poking out (haha)... it’s cool. 

(at the internet cafe) We are emailing with some kids who are listening to a Cambodian Ricky Ricardo and playing league of legends (haha)... so sweet. 

We went to this place where all the houses are on stilts over (what seemed to be) a river of poop and trash, smelling ripe with iniquity (haha). We went contacting there and the floors were so sketchy (omg) I was so scared it was gonna break and I was gonna go for a poop bath. (But)I made it out alive and with a few (new) contacts. hmmm.. 

Oh! I have to learn Khmer (Cambodian language) now too! So that's fun. We had a Pioneer Day party which was super fun. We played chubby bunny and stuff. After that we listened to this little girl sing and everyone started crying (cause) it was cool. A little kid did a break dance routine, I thought it was a girl the whole time... but I guess I was wrong. Oh, we have seen a ton of He/She people here. €€ Ehh... not too fun.

I have eaten some icky food so far (haha). I had this noodle soup stuff and it had like a pig hoof in it which was so nice. (just kidding) it was nasty! (haha),,, whatever. ä

First Week in the Field: Cambodia

I am like... stunned right now at this place. It is super dirty. I am not a germ person, but I’ll get over that really soon. The food is all kind of a gamble to eat (haha) but whatever… I am still trying stuff. So yes, they do eat dog all the time here; and no I haven't eaten it… yet. €

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My trainer is cool. It turns out he got trained by my teacher at the MTC… which is cool. 

I am in Phnom Penh right now, Branch three. I taught gospel principles class and also had to give a short talk. Flip that was hard (haha), but it was cool. I have no idea what language I learned in the MTC, but it sure wasn't Vietnamese. 

My house is nice, very few bugs and not too many rats. There are lots of ants though. We have to use only use bottled water for everything, which gets a little annoying. So far I haven't had the runs so that’s a plus. :)

We have already taught like 6 lessons and have also contacted 18 people, I think. It is super hard to find the Viets here because we have to ask the Cambodian people where they are. I don’t know any Khmer, so that makes it hard. 

I have seen some super sad stuff here already. It kind of breaks my heart to see some of the lives of these people. But they all smile whenever I say hello and I try to be as loving and kind as I can. 

Tried to order fried rice in Khmer and flipping ordered a dish of cooked liver. eww. 

It rains a lot here and super hard. Oh and our shower is like in the bathroom with the toilet, and we use like a sprayer to clean our (you know) when we (you know). I was super confused the first time. (haha) But its actually kinda nice (haha).

 Elder Ernie at the mission home with Pres. and Sister Moon

The new group of missionaries: July 18 2014

Last Week in the MTC

Recap from week 8

Ernie wrote:

I had a pretty good 4th of July. We got to listen to an awesome talk about independence and then we watched 17 miracles, which is a Pioneer movie. It was so good. I love watching the pioneer movies, really humbles me and reminds me how easy I have it. Then we got to go outside and watch fireworks outside and eat ice cream bars so that was really fun :)

I was reading yesterday and I read something cool in Isaiah: 

"Fear thou not: for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will helpl thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness."

Recap from Week 6 or 7?

 Elder Ernie wrote:

I am super anxious to get out there and start teaching! plus I want to ride an elephant.

We have two or three lessons a day which is super rough. No one else in the entire zone teaches more than like one lesson a day... haha I don't know why we have to but its awesome practice though... I know that (our lessons are with member volunteers). The program is called TRC. They are volunteers at first but we have a real Skype meeting with someone from Vietnam or Cambodia or something today. Its gonna be a forty minute lesson. I am scared and super excited to see what happens!

June 22: ...that night we had a devotional. It was Janice Kapp Perry and her husband! You know? The one who wrote like a lot of primary songs and (others like) "As Sisters In Zion!" Her hubby spoke first about his mission back in like the 40's (haha) he went to France and back then missions were 2 and a half years long. He had to take a boat to France that took 7 days! He talked about how baptisms aren't how you know if your mission was successful; And how like you will never know the full impact of what you are doing out in the mission. Then Sister Perry spoke. We ended up singing a bunch of songs and stuff and it was so cool. Her husband danced around a bit and she talked about how they met and he stood up and kissed her in the middle of the devotional!! It was hilarious! One of the best devotionals ever.

p.s. I got my Vietnamese name last week. They all have like the same last names so us missionaries get our own new first names. I am anh ca Vinh (Elder Vinh). It means Divine, glorious, or eternal.

Recap from Week 5

Ernie wrote:

Umm everything is super awesome. So sacrament yesterday was almost a major disaster. We have a sister who has to have gluten free bread and we went to get some but they were all out so I had to like go around in the kitchen and look for some. After ten minutes we finally found some and we started a few minutes late. I felt really dumb but the branch president said not to worry about it.

I get to do the welcome orientation for 19 new elders and sister this Wednesday, they are all speaking Cantonese! I have a lot of stuff to do but I like the busyness, it keeps my mind off of missing ya'll.

We said goodbye to the Cantonese elders last night and it was super sad, im gonna miss those guys cause they were always so funny. All British guys haha. Oh yeah so there are records in the gym for like everything. Theres like soccer juggle record, bench press record, pull ups, push ups, and stuff like that! I am so determined to have my name on that wall. the record for push ups is 150 and its 33 for pull ups. I have only managed to get 120 push ups and 30 pull ups but i still have five weeks to beat it! I will beat it!

Did you see that thing about the church being recognized in Vietnam now? Thats cool.

I checked the weather in Cambodia and it rains every day. Also my teacher said that the water will be up to my waist all the time haha... thats gonna be nuts.