More high times in a developing country

 The family on the R just went to the temple in Hong Kong.  They are so faithful.  He teaches physics at the local high school  His kids are so awesome.  Sister Neuor and Pin,  The boy on the L.  the top one just got baptized and the one by me is still learning.  Both have no idea who are where their parents are.  They just showed up at this members house and said we want to learn the gospel.  They live by the Viet Nam border and ride their bikes 2 hours each way to church every Sunday.  They are great kids and say how much the gospel has helped them already.  They brought 2 girls with them last night who want to learn also because of what they saw in them and how they had changed.

 A truck they use to haul stuff from Tialand.  Notice the nice cushioned seat and great doors and modern steering wheel.  Hard to believe that it even runs but it goes 2 times per week.  I think it is left over from the Viet Nam war.

Front view of the truck.  Look at the modern cab and the air conditioner.  I does have a winch and a radiator.

 These people really have an interest in family history and we fill the pedigree charts out for them and then by the end of the month they will have the family search in Khmer and we can get it in the computer.  What records there were were all destroyed by Pol Pot so the church just lets them guess on the dates.  Most can only go back to their grand parents and some do not even know those names because so many were killed by Pol Pot.

 This is a real common seen as we go around the villages visiting members.  Kids just gravitate to Sister Thalman because they can tell how much she loves them.

More beautiful flowers.  Since the rainy season came there are flowers all over the place.

Khmer rice threshing machine.  He puts rice in the big funnel and it comes out without the hull on the basket below.

Key, Vanes wifes' baptism.  He is the guy who came 3 miles in his wheelchair to church the after the first time the missionaries met him.  He is now one of the gospel doctrine teacher and does a great job.

Water filters.  We just placed 300 hundred of them and the branch presidents really did a good job visiting everyone and getting them on the list.

Here is the way most of the water filters went home

More water filters.  The most common comment is I don't have to boil water anymore and my water tastes really good.  Have you ever tried boiled water.  No flavor at all and it is barely even wet.

Member from branch 2 being taught how to use their new water filter.

More beautiful flowers

 Cement road that was just finished by hand and using a yard mixer with an old clunky gas engine.

 Looking the other way down the road.  I don't think Staker Parsons need to worry about too much competition from here.

 Kitchen cooktop range

A view of the kitchen from the deck on the back porch

Another modern kitchen.  Note all the nice modern appliances she has.

 Grape fruit.  About the size of a volley ball and about a million seeds, but flavor is grapefruit

 Kings palace in PP

Steps to get up on an elephant.  White elephant at that.  Not one elephant left in Cambodia in the wild.  We have seen one tame one in PP that you can pay $60 to ride but that is the only one.  They used to be the main way of transport century's ago.   Fish and game laws didn't help the elephants here.

Elephant saddle

More fun in Kampong Cham

We had primary activity day yesterday and we have been teaching them about the OT prophets.  This one was about David and Goliath.  Well this is Goliath.  Some of the kids screamed and some cried, but most laughed their heads off.  The adults really laughed their heads off.  Our driver was David and he shot Goliath with his sling shot and ping pong balls.  It was really funny,  You will have to guess who Goliath is.  It is pretty  hard to walk with two 15 inch stools tied to your feet, but it did make for a tall Goliath

Sister Pin, Sister Thalman, Neak, Elder T, Sister Askerlund.  This is a boy who asked me to baptize him.  I really tried to memorize the Bapt prayer, but the pronouncation is so hard.  I finally made a card to hold in my hand while I did it and it worked out well.  Sister Askerlund was kind enough to romanize it for me so I came close I guess.  A really neat experience.  This little kid can really dance Khmer style, better than most of the girls.  I am trying to let me video it, but he is so shy I will probably have to sneak up on him sometime.  Sister Askerlund is from Santiquin and her parents are here now.  We are going to spend some time with them next week and then she will be going home.  She has been an awesome missionary and we already miss her.

Some of the visitors who come here just can't understand why we have a cross, lite up cross at that,  on our church.  I say well we just do things a little different here in Kampong Cham.  One visitor from the US wanted it taken down immediately.  I said that would be impossible and he could not figure out why until I told him that our back door neighbors are the catholic church and the cross is really on the top of their church so we just live with it.  I think it is pretty unique.

Sister Askerlund and Pin with some of the youth in 1 and 2 branch after mutual.  We usually have a lot more kids than this come to sabie, sabie as they call it.  Sabie means fun and that is how they announce mutual in sac meeting.  Instead of saying mutual they say come to sabie sabie on Sat night at 5 pm.  How do you think that would work at home.

These are some people that got baptized in Br 3 last week.  We are having a lot of baptisms and it is really fun to see how much the gospel changed their lives.  Ming (aunt) Nie on the Right finds all these people for the elders to teach.  She is just awesome.  The 2 teenage boys used to sing songs and really give the elders a hard time a few months ago and tell everyone they were crazy to listen to stupid mormons.  Well Ming Nie went to them and said you know nothing about the Mormons so you need to learn with the elders and then if you still feel the same you can say anything you want.  Well you can see what happened.  Pretty cool.

Yes the triantula is alive.  She kept trying to get me to buy it.  Soon I will try to see if Ilene will let it crawl on her.  I did and lived through it .

Priesthood leaders in the district when they just found out the first humanitarian project by the church to be done in KC was approved and will begin at the end of Sept.  We are doing water filters, nearly 400 of them, latrines, 20 five inch wells and 20 chicken ranches.  This is life saving for these good members and it is all possible because of donations from good members like all of you.  The church is also doing a humanitarian project for the city of KC where we will help with clean water  and sanitation at some schools.  It is for elementary age school kids and will help probably 4000 kids.  We will drill 35 five inch wells and build some latrines and give hygiene kits.  That is another miracle.  I will try to put it in a email soon.

Still trying to stay out of the mud as we go visiting members.  Lim said it has not started to rain yet so it will just get worse.  We just walk through it and then he washes out the van.

A grapefruit with Ilene's hand.  They are huge, full of seeds, and full of flavor

Elders eating noodles with chop sticks in their off hand with wrists tied together.  We did this for mutual and the kids really had a good time.  They just love to laugh and they really laughed at this one.

Some member were practicing a dance at someones house and they saw us walk by and opened the window and hollered at us.

A sweet member named Sok Hen.  She lives and works at a bread store.  Her husband left her and took all their kids and moved back in with his mother.  They really hate her since she joined the church and won't let her see her kids.  It is really sad, but she is so good and faithful.  I will try to tell her story in an email soon

Picture of more beautiful flowers just outside of the door of a members house.  More flowers come out during the rainy season, but there are already many and it is really getting beautiful.

Bread made out of some sort of tree root.  Wheat flour is really expensive over here so they try everything.  It is about the consistency of Styrofoam and tastes somewhat like styrofoam too,  but with enough syrup and peanut butter is makes pretty good french toast. 

Rice starting to grow.  The green color is just beautiful and it turns golden just like wheat in Nov. so that will be pretty too.

The mighty muddy Mekong.  That is not mud, but that color of water in the Mekong since it started flooding in China.  Taken from the bridge looking right down on the river.

View of KC from the bridge over the Mekong

The Monorom Hotel.  Here is where we did the first family history in KC and were able to print out the names with bar cods to go to the temple.  A lot of people here think the church owns the motel because they think the name of it is Mormon.  Pretty close, but not quite

Yes cows in a van.  Still one of the greatest sights I have seen in Cambodia

Writing on the board for temple prep meeting in KC.  They claim they can read it, but I'm not sure anyone can read this stuff.

We are still having the time of our lives and have so many things happen each day we can hardly keep up with it.  All's we can say is the Lord is really mindful and cares about the members here.  We just love just going along each day and watching marvelous things happen.  We send our love to all.  

Random Picts in the day of senior couple in Kampong Cham

A view down a lane where we walk to visit some members

Trying to stay out of the mud.  It is pretty impossible and the rainy season is just starting.

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The members at the end of the muddy lane.  Her dad is in a wheelchair.  The mothers name is Key and the little girl is Nita.

Flowers along the way.  I'd say they look pretty and the flowers are just starting to bloom

 Closeup of the flowers along the way.  Pretty beautiful I'd say.

On the trail to planting rice.  We walk along the ridges around the rice patties for about 30 min to get to where we plant rice

 What the rice looks like after planting.

Prettiest rice planter in Cambodia.  She really did plant alot of rice and never even got one leach on her.  How do you like the Khmer sarong around the head?  Water 6 inches deep, mud 4 inches deep.

 

Mother on the left Vie Neak, Daughter on the far R Shrea Peak just got baptized.  Father and other daughter.  Their bike was completely worn out and they had to walk to church, about 3 miles.  Never missed.  Some kind person from home gave us some money to help these poor people over here so we bought them this bike.  You would have thought it was a Cadillac with all the accessories.  It put the biggest smile on their faces.  We see them all over town now that they have  transportation.  We told them the bike just dropped out of the sky from Preah vobeda.  (Heavenly Father)

This is a great little member and her neice.  She is 16 years old and leads the singing all the time in church.  She is just getting ready to cook dinner for all 7 in her family on the fire behind here.  She had 2 small fish that they were lucky enough to catch that morning.  They dried the fish and chopped them up to mix with rice.  They use every single bit of the fish.  They have 6 kids in their family.  Their father died 2 years ago and they are so faithful, but soo poor.

 This is their house.  Note the dirt floor.  They sleep on the bamboo bed with the cooler and stuff on it.  Pretty heart breaking to us, but they are always so happy.

We are still having the adventure of a lifetime.  I have started putting more pictures on facebook so if you are interested you can check those out.  We are in the process of doing a humanitarian project here.  One has never been done here before and we are doing latrines, water filters, chicken farms and hopefully drilling some wells.  The members are really excited about it.  We just did the first PEF loans in Kampong Cham and they were all approved.  10 kids applied.  The most that have ever been done in one day in all of Cambodia.  I'll tell you more later.  More to come.  Thanks for all your prayers for us we really do feel them everyday.