Tender Week in Ta Khmau

So another week! Let's see... random weird moments... 

1. Sister Kosal and I were trying to find this house. It was inside a Wat (Buddhist temple area). Anyways we were left hopeless, we couldn't find the house but all of the sudden the doors of the temple opened and all of these monks emerged. Monks are always just walking around everywhere. It was quite the experience!

2. We visited a less active member that literally built a church outside of her house. Sister Kosal leans over to me and looks really serious and says, "If she gives you any food, don't eat" and of course this is all in Khmer. 

3. Everyone here is even more amazed by my skin. Everyone just wants to touch me and sometimes kids are scared of me. haha oh my goodness.

 4. Tiidaa from Steung Mean Chey (the other ward) got baptized last Saturday!! So exciting!! I love her so much. 

5. On Thursday night, Sister Kosal asked me if she could do my makeup. This then led to full on face make-up, hair, traditional Cambodian dress and jewelry. I became a Srey Sa'at. So fun and strange but so fun.

 6. We gained a new area a couple days ago! Before the Sisters didn't go there. It's called Bakou. It's about an hour TukTuk ride from Takhmau. One member moved out there and all his family were baptized and now there's a group of about 60 members there but they are all less active. They meet in a house that they've made into a church. So cool. So this week we're going there for the first time!

7. I eat frog about 3 times a week and rice every meal. Bring on the rice cheeks!

8. Also it rained so much yesterday like all day and it looked like a scene from Harry Potter with everyone in their rain ponchos and everything. And everyone in Cambodia believes in ghosts anyways so it makes sense.

9. My area is great. It's about an hour bike ride from Phnom Penh. It's in the middle of all these rivers so there are a lot of big bridges and houses on the water. There’s actually a big holiday coming up called "water festival" and the center of it is in Ta Khmau so everything will be crazy this next week! So fun! I love the members here but I still miss Steung Mean Chey. 

10. Want to know what we carved for pumpkins? We had a zone Halloween party . . . so funny. American pumpkins here are like 50 dollars so all of us had old water bottles and we literally carved water bottles and spray painted them...oh my goodness haha

Anyways those were just some of the fun moments of this week. This week was a very emotional, great, hard week like most others. Emotional as in these people here have such hard lives. Hard lives that I cannot begin to imagine.

On Saturday we met with Bong Pheet. Her mother has cancer. She has this big lump on her chest. It's been cut into and I'm going to be honest, it looks very disgusting. The treatment that they use is ground up bone. So I Asian squatted and ground up this bone for about an hour. So sad. I just held her hand because I didn't know what else to do. And she just whimpers every time she breathes. And you know what happened last Sunday? She came to church. Yes, she came to church. Talk about a faithful follower of Christ. These people are so amazing. Yes quirky and sometimes I just think to myself "in what way is this efficient?" but somehow they always seem right. And they are so kind. I mean some others are more kind than others but these people are quite amazing. 

Something that I'm realizing is the necessity of Jesus Christ. The Atonement doesn't just happen after all is done. It's loving, healing, merciful power is open to all, now. We don't have to perfect ourselves. We can't. But Christ can. All we have to do is try, but we really have to try. So that is what I'm coming to realize. As we cheerfully and patiently submit to the will of the Father, He will be with us. (Mosiah 24, one of my favorites, also Mosiah 3:19 is basically my goal and motto for the rest of my life). Anyways, He will be with us. He was with us then, and now and will be forever. I love you all and I know He does too. Much love and luck. 

Love always, 

Sister Mortell