Madeline in Cambodia: Valid Week in Ta Khmau

It was a great week again. Always fun times on the mission. Also I am done with training! Woah!! Transfer calls and I'm staying in Ta Khmau with Sister Kosal. Everyone else in my MTC group changed though. Now we have Elder Otto and Elder Hale from my MTC group in our district. So much fun. We played revenge basketball for exercise one morning just like in the MTC. So fun. Let’s see what happened this week? Last week I said I was going to get crickets after emailing, and that for sure happened. #timon&pumba The crickets were delicious. We ate some silkworms too, not the same story. Sister Kosal ate those. We ate crickets (one full bowl) and watched the moon for the holiday. Apparently the moon is its biggest during the holiday. Another fun thing today we stopped by these mango trees and helped this guy, who was wearing itty bitty shorts climbing a tree, pick mangoes. So fun. He gave us some for free.

On Thursday morning we had a service activity with our whole zone. We got to wear the helping hands vests and everything. We cleaned up this public area to watch the boat races for the past holiday. It was so dirty and trashy, just like everywhere else. haha I hope it stays nice for at least a couple of days. Oh man I love it.

On Friday we went to Bakou! I love it there! So beautiful. So Bakou is basically this khite, rural area, that had one member family move there. Then all of the rest of their family members were baptized. They ended up turning their house into a little meeting house. There are about 40ish members and about 12 come to church. But this Sunday we had 14 (plus 4 missionaries). I'm really excited about this area. It's pretty frustrating because everyone is a member or has already been talked to so many times. Also some members literally live 10 feet away from church and don't come. Oh well. The work will go on! I'm excited to get to know everyone. There's a lot of good in Bakou.

For investigators... we teach Srey Na and Srey Nooc. They are both ten years old. They are doing really great but still it’s hard to teach kids so young. We are also teaching Ming Heng again. She was a former investigator but she says she wants to learn again. She’s really great. We have an investigator in Bakou now! We were walking and talking to people and we saw this lady sitting outside. She told us to sit and hang out. haha that always happens. And we just ended up talking and teaching her. I hope she'll continue to want to learn. We'll see. Investigators are a bit slow in Ta Khmau but I’m excited. Lots of work with the less actives and strengthening members. It’s hard because most solid members here have only been members for around 5ish years. It’s a whole different church culture here.

What I've learned this week is unselfish service. This week I tried hard to serve. Attention to all missionaries: serve your companion. It starts at home. Serve your companion and you will want to serve others. So many dishes washed, drains drained and fish de-anted. (ant problem oh well). A desire to serve starts out with actually doing it. And when you serve, you're happier anyways!

Quote of the week: "Whatever our calling, regardless of our fears and anxieties let us pray and then go and do, remembering the words of the Master ‘I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’ -Thomas S. Monson

Much love to you all!! This Gospel is true and so joyful!

Love always,
Sister Mortell

P.S. happy thanksgiving to all you Americans out there. Eat some stuffing for me. We had a Thanksgiving lunch on Sunday with the Thurston’s (Senior couple) and we're having a zone party thing on Thursday.

On our way to Bakou we listen to Christmas music (Donny). I love it so much!!!