What happens when: you are THE tourist
Hello!
Happy monday everyone! sorry this is a bit later than usual, I have been busy all day on a field trip! This week we took some tours because 1, my new comp is a literal tour guide in the past life, and 2, my old comp is dying (finishing her mission) soon so we gotta get in all the good stuff now! We went to a real wat last P-day after emailing. if you are wondering, "whats a wat?" it is a Buddhist temple. They are everywhere here, and they are very interesting. We went to on of the really famous ones called Wat Phnom. That is how Phnom Penh got it's name. It is in the smack dab middle of cambodia and is on a hill "phnom". Inside the temple there is a large golden Khmer buddha statue and lots of offerings of fruits and money and even coke cans. then you can walk around some of the large structures they have built as tombs over the bodies of passed kings. Wat Phnom is known for this big clock they have on the side of the hill. It ticks and turns just like a real clock and it is a symbol passing time since the Khmer Rouge. For P-day today to continue our tourist travels, we went to Cheung Ek which is the "killing fields". It was a really good educational experience, but it was really sad and eye-opening. They have all the remains they have found in the mass graves stacked in this big monument that you can walk around in. You walk around to different sites and different graves and learn about the stories of what happened there. You hear the actual voices of the victims that survived the Khmer Rouge and their stories as you walk around. It is even more heart breaking when you hear the stories in Khmer before the english translator voices over it. It was so sad, but very good to understand more about this country and the terror it has been through. There is such a need for hope and healing here, and it really helped us understand our gift to the people here. What we are here to share can help heal and bring hope to those still recovering. The whole country is still in recovery from isolation and torment, everything is years behind still. tech and economic-wise for sure. There is so much work to be done here in Cambodia! I still don't believe I am here sometimes it just feels like i'm in this parallel universe because of how different everything is here. But I love it more and more everyday, and I love the people more and more as we teach new families and meet new people. One of my favorite moments when the need for the atonement clicks in our investigators mind - when they realize that Christ is a light of hope and that there is so much more to life in this world, to witness the change in their eyes is amazing. I love my calling!
I am continuing piano lessons and a separate ïntro to music class every week. The need for musicians is demanding! Hopefully we will continue to pull in investigators from piano lessons and help the members develop hymn-playing skills to help out in the church meetings. Also, I have been a part of some particularly fun musical numbers lately, including the Elder's rendition of "nearer my God to Thee - Vocal point style" at a baptism, and "marriage for eternity" for an engagement event? I have no idea what that engagement event even is, but we are singing the most interesting song for it. The song is from the U.S. and I have never ever heard it before. I encourage you to look it up. It is so entertaining!
We are revamping our english class and our approach to helping out our Less-Actives in our ward right now. Hopefully we can see some improvement in the energy of our english class and continue to see some of our less-actives in our ward on sunday! last week we had 2 very in-active old ladies come to church with us! OmDalley and OmLinaa are their names. We are so excited to see them start to come back. They are so sweet and wanted to come back but every one here has sick legs so they can't walk/bike to church. We aren't sure how they got to church, but we sure were excited!
The weather's getting hotter, and the mangos are getting riper. You know what that means.. HOT season is going to start soon. But for today, we walked outside and complained that it was so freezing.... weird one-day fluke i'm guessing, but I will enjoy the 70 degree weather while we got it. Have a great week everyone! I love and miss you all. Thanks for the letters and emails. They keep me happy :)
Love,
Sister Haddock or ("Hotdog" if you will)
We went to "the Killing fields" today, it was one of the most sobering experiences yet. It is a very well-done tour and you walk on literal pieces of bone and clothing from the victims of the Khmer Rouge. It was depressing, but necessary to expand our knowledge to understand some of the hardship this country has been in.
The ground is just mounds of these mass graves, dug into the earth, they think about 20,000 people were killed there. There are over 40 mass graves just outside of the tour territory that are covered in land mines and such so you can't go out to them. There is a strange aura about the place, it is just really depressing, but at the end of the tour you see the big memorial building (white tall building) where they have placed each skull and the remains some of the mass graves and they talk about hope and closure and looking on to the future. I learned so much more about the Khmer people and culture and hope to have a bit more understanding for when I hear the stories of so many people we meet.
Me and My new Sister Thoun
some change of scenery! I live in the middle of the city, but on our trip we got to see some of the real cambodia scenery, houses are built of wood and on stilts so they are protected during the rainy season
the market we buy our food at
Musical chairs in ward FHE - love the youth. They're all crazy fun
the shed of rice seasoning packet stuff we help package with our less-active grandma. Her name is OmDalley and she came to church with us this week!! things are looking up :)
Did you know that an Ice-cream sandwich is literal wheat bread with ice-cream in it? me neither. It's not especially yummy, but it works :)
Hiang Lee our cute 13 year old recent convert moved to Kampungcham so we had to take one last picture with her. so sad she is gone, but hopefully she will be able to make the trek to church out there.
The nastiest fruit. I don't even know what they call them, it grows in a hard ball shape and you crack it open like a geode. it just dries out your mouth and feels like you just ate a big hunk of chalk.
Pics of Wat Phnom.