What Happens When: The Village of Smiles is Found
Happy Easter Everyone!
This week was pretty tomada normal, not too much crazy going on, but it was good. The SMC 1st ward decided to have an Easter party planned for 4:30 am on a saturday... so we decided to get special permission to attend. We got there at 6:30 and it was still going! The yw/ym are great in this area. They're all best friends and hang out at the church every single day together! It was really fun to see them play some Cambodian street games. Easter isn't a known holiday at all here, because there aren't very many Christians here, so Sunday felt totally normal, but I was grateful for the talks given at church to remind us of the Savior's resurrection and His gift of eternal life to each of us. This week we plan to have a baptism for our investigator Siyon. She is 16 and lives with some members in our ward. Actually, her name is Zion, just spelled in khmaenglish. Cool for the investigators when they figure out their name, Zion, is an important word in our church :) She has been learning for a long time with sisters after sisters, and now she is finally ready! It's really exciting. She told us about the change she has seen in her life since she started learning. When she first moved to this area to work for a family friend, she didn't know how to read or how to count money, but as she's been learning to read the Book of Mormon, she is starting to understand a lot more and has seen the blessings the gospel brings. She's way solid! We currently have a lot of investigators, they just don't answer their phones so it is really hard to meet with them. So, we do a lot of contacting. Yesterday, a lot of our appointments fell through, so we decided to walk down the street and contact. Usually we try contacting while biking and it is so hard! Walking was way better and we talked to 59 people close to the church. We talked with quite a few that had interest to learn, so hopefully we will be seeing some new investigators soon! Our area here in Steung Mean Chey is huge! and there is this village we heard about that is about an hour away that has 30 members in it that are all in-active because they are so far away. The elders and we decided it would be a good idea to make the trip out there to visit, since they haven't seen missionaries in a while... but we got a little lost on the way haha. We had a small map to try to find this place, but we must have gone way too far off one road, because all of a sudden the city wasn't city anymore! it was full on dusty dirt roads and burned rice fields and palm tree forests with the occasional wat (pagoda). I haven't gotten to serve out in the kites yet (provinces) so I was way excited for a change in scenery! I saw a bit of what really poor cambodia looks like. The shack houses were just lined up next to a big mountain of trash. I'm not joking- it's called Trash Mountain. Anyway, we eventually asked a few people for directions and about an hour later we found the village. It's name is Smile Village. Apparently it is all the people that used to live at Trash Mountain but they got moved out of that area when the government? tried to clean up the trash. It was quite the interesting place, the elders had scheduled a service project for us to help some neakmings (ladies) make mats. It was way interesting to sit and chat with them while we did some work for them. Call me the mat-making pro! haha we got 2 done in the short time we were there. We got to visit some of the members that live out there as well. They call it Smile Village for a reason, everyone there was really friendly and open to talking with us while we visited. Hopefully we can go out again soon and maybe see some progress out there. Cambodia is getting real hot. But with the heat, the miracles are coming too! I've been a Sister for exactly 6 months now, and seeing blessings of the gospel in people's life still amazes me everyday. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a missionary in Cambodia! I know Jesus Christ is our Savior, our Redeemer, and He lives! He is risen and loves you so much. I am just so grateful that we have the restored gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth today to give us peace, comfort, and hope. I love you all! Have a great week. Smile lots. love, Sister Haddock p.s. my name, sister hotdog, is still catching on like a flame here in Steung Mean Chey . It keeps me going. :)
mats and mings
crossroads in the rice fields.... pray, pick, and go!
those are houses
Sister Leng is the cutest human
The occasional wat
Sister Loftus (my older sister {we have the same trainer-mom})