Who needs table and chairs?

Hello family and friends,
Another week has come and gone. I can not say that time is flying, but it is moving forward. Life is becoming so routine that I am having difficulty coming up with interesting stories to tell. Fortunately Dale took a few pictures to jar my memory.
This week I did a lot of phone call contacting of our PEF students. Dale has been helping our Institute Director create a Institute video to take to the Providences as a recruitment tool. The goal is to get all Young Single Adults in the church enrolled in Institute classes and all students 14-17 enrolled in Seminary. Once they are enrolled the challenge is to keep them attending regularly. This is really important for our PEF students because when they apply for their loan they commit to attend Institute 75% of the time. We do everything we possibly can to assist them in keeping this promise. We allow them to do make up work and in some cases home study. Unfortunately we have had to decline a few students loans because they did not attend Institute and did not do the makeup work. Some of our students learned the hard way that we hold them to their promises. They did not get their loan renewed. If they begin to attend Institute and do the work they will be able to obtain a loan in the future. It is disheartening to have to decline a loan. We do all we can to help our students obtain their Institute credit. Some of our students thought they could slide by. That is not going to happen while we are here. If  we do not enforce the rules we do our students a disservice. We have  many students who were able to fulfill their commitments even though they were just as busy and had similar hardships as those that did not do the work.

The below photo is  Sophornn Touch (on the right) and Pen Vibol (on the left). They are both very dedicated to their work and their service at Church. Sophornn is the Institute Director for Cambodia and Vietnam. Pen Vibol used to be the country coordinator. I am not sure what his official title is now but he is involved with the Church Education System. They both teach Institute and Pen Vibol also teaches Seminary.

This is a still photo from a video Dale shot of these guys thanking Hong Kong for all they do to support the Cambodian people. Sophornn is also the branch president of the International Branch. The International Branch has unique challenges. The membership is Expats. The people come and go frequently. Because of the transient nature of this branch the leaders often teach the classes and present the Sacrament talks.We attend this branch every three weeks. That is where we attended church today.The First Councilor and his family were the speakers. Today there were 6 sisters attending Relief Society. Of those sisters, one who happens to be the Relief Society President, will be moving back to the states the middle of August, two were the Mission Presidents daughters, Chantelle and McKenzie. Chantelle will be going to BYU in Utah this fall and McKenzie will remain here. When Chantelle leaves McKenzie will no doubt travel with her parents to the various branches. So of the six sisters in attendance today, four are not regular attendees.

Tuesday we said good bye to Elder and Sister Greer. They are next to Dale and I . We trained with Elder and Sister Greer while at the MTC . They paid their own way to Cambodia. They requested a 6 month mission.The Church does not pay air fare on foreign mission requests less than12 months long. The Greer's son announced he planned to get married and so they left sooner than originally planned. The Greer's have traveled all over the world with his work. Wherever they go they do service of some sort. None of their other travels were under the umbrella of church missionaries. This was their first "mission". They knew they had a short window of time to serve when they applied for a mission. In Cambodia they served as member leader support in Siem Reap. We were sorry to see them leave. In the few months they were serving they did much good to help the people. We hope that someone will replace them soon and will be able to stay for a longer period of time. In the photo above the couples are Meier, Greer, Westover (office couple) and Tuck ( member leader support Takamau Branch). The mission president and his wife were planning to be at the airport but ended up at  the hospital  with Elder Mickelson who was diagnosed with having swine flu. He is getting better.  He will complete his two year mission in August. Recently many of our young missionaries have ended up in the hospital. Dengue Fever ( has to do with mosquitoes) has been a problem as well as missionaries eating foods they have been warned not to eat. One of our missionaries was involved in a bike/moto accident. He injured his hand. The other people were not as fortunate. It was not his fault, he was just in the line of fire with other colliding vehicles.

I had mentioned in one of my blogs about a mystery disease that is taking the lives of the children here. This week all elementary schools have been closed for an undetermined period of time. They are trying to get this epidemic stopped. Apparently it is Hand, Foot and Mouth disease.

Friday while waiting for the cleaning ladies to finish our office, Dale decided to tour our building. This is the front of the South District Building. Our office and the Church Educational offices are housed here. There is a Family History library also. The International Branch and a Vetnamese Branch meet here on Sundays. The parking lot in the evenings is filled with children and their bikes, balls and other toys. It is well lit and there is a guard at the gate. Most of the children are kids from the neighborhood. Parents feel that their children are safe playing here. Other people coming out of the heat of the day find a cool place to sit and read and socialize. This is a busy place most of the day and evening. Our office is on the upper level. The chapel is also upstairs. Downstairs are the libraries, classrooms, a bathroom and Branch and District President offices.

Dale likes to joke with this guy. He is one of the guards .He doesn't speak English but he and Dale   make each other laugh anyway. One joke they really like is when someone says Sok Sabbay they reply back  Say Sabok  (tee hee...I think it is like pig Latin). Anyway they really laugh at that one. Cambodian humor is a little different.




More of Dale joking with the neighborhood people: Each day on route to the office we pass by this one guy who has a road side tire business. He has an air compressor. Motos and bicyclists and cart vendors stop to get their tires filled or repaired. One day we were passing by  Dale reached for the air  hose and pretended to pump up his shoe.The tire guy and his buddies thought that was great.
Dale decided to take his headlamp with us to the office Saturday because he knew we would be walking home in the dark. The tire guy was working late. As we approached him we saw he was working on someones tire. The lighting was poor so Dale bent forward and fixed his head lamp on the project at hand. The tire guy just laughed and gave us the thumbs up.

On Fridays about four sisters clean our building. They usually use straw brooms. The brooms do a good job catching the fine dust that accumulates. We usually know when the cleaning crew is in the building because they like to play their Khmae music loudly. This little lady stands about 4 1/2 feet tall. She is a real sweetheart. She loves the missionaries. I can't understand her, but that doesn't seem to bother her. We just smile and talk caveman Khmer.

Above is looking down 63rd street towards our home. The driveway where the road is curved is the entrance to the South District Building where our office is. We walk this road every day. This picture does not show the rugged sidewalk where tree roots are breaking through and where cement blocks are missing . It can be a real obstacle course. That is why Dale was using his headlamp the other night.

  This is a shot of 63rd street traveling away from our home. You can get a better idea of what the sidewalks look like from this photo. There is a saying that "a pictures speaks a thousand words". In this case this picture is not speaking truth. Yes the trees are pretty..but the roads are dirty, broken up, and the shops are little holes in the walls. This picture at a glance seems clean and quaint....this picture lies!

Construction work is amazing in Cambodia. They build very tall buildings with very few power tools. There building codes allow structures to be built in months as opposed to years. We found this interesting. As we started studying this photo we realized that someone had hung their clothes to dry.  We can also see that the electricians have been busy getting this place ready for opening day. Everything here is built with brick and cement. There is very little wood used. Brick walls are frosted with some kind of cement or plaster to give a smooth look.

This brick work is the view from our office window. Note the TV antenna to the right. We learned when we were in the Provinces that very few people have electricity there. Some have televisions.They pull power from car batteries to watch their favorite shows. I have observed that if a Cambodian wants something they figure out a makeshift way to have it.

This is the entrance to The Royal University of Phnom Penh. We have extended PEF loans to many of our students to attend this school. Recently we have been presented with a problem. Because of dishonest people or groups many of the schools are asking for cash only to pay for tuition. The Church does not pay by that method. One of our students was told she would not be able to continue her schooling if she could not pay in cash. She came into our office. We called our Tuk Tuk driver Sam OL and he took us to the University to speak with the "man in charge". Our student Nisa Ban went with us.
We could not have done the business we were able to accomplish without her because she became our translator. It was also nice that the secretary at the University also spoke good English. The problem was solved and Nisa can attend school and we can pay with checks. Yeh, score one for us!

Sam OL- Nisa Ban and Me

Saturday evening was Seminary/Institute Graduation. There were about 220 people in attendance. Pictured here are our Institute graduates.In the past four years  these young people  studied all four standard works (Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants). They were very excited to receive their certificates signed by President Thomas S. Monson. They should be proud of their accomplishment. Although they have graduated, our young adults ages 18-30 are encouraged to continue attending Institute. Scripture reading is a life time pursuit. By continually  studying the standard works and attending Institute young adults are able to learn more of what their Savior has done for them and what they need to do to be able to receive guidance and direction from the Lord. They also have a safe place to meet and associate with young people with common standards and goals. These young adults are the future of Cambodia. They are the leaders and future leaders of their church and communities. They know the importance of the family and are being prepared to have families of their own. They represent truth and righteousness and hope.

No church event is complete without FOOD! The evening ended with funky sub sandwiches and cans of pop.

We are in Cambodia. Who needs tables and chairs when the floor has already been set up? Socials are cleaned up in minutes. Set up is a snap too.

THANK YOU!

Taught The Book of Mormon 

How to end this blog....hmm...I know....THE END!