Grammy Googie: Thumbs up to a better week!

Family and friends,
As I was sweeping our little apartment I looked at the handle on my dust pan and thought about what I would report this week in our blog. I would like to report:

"Thumbs up to a better week."
Question: What made it a better week?
Answer: Attitude. We accentuated the positive.

Monday was business as usual at work. That evening we took a ride in a tuk tuk to Family Home Evening at Elder and Sister Westover's home. Elder and Sister Tuck reported on their Temple adventure trip to Manila. Their group consisted of twelve members. At least one family was sealed together. The Tucks reported that the Temple experience itself was great. The difficulties were mainly with passports. The members had all the proper paperwork that the Cambodian government distributes. Apparently there are some people in Vietnam and the Philippines that are prejudice toward the Cambodian people and took joy in harassing them.With the Lord's help no one was left behind and the work that they had gone to do at the temple was accomplished. The Tucks were glad to have had the experience but were relieved when every one was safely home again.

What is Family Home Evening without treats? Sister Westover baked cookie crust and we gathered around the table to assemble fruit pizza. Yummy.

We had whip cream and cream cheese blended together to be used as pizza sauce. Besides the yummy spread we used cherries, kiwi, peaches, bananas, and pineapple.

We were supposed to work as a team with two couples preparing a team crust. I think few of us got in on the groove of the activity. Like the "Little Red Hen" when the pizzas were ready the question was, "Who will help us eat these pizzas?" "I will said Elder and Sister..."I will said Elder and Sister..." And we all did.

This is the creative work of Elder and Sister Kohls.
The other two pizzas were eaten before we got smart and snapped a photo of the finished products. I can tell you that the pizza made by Elder and Sister Johnson was very beautiful. A photo of their pizza would have made it into any cuisine cookbook or magazine. I did not want to take over the job of assembling our pizza by myself so I spread half the pizza spread and called Dale over to also help spread. He added lines to look like a football. We invited Elder James to help us. After he had licked all the whip cream spoons he dumped cherries in the middle of our pizza. ( He likes cherries.) I then added bananas, peaches, pineapple and kiwi around the edges. Our pizza reminded me of some of the cub scout projects my scouts would create. Sister Westover awarded our creations. Ours was claimed as the pizza with the most cherries, Elder and Sister Johnson's team's claimed the most appetizing and the Kohls team was the pizza with a personality.

Standing:
Sister Westover visiting with Elder Tuck.
Seated Center:
Sister James visiting with Sister Capener
Seated Back to Camera:
Elder Capener

The TV is displaying the temple trip.

Standing in Circle to the left of photo:
Elder James, Elder Kohls (back) and Sister Kohls

Tuesday was a normal day. As you know I like to periodically check out what is happening in the community outside our office window. The following photos are taken at the same place. It gives you some more insight into what all takes place in the same section of alleyway. The alley is definitely an extension of the home.

Eating breakfast. Pajamas is a regular outfit that many Khmer wear on the streets and when shopping at the markets. When visiting in the Provinces I have seen the women wear them to church also.

This is the same spot. Food preparation time. And washing dishes.

Cooking fish.

Taking a break to visit with neighbors and enjoy some playtime with the baby.

Wednesday we returned to Room Chang Dental to have Dale's permanent crown put on. We arrived shortly before 8 in the morning. Because we were early we had to wait for the dentist to arrive. While we waited Dale practiced taking pictures. He has found a new interest in photography. As you can see from the above pictures our Automatic option does not take that good of pictures. Dale is discovering he can get clearer photos by taking them manually. Using a tripod even works better. The next photos will show his practice work.

The view out of the window at the dental office into a school parking lot below. We are on the 7th floor of the building. You are looking at lots and lots of motos.

A different angle.

Yet another view.

Statue in the waiting room of Room Chang.

I'm preparing my Institute lesson for Saturday. We were not going to get any work done on this day. After we finished at the dentist we had Zone Conference to attend. That was from 9-3:30. They always cater lunch for these meetings. They ordered Mexican food from the Viva Restaurant. It was nice for a change.

Thursday and Friday were normal days. We had minimal power outages. Dale spent quite a bit of his time away from our office helping Sophornn and Kuntheavy with their computer problems.

Friday evening I did our laundry. The experience could have been LOTS worse. I ended up using three machines. Machine A did what it was supposed to do. "Victory!" One load successfully completed. Machine B washed the clothes but would not complete the spin cycle. That is where I used Machine C. Machine C no longer washes clothes but it can spin clothes. I transferred our sopping wet clothes from Machine B to Machine C pressed the spin button and hoped for the best. Wow, two "Victory" cries in one night! Load number two successfully completed. I actually got the laundry done much earlier than usual. It was a great feeling.

Saturday I taught Institute at 6:30 in the morning. The early morning walk to work was hot. It was an indication that by noon when we left work it would be scorching. After class we worked in our office for a couple of hours. We walked home and then used a tuk tuk to go to the grocery store. Since we did not have to walk home we stocked up on canned goods. Lucky Store got in a shipment of Magic Time canned vegetables. Magic Time is a good product. A can of Magic Time vegetables is $1.10 in comparison $2.50 or more for other brands. I use the juices from the canned vegetables in soup to make gravy. Nothing goes to waste and yet everything goes to waist.

Sunday Dale was asked to teach the Gospel Doctrine class at the International Branch. He did a great job.

Today at church we met a group of about 10 students from BYU that are here doing service work through August at some of the local Non Governmental Organizations. It was fun to have them at church. People that speak English we can understand! Their professor has traveled all through Asia. He spoke in Sacrament Meeting today. He said that when he was in high school he met his first Cambodian. He said that some of the students at his school were not kind to this boy. They called him a racist name. The boy just smiled at these students. The professor said that he approached him and asked him if he knew that these students were calling him a bad name. The boy said it was OK because he was free. He explained how he had crawled on his belly through the jungles of Cambodia and eaten bugs and other such things to escape to Thailand. He told him how he watched his family members being killed. He was in America now and this made him happy to be free. The professor said that later in his own life he was called to serve in a branch that consisted of Cambodians, Vietnamese, Laotians and others. He learned through them of their flights to safety. He has worked and served in the Asian countries for about 35 years. After church Dale had a conversation with him. He described some of his feelings concerning the Asian countries. He said if he wants to eat great food he goes to Thailand, if he wants to see beautiful countrysides he goes to ...Dale couldn't remember where... and if he wants to experience craziness he comes to Cambodia. We can vouch for that comment.

President and Sister Moon's daughter and son in law and two granddaughters and newest grandson are visiting Cambodia through May 26. Their grandson was born at Christmas time. The Moon family attended the International Branch Sunday. President Moon will not be able to do too much visiting with them because in another week two General Authorities and their wives are coming to tour the mission. We also have more new missionaries coming and others leaving. I guess he counts his blessings on the little bit of time he does get to spend with them.

This week should be fun. Tuesday and Wednesday we will be attending a countrywide YSA activity. We hope to meet with many of our students. The activities committee is planning food and activities for 1,000 people. Maybe there will be that many...maybe not. That is a lot of motos in the parking lot!