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| Elder Me and Wyatt |
If I could write a one-word slogan for this country it would
be, "counter-intuitive." Haha. People cut their grass with scissors
and then harvest their tiny herbs with sickles. I don't think there is much that
is "intuitive" about this country. I'm not complaining though,
because it's something I have grown to love. It also makes impressing people
a lot easier.
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| Phnom Penh skyline |
So Kian Svay is nice (except for the hour long bike rides to
"clay" twice a week). Dei edth (clay) is where the branch president
and a bunch of other members live. That is where the real Kian Svay is. The
church is in the Kian Svay "county" (srok), but the "county
seat" is about an hour away from the church--close to Dei Edth. The Elder who turned Stung Meanchey from having just one branch
into 3 branches is in our ward, too, and when I asked him to help with our work,
he said, "You have to use the spirit when you contact." So I
asked him to help us contact one day. The new area has the exact same amount of members as KC it seems;
however, here it's more like 4 or 5 really big families plus a few others that make up
the whole branch. The Branch President is a baller. He gets things done. I
asked him for new people to teach and he told me to dig a ditch for him and
then move dirt. So I did it, and now we have two new investigators from him. Man,
that guy is cool. He has been to the temple, and his children are all super
rowdy, and the wife is always stressed out. He's fairly young, too. (Does this sound
familiar?)
When I'm with Elder Me, he wants me to speak as much English as possible, so I do until he doesn't understand,
and then I tell him in Khmae. Also, it's been kind of a bummer having to wait for people to get
tired of talking to Elder Me to want to talk to me. Since he is Khmae there
honestly isn't really much of a reason for people to talk to me if they can just
ask elder Me, so I just wait for the person to ask me if I'm sok sabbay [basically, how are you doing?] in their
most slowed-down version of speaking. When Elder Me leaves, then people will
have to talk to me more, but I've been enjoying feeling like a trainee again.
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| Elder Me |
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| This is Pu Bot |
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I think my stay in this area won't be as long as KC, unfortunately, since
I am all but white washing [starting from scratch], because Elder Me leaves for America tomorrow! On Tuesday Elder Me got an
interview at the embassy to get a visa. Since he passed, we had to
go back on Thursday to pick up the visa. Lots of trips to Phnom Penh. He heads out
to Oakland tomorrow morning, and I go back to Kian Svay with Elder Bolo. He's American despite the Khmae sounding name. He gained some fame by getting
attacked by a drunk guy in Stung Meanchey a few weeks ago. I'll have to ask him
about it and then I'll tell you next week.
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| American soil |
Love,
Elder Hall
