Dear Family and Friends,
I am officially in Cambodia and all I can say is wow. The poverty here is so real. After a long (VERY LONG) couple days of traveling, we finally arrived in Cambodia.
The Mission President, his wife, the Assistants and a senior couple were there to greet us. They took our bags to the mission home and all of us newbies headed to a big market in the middle of Phnom Penh to contact! I was with a local Cambodian that knew no English, so it was very interesting! Haha. I just kept saying "We are missionaries for Jesus Christ. I know through Jesus Christ we can feel peace and happiness", and then my temporary companion would take it away. We contacted around 30 people in about 45 minutes! It was crazy.
The first couple days here were spent in the mission home doing orientation things. We were informed that the mission goal is to have 800 converts this year and teach 20 lessons every week. The main problem with the work here is that there are about 12000 members and only 2000 actually go to church every week. So we are working with a lot of less actives. Most of them just say that they are busy even though when we go to visit them after church they are just sleeping... Haha. So I met my companion on Friday afternoon. Her name is Sister Kuouch and she is actually from Cambodia. She is from Steung Mien Chey (from the Rent Collector book). She is about half of me haha, she is SO tiny! She doesn't really speak English, and I don't really speak Cambodian, so I don't really know very much about her! She is 21 and has been a member her whole life (which is actually pretty rare here). We also have 2 other sisters in our apartment. They are both in the Vietnamese program and only speak Vietnamese and a little bit of English. The common ground language for all of us is English and they all understand eachothers English, but I don't seem to be able to understand any of it. Haha.
Anyway, on Friday we went straight to the church from our apartment to meet up with Vitchika for a lesson. She is a new investigator for us, but has met with missionaries previously so she already knows a TON. Plus she is Christian already. She is 17 years old and definitely one of my favorite investigators. We reviewed the first lesson with her and she asked me how I knew the Book of Mormon was true. I was able to tell her my experience with coming to find out for myself it was true and encouraged her to continue to pray about it. She said that she would. It was a great lesson. She even came to church on Sunday too. After her lesson, we went to teach Bang Mala (25 years old- investigator). We taught her at her friends house (Bang Kontea- investigator). The house is a 10 feet by 10 feet room with tile floors and cement walls. It is so humbling to be teaching these people in these conditions. We taught her about the Law of Chastity and she said she has problems with it.. but Im not really sure what else happened in that lesson. On our way home we stopped by at Ming Kangs (investigator) house and shared a quick message about the 10 commandments. I said the prayer for that lesson but I literally have no idea what else happened. The TV was on in the tiny room/house and I was just lost.. haha. But my companion said she isn't progressing and we will probably have to drop her. :(
Saturday was my first full day. A lot of the people we were planning to teach were not home, but we managed to teach two investigators and a few less actives and recent converts. Everyone we teach lives in very poor conditions. It is really sad... But they seem to find joy in the little things and that is all that matters.
However, last night we were riding our bikes and ran into Ming Nuan! We had looked for her the day before but she wasn't home. She is an alcoholic and divorced with her husband. She was just bawling through the whole lesson and saying that she was trying and she was praying but her heart hurt every day and she needed to drink alcohol. She kept holding my hands and saying a bunch of stuff about her life and I wanted so badly to be able to understand but I couldn't! I just said "I don't know very much about your life, but I know that Jesus Christ does and that he loves you." It was a tender moment. I hope she can overcome her addiction, but there aren't very many resources for that around here.
This morning we were able to go to the market to get some groceries. The past few days I have just been eating random things that I can find in the fridge. Because everyone in our house is from Cambodia/Vietnam, all the food is very asain. We eat rice for breakfast lunch and dinner and I managed to find some cauliflour and carrots that I fried up to add to my rice. The meat is interesting, so I just added a fried egg to my food as well. I had 2 granola bars in my bag, and I rationed them out among the few days I didn't have my own food. Luckily I survived :) haha.
Biking around Cambodia is SO SCARY! I have a constant prayer running through my head asking Heavenly Father to protect me. I constantly fear for my life. You probably think that I am joking, but IM NOT. It is terrifying. The heat here is bad... but most house have little fans so we don't sweat too much. It rains at least once a day, but so far it hasn't really flooded. Anyway, its been a culture shock to put it lightly. I hope everyone has a great week!
Love, Sister Lindley
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