Jan 11, 2015 Bugs in the Technology

Lake Komping Poy

Elder Child and Elder Vore.  This was on P-Day. Some members convinced us to go out and eat lunch at this lake that was pretty darn far away. Lunch was somewhat less than satisfying but the views were pretty great.


Hope y'all enjoy the pictures. It took a really long time. We have everything so streamlined and easy in the states technology wise. I'm like cleaning viruses off my hard drive as I go.

Speaking of technology, the a/c in my room has been really unreliable lately. We can't get it to work for more than 3 days out of the week. Because it's January though, the a/c isn't quite as important as normal. The weather stays in the mid 80s and 90s mostly during the day and down into the 70s and even 60s at night.

 Since the weather was nice we decided to just open the windows and turn on fans. Bad idea. It's "winter" so the mosquitoes aren't quite so active but we were sitting ducks in our beds. I woke up at 12:30 scratching all over. I must have had over 30 bites on my exposed right arm in addition to scattered bites all over. A couple of days later the same thing happened again. This time we put nets and laundry bags on the windows and spayed DEET all over. Still managed to get bit a whole bunch of times, this time though, without waking up. I counted 57 bites on my arms yesterday. Yikes.

I live in a house with Elders Christensen and Cook, who sleep in the room next to us (we've started sleeping on their floor since we still can't get our a/c going). Yesterday they had a really funny experience. Now, I don't know if I've told y'all about this but when the Khmer people make Buddhist sacrifices to their ancestors they commonly burn fake money. You can go to the market and buy copied $100 bills for like nothing.The bills are actually the right size and everything too, because that's not against the law here. So, it's not too uncommon to see big bills floating around.

 Well, Elder Christensen was walking to church when he looked down and saw a $100 dollar bill. He walked right by it but then went back and picked it up. It was real. He felt the little plastic strip, held it up to the sun and messed with it a little and sure enough, it was a $100 bill. Someone was coming by slowly on a motorcycle and asked to look. Elder Christensen held it out and the guy looked at it and slowly, very slowly, accelerated. Elder Christensen just watched him leave. $100 is a lot of money. That's like a month's salary for a working man. Pretty funny.

Thought my younger siblings would enjoy this. Our branch is lacking some key leaders and just don't really have anyone to put there. It's because the church is so new and the members are inexperienced and well, basically we don't have a young men's president. There is a guy who has been called but he's still in high school, isn't very helpful, and doesn't always come to church. So, his first counselor has to take charge of things. His first counselor is 15 year old Sokhon. We've been helping him with what is one his plate and this weekend he planned and carried out a small activity where the young men played soccer at the church (the YM president actually came to that activity!), led his branch in the Mutual activity that was run by the Elders and the district YW president, taught 3rd hour young men's class, planned activities with us for next week and went to branch council. Even though we were guiding him through every step of the way, I was pretty impressed.

Christ taught many times about the importance of service during His mortal ministry. I am always moved by the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew chapter 25. In verses 34-40 we read: 

"Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:  Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

The importance of serving the poor and needy has been well established, but can I suggest, especially to my younger siblings and cousins, that service in the church with the purpose to invite others to come unto Christ is also an extremely good cause. You will find that as you are willing to get involved, leaders will create opportunities for you to help plan, prepare and teach to help things go forward. I want to invite all of you, especially those who already hold positions as class and quorum presidents to ask you leaders what you should be doing now that you have that calling. For their parents, it might be helpful to ask those same questions to your child's class president. "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: (Ephesians 4:13 (11-15)"

-Elder Vore

Just a little pond we stumbled on after we were harvesting rice with some members one day. Those are lotus flowers I think. I'm pretty sure that's what phkaa chuke translates into English. I know what they're called in Khmer!

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