Jun 16, 2013 Mission Week 20 Welcome to Rainy Season!

Today is June 17 and I got your letters from April 22 last week! Thanks for writing! I also got a letter from Grandma and Grandpa dated April 15 and a package from Emily and David that got sent to Laos for some reason and had all sorts of weird customs stickers on it. You guys are awesome! It's fun to get mail. I wonder how they keep it dry. We have officially entered the rainy season and it is raining every day but it stops a lot and right now it's sunny outside so we've got a long way to go until it peaks. I've been told that in about a month it will begin raining and then not stop raining for about two months. Crazy. It's not like we're getting any wimpy rain either. We went into a lesson on Saturday and about halfway through the rain started. It sprinkled for a little while before coming to a crescendo where we literally had to shout to each other to make ourselves heard (Nearly all roofs are metal here, cheap but loud when it's raining). It had rained for about 10 minutes when we stepped outside of the house into streets that were completely flooded. I'm talking water to our calves. It must have rained 4 or five inches in 10 minutes. We were soaked. Pretty soon it's going to be like that all the time. I don't even know how to prepare myself.

A few words about one of our recent converts, Kuntia. We met her through her cousins who are members and she has been awesome. She learned until about the 5th grade before having to drop out, probably because her family didn't have enough money to pay for her schooling. Nevertheless, everything we taught her just made sense to her. She comes to church every week and is a really great girl. We had District conference last week and didn't see her but figured we had just missed her with the extra couple hundred people. We visited her house where her cousin told us, very nonchalantly, "Kuntia? She moved to Thailand yesterday." Apparently work opportunities are better in Thailand so she went to meet her family who is already there. Just picked up and left. This actually happens a lot here in Cambodia and I shouldn't have been quite so shocked but it sure was an interesting conversation. 

Do you want to know who makes your Aeropostale shirts? I do. In Cambodia. After the designs on the shirts are printed they have to cut of all the excess string and some other plastic stuff. It's not hard, but it has to be done by hand, so they give out batches of 100 shirts to people so they can cut all the things off and then give them back for $1.50. It usually takes about a day and a half to do a batch so it's not very good pay but if they are just sitting at home watching the kids anyway it's an easy supplement to a family's income. And so, on Thursday when we were visiting Sokhuan and she was doing that we joined in. So the next time you're wearing your little T-shirt remember that someone was paid about $1 a day to make it and it might have been me! Have a fun week! That's all from me.

My companion and Chan Li making Aeropostale shirts with the neighbors.