Sept 15, 2014 Weird Things

Sometimes strange things happen around here.

Had a super weird experience on Wednesday when I went on a companion exchange in Pochentong earlier this week. We were at the church interviewing a young man who was preparing to get baptized when a girl walked into the church building. That wasn't the weird thing, the weird thing was that she was white. We don't get a lot of white people in that part of town.

She was talking to one of the missionaries out in the lobby when I got out of the interview. She explained that she was just walking around and saw the church and wanted to check it out. Then one of the members came up and asked us where she was from and she answered in Khmer. Everyone's heads turned to look at her. I wish I could have seen it from the third person, we must have looked ridiculous.  You would think that we, as people who have learned this language already, would be less shocked to meet someone who had also learned this language. I must have felt about the same as everybody who meets me on the street and is shocked that I actually speak Khmer. But she didn't just speak Khmer, she spoke Khmer like someone who had been raised in the ghetto. That's an accent that I am familiar with, but it was absolutely shocking to hear it come from her mouth. She came to Cambodia when she was 9 years old. Some time after she got here her dad died and she lost contact with her family in South Africa. She went around teaching English at people's houses. Some people lead really crazy lives. We weren't sure what to make of her because her story didn't make much sense after the basic details and eventually we just left. I still can't believe how perfect her Khmer was.

Last week I talked to a guy named Sau and he indicated that he had some interest in learning more about the gospel of Jesus Christ. I set a return appointment with him and got his address. We called him before heading over and he didn't answer so we decided to just go to the address and hope that he would be there. The address was a little hard to find but finally we found the house and were a little shocked to see that it was a massage parlor. Now, in Cambodia, massage parlors are not as innocent as massage parlors in America. Sure there are plenty of places where you can get a normal, nice, massage and at really decent prices (Like under $3 an hour) but many others that deal with a less innocent business. There were 5 or 6 women sitting around playing cards and waiting for customers when we showed up.

 Once we had convinced them that we didn't want massages, we asked about Sau. They seemed to not recognize the name but couldn't decide. That was weird. We were getting ready to leave when one of the women pulled out a picture and asked us if we recognized him. I wasn't sure, but it was enough to get us to call the guy again before leaving. Sau answered the phone and I told him that I thought I was at the wrong address. He told me it was the right address and that he would be by in a few minutes. Well... We weren't sure how comfortable we were at the massage parlor, but we sat and waited for him. I started making faces at a baby that was playing just inside and he giggled. Then Sau came up. Everyone clearly recognized him and he got off his motorcycle and picked up the baby I was playing with. It was his child. We were thoroughly weirded  out at this point but taught him and his wife a very normal lesson and invited them to church. We haven't tried to meet them again yet, but I think next time we'll try and see if we can meet at the church or something...

 I wish I could explain better what this missionary experience means to me. Every time I leave the house I am excited. Every time I walk into the church I'm happy. Every time I meet new people that want to learn about the gospel I just get this big grin on my face. This is so much fun! I love my job, I wish I could do it forever.

There's a scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants that explains this joy. It is the joy of bringing other unto Christ. It says: "And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father! And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me! (D&C 18:15-16)"

I know that sharing the gospel with others brings great joy and I want to encourage you who are reading this to think about the ways you are trying to share the gospel and whether you can do it more boldly. Love you guys!

-Elder Vore

Sept 8, 2014 Christian Charity

Usually the weird things I eat out here are just that- weird. It's rare that I really like the bugs, or the leaves or the dog or whatever they're feeding me (not that everything I eat here is weird, but most of it is pretty exotic), and I usually just eat it for the experience and the calories. This week however, I had stuffed frogs. Now, I feel like frogs are something that most westerners would shy away from, and I am having somewhat of a unique experience that makes me relatively open to such foods, but it was literally one of the most delicious things I have eaten in the past year. Frogs are pretty common out here. They're all over the ground. They get sold in the markets- actually side note real quick, when they sell frogs in the market, the seller skins the frog and chops it's head off. The frogs are still alive at this point. They jump around skinless and headless until people buy them. It's a little disturbing the first time you see it. --Yeah anyway, the frogs were delicious. A woman that we have been teaching for a month or so makes them and so we ordered from her, kind of to help her out. She cleaned out the frogs and stuffed them full of fried pork and onions and spices. So good and pictures to come! Mom and Dad, when you come to pick me up in February you better be ready to try some new stuff! Frogs are on the menu! :D

  

We helped a recent convert of ours prepare a talk for sacrament meeting the other day. He's 15 and has only known about Christ for 10 months or so, but he is always excited to learn more about the scriptures. He was pretty nervous for his talk but we helped him write stuff out and prepare and encouraged him. Well, last Sunday he got up to address the congregation and had the craziest stage fright I've ever seen. It almost seemed like it couldn't be real. He tried to clear his throat like 10 times before greeting everyone and then he couldn't even say the greeting. His voice cracked and he said about half of the word over 15 times. It was pretty uncomfortable and a young woman on the stand stood up next to him and helped him through it. He could have chosen to be embarrassed or decided never to do anything like that again, but he didn't.

 This week, after we met him to study the scriptures like normal he asked if he could tag along as we taught others that day. In every teaching appointment we went to, we asked him to share something relating to the lesson. In one of the lessons we gave him a scripture to share and asked him to teach one of the points. This week was testimony week at church. He got up and this time was able to give a brief, but heartfelt testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. What an example! He faced his problem head on and overcame it!

It's rainy season! Actually, it's not raining very much for it being rainy season but it still rains nearly every day. The other day Elder Martinson and I were a little late for an appointment at the church and we were just leaving another teaching appointment about 10 minutes from the church. The instant we got on the road we knew we were in for a downpour. The wind blew, the temperature dropped and the sky darkened. We stopped for a second to put our stuff in bags and then kept going. The wind was blowing right into our faces. The rain came down like bullets at first and then the sky just opened. There was so much rain hitting the front of me that it was pushing me back and I had to struggle to pedal. We were soaked in seconds. When we went up a hill to the main road there was a waterfall coming down. By the time we got to the church we were biking through sitting water up past our ankles. 5 inches of rain in 5 minutes. The storm kind of blew me away. Literally...

I shared a scripture from the Sermon on the Mount while teaching in Elder's Quorum yesterday. Matthew 5:13 reads, "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."

In ancient times, salt was an invaluable resource. Everyone needed salt to season meat and make it last. What made it valuable? The saltiness.
Christ taught that we should be as salt and season the earth. What is our saltiness? When I asked that question I got a variety of answers. Christian charity, goodness, faith.

Only when we apply the gospel of Jesus Christ and care for the poor and needy and show our love for one another, will we truly begin to walk down the path that leads to Eternal Life. If we don't do these things, we are as flavorless salt. Choose today to be an example of Christian charity. Love you guys!!

-Elder Vore

                     New Sisters in our Ward.  Sisters Dy and Ky!   And  Sunset from the church

                                                      

Sept 1, 2014 A Raw Meat Treat

Khmers think foreigners are really attractive and are not shy about telling you. The other day we had a particularly outspoken woman who told us she wanted to learn about the gospel. We were trying to make a conversation with her that would lead to us setting an appointment to terach her and her family, but all she wanted to talk about was how attractive Elder Martinson and I were. I couldn't help but roll my eyes as I tried to change the subject. She was trying to compare us to movie stars, models on advertisements and then finally a mannequin? Yeah, there was a mannequin right next to us and she said I look EXACTLY like the mannequin. Thanks?

Wow, I've gotta tell y'all about English Class. Every once in a while we have a special activity night where we prepare something fun that will be an opportunity for our students to apply their language skills in new ways and especially for them to get up in front of the whole group and present something in English. This last week we decided to repeat an activity that I did some 4 or 5 months ago while I was in Tuk La'ak and did a Clue-esque murder mystery night.

 Elder Yorgason introduced the characters (Doctor Martinson, Miss Lindley, Mayor Vore etc.) who walked up to the stage. I stayed at the back and when it was my turn to be introduced Elder Yorgason he pointed to me and I waved and said hi. Everyone turned around to look at me, I leaned against the light switch and Elder Christiansen, the murder victim, jumped off the stage. Everyone who was on the stage made some noise and knocked some stuff over and when the lights turned back on our victim was in a crumpled head on the ground. For the next 45 minutes or so our students went to stations to try and find clues. At my station I stood behind a music stand and gave a eulogy and led discussion about our poor departed sports hero. Because of some poor planning, my station was considerably shorter than everyone else's, so I had to make up a whole bunch of stuff on the spot. Got some great pictures! We staged a "press conference" right in front of the body, complete with pictures! :D

Dr. Martinson at the crime scene

Speaking of pictures, my memory card got a virus the other day. Ironically it was at a print shop (how can you run a print shop that gives it's customers viruses?) and it's looking like all of my pictures are done for. Fortunately I sent pretty much all of the good ones to y'all already. I'm not much of a picture taker...

We went to teach a new investigator with a member named Songha the other day. Songha is kind of amazing. He's pretty smart and a really motivated recent convert of about 5 months. He is extremely involved in the congregation and with the missionaries. He is currently serving as the Ward Clerk, EQP secretary and the 2nd counselr in the Stake Young Men's Presidency. He's only 6 months or so older than me. Pretty incredible. He will be on a mission the instant he is eligible. Pretty amazing.

Anyway, after our lesson we went to a restaurant where he ordered raw pork and eggs. When I heard him order I was thinking that it was the name of a particular dish or something but 5 minutes later, they came out carrying raw pork cut into slices and a couple of chicken eggs. He took a small bowl, dropped the meat in with some salt, squeezed a lime over it and then cracked an egg into the bowl. I asked him almost sarcastically what he was planning to do with it. In response he took a spoon and started eating it. That was pretty new for me. The lady who owns the restaurant was pretty incredulous too. She asked what country he was from. It was kind of nice to get that question asked to someone else for a change.

Very artistic take on this man's true story of how he found God in his life. Watch it!!

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=3701964025001

God is there. Those who look for Him will find Him. He loves you. He will guide you.

-Elder Vore

Mayor Vore and Policewoman Melton shaking hands in front of the "body"

                      Me pounding the "pulpit" while giving my speech as Mayor of Englishville

                 

Aug 25, 2014 Kamikaze Flies

I've talked about names in Khmer before. Actually, I feel like I've talked about this recently. Names in Khmer have meaning and stuff like that? Usually people's names reflect their characteristics or nice things like "bright", "handsome", "boy", "shiny" or even the month or day they were born on. I think it would be kind of cool to have a name that means something in another language (like Erin Meisje Vore) like the Khmers do it. Then there are some names that aren't so flattering.. We were at this one house in a poorer area the other day and thought it was funny that two of the adults in the house went by the nickname map, which means fat. It doesn't just mean fat either, it means like really fat or obese. What if your name was obese? How would that make you feel? It's just normal for them. One of them couldn't have even been considered fat. She was actually really slim. Still don't understand this language...

We eat a good amount of bugs here, and sometimes we eat bugs that weren't meant to be eaten just because of how food gets stored. For example, ants got into my sugar last week. What did I do? Popped it in the freezer and just kept using it like normal with a few dead ants in it. No biggie. I was eating at a restaurant the other day and Elder Martinson grabbed my arm as I put my chopsticks up to my mouth. There was a fried fly in my noodles! Yum... Now in America, that would be grounds for a new meal, on the house, but this is Cambodia! I put it aside and kept eating. Ironically, we were eating at a pretty nice place. It even had an air conditioner! :O Elder Martinson told me about one time when he found a fly in his soup and took it out and then found 2 more! He called the owner over and the owner told him the flies had probably flown in after they served the bowl. Right... We've got kamikaze flies attacking the soup.

Wandered into a new area the other day while I was on exchange in Pochentong (see the voice recording). Everyone was sitting around talking and we started talking to a family that used to go to some church back in their home town but hadn't been in years and were willing to learn more about our church. During the course of the conversation I sat on the outside "bed" that everyone was on and accidentally sat in alcohol! Someone was using a finger bowl to drink their cheap rice alcohol and I sat in it! They thought it was hilarious and I was really self conscious about it for the next couple of hours until I got to wash it off. Everywhere I went I smelled faintly of alcohol!

I was talking to a wealthier man who had just recently returned from living in America, in Georgia to be exact. He said he really liked everything except for the weather. "It's too cold in Georgia! I just couldn't deal with it." I thought that was really funny and almost couldn't suppress a snicker. Georgia is too cold? We're not talking the Dakotas here, it's Georgia. It's a pretty temperate place. I guess America isn't for everyone.

I saw some similarities in answers from students and members when I taught a lesson about how we show our love for God recently. Almost everyone answered, "Pray every day, read the scriptures and go to church every week" in addition to other answers like rendering service to others, trying to follow Christ's example, keep the commandments etc. I saw this happen several times and it made me think. Why is it that when we think about religion we think about going to church, learning, reading and praying and stuff like that? Christ never taught a sermon on the importance of going to church, rather, He taught us to love one another through service and good deeds. When Amulek taught the importance of praying always to the Zoramites he ended with the following thought:

 "And now behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you, do not suppose that this is all; for after ye have done all these things, if ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need—I say unto you, if ye do not any of these things, behold, your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing, and ye are as hypocrites who do deny the faith.(Alma 34:28)"

Being Christian means following Christ's example. We cannot consider ourselves disciples of the Savior of the world because we go to church every week to learn about His gospel. And this is not to say that prayer, scripture study and church aren't important, just that we need to remember Amulek's counsel. "And now, if you believe all these things see that ye do them. (Mosiah 4:10)"

Aug 18, 2014 True Religion

It's weird when life in a third world country gets normal. Weekly traffic accidents, people selling food on the side of the road, shortcuts through slums, naked children running through the streets, the sick just moaning in their homes because they don't have money for the hospital, people living in their own trash/waste, ancient women begging in the streets, open sewers right next to the new mall, everything. Nothing even phases me anymore. It's almost like a doctor in the ER. I've seen all the blood and gore and fatal wounds already and everyday is just more of the same. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. There are millions of people that are suffering every single day of their lives here and we don't even know, or we just don't pay attention. How many times have we joked about wasting food by saying, "there are starving children in Africa" without thinking about the children that are actually starving in Africa?

Sometimes it feels so useless. I can't reach all of these people. The best I can do is bring some hope to the maybe 15 people I meet in one day. Give some people some knowledge that maybe they'll apply to change their life. We can only do so much and then it's up to them to take what we have given them and go with it and it's so ineffective! I have personally seen at least 6 or 7 people completely escape the poverty cycle because they came to church, got involved, learned, went on missions and/or got married. They are now happier, more successful and on the track to real lasting happiness. But we can only do so much. President Monson urged us with the words of a favorite hymn:

Have I done any good in the world today?

Have I helped anyone in need?

Have I cheered up the sad and made someone feel glad?

If not, I have failed indeed.

There are ways to get involved. There are no shortage of people who need help. Not all of them live in third world countries either. Find a way to help someone today.

We listened to a speech the other day. I wish I had written down the name of the youtube video. It was just something a member showed us while we were at the church. It was at a conference of world religion. The thesis of the speech was that "religion ceases to be religion when it divides." Pretty cool. One thing was that was not cool were the subtitles. It was clearly not very professionally done because they used siri to dub it. It didn't work very well. His accent was pretty rough so I tried reading the subtitles. That didn't work. It was like trying to play Mad Gab (isn't that right?). Words like "religion" came out as "real asian". "Together" becomes "two weather" and so forth. The guy that was showing us the video asked us to explain some of the words and we couldn't because we couldn't understand either! People that don't speak English very well do funny things sometimes. See my photo of "white jew's ear". 

We had just finished teaching a lesson in a poorer area and were ready to head to the next appointment when my companion started talking to someone. I sat down and tried to strike up a conversation with an older woman and talked to her grandkids. One of her grandkids thought my eyes were just the coolest things ever. "Why are your eyes colored?" I explained that I was from another country and stuff but she had more questions. "What is that black dot in the middle of your eye?" I told her it was my brosrey pnek, or my pupil and that she had one too. She thought about that one for a minute and then said, "No I don't my whole eye is black!" When I tried to point out the pupils in her sister's eye she said the same thing. Pretty funny. 

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. (James 1:27) Believe it. Apply it. 

 Love y'all,

Elder Vore

Me mixing eggs and sugar with a spring.  If you hit the eggs and sugar for about an hour it rises to nearly triple it's original size.

Me after a rainstorm

                                                          

Elder Quirante and I were at the church waiting for someone to show up when one of our new investigators asked us to play volleyball with him. We only got to play for like 5 minutes before our guys showed up. 

Aug 11, 2014 Thou Shalt Not Play with Guns

Had a couple of run ins with ghosts this week. Well, we talked to people who said they had. One of the members that we work with a lot, Chanty, took a trip to Siem Riep, the cultural capitol of Cambodia and the site of all the famous ruins and temples and of course, Angkor Wat. She made a deal with a friend who promised a free room for a month if Chanty would help work at the family restaurant. It was the perfect set up. The family even had a nice home and Chanty had her own bedroom. Well, this was a really long story when she told it to me, and it actually wasn't very interesting which is why I interrupted her explanation of all the creepy ghostly things that were going on and asked her, "What would the ghost do if you saw it?" She kind of rolled her eyes at my comment and said, "Well, it will scare you of course!" I thought that I had misunderstood so I asked her about her friend who had actually seen the supposed ghost. What happened to her when she saw the ghost? "It scared her! Duh!" Laughing a little to myself I kept pushing. "Can the ghost mess with you at all? Can it hurt you?" The answer? No, ghosts scare you. That's it. At the point the question that had been implied but not yet said aloud came out. "If the ghost can't do anything other than scare you, what's the point of being scared by it?" My companion and I thought it was hilarious but the Khmers insisted that we just didn't understand. "Just wait. When you see a ghost, it'll scare you" they said.

More fun facts about Khmer! When Khmers say a name, the last syllable is almost always the most important syllable and therefore the syllable that they actually say. Think of how we pronounce the word 'because'. Usually if you're just speaking normally you drop the 'be' and just say 'cuz' right? Well, Khmers do that for basically all names and lots of words. For example, when people talk to us on the street they will often call us teacher, but with the Khmer accent it just comes out as "cheu" (eu would be roughly equivalent to the way we say oo in the word 'look'). Funny thing about that word? It has meaning in Khmer, it means wood. Well, taking all of those things into account, we were out near a member's house, Maly, just talking to people and looking for people that wanted to learn about the gospel when I started talking to some little kids. They were calling me  'cheu' or teacher, but they were just saying it like they would say the word wood. I tried to be funny and crack a joke. I told them that I wasn't wood, I was a person, and then picked up a stick and told them that this was wood and not to confuse us. It probably wasn't the clearest joke and they clearly didn't get it, but Maly understood what I was trying to get at. She told me I was wrong and that I was wood. That was a little confusing for me and my face must have shown it because she laughed and told me to read my name tag. "Elder Vwoa". "That's right!" she said triumphantly, "you're daum cheu vwoa!" or "a wooden vine", which actually makes sense when you say it in Khmer. That was a joke the kids could understand. They cracked up.

We were teaching an older lady who joined the church about 8 months ago and doesn't remember things very well. We went over the 10 commandments and taught her this fun little trick where you hold up your hands and count and it can help you remember them in order. Ex. 1) (holds up one finger) there is only one God. 2) (two fingers curled up and "kneel" on the table) don't make or worship graven images. Anyways, the sixth commandment is always a pretty easy one. Six fingers go up and a finger gun "shoots" the other five fingers, hopefully reminding us that the sixth commandment is "Thou shalt not kill". She loved it, and by the time we were done she could get all of them, except the sixth one. Twice she held up her little finger gun and "shot" the other five fingers, and then paused, "Thou shalt not... play with guns? Is that right Elder?"

There is a recent convert in our branch here who is incredibly rich. The life of the incredibly rich is interesting in Cambodia. Obviously you don't have to do much. Living costs are incredibly low and so she hires servants to do everything for her. It's actually a pretty good gig for the servants, especially if they are there with their whole family. She invited us over for dinner on Sunday night and we went assuming that we would eat and then share a short lesson before heading home. Nope! She wasn't even there actually. She had gone swimming with her grandkids and then had a meeting with the Relief Society President in our branch to talk about some of the needs for some of the poorer members in our branch. We were greeted by a team of servants and one of her nephews who ate with us. 5 different main courses! It was pretty wild.

Elder Vore

Aug 4, 2014 My Name is Vore, like Vine

You know, some people have really cool names. Because we all go by our last names around here I think it would be kind of fun to have a last name with some meaning, do you know what I mean? What if my name was Lion, or Masters, or King? I guess that would be fun. I've actually never had any problem with my last name actually. I'm quite proud of being a Vore, it's just a little harder to remember for some people. For example, there was an Elder here whose last name is Bridge (he actually just went home a few weeks ago R.I.P.). Bridge is next to impossible for a Khmer to say correctly, so he went by Elder Spean (bridge) for a good part of his mission.

 Another Elder, Elder Satterthwaite, has a name that plenty of Americans have trouble with. No problem, he just shortens it to the first syllable and goes by Elder Sat (animal). Me? My name doesn't really have meaning in English or Khmer, and even though it's fairly easy to remember, I still have people that have problems with it. Recently, I've just started introducing myself by pronouncing my name a little bit differently. Imagine, if you can, an older southern man saying the word "war". I don't know if that's exactly what it sounds like, but it's what I imagine when I hear it... Basically if you don't pronounce the letter "r" in war and say it really slowly. Vwoa. In Khmer it means vine. It makes for a pretty ridiculous introduction. "Hi, my name is Elder Vore. You know, Vore like vine?" They think it's really funny. It's especially fun when they start naming different types of vines they know, because invariably the first one is vwoa paom, or the fart vine. Apparently it's some type of vine that smells really bad.

Elder Martinson and I are really busy here. It's kind of hard to explain how busy we are and we were just talking about our schedule which Elder Martinson explained like this: "It's like you're riding your bike down a steep hill and then your brakes go out. You're still having a really fun time but it's kind of out of control and hard to tell how it's all going to end up." We're certainly not accustomed to turning down opportunities to teach the gospel so anytime we get chance to set an appointment we just set it and go with it. Well, there are only 24 hours in the day and we can't really just end our personal morning study of the scriptures early and go out to teach people and basically it's exactly how Elder Martinson said. Super fun, but kind of out of control.

We had a special training meeting with all the missionaries in our zone and in the Vietnamese speaking zone this past Friday morning. Elder Martinson and I thought it would be great if we got out to meet somebody before the meeting so we left the house a little early to go meet with an excited new investigator, the friend of a recent convert. It was a really fun lesson and ended with her asking a lot of great questions about the scriptures and about church. We left the lesson with about 10 minutes to get to the church for the meeting, plenty of time. We wanted to get there a little early so we started biking over there at a pretty decent pace.

 We weren't even halfway there when my bike started doing weird things, the chain was skipping and making strange sounds. We stopped to see what was wrong and couldn't see anything. After just a few more blocks I started holding onto Elder Martinson's backpack to get along because my chain kept skipping and wouldn't pedal correctly. This was costing us a little more time than we really had if we wanted to be on time to the meeting.

Got to a hill near the church, so I was standing up to pedal with all my weight and then my chain snapped. I almost fell off my bike actually. Elder Martinson had pedaled on ahead because we were late and so he didn't see my chain break. At that point I just started riding my bike like a scooter, pushing myself with my foot through traffic and half running, half riding to the church. When we got there they were waiting for us (kind of, not really, more like nobody know what was going on and so they were just standing in a group in the front). I must have been quite a sight scootering my bike along like that because the instant everyone saw me they burst out laughing. I felt pretty sheepish showing up late to the meeting, and I really wish I could have gotten a picture of myself scootering, red faced and out of breath.

I love getting on the church website and wandering around. I especially like all of the videos and the meaning behind them. I had been thinking about this idea lately when I saw this video and felt like it summed up my thoughts really profoundly.

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=1157711224001

When we do small and simple things God blesses us. It's that simple. Those who follow His path faithfully will see the difference.

Elder Vore