Monday, March 28, 2016

SMC

Dear Family and Friends,

So two things real quick. Last week I didn't have a chance to send an email because we had to go to the city for a doctor’s appointment for my companion, but I am safe and doing good. No worries!!! Also, I was just emailing and a COCKROACH fell on me... I almost screamed super loud, but someone managed to just let out a little squeal and then flick it off of me and get my composure back. As all of this was going on Sister Nhem, my companion was cracking up. Apparently on the outside I was not as composed. My face was pretty terrified. So there's something to brighten all of your day. Just think of me getting attacked by a cockroach and freaking out. hahaha 

I'll give you guys a quick rundown of the investigators that we have here in KC. First, Jariyaa- the one that is having a hard time understanding everything, we've been working with for literally this whole transfer. She is progressing slowly, very slowly, but progressing nonetheless. This past Thursday she said her first prayer!!! Usually she forgets "in the name of Jesus Christ, amen” but this time she got it!!! Sister Nhem and me freaked out and Jariyaa was super proud of herself. She comes to church every Sunday and is really starting to understand things. She’s paid tithing and fasted already. She shares the gospel with everyone she comes in contact with which just means that she says that their family can have happiness if they learn about the gospel, which is really the only thing she remembers from lesson one, but really what else do you need?? (: 
Srey Nic- she has learned all of the lessons and understands them all. This past week we went over the baptismal interview questions with her, in hopes that she would start coming to church and could get baptized, but she didn't come... that's the only problem. She has a testimony and knows it's true, but just doesn't exercise her faith... her answers to the baptismal questions blew me away. She understands everything so well. I am praying she starts to understand the importance of church. 
Ming Ravy and her son- this is the referral from a member. She’s good and loves when we come and teach her, but she doesn't really understand everything yet. We are working with her. She doesn't understand that prayer isn't a memorized thing that we repeat over and over and she doesn't understand not worshiping ancestors, but we will get there one day. She is super funny. Her son is kind of a pain in the butt, but I’ve been praying for a family, so they just might be the answer to my pray. 
Srey Noy- this is the lady we found at the hospital, the one that her husband beats her. Maybe I didn't tell you about that... I’m pretty sure i did. But yeah, she was asleep and kept her book of Mormon on her pillow and her husband got home, saw it, and started beating her... she moved from the hospital, so we are still trying to find her, but she's got potential. 
Naran-we found her on the side of the road. She is 16 and married. Not progressing at all, because she compares everything we give her, the book of Mormon, the baptismal invitation, etc, to the Korean church, but we are still trying to have hope and faith that she'll start progressing. haha 
Maliga- we haven't met her in a really long time.... 

So you remember like two weeks ago when we picked up trash for service? Well, the mayor, or the equivalent to that, here saw us and ended up inviting all the schools in KC to join in and help clean up trash too, so last Wednesday the 16th we joined with basically all the youth in KC and picked up trash. Super cool to see the impact that our little "Christian group" made. (: super super cool. 

Friday, the 18th, (Happy Birthday, Sauce) we were teaching Jariyaa at the hospital and I was just kind of sitting there and this look pu joined our lesson. He had learned with a different Christian church before, so we were trying to contact him, but he didn't really want anything to do with us... but after about 15 minutes he asked me if I knew how to speak Khmer, I said yes, he asked why I wasn't speaking, and I said that I didn't really like speaking. He proceeded to chew me out and told me that I was a representative for the lord and that I needed to give 100% if I didn't talk I was only giving 50%. At first I was kind of angry, but as I thought about it, he is so true. It took a jerk of a look pu for me to realize it, but I’m working on it. 

Monday we went to the city and I realized just how much I miss the city. Feels like home. We went and ate with a bunch of sisters at a Khmer buffet. Only $2.50 and it was delicious. Like so good. 

Wednesday at English class we had an Easter egg hunt and it was the funniest thing ever. The kids and adults ate it up. They absolutely loved it. We were also able to testify of the Savior and testify that he lives. So powerful. 

Thursday we went back to the city... lots of traveling for us the past week, so not much work was done in our area, but on the bus ride there there were only 5 people. The bus driver was this 25 year old bong and he was just rocking out to Khmer pop music the whole time. I quite enjoyed myself. haha Each song had music videos with it, I got sucked in hard core to them. I was watching them with my mouth open and everything. I laughed at all the horrible special effects and the corny jokes and relationships. It was the best. We got to the city and I was able to go on an exchange with a sister in training. Her name is Sister Gallahad and she is awesome. We were able to do language study together and it made me realize just how much progression I’ve had in this language. It was the perfect tender mercy.

Then Friday I was able to exchange with Sister Sheffield. She is amazing!!! She’s so funny. We went and met with two of her recent converts, bong bow and bong sreng. They are so amazing!!! Bong bow has been a member for just a few weeks and already studies better than I do. She really really impressed me. Then we met with the sweetest old om, Om Dani. Oh goodness; the sweetest ever. I love her.

Saturday morning we went to an Easter party that started at 5:30 in the morning. Very khmer, but it was still so fun. Sister Nhem and me were able to road trip back to KC with the Christensen's and it was the funniest 2 1/2 hours of my life. I love them so much. They are incredible. Such a team. I love them.  (they are the Mission President and his wife)

Sunday we got up and cut up a bunch of fruit for a fruit salad and made two different chaas. We went to church and then had Easter lunch with the Christensen's. It was so good, but American food makes me kind of sick and i just get so full so fast. I hate it. haha 

Since yesterday was Easter I just want you guys all to know that I know that my Savior, our Savior, lives. He performed the atonement for all of us and then three days later he lived again. That is literally the most glorious news ever. Because of him we can all live again and receive grace everyday of our lives. He loves us all so much. "I know that my Redeemer lives" every day of my mission that hymn takes on more and more meaning. I wouldn't trade the experiences I am having for anything. #hallelujah 

Since conference is coming up this weekend, I challenge all of you guys to prayerfully choose a question that you have and let the Lord answer it through the words of his prophets and apostles.  

I love you all so much. Thank you for the prayers. Hope you all had an amazing Easter. LOVE YOU!!!

Love, 
Sister Loftus
Double D



Just a day in a Sister Missionary's life



Sister Loftus and a member, did not give her name



Avocado smoothies on Easter!



Easter lunch


 A less active member's daughter drew this for me, pretty good right?

Monday, March 14, 2016

Another Week in KPC


Dear Family and Friends,

So every time I sit down to email, I feel so bad because everything here is so slow. Like nothing really exciting happens, but things are starting to pick up, so here we go!!!

Monday was so fun!!! We went to Phnom Bros and it was so cool. It's a mountain that has hundreds of wats and MONKEYS!!!! We went with our district and it was so fun. I didn't realize how scary monkeys were until you are holding two bananas and they start surrounding you, bearing their teeth... I got way nervous and ended up throwing the bananas real fast so they would leave, but we did get some cool pictures and of course we contacted them. Just like most of the people in KPC Kam Pung Cham) they weren't interested, but we had fun getting the pictures nonetheless. (: Please enjoy. 

Tuesday we had a service for all three branches in KPC. We met at the church at 7 and at first there were more missionaries there than youth, but eventually they started showing up. The service activity was picking up trash. We definitely had our work laid out before us because there is trash everywhere!!! It didn't seem very fun at first, but it ended being two very fun filled hours. (: We picked up A LOT of trash. We did it in preparation for what they call the River Festival. Sounds way fun, right? Oh, it was very sabbaay (happy and fun), like so good. As we were wrapping up the activity, I was walking back to the church and this bong (lady) started talking to me. That always gives me a heart attack because I can't understand the people here to save my life, but I just started talking to her. She asked me about my family and all was going well until she asked me how old I was and about school. I got my age right, super easy, but then I accidentally told her that I was already done with college. She said, "wow, you’re only 19 and already done with college. You must be really smart!!!" I just smiled and said "yep!" hahaha I walked away and later asked Sister Nhem what college was and what high school was.... I mixed them up with one syllable. That was something I just had to laugh about. (: 

Thursday we taught Jariyaa, do you remember her?? She’s our investigator that can't remember anything?? Well, we taught her about the word of wisdom and law of chastity. I'm not really sure how it happened, but she understood everything perfectly. She remembered all the points we taught and then proceeded to say her first coherent prayer. WHAT?? Prayers do get answered and miracles are real. So cool. After teaching her we went down to the river to contact. Oh my goodness. It was like the state fair. There were booths everywhere and I got a little trunky, but we managed to get some contacting in as we looked at all the delicious food they had and way cool souvenirs they were selling. It was SO cool. 

Because we had so much fun on Thursday night at the river festival we decided to go eat lunch there with the other sisters. It was so good. We had some Thai dish. I'm not really sure what was in it, but it was delicious. We got some chicken wings with it and I licked the bones clean. Usually that grosses me out, but they were honestly so delicious. Then we proceeded to buy the coolest pajamas ever!!! DUCKS!!!! So cool and of course we had to get all matching ones. (: Then we went to the church for interviews with president, but he was way late, so we ended up joining a YSA activity. it blows my mind how well the youth run those things. They had it all set up an hour before it started and had all the speakers prepared and everything. Not a typical Khmer church activity. Finally president showed up. He is like a superstar. All the youth stopped what they were doing and shook his hand. They even announced it over the pulpit. He's the coolest. My interview was shorter than I wanted (he had to interview all of us in like 3 hours) but he imparted a lot of presidential knowledge to me. He again told me that I needed to have patience. I am learning more and more everyday that I do not have the kind of patience I thought I did, but the experiences I am having are slowly teaching me how to have it, so that's cool. (: We talked about studying and I’m way excited to apply the things he talked to me about and really increase my gospel knowledge so that I will be better equipped to be an instrument in the Lord's hands and in the Spirit's as well. 

Saturday we had zone training and I was able to be reunited with Elder Grimaud and Elder Walker once again (in the MTC together). Oh how I love those elders. They are both incredible missionaries and I am so blessed to have them in my group. They have taught and continue to teach me so many things!! Ah, I love them. (: We went and taught an investigator. We watched Finding Faith in Christ with her because it's one of the only church movies translated into Khmer. I'm pretty sure it helped me more than her, she wasn't really watching or listening, but for me it was so good. As I was sitting there sweating my butt off watching all the many miracles that Christ performed I was overwhelmed with the spirit. I've never known more clearly than I did in that moment that Jesus Christ is our Savior and redeemer and that he loves us so much. Wow. That is literally all I can say. I was crying as I continued to watch. I would encourage all of you to think about your relationship with the Lord. You can always make it better. Always. After that we went and taught Jariyaa again. She lives at the hospital, the sketchy one, remember?? Anywho... as we taught her like 6 people gathered around us. One neak ming (older woman) told me that I had beautiful Khmer!! WHAT??? That has never happened. I was so surprised. I just said thank you so much!!! But the thing that is really cool is that one of the bongs that was listening to us wanted to learn more. We shared a little bit with her about the plan of salvation. She proceeded to tell us that a few weeks ago she had taken medicine in an attempt to kill herself, but that it didn't work, so we were able to take that lovely piece of information and run with it. We testified that that was Heavenly Father preparing the way for her to meet with us. She also hasn't been able to have kids, so we used that as one thing she can pray for and if she has faith the Lord will bless her. So of course we set an appointment with her and ended up teaching her. She seems really really promising. 

Sunday was a typical Sunday. Only about 40 people at church, but two of those were nonmembers that we contacted and got their numbers!! One is the friend of a young man in the ward and the other, a neak ming, is the friend of a bong in the ward. We were really excited to start teaching them. We went through sacrament meeting and right before we started singing the closing hymn they proceeded to pass the sacrament... AGAIN. What????? I'm pretty sure that's not kosher, but no one said anything, so the people that came late were able to take the sacrament. It was really nice of them, but definitely something I’d never experience before.... We went home and ate lunch and as we were about to start Companionship Study we get a call from the other sisters who were at the church, the neak ming who had come to sacrament meeting was waiting at the church because she wanted to learn with us. What?? so cool. We quickly got ready and raced to the church. She ended up falling asleep in the lesson, but she has the potential to become really really solid. We went and taught our new investigator Maliga!! She didn't come to church, but she asked us about the steps to repentance. She wanted to make sure that she wasn't missing anything. I would count that as progress, wouldn't you?? 

Things here in KPC are moving really really slow but they are moving nonetheless and I’m way excited to see where things go. 

Love, 
Sister Loftus
Double D 



P-day with the District


A huge statue!


More p-day photos


Sister Nhem and Sister Loftus


The river


Downtown at the River Festival


Matching PJs-Sister Brown, Sister Om, Sister Nhem, and Sister Loftus

Monday, March 7, 2016

The KC Life

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm gonna be completely honest... not a whole lot happened this past week. Like looking back, nothing happened. We are just working a lot with investigators that aren't progressing. We have about 6 of them that have been taught all the lessons and haven't come to church at all. I'm not really sure why we haven't dropped them yet. Sister Nhem says we will drop them when we find new people to teach, but it's basically impossible to find new people here in KC. I've never prayed harder than I am praying right now. Every night I pray for our investigators to have the desire to actually apply what we are teaching them and exercise their faith and COME TO CHURCH. I also pray to find those that the Lord has prepared for us. I hope that if I have enough faith one of those two things will happen and we can get the work progressing a little more here in KC. 

Prayers do work. We found a new investigator this week. Her name is Maliga and she is the cutest thing ever. She came to English class and we contacted her. She is 16 years old and is very soft spoken. We've taught her twice already. She really seems to have a desire to learn, she is really focused on learning how to pray. When she said her first prayer, she sounded like a natural, like she had been praying her whole life. That's what we like to hear. She even came to church AND stayed for all three hours. Super cool!! She fits in really well with the ward. There are a lot of kids her age, most of them are boys and they were falling head over heels for her, makes it a little easier to go somewhere where everyone already loves you (: but me and Sister Nhem have really high hopes for her. Sister Nhem has been in quite the drought of good investigators and is super excited to have found Maliga. After our second lesson we were biking home and Sister Nhem went to give me a high five as we were biking. She was so excited that she almost knocked me off of my bike. It was so funny. Like is so much easier when you have good solid investigators. 

So in our search for "the one" (inside joke) we've been doing a lot of contacting. The first couple times we went contacting together, Sister Nhem would do all the talking and I would just stand their smiling as she contacted for English telling people that I was the teacher, but then on Thursday we went contacting and I actually started contacting. The first person we contacted was a lookpu. He seemed really nice and as I started talking he stopped me mid sentence and told me that I spoke Khmer very well. That was exactly what I needed to hear. (: I don't know why I don't like contacting (I would blame my trainer, thank you sister Fields (; ) because every time I contact I always have so much fun and end up being so happy. I've just got to change my outlook on contacting and get creative. I think this transfer I’ll learn to love contacting. Hopefully. (: 

Saturday morning we went and did service at a less actives house. They are building a new house right next to hers, but in order to build the new house they had to tear down the old one and just because they wanted to, they put all the old bricks and concrete in front of her house... so we, me, Sister Nhem, Sister Om, and Sister Brown, so four pretty small girls, went to move them all. We had buckets and would fill them up and then walk through the less actives house and pour the rocks in her backyard. Seemed a little weird to just keep all the rock/bricks and stuff in her backyard, but there wasn't anywhere else to put them... we did that for about 2 hours and only got about a third of it done, but she told us that we could stop and then fed us mangoes. It is mango season here, so every time we visit members or less actives they always give us mangoes and they are SO DELICIOUS!!!! I love them so much. 

The only bad thing about mango season is that is coincides with hot season, so as mango season starts heating up so does the weather. We walk outside and I am automatically sweating. It is quite nasty, actually. I hate it. And it's just going to keep getting hotter and hotter. You know it's bad when even the natives dread it. But there is always a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. At the end of hot season, like Julyish, so still really far away, comes RAINY SEASON. I love the rain so so so much!!!! Still really far away, but it's something to look forward to to get me through the scorching heat. 

Update food wise: Saturday afternoon I ate the most delicious fish. Sister Om made it and it was so delicious. I never thought I liked fish, but this one may have changed my mind. They also cooked eggplant and it was super tasty too. I never thought I’d learn to eat such normal food in such a crazy country haha. All the food that I just told myself I didn't like because I just didn't want to be adventurous I actually really like. But yesterday I tried fish paste... I don't know what it is called in Khmer, but basically it is just chopped and mashed up fish, and it was not good at all. Also, I ate pickled mangoes. Also, not good! Just for future reference. Then they were eating them together, the pickled mango and the fish paste... two bad things put together couldn't be good. Two wrongs don't make a right, right? So I steered clear of both of them. haha  

That is all for this week. Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the cool weather. Love you all so much!!!

Love, 
Sister Loftus 
Double D 

Picture above-Sister Brown, Sister Nhem, Sister Loftus, and Sister Om on a rope swing we found.  Just a little adventure with the rope swing and the bridge below. 



Crossed this bamboo bridge, yes it is really a bridge across the river made completely of bamboo



A huge spider alive on the wall, as big as my hand!



A completely dead spider on the floor-thank you Sister Om and her white handbook.




This is so Cambodian, no?



This is where I serve everyday, very humbling!