Sister Zoe's Cambodacious Journey: Lice and Rain!!!!

Sister Sheffield looking for lice. She didn't find any... I said I felt safer with Sister Leng looking and good thing I did because she found about 20 eggs. Sister Sheffield was very surprised. (:

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, as you can tell from the subject of this email, I was not lucky enough miss the lice infestation... that little girl; such a pain in the butt. That has been the highlight of my week. I will tell you all about it later on in this email. It’s a pretty good story. haha definitely not something I expected to happen on my mission, but hey, it makes for a good story, right?? As for the rain we had the first two rainstorms of the season. One in the middle of the night and it was so loud thatit woke me up and that is saying something because I’m dake luac (sleep pretty deep), but I woke up, heard it, looked out the window, got the biggest smile on my face, and then went back to sleep. The second was in the middle of one of our lessons and it only lasted for 3 minutes, but it made me that happiest sister missionary in Cambodia. I LOVE RAINY SEASON!!!!

Tuesday we had a lesson with one of our investigators. Her name is Jia Mian. Up to this point, my whole two weeks in this area, I assumed that none of our investigators were good... I’m not sure why I thought that but I just had that thought in my head. I guess maybe because we just hadn't been able to meet them forever because of cool chnam and all that good stuff, but we were finally able to meet her. Just a little background about her... her boyfriend is a member in our ward, so that's how we found her. She wears black contacts so her eyes are kind of scary but she gets to the appointment and she comes bouncing in. She was super happy. She sat down and clapped her hands and proceeded to tell us how happy she was that we were finally about to meet. Seemed pretty good. Then we asked her if she had any questions and she asked Sister Leng and me why we had faith in the lord Jesus Christ and how we gained that faith. Super solid questions, right? We had a pretty good lesson with her about lesson three and after I finished teaching her about the Holy Ghost she said sisters, “ I want that in my life. I want to be baptized. When can i get baptized?” We told her the date and she was so happy. It was super good, but then we met her again on Thursday and she told us that she hasn't been reading the Book of Mormon because she doesn't feel peace when she reads it, but when she reads the bible she does. That’s what really helps her. I was able to bear a powerful testimony of how the Book of Mormon was written for us in these latter days and every question, concern, or doubt we have can be answered by reading it. After I finished Sister Leng looks and me and says “wow”. Thank you Sister Loftus. I support my companion 100 percent. The Holy Ghost was definitely guiding me in that one; the coolest feeling ever. I'm so grateful I have the opportunity to be an instrument in His hands. But then she didn't come to church... so she's not really progressing towards her baptismal date... huge bummer. This week we will get her for sure. (:

Thursday I had the opportunity to go on an exchange with Baby (aka Sister Gallahad). She is in her second transfer and she is incredible!! She taught all the lessons and I just bore my testimony. She is getting super good at the language. Exchanges are always so much fun and this one was full of super fun lessons and memories. (: Whenever I’m with a missionary that is younger than me in the mission, I am always amazed at how the gift of tongues works; such a huge blessing. We talked with so many people. There’s something about not being with a Khmer that makes me more willing to talk with people on the street or open my mouth in lessons. I think it's just knowing that if I don't speak and say something then nothing gets said. But with a Khmer, they talk all the time because it's their native language. I have made a goal to always act like I’m with an American 24/7. I want to be the kind of missionary that talks with everyone I meet on the road and bears powerful testimony according to the spirit in lessons.

Here’s where things get interesting. Thursday night we got home and I was getting ready for bed. I was braiding my hair and felt something in my head... so I dropped the hair and picked it out. Yep, you guessed it. Lice!!!!! They are the most ugly little buggers ever. I freaked out. I was in the bathroom all by myself and just screamed. I quickly killed it and then proceeded to run my fingers through my hair about 1000 times more trying to find more. I couldn’t find any, so I just went to sleep. In the morning I realized that I should probably call Sister Christensen and tell her about my discovery, so I called her and told her my concern. She told me that I needed to have Sister Leng check my head. So I did just that. I explained to Sister Leng and her response (direct translation) was as she chuckled to herself "Sister. What? I do not believe that foreigners can get lice but okay." She started looking and she found the first egg and said, "Oh, wow an egg. I’ll keep looking for more." hahah I was dying, one because of her reactions and two, BECAUSE I GOT LICE!!!!! haha I still can't really believe it but wait it gets better. Getting rid of lice should be easy, right? You just buy the shampoo and start using it, right? WRONG!!!! Not in Cambodia. They don't believe in shampoo. They just sit there and pick out all the lice and their eggs every day. I looked at 4 different pharmacies and none of them had shampoo. So I just asked the expert, Sister Leng what I needed to do. She said she was willing to check my head every night and then when I showered I needed to use a gonesighng (good luck pronouncing that one), which I’m still not 100 percent sure what the translation is, possibly a towel, and when I was in the shower I needed to shampoo my head and then scratch my head with the towel and it would dock (help the lice leave my head). I didn't really believe her... but in my desperation I was willing to try anything. I tried it and it worked. I found 7 lice. Yep, big living ones. I freaked out once again. They are surprisingly bigger than I thought... yesterday Sister Christensen came to my rescue though and brought me some shampoo so I started using it last night and hope to be cured of my "infestation" (the word they used on the shampoo bottle) in a week. (: The weirdest thing about this whole situation is that my head wasn't itchy at all... I always thought that when you got lice you just itched like crazy... but nope, not for me. If I didn't find that one in my hair Thursday night, I would have never known...

We met a return missionary on Friday. We wanted to meet her less active family, but they didn't want to meet us. She told me that I am poo guy at Khmer, which means that I’m like really really good at it. I was super super happy. (: I speak yang chbah (super clearly). What a huge compliment!!!! I definitely needed to hear that too. Tender mercy.

I translated in church yesterday for a senior couple... there were a ton of little kids running around everywhere being super loud so I couldn't hear the speakers to save my life. I ended up just making a lot of the stuff up, but the talks that the senior couple heard (what I said the speakers were saying) were really really good. (: hahha also, the senior couple fell asleep half way through so I just sat back and relaxed and when they woke up I just started talking about the Book of Mormon and then tied it into the talk. I felt like that was the safest thing to do. I was laughing super hard thought. (: hahaha

Oh, one more thing. Our, Sister Leng’s and my air conditioner broke. We are now studying in our kitchen and sleeping in the other sister's room with them. It is like a sleep over every night. Super fun. If we don't get it fixed soon I am going to start gaining a ton of weight because I just eat and eat during personal study being so close to the food... haha kind of a problem. No self-control. (;

I hope that you guys all have an amazing week!!!! One of these weeks I’m going to figure out how to change the keyboard to Khmer so you guys can all get a test of what it is like to be a missionary here in Cambodia!!! (:

Love,

Sister Loftus

Double D