Please enjoy this picture of me and Sister Xiong. We didn't have any students show up for English class, so we ended up talking some selfies. Seems really productive. (:
Dear Family and Friends,
Happy Valentine's Day. I just feel obligated
to wish you guys happy holidays even if I don't have anything else to say about
them. I mean what kind of a holiday is Valentine's Day to a girl who has
put her love life on hold for 18 months? (: Not a super fun holiday to
celebrate, but I hope you guys did something fun. (: So this week was
incredibly long... like WAY long, but it was still good and I’ve got some good
stories to share with y'all. (:
Monday after the p-day festivities ended, we
went to the church and taught one of our Recent Converts, Diana. Yes, her name
is Diana. Not very Khmer, but I've learned not to question things here. It
looks a lot more Khmer when it's written in Khmer, but that is how you say it,
Diana. Anyways, she came up to us on Sunday and actually asked us to meet with
her... I was so happy, that never happens. No one is ever that eager to meet
with us, but we cleared our schedule and penciled her in. We taught her about
the Doctrine of Christ. It was one of the best lessons on my mission. She was
super engaged in the lesson. She was asking us questions and we could actually
understand her. The first time I met her I thought she was a stuck up
18-year-old girl who didn't want to talk to the crazy "Barang"
(french girl)... but I think that we could actually become really good friends.
I want her to serve a mission, but when I asked her about it, she said she
didn't feel solid enough in her testimony and knowledge, so right now that's
what we are working on, strengthening those two things in order to give her the
opportunity to serve if that's what she wants. She tried to share the gospel
with her family and some of her friends, but they wouldn't listen to her... We
are praying one day they have the desire as the watch her life continue to
change and improve dramatically.
Tuesday we went and taught a lesson to our
ward mission leaders mom. He joined in on the lesson as well. Before we started
the lesson, we were just making small talk which is way sketchy for two
reasons... 1) you give free reign to Khmer's and you have no idea what they
might share... haha and 2) it takes the topic off of religious things and
brings a whole new vocabulary to the surface that we don't understand. So we
literally just have to sit there saying "caa""caa" which is
their version of uh-huh, just to let them know that you are listening. We just
nod our heads and hope that what they are saying isn't too absurd and that they
don't ask us any direct questions. But as we were doing that I looked over at
our ward mission leader, remember he's the one who served in the England south
mission, so he knows some English, and he is just dying, laughing so hard. I
look at him and say, "What is so funny?" and his response: "you
have no idea what she is saying do you?" I started laughing and said
"nope." "That’s okay. I know exactly how you feel. It took me a
full year into my mission to realize that pork roast was something you eat and
not the name of someone. Just keep nodding and one day it'll come". hahah
I was laughing so hard. Glad someone understands the struggles of being a
missionary that has to learn a new language. After our lesson with her,
we went contacting... Toul Sengke is really hard to contact people because literally
everyone is going somewhere, they are always too busy to talk with us, so we
just kind of started walking along the railroad tracks... We didn't have much
success. Currently our contacting is limited to drunk lookpus that hit on us...
it's not super beneficial. It was especially bad on Tuesday because everyone
was still celebrating Chinese New year, so they were all gathered in huge
groups, gambling, and drinking... We try our best.
Wednesday. This is where the title of this
email comes in. Get ready for this. It may be kind of confusing, but bear with
me. So do you guys remember Ming Liang and May Kim?? They were investigators of
mine in Teuk La'ak... Well, they are back in my life. I get to keep teaching
them!!!! They attend the Teuk La'ak ward, but they actually live in Toul
Sengke. So last week the elders in Teuk La'ak called us and told us that Mark
(his real name is Visal, but he can speak English, so he has dubbed himself as
Mark), Ming Liang's son, had requested that the sisters in Toul Sengke go and
visit her at her home. We called the sisters in Teuk La'ak (Sister Fields, my
trainer and her TWO koons) just to ask if that would be okay with them, we
didn't want to step on their toes or anything. They said that that would
actually be way awesome because May Kim has a baptismal date for the March 5th,
but they haven't been able to meet with her very often, so she wasn't going to
be taught all of the lessons in time. So along with visiting Ming Liang, they
requested that we help them teach her. So fun!!! We had some struggles finding
their house, the neak ming is impossible to understand, she just kind of slurs
all of her words together, and we couldn't understand May Kim, so we were
literally so lost, but ended up finding it by a miracle of meeting a former
investigator of Sister Xiong on the road, who speaks English, so he was able to
call May Kim, get directions, translate it to English, and then naenoam (guide)
us to their house. When we got there May Kim was outside jumping up and down
yelling "Sister!! Sister!!" Up to that point she didn't know that it
was me who was coming to teach her, so when she saw that it was me she ran up
gave me the biggest hug and said "Sister! You never said goodbye. I've
missed you so much!" it was the sweetest thing. We taught her a lesson and
she ended up breaking down and telling us that she didn't have any friends at
school because they found out she believed in God...How wrong is that? She's 10
and her friends are discriminating against her... We asked her if she still
wanted to get baptized and she assured us, through tears, that she was still
very excited to get baptized and knew that it's what Heavenly Father wanted her
to do. She said she wanted to get baptized so that one day when she was bigger
she could be a sister just like us. We were able to bear a powerful, yet
simple, testimony that we knew what she was doing was what Heavenly Father
wanted her to do too. We told her how much we loved her and how much her
Heavenly Father loved her too. She can always talk with Him through prayer and
she said, "I know he loves me". She is the sweetest thing ever. Then
later that day we were coming back from a not so successful visit to one of our
less actives, Srey E, and we saw a family of monkeys. There were probably 8 of
them. they were just climbing on this building and on the electrical wires. I
never thought I'd see that here in the city, but it was the coolest thing ever.
We, of course, stopped our bikes in the middle of the street and whipped out
our cameras. How could we miss talking pictures of that??
Thursday we found out that one of our
investigators, Om Yoi finally got her family book, which means that she can get
baptized here in a few weeks!!! We are all SUPER excited!!!!
Friday we had zone training and we were
FINALLY able to watch the worldwide missionary broadcast. It was really really
good. I know that you guys have literally heard about it from 100 other
missionaries, but the title of it was teach repentance, baptize converts. We
are really emphasizing repentance because that is what true conversion comes
from. If our investigators understand repentance before baptism then we are
really baptizing converts, not people who are still investigating the church. Also,
this work is so dependent on the Holy Ghost. A lot of times we think of the
holy ghost as a tool that we can use, when in all reality we are just a tool in
the Holy Ghost's hands. We need to humble ourselves, being exactly obedient,
and be willing to follow the promptings of the spirit to accomplish the Lord's
work. one last thing. "Less actives and part member families are GOLD
MINES!!" Typically here in this mission we think of them as a hindrance or
a burden because there are just so many of them, but the broadcast really
changed my perspective of them and I’m going to take advantage of them and
really try my hardest to help them. Elder Oaks closed it up with a way powerful
talk that was basically just a pep talk to all the missionaries serving. He
really emphasized our purpose and our divine identity. Do you know who you are
and what you've been called to do??
Friday night we got a referral from the elders
to go visit a less active neak ming. They claimed she wanted to meet with us,
but when we went to her house she wouldn't open the door. All of her neighbors
told us that she was home, but she completely ignored us... her son came out
and we asked him if his mom was home, he walked back in yelling
"mom!!" but he never came back out... Apparently she didn't want to
meet with us. That happens more than you'd think. We could literally see her in
the house through the window. We knew she was in there, but she wouldn't open
the door... We aren't stupid. We may not speak your language perfectly, but we
aren't stupid, we just left and tried to get over the fact that she slammed the
door in our face.
Sunday was good. We were able to go to church.
We parked our bikes and this little girl from all the way across the parking
lot yells "Sister!!!!" and just runs towards us. I didn't know the
little girl, like I’ve literally never met her, so I thought she was running to
hug Sister Xiong, but she ended up hugging me. Weird... but she was the
sweetest thing. She ended up sitting with us during sacrament meeting and
playing with me. She was the cutest thing ever... to begin with, but then she
just got way annoying and obnoxious. It just showed me that I am not ready to
be a mom yet... haha We went and met the relief society president, who is
actually inactive haha, but she was asking us how long we had left in our
missions. I told her 11 months and she was so surprised she thought that I was
close to going home because my language was so good. That was exactly what I
needed to hear. I doubt my language abilities, but apparently I am better than I
think. This week I was really able to feel the gift of tongues working through
me. It is the coolest thing ever. This language, as crazy as it is, is slowly
coming and each day I find so much joy in speaking and reading it. Reading the
scriptures in Khmer is the coolest thing ever. I can't wait to blow all our
your minds with my reading abilities. (:
Love you all so much!!!
Love,
Sister Loftus
Double D
Ming Saareye- this is a less active that lives in a park. She is the sweetest and has the biggest heart. I love her!
MONKEYS!!! Sorry if you can't see them, but I promise they are there.
A way sketchy bridge that we crossed. I almost fell in... haha
This is something that's in the center of a round about. I think it looks the the paintings in Indiana Jones. Cool, no?
Sister Loftus and little girl at church
Sister Loftus and May Kim
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