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!