Feb 25th 2014

     Last week's bishop's meeting was a little more frustrating than usual. We couldn't figure out why particularly, since it's like this every week, but maybe it's because we have progressing less-actives and investigators and no Cambodian authority to report them to. We report the bishop of the ward we live in, but few of the people we work with are in his boundaries, so we're really just taking up his time talking about people he can't do anything about. It's so frustrating not having a ward.      But we talked to President after Zone Conference this past Thursday and he said he'll talk to the Stake President about getting a group together since we have at least 3 Cambodian speaking less-actives coming to church which is enough to start up a group. And we've had some less-actives express a desire to come to church but they don't feel like they belong, so they'd be willing to reactivate if there was a Cambodian branch - it's just getting it started.

One of our hopes of getting the Cambodians in this area excited about reactivation is to get them to Say's baptism this Saturday. It's about a 25 minute drive, but we're going to reach out to a few stronger members and have them take part in the program. That way, not only will they feel the Spirit and have a stronger desire to come to church, but Say will see that there are other Cambodians around who share the same faith. He's so amazing! He's the only other Cambodian in his ward other than Sawine who's a married mother of three kids and has only been a member for one year. We've held Say's lessons at her house at her request so she can also learn from the lessons we teach him. She's also a great support with the language and adds her part to the lessons which is awesome, and during church Say has someone to turn to for questions we don't understand.

Zone Conference was this week which was really uplifting (I played the piano for the whole meeting!! :D) and one of my favorite times of the transfer. But this week I had one of the best experiences I've had on my mission. We had a member referral to a less active who's actually related to two other families we've been visiting (and her boyfriend is related to the other side of the same family) who'd told the member she wanted to go back to church but didn't want her family to know.

After our first visit she invited us back so she could feed us our first authentic Cambodian dinner. It consisted of chicken, rice, a fish oil dip with shallots and mango slices, and a soup with some more fish oil, vegetables, and a foreign vegetable that was kind of like a white cucumber, but different.     It was all really good and this family is younger so we were able to relate to them really well.       I didn't realize this until later, but this was our first Cambodian member meal, and I loved it. I didn't feel like a missionary eating at a surrogate member's house, I was eating at the house of the people I was called to serve.
      And don't get me wrong, I love eating with the ward members and getting to know them, but unless they know any Cambodian referrals, they work with the English missionaries. So for the first time, I belonged. This was how it is supposed to be; us working and eating with the Cambodians here in Tacoma, and I loved it!

The work is progressing!

-Sister Dunster