Last Monday we were invited to join the Young Women play soccer (side note: I've never played so many sports in my life as I have on my mission, but I'm getting the hang of it) and gathered in a circle afterwards to hear from: the missionaries. We weren't given a heads-up, so the other sisters went first and Sister Walker and I just spoke briefly about why we came out on a mission and what we've learned from it so far. It was a really fun experience being able to address the youth and something I hope to do again as that was something I would have loved if I'd had sister missionaries in my ward growing up.
The following Sunday the father of one of the girls at soccer pulled us aside and said his daughter asked him if it was too early to start preparing for a mission. He said it was the first time she'd ever mentioned it, and he just wanted to thank us for being a good example and encouraged that we continue working more with the youth. They have the English sisters for that, but we'll see if we can pop in every so often as well.
The other day after we taught a yiay (the word for grandma), Sister Loy began fishing around her bag for a nickel while yiay took off her shirt. We asked Sister Loy what was going on and she said she was going to coin her. So there's this thing in Cambodia, where if you take a coin and scratch lines into the persons back - not so that it bleeds, but until it turns very red - it releases "bad air" and makes the person feel better. We'd heard of it before and had heard stories of it from our fellow missionaries in the mother country, but had never seen it done ourselves. At first we had Sister Loy do it, but seeing it would take awhile, we pitched in to help. It looks painful, and it lasts several days, but apparently it does hurt and afterwards yiay said she felt a lot better. It's a mystery!
Sunday we had our part-member family come to church, as well as the active Cambodian father and his son from another ward who speak Cambodian. It made Sister Loy and I very self-conscious as we translated/taught a bit of related doctrine to keep the flow because the topic was on pioneers, and everything they went through from crossing frozen rivers to the speaker's friend who had surgery on her eye. Neither Sis. Loy nor I knew any vocabulary for that. But it worked out well, and we had four people at our Sunday school class (excluding us) so it was exciting to have a bigger than tiny group. It's never the same week to week, but we're making progress!
It's crazy how time flies and every day presents its own challenges, but it's rewarding to see a little change in people or to see a little more growth from our efforts. It's all the Lord's work and we're only here to bring the Spirit into the people's lives and guide them back to their Savior, but it's a precious work I have the privilege to be a part of, and I love it.
Sister Dunster
cleaning moss off a member's roof. It's a lot harder than it looks.
1. Some service projects we did last week. This is raking up a woman's back yard of old grass, and cutting the new. Before when the bin was full ... and after when we made more space. (below)
Helping scrape/paint primer on a nonmember's home. We had fun. :)
Eating a chili pepper together.... bad idea.
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