The Week I Became The Strongest Woman In Cambodia!

Hi friends and family!
I have very little time to email this week because we went to the zoo which is two hours away and just got back. For anyone coming to Cambodia anytime soon, it's not worth it. It's five dollars for foreigners and 2000 riel for Khmers. I have finally tanned enough to pass as half Khmer!! There were very many monkeys and they stole Sister Soem's lunch straight from our tuk tuk. 

Not much time, will bullet point this week

1 Sophia got baptized!!! SHES SO CUTE

2 We got three new investigators who all came to church on Sunday!

3 One of the investigators is named Thanh her family is Vietnamese and go to the Vietnamese branch but she doesn't speak a lick of Viet so she is learning with us

4 I caught a falling baby that was about to hit his head on the floorboard 

5 We got to do physical service twice this week. We had to lift a lot of heavy things. I actually felt useful. Thank you mom for birthing me with natural muscles because i have definitely never worked out in my life 

6 Some of the members are very upset at Sister Soem and I and it was a damper on our week. Very long story and very irritating. Trying our best to love the people, nonetheless!!! 

7 We saw a white man dressed as a monk this week who said, "oh! how are the sisters doing??"

8 We finally got Sister Soem to shave her legs for the first time in her life. She let me shave her entire leg for her. hahah she never even lets me hug her 

9 Learned missionary work is definitely NOT easy. Members depend on us for a lot of things and we are trying our best to try to get them to take up some of the responsibility too.

10 I LOVE YOU ALL 

11 CHURCH IS TRUE 

LOVE,

Sister Nguyen 

The Sun Got Hotter and The People Got Colder‏!

No one was home this week because everyone went back to Srok to celebrate Khmer new year with their families. It was super quite in the city. I couldn't believe it! And there were no cars on the once hectic roads. So for four days, we were sure to keep ourselves busy. On Tuesday, we spent the entire day doing a mission-wide apartment cleaning and then afterwards. On Wednesday, we had weekly planning in the morning and then went to English class in the evening. If anyone is interested, our beginners class of about 40 students had a whooping 5 students come. On Thursday, we went to lunch with all the missionaries in the city and President and Sister Christensen. The place was incredibly nice. On Friday, we had Zone Conference, South and East combined and it was very spiritually enlightening. President talked about how the two most important things we must teach are about the BOM and about the Holy Temple. I'm so grateful for both and know they are tremendous blessings in the lives of saints. Sister Soem and I are still trying to find new investigators but no one has showed interest in learning. Hopefully, when everyone comes back this week we will be able to have a more interesting and exciting week! WAIT I FOUND OUT WE GET TO STAY TWO EXTRA WEEKS!!!! WHAT A BLESSING. Anyway, I love this work! I am grateful for the Atonement of Christ and that we never have to go through anything alone because of Him. I love you all too!! 

Picture 1 The Day Sister Soem and I shared a bike. It was very very hot. 

 Picture 2 This is Sister Sok. She has been a real blessing to me these past two transfers. She is serving in Comkarmon but we are in the same house. 

 Picture 3 Khmer sunset #skypic #basic 

The week of Conference!

Good Morning!!! 

No one was really home this week. And so it begins. Khmer New Year. We spent a lot of our time calling to and biking to the homes of investigators, less-actives, recent converts,and even members. Unfortunately, most everyone has made their way back to their hometowns for New Year. And so Phnom Penh is a lot more quiet. Less traffic which is good ;)

On Wednesday, in the morning, we took one of our members to the mission home so she could talk to President about some of the problems she was having. She was a little nervous at first. President said he would talk to her one on on, because she knew a fair amount of English, and if he needed help, he would call us in.So we waited outside the door for a little while. On the bright side, it was transfer day, so I got to see Sister Brown and some of the Elders from my group! They all sound like they're doing super well. I was way pumped to see them.

On Thursday and Friday, Sister Sok got her teeth pulled and requested for me to stay inside with her while her companion and my companion went out to proselyte. Sister Sok is sick a lot,so Sister Clark doesn't get to proselyte as much. So Sister Sok just wanted to give her companion that opportunity. We got the OK from Zone leaders so I just stayed inside and did paperwork and studied for a long time. On Friday,we also had zone training and learned a lot about going out and contacting and looking for as many people to teach as possible. 

And then on Saturday, Sister Soem and I were getting ready in the morning to go watch General Conference with our ward. We thought we were all going to watch it in Khmer together. But when we got there, we saw all the missionaries from South and East zone. Turns out we were watching it in English together and then the natives and members were watching it in Khmer! What a blessing. Other than that,not much happened this week. And this week will be even more quiet. Will update you all.

Conference was awesome and I definitely felt love from the Prophet and Apostles. I lvoe you all and hope you have a fun and safe week! 

Love,

Sister Nguyen 

The Week Maninoot Got Dunked!

Guys. I'm really sorry I didn't get to write last week. But this week was really good so I'll try to make up for it! 

But first! Transfer calls came last night! And I am staying in Toul Tom Pong with Sister Soem for one more transfer!! :) I'm super pumped and I know this transfer will be really good.

It is now April and Cambodia is getting blazing hot. They call this their hot month and when everyone tells me that they have this look of fear on their face. We leave the house at 9 AM sometimes and it's already really hot. We are always soaked from biking in the heat. In a few months, we will be soaked from the rainy season. I have accepted that I will never be dry ever again for the next year. By the way! I hit my six month mark! It wasn't as significant as it sounds and didn't really feel any different. Plus counting down makes me really nervous because I can't imagine not being Sister Nguyen.

On Tuesday, we went to visit Bong Mao. She is the wife of the Elders Quorum President. She's less-active so she only comes twice a month. Anyway, we went to her house and she was home with all of her kids. Salina the second to oldest always hides her face from us. She's only like 5 years old. She's so shy and last time we went, she laid face down for the entire hour that we were there. We could tell she was really hot and quite frankly were scared she was going to suffocate but she still wouldn't come up. Good news! This time she tried to do it again but we went over and talked to her a little and now when she sees us, she doesn't hide her face anymore! So, Bong Mao's oldest was sick and she wanted the Elders to come over and bless him. It was weird because her husband is a worthy priesthood holder too, but that's not my business. She started talking about how her son goes to bed at 9 every night and every night at the same time, we come running to her freakishly afraid of something that he saw. It's been happening for a while and then we got started on the topic of ghosts. This is NOT a good idea because Khmers will talk about it for hours and it really does take away from the Spirit. We told her she could pray and ask Heavenly Father to protect her house and her family and only invite good spirits in. The next time we saw her, on Saturday, she said since we came to visit her, her son hadn't seen anything crazy anymore! 

On Wednesday, we went to see Yiay Rut, who is one of my favorite people ever. She's this super old grandma who lives alone. Her family all died in the Khmer Rouge and when she tells stories about it, it's incredibly heartbreaking. She has so much faith and hope, even after something as terrible as that happened to her. What an example she is. So,we visited her and she started telling us about how her eyes are beginning to not work anymore. Everything is super blurry unless it's up close and tears are always falling out of her eyes. We told her the Elders could come and give her a blessing in about 15 minutes and as soon as she heard that, the biggest two tooth smile came upon her face. She was so happy! It was a really tender moment.She is seriously the sweetest person ever. 

On Thursday and Friday, we went on an exchange to Stung Men Chey with Sister Sheffield and Sister Gallahad. We planned to meet at 2:30 at the Olympic Stadium, a place none of us had been to. We ended up riding around in circles and then Sister Soem got super dehydrated and had to rest for a second. We ended up not meeting until 4. Hahaha it was the worst. But I got to go proselyte with Sister Sheffield for two hours on Thursday and then 1 hour of service and 2 hours of proselyte with Sister Gallahad (a new missionary) for two hours. It was super nice! The members in that area are super kind. Also, Trash Mountain is part of their area! Google it if you can. It's disgusting. Sister Leng calls it Trash World. People actually live right next to it and stuff. 

On Saturday, we had a "ward fire side" and only a few people showed up. It was still a really good fireside and we talked a lot about loving the people around us. They even showed the video "Lift" from lds.org about the lady who has multiple sclerosis and how the people in her neighborhood come every night to help her get into bed. It was really moving and our RC Bong Sovann (the one in the wheelchair) cried when she watched. The ward has started a schedule for people to take her to and from church so we don't have to walk her every week now. A real act of charity. In other news, Maninoot was baptized! She's still way good an even invited her brothers to come and they are interested in learning! 

I wish I could write more., but I running out of time now. I love you all and thank you for your support.I know God lives and loves us! Until next week!!! byeee

Love,

Sister Nguyen 

 Picture 1 Maninoot got baptized!!!!!!!

Picture 2 Our investigator Sophia made food for us 

The Week My Companion Didn't Recognize Me‏ - -This Blog post was delayed due to technical issues! Apologies!

March 20, 2016
Suisdaay!!! 

Toul Tom Pung is still awesome!

 This week, Sister Soem and I had to go to SOS International Clinic every morning because Sister Soem has had a cough for more than three months and they are testing her for some things. We are waiting to hear back from the doctor. Hopefully,they find out what's up so she can be cured. I can tell it really frustrates her sometimes.

This week in District Meeting, we talked about how we could be more sincere in our daily prayers and how we could simplify our prayers with our investigators. So many times when we are teaching,our investigators are too scared to pray or they always say, "You pray. I like it better when you pray". And we talked about trying to help them get over that hump and see the importance of their own prayers. It was suggested that we make our prayers simple so they won't be so intimidated and think they have to say this HUGE extravagant prayer. Just simple. Like a real conversation between two people. Because essentially, that is what prayer is! A conversation between us and the Lord. 

We met with our investigator Maninoot and she is staying! She is going to get baptized in a few more weeks right after we finish up the lessons with her. It's getting harder to meet because she's so busy with modeling and learning. But she is still doing so well and wants to serve a mission as well! SHE'S SO GOOD. AHH.

Our other two progressing investigators are SreyKaa and Oon Sophia. They are both about 8-9 and getting ready to be baptized. Their families are members. Actually Srey Kaa's mom is a RM. She served in Cambodia about 10 years ago. Oon Sophia's family however is less-active and only comes every other week.It's so hard because Sophia has a real desire to come to church and she remembers so much of what we teach her. Srey Kaa is really quiet and never really talks when we teach her but yesterday, she opened up a lot. Sister Soem told me that something I can do while we're teaching is say a little prayer in my heart so I can know what to say, pray for my companion to teach by the Spirit, or pray for the investigator. And yesterday, I said a little prayer in my heart for Srey Kaa to be more comfortable with us and to realize that we only wanted to help her. It wasn't that a huge miracle happened, but for the first time ever, she said the closing prayer!! After the lesson, we talked for a little bit and now we're best buds. 

Sister Soem and I were still at little lost this week. Not area wise but just thinking of who to meet with. Luckily,the Elders were super in-tune with the Spirit or something and called us up after all of our appointments fell through and said they wanted to show us some members and less-actives we could meet. So for about 2 hours, we rode around and met a lot more members and stuff. It was way helpful and will hopefully help us this week! 

Here's something funny that happened. Sister Soem and I were looking at a printed out schedule for which companionships will contact for english class at what time and what day. Sister Soem saw her name and then saw the romanized, "Sister Nguyen" next to her name and was like,"Who is that!?" She was sincerely concerned, but I told her that was how you spell my name and she thought it was the weirdest thing ever hahaha 

That's all I've got for this week! I love you all so much and hope you are enjoying the Spring weather that is coming your way! I just want to invite you all to do what I was invited to do this week to. Pray. Sincerely. Just talk to God. If we do so, I promise He will hear you and WILL answer you.

I LOVE YOU BIG BIG

Love,

Sister Nguyen

 Picture 1 Tarantula 

Picture 2 I totally forgot to send a picture of my companion! This is Sister Soem. She is about 4 times smaller than me. Her ankle is the size of my wrist. Lol.