Merry Christmas 2021, Cambodia style? wait for it ...

A month ago in November, restriction in Cambodia eased, the government announced lower quarantine time to 3 days and then shortly after that, no more quarantine required for those who have been vaccinated coming from other country.  It was a big relief because along with doing away with quarantine, the limit of number of people who can gather indoor want from 50 to 200.  Our mission President asked if the couple missionaries can help with putting on a American Christmas dinner for all the mission (over 100 of them) if he got permission from Area Office in Hong Kong.  This would be the first time in over a year that the missionaries are allowed to meet together as a mission.  We, couple and senior missionaries, whole heartedly support our mission president!  We got news a week later that we will be bringing all the missionaries from out in the Province to come into Phnom Penh for Christmas.  There were excitement in the air as we anticipated gathering together to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ!

So what is the American Christmas President Neang wanted?  He had spent time in the US when he was going to school and invited to spent Thanksgiving & Christmas at friends home.  A typical Thanksgiving and/or Christmas dinner would have Turkey, ham, variety of  side dishes and desserts.  President really missed the Turkey and wanted his favorite dessert:  Apple Pie.  Well we look into the price for Turkey, it would cost over US$40 for a 10 pound turkey which will feed about 8 active missionaries; which means we will need about 15 Turkey to feed the 120 or more missionaries and mission presidency.  If we were to have it cater, we don't know if we could Khmer people to cook the Turkey right, plus we do not have the kitchen space to do all these cooking ourselves, so we decided to serve ham instead.  Since the ham is already cooked, it is a lot easier to just warm up the ham with slow cookers.  For the apple pie, none of the senior missionary had made pie that much before, we we elected to serve apple crumbles top with vanilla ice-cream instead.  Sister Sellers (Marian) and I spent the Wednesday before Christmas making 12 trays of apple crumbles, baking them and kept them in the refrigerator until Christmas day, Saturday.  For the rest of the menu, we served baked potatoes with sour cream, butter and cheese as toppings, buttered corn and dinner rolls.  The other two couples (Dandoys and Andersons) came in town the day before just in time to help wrapped 200 potatoes in foils and decorate the gym for the festive event on Saturday.  We each donated items such as candles, oreo cookies, truffle candies, scrubbing pad, orange (Christmas orange story included), and cell phone screen protectors (from the mission) to put into stockings for the missionaries to take home.  

The day before Christmas, all the missionaries traveled into Phnom Penh from the province, all got in before 5 pm, we then divided the missionaries into 3 groups to do caroling.  One group went to a local mall (Aeon Mall), one group went to the orphanage and the last group went to local members for caroling.  These events almost did not happened!  

Sister Dandoy (Kimie) is Japanese and she was able to make contact with Aeon Mall (a Japanese company) and I went and met with the store manager.  I tried to present to him how caroling in the mall would look like, asking permission for 1-2 groups of 10-15 missionaries singing Christmas song in the mall, but he could not grasp what I was talking about, He was very excited to tell me they welcomed us to do the caroling activity in their activity room. This room has a balcony that over see the food court and away from foot traffic.  After visiting with him for almost an hour, he agreed to let no more than 10 missionaries to sing in a staircase for no more than 20 mins.  While waiting for them to send us agreements to sign, I kept talking to the office to see if they would allow us sending missionaries to walk the mall to invite other to come to the third floor to listen to caroling, the response was that they do not allow this type of "activity"!  I was discouraged, nevertheless, we sent a group of 50 missionaries, hoping by signing from the balcony, the group can trade off in signing and that they will be loud enough for people hear.  What happened Christmas eve for this group of carolers were truly a miracles.  The Sellers and the Dandoys  accompanied the group, the manager and security guard of the mall were there, as they see the group, they quickly realize that singing from the balcony would not work for caroling because no one would be able to hear them, the staircase where we were told only allowed 10 missionaries quickly changed to allow the full group of missionary to sing.  It was a wonderful sight to see them performing drawing a small group of people to listen and enjoy the spirit of Christmas.  The missionaries sang for about 30 mins, then were treated by the Sellers for ice-cream cones.  This is a tender mercy from our Savior, happened the night before Christmas in this distance land of Sen Sok, Cambodia!  Miracles thus happened! We were able to carol as we had intended all along.  I hope that next year, we will be allowed to go back and do it again and that the management of Aeon Mall will remember what true caroling means!

Caroling in members home

Singing at Aeon Mall, a group of 50, a miracle!

We brought gifts with us to give out to the orphans

Ted and I went with a group of 20 missionaries to the orphanage, these children has no family and ages range from 5 years old to 17 years old.  The orphanage is funded by a previous mission president and his wife, the Moons.  Realizing the poor condition in Cambodia, after their time here in Cambodia, they raised fund in the States and opened a orphanage that could take up to 20 children.  They hired a young couple (with their own 1 year son) to run the orphanage.  This couple did a wonderful job years after years.  We decided to donate something for each one of the children in the orphanage, with the help of office staffs, they went shopping and bought backpack, books, color pencils, watches and toys to put into the backpack.  It was wonderful to see the smiles on their faces.  We went to carol but the children put on a Christmas program and treat us to dinner instead.  We had a wonderful evening.  We tour the rooms where the children slept and noticed their mattresses were in very poor condition.  We were going to donate mattresses to them but the Sellers has enough fund left over from their daughter fund raising Christmas project in the US that they were able to purchase 20 good mattresses, basins and other items that the orphanage greatly needed.  We are so thankful we can be here to witness the joy we can bring when we truly serve others!

Christmas day, the missionaries has a morning training, received their flu shots and enjoyed a wonderful Christmas dinner, and talent shows performed by missionaries as entertainment.  We ended the evening with white elephant give exchange.  There were fun and laughter and for a moment Covid disappeared and life is almost back to normal!

This Christmas reminded us again of the wonderful gift that had given us, the gift of eternal life, forgiveness and hope.  Most of all, miracle still exit today and God's love for us is perfect!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Simple decoration with paper wreath and snow flakes

It was fun to be all together

Stocking as part of decoration, donated by couple missionaries

Our first Baptism

 Gavin comes from Chinese and lives in our building, in fact, next to the Sellers on the 4th floor.  Before Covid, his wife and daughter also lived here.  Sister Karen Jensen had brought them cookies and befriended them.  Just before Covid, Gavin's wife and daughter went home to FuShan, then Covid hit and Gavin has been stuck here.  His son was born during Covid and he has not been able to make it back, not even seen his son except on WeChat!

When Sister Jensen was getting ready to leave in November, she gave Gaven and "Man search for happiness" video and introduced Ted to him..  Gavin watched with video and told us he really would like to know more.  The only problem, he said, was that he work  6 days a week till 6 pm and only has Sunday off.  We told him there is no problem at all, we had him over for dinner a few time and started teaching him the gospel with Elder and Sister Dan Sellers.  

He is like a plain piece of paper.  He said in China, you are only taught that the Government is God and there is no God!  He soaked in all the lesson, read the Book of Mormon, we explained the Tree of Life with him.  He has no issues with any of the commandment and gladly accepted them, evening fasting with us on the very first Sunday he attended Church.

He was baptized on December 26, 2021, the last baptism of the year!

Later we were able to watch with him "Meet the Mormon".  He was very impressed at the Church he joined and hope that one day, his wife will also have the desire and the opportunity to join!

Congratulation, Gavin and thank you for accepting Jesus Christ at your Savior!

Miracles, Miracles ...

How rare is it for us, Senior Missionaries, to teach and help baptized someone?  How rare is it for us to be also teaching in Chinese, not Mandarin, but Cantonese?  

When we first arrived here, President Neang asked if we could help out in the Chinese congregation, we have a missionary in the office, Elder Ethan Arkell who speak some Chinese (Mandarin), Elder Arkell studied Chinese in high school, he is able to carry a conversation in Chinese, Since he is also assigned to the International branch, he has been helping to teach Chinese (beside Khmer).  We told President that we would so we have been going to a Chinese discussion group every Sunday.  The common dialect is Mandarin although some do speak Cantonese.  One of the sister, Vivian, told us at our first meeting that she had prayed for many years for a Chinese couple to come to Cambodia.  She was so happy that we are finally here!!!  I am grateful that I am able to communicate with them.  I am reminded of how God can use us in his service.  It was not by choice that I learned Mandarin; our family were so poor and my parents were going to put me to work instead; I wanted to go to school and was lucky to find this secondary school that my parents could afford.  This school is from Taiwan and I had to study Mandarin; if I had known that Mandarin would allow me to communicate with people today, I would have paid more attention and be more diligent; a lesson I learned from this is that regardless your circumstance, by happy and do your very best; God is always able to use our talent to do his work!

This group of members joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1-3 years ago.  Because of Covid, they have not been to church for almost 2 years.  They took discussions from missionaries in London (American missionaries who spoke Chinese and was serving in London), These member accepted baptism but as far as gospel knowledge, they are still new.  I remembered reading with them in the scripture about the light of Christ and the scriptures (Doctrine & Covenants 6:21):  "Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God. ... I am the light which shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not:" They couldn't understand what it meant and as we discussed this, you can see the understanding that they were taught by the Spirit, their eyes lite up and they exclaimed now I know!!!  It has both been challenging to correct misunderstood gospel principles and practices but I am constantly reminded of God's love for these my brothers and sisters in this foreign land, How patient God is with our individual weakness and how much he is willing to forgive and invite us to come and follow Him!  

During the last 2 months, we have met and taught multiple Chinese people, some of them knows what we are teaching are truth but are set in their own ways, some are very willing to accept:

1. Michael Tian:  He is a missionary referral, Elder Clarkson met this man in the Aeon Mall, he said he is willing to learn from missionary so we inherited him, During our second lesson with him, he told us about his life in China and Cambodia.  He went to USA to start a new life but was stranded in Cambodia during Covid.  He was "kidnapped" by some Chinese gang for about a year and finally was able to get out, he had just enough money to buy a ticket to the US.  While we were talking to him, a feeling came across as never before; I looked at this man I hardly know, can only understand enough of what he said (he spoke with an accent), but as I talked with him, I feel this love for him, a very pure love that I know could only come from God, I told him that God loves him and whatever he experienced so far will help him come closer to God and that as a son of God, he can make choices that can help him with the rest of his life!  We ultimately was able to help him with a ticket from LAX to Seattle, he is now staying with my sister, Flo.  We pray for God's direction to him so he knows what path to take for his future!

Our second meeting with Michael at the East Chapel building

2.  Gavon Gok:  When Elder and Sister Randall Jensen left in November, he introduced us to his young man from China who lived in our building.  Sister Jensen had brought over cookies to his family before Covid. Since then, Gavon's wife had returned to China and they had been separated (not by choice) because of Covid.  He has two children; a four years old girl and a one year boy whom was born a year ago and he had only met over video chat.  As we taught him about eternal family, he readily accepted the gospel.  He is set to be baptized next Sunday!  We hope one day, we will get to meet Gavon's wife and that she will be willing to accept the gospel too!

First Sunday to Church with E/S Sellers & us, He learned about Fast Sunday and Fast with us, he thought part of keeping the Sabbath was fasting, he fasted two Sundays in a row!!  He even bought a white shirt and tie for Church!  He told us the last time he looked so sharp was one his wedding day!

We are finally settling into a routine of missionary life (again).  This mission seems a little harder for us (me); I do not understand why... I am willing to serve and am okay to be away from family whom I dearly missed!  Whatever it is, we know we are supposed to be where we are, there are so many miracles happened so far.  I know God is in charge and we are grateful for this opportunity to serve Him.  

This Christmas season, may we remember always what the true meaning of Christmas!  A gift given to us 2000 years ago in Bethlehem, a sacrifice made by a sinless Son, God's love to all of us;  It is FREE!! all we need is to choose to accept and use this gift in our lives.  Merry Christmas!