Another District Meeting, Helping President Moon & Flat Cambodia

Elders Eppley, Elder Brewer, Sister Fife and Sister Nam.

We have settled into more of a routine. Get up at 6:00, be to the office by about 8:00, check emails and take care of correspondence, and Tuesday at 10:00 is District Meeting. With transfers last week, there were lots of district changes. Our district had changes as well. Our district includes Elder Gardner, the District Leader; his companion, Elder Hall; the Assistants to the President, Elder Brewer and Elder Eppley; Elder Bostrom, and his new companion Elder Olson (who we met at the MTC); Sister Fife and Sister Nam (pronounced Num), also new in the district. We have worked with all of these wonderful missionaries before.   The focus of teachings this morning was The Plan of Salvation, particularly Agency, and how to teach people not lessons. Elder Gardner did very well, and the discussions were very productive.  As they broke into groups we stepped back and watched to keep the groups even. That gave us a chance to truly watch them in action.

Elder Gardner, Elder Hall, Elder Olsen, and Elder Bostrom.

You know that Stakes have a Stake President, that report to Area Seventies as their Priesthood line leader. But the Districts have the Mission President as their Priesthood line leader to report to. That means the mission president is not only responsible for the missionary work in these units, but all welfare issues (among other things) fall back on his shoulders. First thing this morning President Moon contacted us for help with a welfare issue for a member in one of the districts, which included PEF.  Many emails went between us and President Moon regarding this problem. We had been working on the PEF questions and were concerned with some issues there as well. It was good to have his input, and we are hoping that by working as a team on this we will be able to resolve the issues.

As we are living the Cambodian experience, we have a few observations. Let's just say we miss the mountains. Cambodia is really quite flat. That is probably one reason we see motos loaded so full. I think they figure if they can still move it they are not too full.  Even when we took our trip to the Northern provinces there was very little elevation change. Around the city the only rise in the road is the "fly-over" bridges, most of which just fly over another road instead of over a river.