One Hundred Days on Our Mission, More Phone Calls and Mangos

Elder Oveson is always doing numbers in his head and it is usually unique and does not match what most normal people would think about.  We mentioned in an earlier blog post that seventy days equaled one tenth of our mission.  Well, we have now surpassed the one hundred day mark of our mission, which is one seventh.  If you look at our mission as a week, we have now completed our first day.  In some ways that first day was very long, especially the flight from the U.S. to Cambodia, and some days have flown by, the busy and very productive days.  We are no longer the newest Senior Couple, and we can find our way around town most of the time.  We feel like we are making a difference with the Self Reliance Services\Perpetual Education Fund.  We even get to interact and work with the young missionaries.  Life is good.

Because of the economic conditions in Cambodia, most people do not have the internet at home.  We see many of the YSA hanging around the Stake Centers, we believe it is to use the Wi-Fi. At least with the Church Wi-Fi they cannot get into the bad stuff on the internet.  It is also interesting, even with the youth, most do not have email addresses and if they do they never check them.  The only real effective way to get a hold of the Perpetual Education Fund participants is by calling them.  Since there are only three days left this month we are trying to call some of the participants and see how they are doing and encourage them to continue to make their payments.  Today we worked on contacting those on our list.

This is a wonderful time of the year to be in Cambodia, it is Mango season.  Even on many of the main roads you can watch Mangoes being harvested from the trees.  They use a long, ten to twenty foot bamboo pole with a wicker basket on the end, that they reach up and pluck the Mango out of the tree.  We have had some very good and some not very good Mangoes.  We have learned some important lessons, the Cambodians know which are the best type to buy, so let them get them for you.  This time of year the people love to give the missionaries, young and old, Mangoes.  We have seen the young missionaries walking out of the buildings on Sunday with bags of seven or more Mangoes. Sameth and Phanna have been making sure that we get the very best.  Last Sunday Bishop Kong showed us some Mangoes that he had which were as big as a melon, there is a picture of one in the collage picture today.  We will miss when Mangoes are no longer in season.