FaceTime and Skype are a blessing to us here

We always try to FaceTime with each of our children and their families at least once a week.  Due to scheduling we do one of those FaceTimes on Monday morning before heading to our office.  We love being able to visit with our family and catching up on what is happening back home.

This morning we also had to two Skype calls, one with Hong Kong and the other with Salt Lake City. Last Friday we received an email from a Self Reliance Services employee that wanted to Skype with us sometime this week to see how the initiative was going here in Cambodia.  We scheduled a half hour call which ended up going fifty minutes instead.  Obviously we had a lot to talk about.  We learned some interesting things from him about how Self Reliance was going in other countries and he said that he learned some new things from us.

Right after the Skype call with Salt Lake we had one with Marco, the Asia Area Perpetual Education Fund Manager in Hong Kong. Last week we had five PEF participants ask for a payoff amount with the new incentives. We prepared the calculations and sent them off to Hong Kong. Initially Hong Kong said only one of the five qualified for the additional incentives, but after looking at them more they approved three of the five.  Now they go on to headquarters and hopefully they will agree with us.  It is such a joy to watch these participants and their desire to pay their obligation. The two that did not qualify for all of the incentives are still receiving more than their original payoff. 

One of the real success stories here of being self reliant is a Cambodian Sister that makes ties.  Elder Oveson has four of them in his collection.  She sells them at the mission home and at a small store at the Russian Market.  She even has her own label. 

Today was a good day and we felt like we were able to make a difference in the Lord's initiative here in Cambodia.