"Called to Serve" and Create Many Friendships

"Called to Serve" is why we are here in Cambodia, but the array of service we have been giving, and the group of wonderful people we serve with has proven to be incredible! Today was the conclusion of a visit from Self-Reliance and PEF leaders from HQ and Asia Area, and there has been so much we have learned during the past few days.

We had a FaceTime visit with Chris this morning, then before we were quite ready to walk out the door we received a call from Trent wondering if we would be willing to pick him up from the hotel as the other three had a Skype conference and he felt like his time would be better spent in our office getting some of his work done.

We had opportunity later this morning to have a meeting with the Cambodia PEF Committee, along with our four visitors. This committee includes President Christensen as the chairman, the Service Center Manager (Sea Samnang), the Financial Officer (Long Saret), the Self Reliance Manager (Yi Phanna), country PEF specialist (Meas Sameth), and the SR-PEF Senior Missionary couple (Elder and Sister Oveson). Since our visitors represent Self-Reliance and PEF in the Asia Area (Chad Furness and Marco Lok), and HQ in Salt Lake (Jared Sasser and Trent Jacobson), this meeting was scheduled in conjunction with their visit.

This PEF Committee meeting is the first to be held since we have been in the country, so it is the first since President Christensen has been here as well. With those here from HQ and Area we were trained as to our responsibilities with this committee as well as making some decisions. This committee is to make decisions regarding some of the PEF concerns in the country.

We said goodbye to Jared, Trent and Chad before our meeting concluded. After the meeting we went to lunch along with Marco, Sameth and Phanna, to the Khmer Surin Restaurant. This gave us one more chance to visit, and we were able to count this meeting as our Staff Meeting which we have missed for a couple of weeks.

Lunch out was followed a few hours later with dinner at Brooklyn with the Sister Training Leaders, Sisters Spangler and Uresk. Transfers are tomorrow and Sister Spangler is being transferred. We have become very close to these two sisters. As we left the church they didn't want the elders to see them, and really didn't want to have to answer where they were going. We had another great visit, and ate too much. We are not sure we will need much to eat tomorrow after eating out so much this week!