Self-Reliance and PEF Team Visits

We love having visitors to Cambodia. Our visitors this week are Trent and Jared from HQ in Salt Lake,  Chad from Taiwan, and Marco from Hong Kong. Everyone converged on our office first thing this morning, then about 9:00 we divided for visits. Chad, Jared and Phanna went to visit Self Reliance participants, while Tent, Marco, Sameth went with us to visit an auto mechanic school and some PEF participants. It was great to see this school and to feel that this is a good option for students. There are several PEF students already enrolled, and we walked through the school with one of them. Trent had a lot of good questions for those who run the school, and we felt they had good answers.

As we left the school we made our way to Steung Mean Chey to meet up with one of the members who took a course to become a motorcycle mechanic and now runs his own shop. We followed him to his shop, which happened to be just down from a missionary apartment we recently visited and inspected. This was another great visit! His 15 year old son helps with the shop. The member also participated in the South Stake Self Reliance group that completed just a few weeks ago.  Trent asked him if the Self Reliance course, Starting and Growing My Business, had helped him with running his little shop. He stated that he is able to feed his family better quality food now than he could before. He learned to keep records and to truly understand how money worked for his business. It was great to see that is is making a difference in Cambodia.

The entire team had plans to meet at Brooklyn Pizza and Bistro for lunch, but Elder Oveson was asked to be to a meeting with Elder Funk of the Asia Area Presidency at 12:30. That meant he dropped the rest to Brooklyn and placed a request for his lunch. Sister Oveson, Trent, Marco and Sameth waited a while for the others, and finally ordered and started eating without them. They finally talked on the phone and placed their orders because they were on their way. Well, Phanna was driving and traffic was CRAZY today, so their food was waiting for about 15 minutes before they finally arrived. Lunch done, Phanna's group headed out for more visits and Sister Oveson hailed a Tuk Tuk for the rest of the group to return to the office.

Did we mention traffic was crazy today? All those people who have been gone to the Kaits for holiday were back in the city and creating quite the traffic issues today. Trent took out his phone to record the grid-lock where everyone pushes forward to take every inch and not allow others to move out of the way. Again, if people would just follow a few simple courteous moments the mess would clear up much quicker. The Tuk Tuk was able to skirt the area much quicker than a car would have done, $2 for four people was great fare!

The afternoon was spent with Elder Oveson participating in another meeting along with Elder Funk and others; Sameth, Marco and Trent reviewing more PEF materials for the country, and Sister Oveson taking care of a few little things in the office.  There will be more team meetings tomorrow!