Water Festival - Down By The River

Most three day holidays are a great excuse for the people in Phnom Penh to head out of town to the Kaits, but the opposite is true about the Water Festivals, those in the Kaits head to Phnom Penh.  Most of the real action is down by the Tonle Sap River.  Even with the boat races canceled that is still where the action is for this holiday.

With Elder Oveson fighting his cold, we have avoided going down by the river, but today after being at the office to take care of a few items we decided to brave it.  We had two options, across the bridge to Diamond Island, or along the river front by the Royal Palace.  The traffic crossing the bridge was really heavy, so we chose the river front instead.  It was amazing to see the different vendors as we inched along with the stop and go traffic.  The various fruits looked delicious, we saw them selling corn several different ways, there were several carts where we wondered what they were selling.  We did decided that the Minions are definitely the most popular balloons, based on what was offered by the vendors.  Our short drive was over an hour and we did not leave the car, but we got the flavor of the festivities and were happy to retreat by another route to our apartment for another round of fireworks from the roof.

We had our weekly Skype call with Hong Kong, emails, working on our Institute lesson, Elder Oveson had a meeting with the Stake Clerk and Assistant Executive Secretary to work on the 2016 calendar, an unscheduled meeting with a PEF participant and several other minor items.  Even with a holiday it is nice to be in the service of our Heavenly Father.   We even FaceTimed with part of our family.

Since it is Thanksgiving in the U.S., we are so thankful for our family, friends and fellow servants of Our Heavenly Father.  This has been a completely different year, but we have learned a completely new gratitude serving here in Cambodia.