Getting To Know Elder & Sister Curtis

Three months ago Elder & Sister Curtis arrived as new MLS (Member & Leader Support) Missionaries. The same day that they arrived they were off to their new area and home in Kampong Cham. Most of the Senior Missionaries are right here in Phnom Penh so it is pretty easy to catch up and get to know them, but with the Curtises being out in the kaits, we have not spent any time with them. This morning Elder Curtis showed up at our office while his wife was getting her hair done, with some question about where to find certain products around town. That gave us the chance to invite them to go out to lunch today. We ended up at one of our favorite places, Mama's New York Deli. The Curtises have lived in Sandy Utah, up by Alta View Hospital, for the last thirty plus years. This is their first, of what they hope to be, five missions as Senior Missionaries. They have five children. It was such a great opportunity to get to know them a lot better today.

Since we could not talk with our children, son-in-laws and grandchildren last Saturday we stayed home for a while this morning to call some we still had not spoken to. We also felt a need for another family council with all of our children and their spouses, to work through some issues. By the time we were through with all of those calls it was almost 10:30 when we finally got to our office. When you add that with spending extra time with the Curtises, we were not in the office a whole lot today.

Elder Oveson did review six PEF applications with Sameth and they were passed on to the second level review. Then he went in and did the second level review and sent them on to Headquarters. We had our weekly Self-Reliance Service Staff Meeting this afternoon. Then we started working on our Institute lesson for this week. With Institute for this short course on studying the scriptures we are having to dig for material on LDS.org to help with the lesson preparation. We are having to dig more for these lessons than we have ever in the past. That just means we are benefiting from our efforts and we trust the class will also learn something from the lessons. Even when we only have a little bit of time at the office it feels like we are making a difference and that is our greatest desire.