Sunday Surprises

Our children have often given us a bad time about getting to church to early, still we try to follow the counsel of the leaders to arrive early. Sometimes arriving early has it unexpected and not necessarily desired consequences. Since it is hard to ever guess how bad the traffic going out to Steung Mean Chey will be we always put in a few extra minutes. As we got to the chapel this morning the bishop asked if we would be speakers in Sacrament Meeting today. One of the Elders explained that they thought today was the first Sunday of the month so they did not assign speakers for today. With the help of Elder Lamborn and Sister Y we gave our quickly prepared talks based on this last General Conference and the Liahona, It felt like the members listened and felt the spirit.

As we left the Chapel after Sacrament Meeting we had a family stop us to ask when worship services were and what denomination we were. Since we know little Khmer, we quickly grabbed the missionaries. They were a Christian family that was looking for a place to go to church. It is so interesting to see non-members just show up at church.

Today was Ward Conference for the Chaktomuk Ward, so we knew that we were safe from speaking in Sacrament Meeting there. Elder Oveson did get called on to say the closing prayer in the joint Priesthood/Relief Society Meeting. He did what he could in Khmer, but did have to do part in English, still they were grateful and delighted for the effort.

When Marla and Brenda arrived on June 25th we had more than six months left on our mission. That was four months ago, yes, we are still eating the goodies they brought us, plus the additional that came in the package three weeks ago. We have already been called short-timers by several other couples, and if our calculations are right we have ten Sundays left on our mission. We will try and make the most of those ten, in every way that we can.

Sundays do provide some interesting pictures for our collage of the day. The new addition of the Steung Mean Chey building, from last night's rainstorm an umbrella on a moto, a washing machine on a moto (look close, there is something between the driver and the handlebars), a load of new recruits for the army, and a little girl riding backward to hold a big pan (probably on the way to the market).