Planning the Next Holiday: Thanksgiving

Cambodia may not have any holidays on the calendar for next week, but that won't stop us from celebrating Thanksgiving.  The senior couples were each assigned a zone to hosts for a Family Home Evening, we will be with the South Zone. We met with Elder Rom and Elder Ros, the South Zone leaders, this afternoon to plan for the event. Past years there have been bigger celebrations. Last year all the missionaries serving in the Phnom Penh areas converged on Tonle Bassac II Restaurant, but this year such events were ruled out. It is time to take things back to basics instead of trying to create holiday gatherings like back home in the US.

Such activities work better when they are planned with a coordinated effort. We are hosting, but it truly is a zone event. As we met with the zone leaders we suggested some agenda ideas and welcomed their input. The next step will be assignments by the zone leaders to each of the districts, who will in turn develop plans. Each district will be asked to prepare an activity, a skit, or a musical number. There will not be a meal but there will be Thanksgiving desserts.  We will give more details on Thursday as we report how Thanksgiving unfolds.

The air conditioning is still not working in our corner of the office so things have been pretty warm. Our desk are directly under a fan, so we were doing better than Phanna and Sameth. Even with the windows open they were warm enough to melt. Sameth moved to Sister Oveson's desk yesterday when we left early to attend meeting on the internet. Today when the technicians came and went and the air was still not working Sameth said he may need us to leave early again so he could be by the fan. We also joked that our team should just trade offices with the Facilities Management team and enjoy their cold air until it was fixed.

Today's pictures are more random things we see while driving around the city. It is good to see the little moto passengers wearing helmets. The load of green is either feed for the cattle or greens for the market, we are never sure. The way it is bundled it is likely for the market. This is not the first time we have seen a moto being hauled in a Tuk Tuk. The roadside band are a blind group singing for traffic in hopes of contributions. We figure it is a step up from begging. The bottom right photo may be difficult to tell but the cargo is plucked chickens headed to the market.