In Which We Become a Tri

At our last district meeting before transfer.

Hello, 

So it's been a CRAZY week. We got maybe a total of six hours of proselyting in. Craziest transfer of my life, and I didn't even transfer! And now we're headed back on a bus to the city for MLC. So good times. It's been super fun so far though. It's going to be a big job serving in two branches, but it's been a lot of fun so far being in a tri-panionship! 

So I'll start with the crazy things. First, on Tuesday afternoon we got a call and learned we would be moving houses for sure and that the move needed to go down before Thursday at 2:00 when we would be hopping on a bus headed to PP. Luckily we have an awesome zone and everyone pitched in. The other sisters came over Wednesday night to help us pack up things, and the missionary couple and the Elders helped us all Thursday (in addition to a moving crew of two members we hired and a giant truck!). It took five loads! Missionaries and senior couples have lived in that house for I think around ten years. It's three stories with lots of rooms so you can imagine how much just random stuff has gotten accumulated over the years. Guess where all that stuff ended up? In our new house! Our front room is piled literally floor to ceiling with things. If there's one of something, chances are there are three more of it in the pile. A couch, and oven three fridges, four desks, ten million bookshelves. It feels a lot like the Room of Requirement where Harry hid the Half Blood Prince book.  Last night I ate dinner on top of a closet. For now it's only temporary. We are going to spread out the stuff between the elders' houses and hopefully find a way to sell it or give it away. But for now making sense of things has been a bit of an adventure. 

We didn't really have time to organize. We mostly just threw stuff inside the house and grabbed bags to head to the bus. So when we got back to Battambang at 9:45 at night we had to navigate Sister E's bags through our narrow passageway and up the three flights of stairs of our new house. Pretty much it feels like I've done more packing and moving and transporting then I've ever done before, and I didn't even change areas! Saturday morning we settled in (set up beds, moved desks, closets, etc) and got moved in. Then Saturday afternoon we did the weekly planning we didn't have time to do on Thursday morning. We only left at 5:00 to go to a baptism. Then we attended both of our branches on Sunday and had time for only one lesson. And now we're headed back down to the city. So we're pretty much not going to proselyte ever, but that's okay. Hopefully on Wednesday we'll get into a groove. 

Serving two branches is proving interesting so far. Weekly planning was a bit stressful. We were both quite busy before we combined. So now we have just as much to do, but have less time to do it in. It's hard because these past two transfers I've seen a lot of growth and exciting work coming along in branch one. And setting out our schedule I realized how it's going to be difficult to keep meeting with people as frequently and help investigators to progress at the same rate. We really have not figured it out yet, especially because we've had such little time to do anything. Yesterday we fasted for inspiration about what we can do to continue to help both branches grow. We're going to do a big push for finding member help, and hope we can get some pretty regular splits going on. So we'll see.

That being said, I'm really excited to be serving in branch three. It was fun to go to their branch and meet members. I know some and recognize even more just from all being in the same building, but now I'm really going to get to know them and that will be good. Branch three has a lot of young adults so hopefully we'll get them to help us. Also they have a young family of investigators (a husband and wife and two small kids) who will be getting baptized in a few weeks, and they seem really awesome. So that will be exciting. It's nice to get a little bit of a change up, but I'm so glad I'm still serving in branch one also.

Also on top of all of this craziness I got sick. It was just a weird bout of digestive system not happy-ness. I was not feeling good for the whole process of moving. Just to add that to the joy. But turns out eating plain rice and bananas for 24 hours really will get you back to normal. Oh Cambodia...

Oh, also. You may remember, we were supposed to have a baptism on Saturday... Soknang, Ming Thida's son. Well on Tuesday we went to go help him prep for the interview. Sis Allen ran through interview questions, and I helped Ming Thida with the paperwork. All was going well, we got it all filled out, Soknang was ready, but we glanced over the paperwork and Sister Allen saw he was born in 2007. We did the math just to double check, and yes, if he was born in 2007 he would turn 8 this year. Then we realized his birthday was in September.... We just kind of looked at each other for a minute and then broke the news. She had no idea he wasn't 8 yet. Age is a weird thing here. And lots of times they just count age according to the new year, not the birthday. So..... we've got him on hold until September, the Saturday after this transfer ends. So we'll see. So turns out the boom of baptisms we were planning on about a transfer and a half ago aren't quite turning out as planned. But that's okay. Planting seeds, planting seeds. 

Well, I think that's about all for this week. I don't even really have a spiritual thought to share. I missed my personal study quite a few times this week, unfortunately. Therefore, I did not finish the Book of Mormon at the end of the transfer as planned. Still in 3 Nephi... But that's okay. It's not a race. I'm enjoying reading about Christ's ministry to the Nephites. This morning I read chapter 19. We learn a lot about prayer in this chapter. I love that Christ commands them to pray and they don't stop praying even after he comes back and checks on them three different times. All the while, He goes of on His own and prays to the Father in their behalf. I love verse 24: " And it came to pass that when Jesus had thus prayed unto the Father, he came unto his disciples, and behold, they did still continue, without ceasing, to pray unto him; and they did not multiply many words, for it was given unto them what they should pray, and they were filled with desire." They prayed without ceasing. This is something I've learned on my mission--that prayer can be an ongoing conversation as we do it frequently and genuinely and that as they prayed they were filled with desire. I love that too. The more I pray, the more I do enjoy praying because I recognize my relationship with my Father in Heaven growing. 

Well, that's all for this week. Hopefully next week I'll have a more normal week to report on. Have a good week!

Love,

Sister Fields

On Wednesday night we had an activity night. Each companionship put together a little game and Sister Al. and I made a giant word search game.

 

"Sisters lunch"

Standing outside our old house with the whole crew. It was sad to say goodbye! I'm gonna miss that place.

This was our moving technique.

Moving furniture in our multi-level house.

Welcome to our humble abode.

This is what transfers look like.

The Christensens (new Mission President and his wife) invited us to breakfast Friday morning in their kitchen. Pancakes!

Transfer day was our Mission President's birthday. So we spent the morning throwing him a surprise party. Sister H. and I were in charge of the cakes. Needless to say they were delicious. Actually, they were a bit of a disaster. We made five and tried to make whip cream frosting. The elders were no help. It turned into the consistency of cottage cheese. But we salvaged it.