Sister Fields in Cambodia: In Which I Get Another Koon (what. more?)

Sis H. and I found a black burger place. We don't know why the burgers were black, but they were good!

Hello,

Well friends, we have some news. Ti muay: Vietnam is leaving us and making it's own mission! Super exciting. I did not see this coming. But I'm not really in the loop. The mission right now is very low on Vietnamese speakers, but I know we have more coming this next transfer. They'll form their own mission March 1st (Five days after I leave.) A senior couple serving there now will be the Mission President. Pretty exciting.

Second news. I'm expecting, yet again. My last transfer call came last night; and when I saw President's name come up on my phone screen, I knew something was up. (He only calls when there's an assignment.) We'll have another koon join with me and Sister H. and we'll be a trio! I'm actually really excited. Trios are way fun. She's Khmer. I'm not sure about the spelling of her name, so we'll wait til next week. She's a visa-waiter with a call to go to Idaho. Basically things can never be easy or stay the same on a mission. Not even your last transfer. It'll be good though, I'm excited.

We had a good week this week, full of meetings and exchanges, which means basically zero proselyting going on in our own area. But not for long. I won't be a sister training leader next transfer, which will be nice. They thought it was a bit much with two koons I guess.

Super fun bit: I got to go on an exchange with Sister H. [MTC buddy]. I've never been on an exchange with her before so we were way pumped. She ordered pizza for us and made me passion fruit juice. And we talked about how weird life was with one transfer left.

I also went on an exchange with Sister Um. She's awesome. She's only been out of month, but she's a super good missionary already and a lot of fun. We had a really powerful lesson with one of our less actives. We've actually been seeing a lot of success with our less actives lately. You know the family we found who changed houses and we found them by a miracle a few weeks ago? Well we've been working hard to get them back on track. They are struggling financially and health-wise. The Om used to be super solid and active and would go around visiting the less actives. But now she's upset that when she fell upon hard times and stopped going to church, no one came to see her. And I wasn't even going to focus on going back to church in this lesson because we've done it so many times and it's not been successful. This time we taught about the love of God and about commandments. We talked about what the Lord has commanded us to do and Sister Um mentioned church. The Om shared again how hurt she was when no one came to see her. It's only ever been the missionaries who visit, and all of a sudden this idea clicked in my head. I testified to her that as missionaries, we have been called of God to be His servants. And in essence, going to her house inviting her to come back to church, was Heavenly Father inviting her to come back. And He loves her so much. And it's through obedience that she will continue to feel His love and receive His blessings. Then Sister Um shared a really touching personal story, and the Spirit was so strong. We committed her to come, and she said she'd pray about it. We asked her daughters if they would come. And they said if their mom went, they'd follow.

It was a cool experience. In the event, they didn't end up being able to come to church because they couldn't get a ride. But the desire was there! We just have to make sure we keep that desire up. Then they'll be back next week. We have a new tactic with our less actives. Ever since the new year, church changed to 3:00 pm, which at first we thought was a bit unfortunate. But then we devised a new plan. In the morning we run around and invite all our less actives to come to church. Sometimes it takes just asking the question again. We had two of them at church yesterday. I don't know what it was about Sacrament meeting yesterday, but everyone kept trickling in throughout the hour. And a ton of investigators/potential investigators/less actives were there. It was like we'd turn around and see another surprise every few minutes. It was quite exciting.

One was an actual miracle. Om Dali. She's been totally less active for as long as I've been here and as long as the companionship before me was here too. She's old, hardened, wants the church to help her, her son's in rehab, she doesn't have any money, she's sick, etc. But when we went to see her Sunday morning, she was like a different person. She cut her hair! And her son is better, and coming back to live with her today! The best part though was we invited her to church and she said yes. I didn't ask how she'd get there (because she was pretty determined and as far as I know she can't afford a moto dope). But I turned around halfway through Sacrament and there she was a few rows back. It's fun and really heartening to see how much the members fellowship the less actives when they come to church. It's way hard to actually get them out visiting each other in this ward (we're working on it) but once they're there they show a lot of love.

Quick Kim Sia update. She's awesome. She's on track to be baptized Jan 30, which is sooner than I typically do baptisms, but I think she's ready. We're really stressing change and a testimony of the Book of Mormon with her, and she's really coming along well.

Okay, I think that's all for today. We have a lot of end-of-transfer chores to do today. But I want to end with a quick spiritual thought. This one comes from a BYU devotional Sis H. gave me called "That Ye May Be Filled with Love" by Hartman Rector. It's really good. And it gave me the idea to teach Om Srey about love. One point he made is that God loves us perfectly. And He loves us not because we are good or because we do anything to deserve His love, but because HE is good. It's our challenge/duty/opportunity to develop this love. How? We do it by following His commandments. His commandments are calculated to make us good. And love follows goodness.

That's all for today. Have a good week!

Love,

Sister Fields