Hello All!
I am doing well and in great care. I am adjusting to the Khmer lifestyle pretty well! I love it here and I'm learning so much as a missionary Christ.
This week has been another week of tender blessings and miracles. Everyday, like I said, is an adventure. We get lost a lot in trying to find the houses of the people wed teach. The traffic is still crazy in the city so, I am learning to adjust to the crazies of Cambodia. Cambodia is such a beautifully raw place to live in. So organic. So green. I am in Phnom Pehn and serving in two areas, Tuek Tlakk and Tuek Tlaah. The interesting part is I am serving in the exact area my family lives in. I know right, right back where I started! The food here is so delicious. Khmer food embeds lots of veggies and rice and authentic spices. Very very similar to Thai food. However, I do miss the chocolate and dairy. I live with 2 other sister missionaries in our apartment. Also I got hit by a motorcycle. It's almost normal for missionaries here to get into these types of accidents. so I am ooookaaay, I am ok, no blood shed,no bruises! The traffic goes so slow so it's not that impactful.
Last week, I received an email from my mother that she is on her way from AZ to Cambodia to visit my aunt. Whaaaat! So that was a shock for me. A few hours later, as I was riding my bike with my comp. to see our mission President, I saw a white car. Then I as I focused closer, I saw the faces of my Khmer family. My cousins came out and hugged me. I was so shocked. I came inside the house and saw my mother. My mission President, his wife,and my family all sat down and talked. That was really hard, because of certain things back home.... However, what a day man!!! President was like haha Sis. Sok: you got ambushed! He is allowing me to teach my family. There are some hard things I am learning to accept right now, but I trust God. As a missionary of Christ, you are endowed with the power to teach. We don't realize how powerful we are, but the reason why God doesn't show us the power ,is because we might end up abusing our power and become prideful. Instead, God is reflecting my own weaknesses right at me so that I become humble and give all that I am to Him. He allows our weaknesses to become our strengths. The closer you come to Christ, the more flaws you see of yourself. It's up to us to walk pass them or improve them.
The progress of this week has taught me many lessons. The investigators has taught me much about how I should teach the lessons, as well. We focused this week on preparing our investigators for their baptisms and meeting up with new investigators who were referred to us and who we contacted.
As for my personal studies, I've learned to read the scriptures differently than the way I am used to. I'd read the Book of Mormon and I'd dig into the characters of the prophets and study their traits. I would record down their characters and compare it to the character of Christ. I would then study and treasure up the ways they teach their people and implement it to how I would teach the people here in Cambodia. I realized that the questions recorded in the Book of Mormon are very similar to the questions people now a day have about God. In our lessons, we'd teach people to experience Christ by showing them the characters that Jesus Christ live by and integrating their personal experiences of how they, themselves have personally taken upon the name of Christ in their hearts through following His example and experiencing the pains in His Atonement.
This weekend we had a car wash event at the church. We welcomed so many new people who have either never heard of the church or Jesus Christ. We also met people of different ages and walks of life. My companion and I got to serve in door while some of the other missionaries served outside, washing cars. My companion and I were in charge of talking to people who were new to our church and furthermore, talked with them about family history. We took some of the investigators to the family history room and talked to them about the importance of finding and saving our ancestors. As I was translating what the senior couple said about the importance of family history to the Khmer language, I felt a surge and stroke of revelation about my family. A few night before, I had prayed to God about how I could help my blood family understand of my decision to serve Christ. I wanted to teach them the Gospel, but was not so certain about the way to do so. However, when I was in that room, I felt that I need to start with teaching my family about our family history to spark their interest. The desire to find out about our ancestors is almost universal and I knew it would be perfect since my family has lost some members due to the Pol Pot regime. I felt even more grateful that Heavenly Father has shown me this method of helping my family understand more about the Gospel and why I chose to live a life with Jesus Christ.
With love and much gratitude,
Sis. Sok
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