September 24th, 2017 Pchum Ben

Hi everyone!

This week was so much fun :) Pchum Ben is a Khmer holiday where everyone goes back to their home provinces and they honor their ancestors and party for almost a whole week. And since hardly anyone actually comes from Phnom Penh, the whole city was a ghost town the last week. All of our investigators left and we had maybe 30 people come to church in all our wards combined last Sunday. For all the missionaries, we got to do some super fun activities as a mission. On Wednesday, we spent the entire morning and afternoon deep cleaning our apartments! SO FUN... the fun part was we reorganized our room and now my study desk is in front of our tall window that looks out to the entire street and psaa Toul Kork (the local market). That night we watched the Phone Call and the Joseph Smith movie which was a good time to relax and unwind.

On Thursday we spent the entire day at the church doing our Semi-Annual Read-a-thon. We took the challenge President Nelson gave a while back to read every reference about Jesus Christ and His life in the scriptures. I read for maybe 5 hours straight and barely made a dent in how many scriptures there are that speak of Him. It was such an amazing day to focus on my Savior and His love for everyone. I really reflected on what my purpose is as a missionary. It is different from His, but it is almost the same. To bring others unto Him and proclaim the Gospel.

On Saturday we had Zone Conference and it was just another day of being completely spiritually fed and I loved it. We had 4 out of the 6 dying missionaries in our zone and they all bore their testimonies. It made me think about how short my time is on a mission even when sometimes it feels like 18 months is a lifetime. I have just over a year left and I feel like I just left home and my family. I cant believe how fast it has already gone but how much more I have to learn and grow! I know this Gospel is true! I love my Savior Jesus Christ and all that He has done for me and for every single person. I love Cambodia and the people I have the privilege of serving every single day. I LOVE being a missionary!!

Sister Bashford

Pictures: Thanks mom for the package! I have become the most popular missionary in our building :)

Text to Mom on September 20th

t to mom on September 20th. :) 

September 17th, 2017

Hello everyone!

This week was not too crazy but there were still some eventful things to write about!

Last P-day we went to the Royal Palace and it was so much fun. The only thing that was dumb was anyone who is not Khmer had to pay $10.25 to get it and Khmers only had to pay 1000 Rial (about $0.25) and since my trainer looks dark enough to be Khmer she got it for the Khmer price... Being blonde and blue eyed is a curse in this country! I was also told by a ming this week that I am ugly because I am so white. Oh well :)

After the Royal Palace Sister Luke and I went to the church and I totally fell off my bike into a bush and I asked her to help me up but she just pushed me over without any warning and I completely flipped over the whole bush onto the ground. She then explained after that if she had helped me up I would have broken my ankle because it was twisted in my bike frame. It was so funny and all the members that were watching were laughing so hard. Then on the way to our investigators house, Sister Luke popped her bike tire while we were hopping curbs to avoid traffic... total Karma :)

I have been super sick the last few days and spent almost all day yesterday sleeping. It wasn't too bad until Saturday morning. We rode to an RC's house to drop off a Book of Mormon for her friend and it started POURING. We kind of sat at her house for a few minutes because we didn't know what to do, but we decided to ride through it head on. It was so cold and we showed up to English class completely soaked. My cold got so much worse after that and now I am suffering the consequences...

This upcoming week is Pchum Ben (a holiday where all Khmers go back to their home Provinces and pay tribute to their ancestors) so everyone is slowly starting to disappear. All of our investigators are gone this week but we have some fun activities planned in the mission that I will write about next week!

Love and Miss you all!

Sister Bashford

Pictures:

1. Traffic in Cambodia

2-8. Royal Palace!

9. RAIN

10. Hiding with the koon khmangs from the rain

September 10th, 2017 Love is in the air (The appropriate kind)

Hey everyone!!

I am happy to say no one contracted any diseases that we know of from last week. God is really looking out for us!

This week Viccara was baptized! She is 19 and so spunky. Her and I have become best pals with my limited Khmer and her limited English. 

One cool thing we did this week was "color contact." Elder Maurer's mom sent him a ton of chalk so we decided to draw the plan of salvation in chalk. We went to "the tracks" which is where a lot of the poorer people live, and we drew until it go so dark we could even see what we were drawing. A bunch of little kids came to draw with us and it was so much fun. The only thing that was sad was a huge rain storm washed it away a few hours after we drew it so we will be trying again this week!

One funny thing that happened yesterday was we were sitting in sacrament meeting and the Bishop starts the meeting and when the hymn was supposed to start, no one was at the piano. The bishop looked right at me and Sister Luke so we ran up there and she led the music while I tried to figure out how to get the automatic songs to play. I pushed a wrong button and the song played super fast and all the members were so confused so I stopped the song entirely, yelled "sorry!"in Khmer, then started the song over and got everything to work out. The Elders in the back were cracking up and gave me a hard time afterwards but it was all fine :) 

So about the love: as missionaries, our purpose is the invite others to come unto Christ, and as people do this, their lives will be blessed. Well, a few weeks ago Srei Mian was baptized, and us missionaries may or may not have chosen a strapping YSA to be the one to baptize her. They became really good friends and now spend lots of time together. On Saturday, Sister Luke and I went to teach Srei Mian at the church, and she was really dressed up with lipstick on and everything. When we got out of the lesson, Bong Chuen miraculously walks into the building. He walks up to her and says "Hello pretty lady"in Khmer and their hands grazed each other. That is HUGE in Khmer culture. They never hold hands, kiss, or show any form of PDA at all, so Sister Luke and I had to go excuse ourselves and close the door to the relief society room before we released all our happy giggles and squeals. Little do you all know, we may be missionaries but we are also match-makers. When you come unto Christ, you can find your eternal companion with the missionaries help:)

Something I have trying to work on this week is developing Christlike attributes. Sometimes, it is hard for us to remember to be all of them, but if we can focus on one each week, we will benefit immensely from it. This week I am focusing on patience. It is hard learning a new language, living with other people, and being in a foreign country that you can't get around unless you have your companion. I want to have more patience in the Lord's timing, not in my own. If we all can have a little more patience in our lives and put our trust in God through our trials, our lives will be less stressful and we will be able to see God's hand more.'

Love all of you and hope you have the best week!

Sister Bashford

Pictures:

Viccara's baptism!

Contacting near the tracks