January 28th, 2018: Love your self don't use drags

Subject: Love your self dont use drags

Hey everyone!

The header makes more sense if you look at my pictures, don't you just love Cambodia? Always trying to uplift us and give advice :)

This week went by so fast! We had Zone Conference on Saturday which was amazing, got two new investigators, and set two serious baptismal dates with our progressing investigators!! We are so excited for the blessings of hard work and the gospel changing lives to roll in. Our investigators are so good right now, the only problem is everyone is only free to learn after 5 or on Sundays, so you had best believe Sunday is the busiest day of the week! Currently, Rotana, Bong Thalin, and Cheng Ey are our investigators that will be baptized in the next few weeks so everyone get ready!

My language skills are improving every single day, and I feel less and less like this crazy Asian language is impossible to learn! It's the hardest puzzle I have ever had to solve but it is starting to get way more fun.

Sister Jennings and I are doing so great here in Stungmianchey and we are so close! Every day feels like an adventure and we are loving every second of being together. We may or may not have so much fun that we break our beds on accident (seen in picture below) and just decide to have slumber parties with our foam mats on the floor! 

Cambodia is the best. Being a missionary is the best. The Gospel is the best. I love you all and hope you have the best week and find something to smile about!

Sister Bashford

Pictures:

whoops....

typical asian-peace selfie at the email shop

Love your self dont use drags

 

 Email to Mom:

Hey so I just told this to Hannah but this morning I was personal studying about the temple. I read the talk "The Temple gives us Higher Vision" by Jean B Bingham in the January Liahona. It is so good. If you havent read it you have to read it. There is a small picture of the gilbert temple stained glass window in the celestial room on it and the song they share afterwards has the gilbert glass on the border and lowkey made me trunky. I am only trunky for two things ever, you guys and the temple. Yesterday, the ward I served in in Siem Reap left for a temple trip to the Hong Kong temple with 19 people. It is the first and probably only time these people will ever go to the temple. Some of them have been saving for YEARS, literally I saw the temple plans and for some people they have saved 25 cents every single day for 7 years to be able to go. I saw all the pictures of them before they left and I have never seen a group of cambodians look happier in their entire lives. They are coming back Saturday and will be doing as many sessions as possible before they go home. There are two families being sealed together and one of them was a family I was extremely close with. It makes me so happy that they have this opportunity and so grateful that we literally have a temple within 10 minutes of our house. I want you and the whole family to "set goals and make plans" (lol thats literally all we do on the mission and in PMG) to be able to go to the temple.  Tell all the kids that this is literally all I want. Derek is turning 12 this year (WHAT THE CRAP HES SO OLD I CANT EVEN HANDLE IT) and he needs to see how important the temple is for him and he would seriously love to go with all of his older siblings (especially carson). It kills me that I cant be there for the first time he goes to the temple or gets the priesthood or passes the sacrament but I know that I need to be here and everyone else has got to help him prepare for that. I love you go\uys so much and I dont want to sound preachy at all I just know that the temple is the greatest place on earth and I want the greatest people in my life to go there as much as possible. I LOVE YOU MOM

January 21st, 2018

No Mass email from Maile, probably stuck in her outbox...

Email to and from Mom:

Subject: Re: I need your assistance

 On Mon, Jan 22, 2018 at 9:23 AM, Annette Bashford <annettebashford@gmail.com> wrote:

Mai:
I was asked to speak in sacrament next week on how your serving a mission has blessed my life and the lives of our family, which is a super awesome topic. I’m actually looking forward to it. I wanted to share how serving a mission has blessed your life from your perspective. Can you rattle off the top five ways serving a mission has blessed your life. You can send this back to me in bullet form, or paragraph, whatever works for you, but I do want to share your thoughts in my talk.

The biggest way I feel I have been blessed personally is I’ve learned to sacrifice. I’ve never been asked to give so much. Tithing is no big deal, it’s just money, my own time is no big deal, it only affects me, but giving you to the Lord for 18 months is the hardest thing that has EVER been asked of me. I miss you. I miss your smile, your laugh, your smell, your hugs, your sweetness, your kind and compassionate countenance, just everything. Okay, now I’m crying, I love you so much. Even though I miss you, I wouldn’t want you any place else. This year will go by fast, enjoy every second of it and really soak in this experience.

Love mom

Hi mom,

wow thats a cool topic. oh gosh I feel like my entire life has completely changed since leaving on my mission. The first thing is I am becoming a better person; more Christ-like. One of the many things we study in PMG is Christ-like attributes and how as missionaries we can become the person Christ wants us to be and become more like Him. I have seen in myself that my faith, hope, charity, love, knowledge, diligence, virtue, patience, integrity, and obedience have grown since I have left and started focusing on others instead of myself. Third, I am starting to figure out the things that actually matter in life. I actually had my interview last night with Sister Christensen (mission President's wife) and we talked about that for a while. We talked about how after all the craziness of life happens and the dust has settled, the only thing we will have in our lives is our family, the Gospel, our Savior, and our Heavenly Father. We talked about how important our families are to us and how much we both miss them so much, and really don't care about anything else back at home. I will always cherish my friends, my education, and other things, but the people that I really want to completely focus my life around are the people in my family, currently and in the future. The fourth thing is the experiences I am having. Being in the craziest Asian country speaking the craziest Asian language and actually loving it. I remember being so scared and depressed after I got my call because I knew there was no way I could possibly do it. Ever. I didn't want to come to a country that doesn't even have toilets (don't worry, we have them in our houses), with people who eat coagulated blood, cow tongue, maggots, spiders, and chicken butt, and a language that looks like spaghetti thrown on a wall. But as I have been here and adjusted to the culture, the food, the people, the stinky poo smell everywhere, and constantly sweating, I have learned to love everything about Cambodia. I would not change my mission for anything, and every aspect of it is teaching me about life. I think a part of me will always be Cambodian, and I will eat rice for days at home :) Just since leaving I think the biggest blessing I have received from my mission is a true testimony. Before my mission, I had a testimony just like everyone else, but it wasn't extremely heartfelt. I believed Christ was my Savior but I didn't really even know what that meant. I still have a long ways to go to learn about the Gospel, but my testimony and knowledge of it has increased drastically, and I would have never learned these things had I not come on a mission. Even though my mission is very hard, I know this is exactly where I need and want to be. I miss my family, America, open roads, carpet, warm showers, netflix, mexican food, and all the other wonderful things from home, but I know that I can sacrifice a short period of my extremely blessed life to bless the lives of those who have never even heard of God before. They have never even heard of their Creator, the one person who loves them more than anyone could ever love another human being. They don't know that they can live with their families forever, because they believe in reincarnation. They don't know that after they have made a mistake, they have a Savior who can wipe their slates'clean and bring them true happiness. And I have the privilege of being the person to share that message to the people of Cambodia.

Hopefully you can use some of these things. Sorry if my grammar is off. you can change it if it sounds weird :) I can't do english anymore haha.

Love you mom! You are seriously the best role model for me and I thank Heavenly Father for you and every person in our family every day!

Sister Bashford

January 14th, 2018

Hi everyone!

Sorry this week's letter will be short. Transfers happened and now Sister Jennings is my new companion in SMC 2. This is her very first transfer in the city because she has been inthe provinces the last 6 transfers (very rare) so it has been way fun showing her around the insane city of Phnom Penh.

Our area was suffering a little last transfer, but all our hard work is starting to pay off! Yesterday, we committed an investigator to baptism, got two promising new investigators, and planned to meet 5 new investigators this upcoming week who all randomly came to the church on their own! We are so pumped for all the work we will get to do!

I hope everyone has the best week! Love you all!

Sister Bashford

January 7th, 2018: TRANSFERS

Subject: TRANSFERS

Hey everyone!

This week was full of so much news; on Wednesday afternoon we found out President Monson passed away and all the missionaries have been pretty sad about it. President Monson has been an amazing prophet and I look up to him and his selfless sacrifice in building the kingdom of God on the earth. I know he is in the spirit world with his wife and is happy furthering the work of God on the other side.

We also received another message on Thursday night that our new mission President has been called, President and Sister John Lewis from Gilbert, Arizona (he was the former Mayor of Gilbert)!! It just happened that Sister Sok and I are the only Sisters from Arizona in our mission, and we are currently living in the same house. When we found out we both freaked out and were screaming and we may have jumped on her bed too enthusiastically and broken a few of the boards... but it's totally fine :)

Some other news, transfer calls were last night, and I am staying in Stungmiancey 2, and Sister Jennings is coming to be my companion! We served together in Siem Reap and we had so much fun together, and the fun is just going to continue!! We are seriously so excited to continue to help this area grow and help others come unto Christ!

I love you all so much and will let you know how this week goes next time!

Sister Bashford

Sorry, no pictures again this week! Viruses are the worst!

kanika texted these pictures to Mom and said how much fun Sister Bashford is to hang out with. :)

December 31, 2017: HAPPY NEW YEAR

2017 Mission Slide show

Subject: HAPPY NEW YEAR

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sorry, I ran out of time to email last week for Christmas. But we had a baptism! Ming Suan was baptized after the water was only up to her knees, and it seemed like everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong, but she did it!

This week we spent a lot of time calling former investigators, and after going through over 200 FI's we found four who want to learn again, and yesterday, one came to our ward, the ward before us, a baptism in the other ward, and committed to be baptized after one meeting with her! She is so amazing and I cant believe the miracle it was to find her again! Heavenly Father never forgets His lost sheep!

Last night, I didn't go to sleep until 2 am because there was a party on our street BLASTING Khmer karaoke and some popular American songs as well. It was pretty miserable but we got to hear the countdown for 2018! This is going to be an amazing year, I can smell it! (or maybe its just the constant bad smell of Cambodia:))

Love you all, and hope you have a safe New Year!

Sister Bashford

Sorry, computer malfunctions mean no pictures :(

December 24th: GOOGLE CHAT!!!

Subject: Re: Google Chat

Hi so we are having some problems over here. I might have to go all the way to the mission home to skype. It might be a while. so sorry. I am freaking out about it. Don't worry. But it might be an hour or two. I love you guys. I am trying to figure it out.

It all worked out after Maile rode across town to use a computer in the mission office. :) 

Subject: Re: Best present ever!

On Mon, Dec 25, 2017 at 12:42 PM, Annette Bashford <annettebashford@gmail.com> wrote:

Talking with you tonight was the best present ever. You sounded so good. Hearing your voice was amazing. I miss you so much, but am so happy you’re in Cambodia. Value every second there, a year will pass in no time at all.
MERRY CHRISTMAS! I love you so very much!

I love you too! I am so happy to talk to you guys and I already feel so much better. MERRY CHRISTMAS I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH! I will porbably be done emailing for this week because Sister Thouk still needs to email. But I love you guys sooo much and will talk to you all next week! Thank you for the best Christmas present ever!!!

Sister Bashford