Hey dude, where'd you get your loofah?

I made new friends this week. Two Australian chicks. I don't know what the heck they are doing out here, but I invited them to our Christmas party. We initially connected over H20: Just Add Water. 

Whoever started the rumor that cockroaches are invincible was stupid and was very selective about what cockroaches he was talking about. Cambodian cockroaches are so easy to kill. Get your facts straight, dude.

Being just 2 people alone together here in Pursat, my companion and I get into very deep conversations. One example is the 3 types of  people my companion told me never to trust. 

1.) Short people

2.) People with curly hair

3.) People with lazy eyes

He said this is knowledge passed down from generation to generation by old people in Cambodia.

My planner was attacked by a monkey this week and destroyed.

A kid here had a dream that I got sick and died. His brother had a dream I got ran over by a car and died. Not sure what that means for me, but I'm scared.

This week all we ate was 4 pounds of fish. We didn't even get vegetables. Just fish. But we also ate out once. We got dog meat and eel meat with some members. 

Then the next day the neighbor came to tell us her dog went missing. And she very seriously asked us if we ate her dog. Hard not to laugh when that is your accusation. 

I have never been more scared then I was when I got chased by a cow this week. 

We went to a place that is famous in this province for a legendary warrior who was cornered by his enemies, and he was all alone, so he jumped into a pit of swords so that he could become a spirit and call the army of the dead to assist him in defeating his enemies. Legend has it that he won that battle. I beg to differ. I think he just died and then that was it, his enemies went home. 

There is a kid that is like 16 and really stinky and he follows us around all the time, so we taught him a lesson about not being stinky. And it worked. He showers now. The church is true. 

Real miracle was Yaa. My new favorite dude. Here is his story. His cousin is someone I taught a year ago. I told that guy that I was going to the Pursat province to finish my mission. I asked him if he knew anyone there. He said he had a cousin there. I got his phone number. When I got to Purat, I called and called him, but he never answered. Finally after 2 weeks he answered, and I didn't know what to say. I said I knew his cousin and had a gift for him from his cousin. It was pretty creepy. We thought he was gonna bring the cops. But he didn't. He came, and we gave him a Book of Mormon. He's locked in now. He's a smart dude, just the kind of person this new church needs in this province. 

Sad to be finishing my mission soon. I listen to BYU devotionals and it makes me trunky. 

The evil monkey that destroys planners...

Dog meat and eel meat. 

My GF

This beggar is legend. His arm was blown off in the war. When he was injured, he saw a monkey that was also injured. So he took it and raised it to beg for money. 

​

Fishing

Expert fisher. Lvl 100

One meal we ate. Pig head.

4 pounds of fish

These people were fishing the Homer Simpson way. They had an electrical wire attached to a fork and they put the fork on a stick and put it in the water they were standing in to shock fish. 

The pit the dude jumped into with swords 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B17amY5DCedhREZCcEcwbU9JcXM?usp=sharing

Karate Chop?

I want to tell you what it is like where I am. This province is called Pursat. It has only had missionaries serving here for 2 years now. Only me and my companion are here, and we live in the church, which is a little rental house. 

There is a street dog that walks into our house every time we open the door. It walks in and sits on the floor, and we have to go kick it out. My companion was giving a talk in church (we both talk every week and do the sacrament and lead the music since no one else knows how because they are all basically recent converts) and then he stopped talking, muttered that the dog walked in again, then went and kicked it so it would leave, then turned around and walked back to the podium to finish his talk.

We also both don't know how to play the piano. So we had to choose between singing acapella every week or buying a little memory card and putting music on it. So we bought a memory card, put like 50 hymns on it, and then plugged it in to start sacrament meeting. When they sold the memory card to us, they must have not wiped it first, because once we plugged in the memory card, the music was some sweet dub-step. 

Man, our house being the church is just a party. Everyone stays at our house like all the time. They all eat our food too, which is so fun. I'm gonna be the size of one stick when I come home. But the only problem about our house being the church is that our house-church doesn't have the #pioneer67 hook up which is so lame. 

This province is so janky that as I write this to you the table I am sitting at is shocking me. How in the heck does a table shock a person? And all the power went out last night. In the whole entire province. How? How dos that happen? 

Also I returned to the first area I ever served in at the beginning of my mission. Everyone remember me as the guy who was in the Pioneer Day play and had a gun and shot Joseph Smith. Such a cool role. 

OK bye. 

Only 2014-2016 kids will know. If you don't know, I think you know. But ask me after my mission o I can tell you. 

It's a good story. 

Our house Sunday morning. Getting ready for church. 

And then this kids stays behind after church, eats our food, then sleeps in our house lol 

This pig was huge

​

This is our investigators house in the middle of no where

​This is their rice field

In the rice field there was a fish, and my companion wanted to spear it so we could take it home to grill it.

I helped harvest rice 

We had to take a bus and a tuk tuk to get to Thanksgiving. I was so tired.

But this was our Thanksgiving. More baby duck eggs and chicken innards. And a whole lot of coke.

And then I chased some cows.

And then I was like a cool guy walking away from an explosion.

I'm on a boat?

Water Festival- that is how this week started. The Cambodian Running with the bulls. We went down into the city where there were giant crowds of people just walking around, doing festival stuff, eating cotton candy, eating kettle corn and what not. We sat down and watched some boats race. The were super long and were full of 40-60 drunk Cambodian dudes screaming. i asked my companion if they were drunk on beer or life, he said it was most likely life. These boat men have found the key to true happiness (unless of course they are drunk on alcohol and not life).

We got together as a zone of like 30 missionaries and put on those schnazzy yellow LDS vests and cleaned a portion of the city that got destroyed during the water festival. Hopefully someone took a picture and we get famous.

Because I changed areas, I gathered literally EVERYONE I love in my last area into one party and said bye to all of them at the same time. It was really hard. I had to organize and get people rides to the district president's house. It was so awesome. 

Then I had to pack. And while I was packing the power went out because we never paid our electricity bill he he he he So I packed in the dark with no AC SO HOT. Then we slept on the roof and got destroyed by mosquitoes. 

Now I am in the Pursat province. It is fun here, but kinda lonely. Just me and my companion. I'm the only American lol. But my companion is super fun so that is good. 

I'll try with pictures here, but no promises. I've heard the computers out here in the jungle wipe all memory. I'm so scared hahaha bye. 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ cw1e9yznlsbdmmb/AABEM61nixbst_ Uif7YyNHU1a?dl=0