August 25th email

Sukssoby,
We are here alive and healthy and totally blown away with Cambodia,The people are so warm and friendly the members of the branch have treated us like royalty they are truly a beautiful people with a natural Christ like disposition. The children are so cute and all have a quick and endearing smile.
Since we arrived in our area Thursday we have been extremely busy meeting and greeting the people working with the Elders and getting things set up, which has been very slow we are still trying to find affordable Intranet in the meantime I will be working from a little cubicle under a squeaky old fan sweltering from the heat and humidity, I love it!
Driving is crazy, mom is a nervous wreck, I love it because its no rules just pecking order according to size, yesterday we had 13 people in our little Honda CRV for a half hour drive into the country to meet with a family.
The food has been good so far nothing to exotic our Sopal our cook has been wonderful, to date we have not been sick.
We are still adjusting to the time change it gets dark here at 6:30 and are dead tired, we have been going to bed at 8 but are waking up a 1 or 2 wide awake, they tell us this will change with time.
We feel safe and comfortable among the kami people although we are a novelty and get lots of stares everywhere we go. We did have the police come by this morning to check us out and get copies of our passport. Our land lord sent them off with a little money and everything was fine.
This weekend we will be in Seim Reip (SR) for a meeting with Elder Christoferson on Thursday. Which is a very big deal since we get an Apostle once every 4 or 5 years. the branch is planing a trip up for 72 members which will be traveling in 4 small buses.on Friday we are going as a branch to Ankor Wat a very large and very old ruins of a Buddist temple. SR is a tourist town with modern computer facilities and I should be able to update the blog this weekend. We have lots of pictures, it may be better to put them on them Internet somewhere rather than post them all on the blog. What do you think?
We feel your prayers each day and so appreciate your support please pray that we will be able to learn enough language so that we can communicate. the people have such a great desire to talk with us. The language barrier is our greatest challenge.
It is so special to see the gospel take root in the lives of these people, they are so dedicated, many ride 45 minutes on a bike to get to church, the Branch Pres pays $5 every Sunday for a 1.5 hour taxi ride to church which is huge when you consider the average salary is $100 per mo. The people love the gospel and there is such a distinct contrast between those who have it and those who do not.
Well gotta go, we are working hard but not much play yet,
We love you all so much!!!
Dad

Family Reunion 2008

Dova and I are days away from leaving for our mission and were so fortunate to have
all of our family in town to send us off!