Utah Nature

Manila Temple

admin — Fri, 10 May 2013 12:47:11 +0000

Several months ago, President Moon, the Phnom Penh Mission President, asked Sister Tuck and me if we would like to accompany a small group of Cambodian Saints to the Manila Temple. We pondered the cost and determined we would like to do it. It is one thing to live close to a temple and not go very often, but quite another to live far away from one and not be able to attend it.

The group consisted of two families and a single sister from the Ta Khmau 2nd branch, another single sister from the Steung Mean Chey 3rd branch and a family from Kampong Cham. We had 3 children, 11 adults including Sister Tuck and me and our translators.

Manila Temple Group

I prepared a picture list of the group and handed it out the first day so that the members of the group could get to know each other’s names.

We left Phnom Penh early Sunday morning, April 21 by bus to Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam, exiting Cambodia and entering Vietnam at the border, passing through both exit Immigration for Cambodia and entrance Immigration for Vietnam. This wasn’t much of a problem except for the youngest child whose passport was included with his mother’s passport which the Vietnamese Immigration official understood but took a bit longer to handle. This problem was magnified as we passed through other Immigration centers where they were not as familiar with Cambodia’s way of combining a mother’s passport with a minor child’s passport.

The bus trip took about 7 hours and dropped us off in downtown Ho Chi Minh where we took a taxi to our hotel. Checking a sign at the hotel entrance did not give us warm fuzzes because it made the place feel ‘seedy’. We thought there would be a number of eating establishments near the hotel, but only found one after a 3 block walk. We also expected to find English speakers like we found in Phnom Penh, but we had problems ordering food, not getting as much as we expected which caused delays and some dissatisfaction.

The next day, we arose early and took taxis to the airport where we checked in, again having some passport problems. Interestingly, due to the naming conventions used in Cambodia, we were questioned about child trafficking because the young children’s family names on their passports did not match their father’s family name.

We ate at the air terminal which cost a huge amount which our group did not quite understand. Prices were high and selection was low so they got less than they wanted.

Philippine Airlines Plane

We had been seated on the aircraft scattered about so I was not able to find out how those who hadn’t flown before how they felt about the airplane ride, One of the sisters did not eat the meal passed out because she thought it would cost extra. We felt bad that one of us wasn’t sitting near her to explain the meal was covered in the ticket cost.

Once in Manila, we again passed through Immigration and Customs, again having a problem with the young man’s passport, which was resolved with a visit to the supervisor. We were met at the airport by ‘Clem’ and another driver who picked us up and took us to the Temple. This was the first time most of the Cambodians had ever been on a real freeway, but of course, it was clogged and slow – their first major traffic jam (not that such things don’t happen in Phnom Penh, but that this was a much bigger highway. Manila also has a large number of skyscrapers, taller and more densely packed that anything in Phnom Penh, which was interesting to see.

Manila Temple at Night

Our first glimpse of the Temple was wonderful, but we turned into the Patron Housing complex and had to get registered before being able to visit it.

The Temple is closed on Monday but Patron Housing was open for us to come into, but the cafeteria would not be available until the next day, after the time we had been told to go to the temple annex to start our processing. The Patron Housing registration clerk suggested we not eat the cafeteria food and linked us up with a caterer who turned out to be wonderful, who provided food on our schedules and tried to make food the Cambodians would like. Still, there was Monday evening dinner to worry about so we asked ‘Clem’ if one of his drivers could take the group out to find someplace to get food cooked the way they liked it. 12 people jumped into a van and headed out while Sister Tuck and I visited a small restaurant we had been told was in the neighborhood that would be a possibility to feed the group. The Italian food was good to my taste but very costly therefore would not satisfy a Cambodian nor be within the budget. Like worried parents, we waited for the group to return to the Patron Housing worrying all the time. They returned after 3 hours and seemed to have found the food they wanted. Our translators didn’t say much about it.

We began our Temple work at the Annex building Tuesday morning at 7:00 am, then continued for the next 3 days, accomplishing much and feeling the spirit as we performed the work. All of us had a wonderful experience.

After we had done all this work, we all stood outside the Temple and had a group photo of us holding the ordinance cards, which had been requested by the mission.

Group Showing Ordinance Cards

Since we had accomplished the work we had come for, Sister Tuck and I determined we would take the group to a local mall so they could see some of the sights of Manila (probably not as good an idea as the initially thought). We went to the Green Hills Shopping Center which was fairly close to the Temple and wandered through it to see how Manila did their malls, which surprised all of us. Sister Tuck and I expected different, but what we found was a large number of small shops grouped by the merchandise they were selling, different but akin to how the shops are arraigned in the Phnom Penh markets. At one point, we came to an open area where we could see three floors and a glass walled elevator moving up and down. Try as we could, we could not get anyone to ride the elevator with us, so we decided to take an escalator down a floor, only to find once most of us were down that one of our ladies would not get on the escalator so one of our translators ran to the up escalator then nudged her (a little too hard) onto the descending steps where she flailed until he grabbed her to keep her from falling. We didn’t expect that since there are escalators in Phnom Penh.

Having enough of the mall, we went outside and crossed the street to a real McDonalds, where we bought everyone a small cone, which they savored. Then, I noticed a Krispy Kreme Donut shop next door and bought a dozen donuts for them to try. The donuts were too sweet for most of them but almost everyone finished theirs.

Tired of the press of the crowd, we returned to the Patron House to prepare for our early morning departure back home.

We were picked up the next morning at 4 am for the trip to the airport to catch the 6:50 flight from Manila to Ho Chi Minh City, again passing through Immigration to leave the Philippines and again having a small problem with the child being on his mother’s passport.

We were seated in a loose cluster for the return flight except for one of our ladies, who was assigned to the last row of the plane, widely separated from her family. I took that seat so she could be with people she knew and had an interesting discussion with the traveler I sat next to.

Again, in Ho Chi Minh, we had the same problem with Immigration, except this time the child crept unseen past the Immigration officer and was nowhere to be found when it came time for his processing. He was quickly found and returned, but all I could do was shake my head. Seven year olds are indeed seven years old the world over.

At the exit of the airport there are a row of hotel and transportation companies with ‘TAXI’ signs which I found charge a premium for their services, so I went out onto the curb and found a fellow with a small bus who could take us all at once. The fee was 750,000 dong, which seemed high but less than what was wanted inside the airport, so we took it. We were dropped off in front of the bus station and while I was inside with the tickets finding out about the bus we were scheduled to ride to Phnom Penh on, a woman who seemed to be an employee of the station went out and rudely told our group that they were stupid thinking they could come to the station and get rides and that they were worthless and should walk back to Cambodia. Of course, there was no apology when I returned with the tickets. This single event dampened our euphoria from a successful week at the Temple.

Waiting for the bus, we found a small corner food vendor and had a great lunch then returned to the station for the seven hour trip home.

This time passing through Immigration out of Vietnam and again into Cambodia went smoothly and we were on our way. We were tired and the seven hour ride seemed to take way too long. When we got near Phnom Penh, I called our tuk-tuk drivers and had them waiting for us when we got to the bus station. One was a tad late, but everything went smoothly and we were all home in another forty minutes.

The New Job

admin — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 13:59:31 +0000

In the real work-a-day world, when someone is promoted to a better job and someone else is promoted into the opening they left, the company generally has two incompetent workers to train, the two people new to their positions.

I’m not sure how Elder and Sister Rhyne feel about the things they are doing, but Sister Tuck and I need training.

We are the Family History Senior Missionaries, which so far means that we have the keys to the Family History Libraries and are supposed to open and staff them specific hours of the week. Then, once in a while, attempt to solve some genealogy and data entry questions. Working the keys is easy, but answering technical questions is a bit harder.

There are three Family History Centers (FHC) in Cambodia, one in Battambang and two in Phnom Penh; the South District Center and the North District Center. We don’t worry about the FHC in Battambang, only the South FHC and the North FHC, SFHC and NFHC respectively.

Our schedule is to be at the SFHC Tuesday and Thursday from 1 to 4:30 – 5, at the NFHC Wednesday from 1 – 2 to 4:30, then split our time on Saturdays and Sundays between both FHCs. This works fine except when we visit a branch to give a Family History lesson in Sunday school and sign people up with a church account on Sunday.

Amid all this Family History work, we are still trying to maintain our assignment with the Ta Khmau branches.

When members want to get an account to do their Family History work, we need their Church Record Number and their birth date as it is in the Church Membership System. There are several problems with obtaining these numbers. First is that the members themselves seldom know them. Some members do not now know their birth date, and because they did not know it when their initial membership form was filled out by a missionary, it was only a guess, which they don’t remember. Sometimes, all they know is the year which they might even get wrong.

As an aside, here when a child is born, they most often start the age numbering with 1, because the child is in its first year. This conflicts with the rest of the world that I know about which sets the child’s age as 1 after the completion of the first year. This causes all kinds of confusion as the child reaches baptism and ordination age.

Additionally, children used to be born at home and often did not have their birth date recorded anywhere. Now the government gets involved and everyone has a registration card. With the older people, sometimes all they know is the zodiac animal they were born under, so we carry an animal year calendar to help people determine their birth year.

To find the member’s Church Record, we obtained a Bishop’s Directory for each of the Districts in Cambodia, which lists each member with their vital statistics. The problem with these reports is that membership changes have not been entered for at least a year, so the member’s record may be in a different branch than they currently live in. This is compounded by data entry errors that have occurred when translating the Khmer into Romanized English. A further complication is some members do not remember exactly what name was used on the records. The final complication is that after a period of inactivity, members may be moved to a Missing or Inactive file (the Lost File). All these things present a problem to the FHC Consultant trying to create an account for the member.

We have the Bishop’s Directory as a PDF on each of the computers we use, but searching them is time consuming and error prone. Seeing this, I determined to extract the information from the PDF files and combine it on a spreadsheet, which is not a simple and direct operation.

As a programmer, extracting the information from the PDF Files was a pleasant diversion. I used Perl, which I learned as I did it taking the better part of three days to accomplish, which yielded a spreadsheet containing all the active members in Cambodia except for the Vietnamese (because their reports were in Vietnamese Unicode). This spreadsheet has made a huge difference in finding the member’s information to help them set up an account.

I had heard there were a large number of members in the ‘Lost’ file, so I obtained a copy of the Cambodian Inactive file, wrote another Perl script and made a Lost Spreadsheet, again without the Vietnamese members.

One other spreadsheet we maintain is a list of all the member accounts we or E/S Rhyne have set up this past year. Most often when a member with an account comes in, all they remember is that they have an account, so we refer to this list to see if we have any information about them. This saves a lot of time too.

Now, as we are staffing the center and trying to do the work we find we cannot do anything without a translator. In fact, we need someone with Khmer Unicode data entry skills to actually type it in. We are beginning to learn the Church’s Family History system but see that much of what consultants in other countries have to do to help the members simply is not done here. Most of the information comes from someone’s memory, which means the genealogy is limited to three generations. There is not any recorded history we know of that can be made searchable. What had been available, Pol Pot destroyed when he killed so many Cambodians. (We have no idea if the Buddhists maintained a list of births and deaths in their Wats, but Pol Pot killed most of the Buddhist Monks too).

Right now, there are big changes coming to Family History, which excite us. We believe that every Cambodian over 35 has a story to tell, and this new system will encourage these stories to be told and recorded.

These are exciting times for Cambodia.

Adventures in the New Home

admin — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:32:38 +0000

The home is beautiful and easy to live in since there is a master bedroom on the ground floor. We love it, mostly. One of the things we really like is the electric remote controlled gate. That is, we love the gate being electric until the electricity is off, then it is manual just like our old place.

Still, it seems we cannot get away from having a fish pond, but instead of a large pot with a huge fish, this pond is large and has numerous small fish.

Even though the front yard is covered with pavers, we do have several fruit trees, with a large Mango tree laden with almost ripe mangoes.

Not all is perfect however. We thought the home was constructed so as to keep out invasive animals and potential robbers, so we really panicked one night when we came to a power failure darkened home. We manually worked the gate then unlocked and opened the front door and heard what sounded like people running to hide in the house. We backed out and got into the car, locked the doors and wondered who to call, since we had not received the police phone number at the time. So we called Soy Kosal, the maintenance man for the mission. He promptly came over with his co-worker, grabbed a shovel and a pipe for weapons and entered the home. Their search did not yield any human intruders but they did hear some animal in the space between the ceiling and the first floor. They found they could bang on the ceiling and something would run to a different part of the ceiling. Searching around the house yielded no clues how whatever it was has gotten in. With the cause determined, we entered the house and went to bed for a restless night. For the next several weeks we continued hearing the animal run from place to place in the ceiling, especially when we would turn on the recessed spot lights (they probably have air vents into the ceiling space allowing some light to enter).

Several times, we examined the outside of the home trying to determine how anything could have gotten into the ceiling, finding nothing. Then, one day I noticed the ends of some iron square tubular beams used to hold part of the roof on were not capped. I reasoned that if these beams were butt welded to their inner support, all would be well, but if they were sitting on top of the support and welded to the top or bottom, they would provide a means of access to the ceiling. So I had the beam ends capped with duct tape, for a temporary fix.

For several nights we heard nothing in the ceiling, then started hearing noises again. A check of the beam ends showed no damage so we thought we had not solved the problem.

Several days later, I awoke early and got up and read my email which kept me busy for nearly an hour, but still being tired, and with dawn not yet forthcoming, I took my iPad with me back to bed. Sleepless and tossing back and forth I decided to write an email by leaning over the edge of the bed with the iPad on the floor, typing with one finger, when out of the darkness and over the brilliantly lit screen hurried an enormous spider. I jerked my hand away as the spider disappeared under the bed, headed for Julia’s side.

Considering what I should do next for a very long millisecond, I raised my voice, instructing Julia to wake and get out of bed, that there was something she needed to see, that was headed her way, causing her to jump right up. Flicking the light on, I noticed a movement against the far wall, so we pulled back the curtain to see a 4 inch Huntsman spider (Initially identified as a Banana Spider) sitting on the window sill. Julia held back the drape while I ran to the next room for something, anything to kill it with, and finding a can of Raid, I returned and sprayed it all over its body, remembering that Julia had told all her pesticide classes that spiders walk on their claws and the only way to actually kill a spider with poison spray was to either spray it directly or hit it with the can. After a half dozen direct, long sprays the spider curled up and died.

4 Inch Huntsman Spider

With the early morning light beginning to stream into the house, I wandered around and happened upon a smallish mango with a yellow patch on it I had picked the day before reminding me I had an almost ripe mango in the kitchen, which I went to check for ripeness. Picking the mango up, I saw where it had been chewed on several times causing me to exclaim, “We have a rat in the house”.

Thinking we would get rats into the living quarters of our house, we had just purchased several sticky traps fearing the return of noises in the house meant we might have a rat trapped inside.

The traps were in a two-pack, so I took one, baited it with Milo and placed it near the garbage can, putting the other unbaited trap to one side of the shelf where we keep the fruit. While waiting for both of us to be ready for breakfast, I heard a noise in the kitchen, and checked the baited trap but saw nothing. At about the third bite of cereal I heard more noises, and found a midsized rat caught in the unbaited trap, struggling to free itself. I finished it off with a bucket of water, which reminded me how much I hate killing larger things. The spider hadn’t bothered me, but the rat did, as it struggled to find breath.

Rat in Sticky trap

We are not sure we can breathe easier or if we just have to maintain constant vigilance. We suppose vigilance is in order, but we will try to get restful nights of sleep and hope the noises stop.

Vacation with the kids, the move, and more

admin — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 09:42:39 +0000

While visiting the mission home, President Moon pulled us aside and asked us to replace Elder and Sister Rhyne as Family History Missionaries, but said we could start after our kid’s vacation.

Meeting our Children at the Airport at midnight

Our two youngest children, Kristi and Jorgen visited us for ten days, from January 21 to January 31, almost long enough, but actually taking us from our missionary work for too long. We had a great time, enjoying every minute.

We regretted that our schedule did not allow us to take them to church with us to the Ta Khmau branches, where we wanted them to meet our friends. Elders and Sisters Henderson and Shelley were leaving the mission on January 23 and we felt we had to be there for their departure, which went smoothly, but did provide us the opportunity to take our kids on a cyclo tour of Phnom Penh downtown.

Jorgen got the smallest cyclo driver

Jorgen, who probably weighs over 250 pounds, ended up with the smallest cyclo driver, which caused Jorgen to jump out and help push his cyclo over a bridge, then to pick up his driver as if he were a small sack of potatoes.

We also took Kristi to one of the markets to purchase some cloth to have some clothes sewn by our friendly seamstress. At the end, when the clothes were delivered, Kristi was sad she hadn’t followed our advice and bought more material because the clothes were beautiful (and inexpensive).

After the returning missionary couples were off, we headed out for Siem Reap driving our vehicle, a 2007 Honda CRV. The first 70 miles made us glad we had an SUV because the road was under construction and was terrible; actually worse than terrible, but I don’t have any words that fit. We were told we could get to Siem Reap, about 220 miles from Phnom Penh in 5 hours, but we made it in 8. This was the first time I had the car over 50 mph, which was so much faster than I had been driving that I really didn’t open it up. The country side was open with lots of brown fields; there hadn’t been rain for several months. Julia got all excited when we saw our first Water Buffalo, but we kept going, expecting to see lots more as we got further away from Phnom Penh.

We had a wonderful hotel reserved, with 2 rooms waiting for us, then had a nice Mexican meal with another missionary couple, the Grimness’ who were there setting up an apartment for some new sister missionaries.

After a good night’s sleep, we were picked up by our tuk-tuk driver, You Dara who took us to the park ticket booth where we purchased day passes for $20 each, $80 for the four of us, then we headed out to see the temples, driving right past Angkor Wat. This confused me, but our driver said it was the best way to see what we wanted to see.

Faces at Bayon

We stopped at the Bayon Temple where large stone faces look down from every flat side of each spire.

Here Kristi and Jorgen had an elephant ride, which they enjoyed immensely. From there, we walked around several temples next to the Bayon, where the kids climbed to the top of each one. There is a major wall between the temples and a large area that looked like a parade ground where there were many places where an elephant could stand near the wall and solders could mount them more easily.

Tree in Temple Wall

From there we drove out the north gate and visited the Preah Khan Temple, then back through the Bayon North gate and out the east gate to the Ta Keo Temple and Ta Prohm Temple.

Joined many tourists at Angkor Wat

By this time we were getting tired and wanted a rest, which we did not get, instead we went to Angkor Wat. Nothing had prepared us for the immense size of these temples. We approached Angkor Wat walking on a causeway across a huge moat, when through a massive doorway into a huge inner court where there was a long walk to the temple itself. Once we were inside the temple, we were routed around the south side of the first floor wall, which was a long bias relief of some huge battles, showing many thousands of warriors, elephants and chariots, all carved by hand. When we came to the center, there was an inner door facing a set of huge stairs leading to the second level.

As we walked around the ‘back’ of the temple, we found a crowd surrounding a band of perhaps a dozen costumed dancers. I thought they were dancers, but after waiting for a show and seeing numerous people stand in line with them to have their picture taken, I determined they were there simply to allow tourists to get a picture with a costumed dancer I was offered to have a picture moment with them for a dollar.

Picture with Angkor Wat Dancers for a dollar

Fortunately, at this time, we met up with our kids who had climbed to the third level of the temple, into the central spire. It had been a long walk into the temple but it was an even longer walk out. It was beautiful, but I was tired and had seen what I wanted to see.

That night we had a traditional Khmae meal, again with the Grimness’ and returned to the hotel for another good night’s sleep.

Angkor National Museum

The next day, we went to Angkor National Museum where they have gathered a thousand statues of Buddha, several man sized, many half sized and a large number of very small statues. These had been gathered from the many Wats to keep them from being defaced. The museum housed a large collection of statues and other art depicting the cultural heritage of the different reigns of the kings from 800 AD to about 1300 AD. I was very surprised by the sheer number of statues and reliefs of topless women, causing me to think that these people must have been very sensual.

Floating Village on Tonle Sap Lake

Next we headed for the Tonle Sap Lake, coming to an inlet where numerous boats were waiting to take tourists like us out to the Floating Village. We paid $25 and jumped onto a boat piloted by 2 kids, 13 and 18 years old. On the way, they turned the helm over to Jorgen which he loved, having never had the opportunity to pilot a boat before. The floating village was a disappointment but the lake was so wide that we could not see the other side. I was surprised by the dirty water out as far as I could see. When I asked if the water was dirty all the way to the other side, the kids guiding us didn’t understand my question, so I never learned the answer.

Returning to Siem Reap, we visited a craft shop, a guild really, where young craftsmen (and crafts-women) learn the skills to replicate different historical items to sell to well-healed tourists. I have to admit that many of the goods looked beautiful but were well beyond my price range.
The next day was Sunday, so we got everyone up and attended the Siem Reap Branch, meeting several other tourists much more adventurous than us. One family had sold their home and was wondering the world with their 4 (or 6) kids. I think the father was working his normal day job remotely using the internet wherever he was. I felt he was gutsy, but probably quite good at what he did.

Silk Worm Cocoons are yellow in Cambodia

After Church, we drove out to a silk farm and had a tour showing the process from growing the food, harvesting and hatching the worms, spinning off the silk, processing and coloring the thread, then weaving it into beautiful cloth and putting the products in the on-site store. Again beautiful but way over my budget. Interestingly, and something I didn’t know, there are two layers of silk in a cocoon, the outer one quite course but the inner being very fine and soft. I had wondered why the Khmae silk I found in the market was stiff and somewhat rough and this explained it.

On the way back from the silk farm, we pulled over at a place we had seen some Water Buffalo just off the road and took the pictures Julia wanted.

The ride home the next day was mostly uneventful except for our stop in Kampong Thom to visit the Grimness’ for lunch. As a treat, they took us to a local Wat which was quite interesting since I had never actually been in one. I was surprised by the art on the inner walls depicting some Buddhist story, probably meant to inspire the faithful.

The last 75 miles was rough as we returned through the construction zone and made our way through clouds of dust.

With three days more of their vacation, it was time for us to actually move, so I sent Julia, our translator and the kids to Phnom Penh for a day on the town, visiting several of the markets and wherever else they wanted to go while I prepared for the move. We had hired a cleaning crew that worked hard for two days while I moved everything outside to make the actual move easier.

With two days to go, on our way home from the local market, we swung by a local shop, really just a front room facing the street where we purchased ‘jake jeean’, or pressed, battered and deep-fat fried bananas. The kids loved them and were unhappy at us for waiting till the end of their vacation to introduce such a wonderful snack to them. On the last day, Kristi and Jorgen disappeared for a time, returning with a bag of ‘jake jeean’ to share.

Final view, up the escalator and gone

We finalized our move to the new home, then went out to dinner then took the kids to the airport. When they left, we all commented that our smile muscles hurt because we had had such a great time. Kristi said it was her best vacation ever and Jorgen said he was going to save each year to visit us wherever we might be on our missions. After waving them off, we went home to our new home to sleep in it the first time.

Friends, Suvan and Mone

With hardly time to unpack and settle in, our good friends, Suvon and Mone visited us from Thailand for 2 days and 3 nights. We showed them Phnom Penh the first day, taking a cyclo ride and eating out at the Titanic Restaurant. The second day, Suvon wanted to see Sihanoukville, the port along the Gulf of Thailand. With the Mission President’s permission, we drove to Sihanoukville taking 5 hours, spent 3 hours dabbling our toes in the water, then another 5 hours back home. I enjoyed the trip, especially the time we spent with our friends, but ten hours driving for three hours of fun was a bit much.

With the visits over, and a new assignment staring us in the face, we jumped right in and tried to learn what we needed to do. Over the past 3 years, I have tried to catch the spirit of genealogy, only to have the difficulty of finding clear answers derail me, so we took this assignment as a push from the Lord to get serious. The Rhyne’s plan was for us to be trained by them for several days then take over the work at the South Family History Center, then after we were comfortable, take over the North Family History Center. This is a big job with several layers of understanding needed to accomplish it. First we needed to understand the physical job; opening and staffing the center, then we needed to get to know the called consultants, then the hardest part, we need to know how to actually do the work, how to get family data loaded into the computer correctly. We are getting to know the first level, but are not very confident about the other levels. Fortunately, the Rhynes are still here mentoring us. They are trying to straighten out the membership data, which is woefully out of date and seems to be getting worse every day. We wish them success, because much of the data we use in Family History comes from the Church Membership System. Sadly, the Rhynes will be returning home within 2 months. But then, we will be headed home in 4 months. It is our desire to do some good in the time we have, so we are making an effort to do a good job.

During the second week in March, we received another call from President Moon, asking us if we would accompany the saints going to the Manila Temple this April. The cost is high, but we want to go, so we said we would go. It should be easy because there are not very many scheduled to go at this time.

We are Moving

admin — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:46:26 +0000

The home we are in is beautiful and quite handy to the church building, which is diagonally across the street. But, it has several problems that have made us want to move.

When we arrived in Cambodia, we were assigned to the Ta Khmau and Kean Svay Branches and ended up spending $500 the first month in tuk-tuk charges just to get around. To help us, the Mission President took Kean Svay from us and suggested we move to Ta Khmau. To help us find a place, a rental agent took us to see over a dozen places, and this home had the best location and what seemed like a high, but affordable price, but mostly it was gorgeous, with a wood interior with display cases stuffed with knick-knacks. I wanted a cheaper place but this place won because of its nearness to the Ta Khmau Chapel. We asked to have the knick-knacks removed because we didn’t want to be responsible for them, but we didn’t think fast enough to ask for the prize Koi fish outside in a huge pot to be taken away as well. The house sits behind a garden court back from the highway surrounded by a high wall with a huge gate, and is quite impressive.

Out First Home in Ta Khmau

Our original lease period is coming to an end and presents us the perfect opportunity to critically examine the house, its cost and failings. The killer problem has been the unresponsiveness of the landlady, which was forcibly brought to our attention when the tub/shower faucet in the master bath started leaking big time and our landlady told us to fix it at our cost because it broke when we had use of the home.

Time to find another home. We wanted to stay in Ta Khmau, close to the people we love, but since we purchased a vehicle, we didn’t need to be so close to the church, so we drove around looking for ‘For Rent’ signs on real homes. Small rooms can be rented for $20-$100 per month, but we wanted American style toilets, hot water and at least 2 bedrooms, so we looked at walled villas. The first several were scary, with dirt and mold and piles of trash all over. Yuk. Finally, we found one about a mile from the church which looked good but the owners wanted more than our present home so we told them our target rental price, $800/month and continued looking.

The rental market must be real bad because they called back in a half hour to ask if we were Americans, because if we were, they would rent it to us for $800 a month. We hadn’t expected to find a good place so soon and expected the home to rent out to someone else before our current lease expired and we could move into the new one so we waited before getting back to them.

At this same time, several other senior couples were coming to the end of their missions and would be going home at the end of January, just as our lease was up, causing us to wonder if the Mission President might assign us to one of the areas outside Phnom Penh. After worrying about this for several weeks, we bluntly asked President Moon what his plans were and were told he would not disrupt what we were doing in Ta Khmau and our assignments in the Mission and we would be staying here. That day, we moved forward in leasing the new home.

Ta Khmau New Home

This home is a nearly brand new home, we think not lived in save for perhaps several nights when the absentee owners happened to be in town. It is bright and airy, has a master bedroom on the ground floor and 3 bedrooms on the first floor. ( I am not used to the floor I would call the second floor in America being called the first floor here.) The home has a beautiful kitchen, front room and dining room. This home was built for a family and it shows.

View of the Front Room

Modern Kitchen

We are ecstatic and cannot wait for February 1, when we can move in. It even has an electric gate and a clicker I can put in the car. I wonder what happens when there is a power failure.

Unfortunately, it also has a fish pond with scads of small fish in it, but nothing like the huge Koi we care for now.

The house doesn’t have Internet wiring but is wired for cable TV, so we don’t yet know where we will put our computers but we’ll have that solved quickly. Like I said, we are excited.

Cambodia Interfaith Christmas Concert

admin — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 11:39:31 +0000

Our Public Affairs Missionary, Sister James had this dream, or perhaps a vision about us sponsoring an Interfaithl Christmas Program, with common Christmas Carols and scripture readings. Her thinking was probably influenced by a comment made by Elder Anderson during a media training event when he described a successful Interfaith Christmas Program he was part of in Mongolia where they actually had participation from other churches.

So she had this idea and sold it to our mission president and her Public Affairs supervisors at the Area Office, which consisted of an attempt to involve other Christian Church Choirs, and a choir composed of members of the different branches in and about Phnom Penh complete with a live nativity. The other churches were not interested except for a lone soprano; using the excuse they had other plans for the proposed day.

As a result, Sister Tuck has been training choirs from Ta Khmau 1st and 2nd, and the International Branch, while Sister James with Sister Westover have been training Choirs from at least 3 other branches. I was assigned the live nativity, to find actors and help build the needed platforms while Sister James had costumes sewn.

Thinking it over, I determined to involve Khmae returned missionaries as Mary and Joseph, shepherds, and the angels, but use older, more stately members for the Wise Men. Not everything worked out as planned but I put together a crew of actors. When we had the nativity training and costume fitting, it was wonderful, with the actors and the costumes looking great, probably looking nothing like the real event, but wonderful none-the-less.

We had Mary and Joseph, played by Un Sophol Nara and his sister, Un Sophallaroth, both returned missionaries. Having a brother and sister play these parts enabled them to interact more personally which worked quite well.

Mary and Joseph

The Shepherds were played by Samat Kim Sroy, Chum Meta and Chhoeun Sokunthea, all returned missionaries.

Shepherds

The Angels were played by Phon Srey Leak, Samat Kim Thoy and Mey Phalla. Srey Leak, although not yet a returned missionary was a last-minute replacement which turned out to be a stroke of genius.

Angels

The Wise Men were played by Ken Gabriel, Un Sophol, and Kay Sopheap. Ken Gabriel, the only non-Ta Khmau actor was chosen for the part by Sister James which turned out to be an inspired choice due to his size and presence.

Wise Men

We held a costume fitting and part rehearsal at the Ta Khmau building the Sunday prior to the performance where we showed everyone the role they would play. Not quite the real set, but it worked OK.

The Combined Nativity

We had determined we needed a short platform below the Sacrament Table, a platform over the sacrament Table, and a higher stand behind the Sacrament Table. Ultimately we determined we could put a carpet on the Sacrament Table to protect it and just build the short and tall platforms. The original concern was that the Sacrament Table may not be able to stand the weight of the actors, but realizing that our Khmae actors are slight of build we put that fear to rest.

Shopping around, Elder James had a bid of $500 for the set of platforms, much too high so we looked elsewhere, considering welding platforms for $550 and building our own for less than $150. Of course, I had the opportunity to build the two platforms, based on some remnants from a 4×8 sheet of plywood I had purchased for another project. My total cost complete with some tools and delivering the platforms to the North District Center was $120, well within budget.

The first and second rehearsal at the North District Center went good, with about 75 choir members. We expected to have just over 100 members in the choir when we have the real thing on Saturday, December 15, which is tomorrow. The big dress rehearsal is tonight. [skip ahead several days]

Dress rehearsal went well. The platforms Elder James and I built worked wonderfully, and the choirs combined well. Sister James went through the show twice with everybody so both the Nativity actors and the choirs knew what to do. While we had a big choir, they were seated by branch because in addition to the numbers that would be performed as a group, there were songs sung by the individual branches as well.

Elder James had a star made from a florescent light which turned out to be very fragile, having to be replaced [twice – shhhh, Sister James doesn’t know about the first breakage] before it was hung above where Joseph and Mary would be. The star was five-pointed about 14 inches across and shone brightly when plugged in. There are craftsmen that can do almost anything here in Phnom Penh if you can just find them.

Finally, Saturday, the day of our performance came.

After a full day of teaching and meetings, Sister Tuck and I arrived at the North District Center at 4:30, finding Elder and Sister James and a good number of choir members and audience already there. We participated in the hustle and bustle required for the final setup and were quite relieved when the choir members and the Nativity actors showed up.

As the clock counted down to the starting time, we were pleased to see the audience fill up, and very pleased to see the US Ambassador with (I think) a representative from the Cambodian Ministry of Cults and Religions join with us.

Suffice it to say that the choirs sounded great, the narration from the scriptures wonderful, and the live nativity illustrated the songs and the scriptures. Sister James led the choirs with some help from Sister Tuck, Sister Westover played the piano, Dallin Green played a violin and Kim Koung narrated the scriptures. It must be noted that the scriptures were read in both English and Khmae, and many of the songs were done in both languages, except for one song which was sung in English and Vietnamese.

There was a noteworthy point when the Wise Men came up from the rear of the hall, being led by Ken Gabriel where the noise level of the audience increased as a wave as Ken passed each row, really causing quite a stir.

Everything went smoothly and the evening was a success. The final count was 137 in the choir and 1112 in the audience.

This is real American food!

admin — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 12:13:15 +0000

The Mission President asked if any of us senior Couples could provide a Thanksgiving Day Dinner for the missionaries in our areas. Without a second thought, we volunteered to feed the entire Phnom Penh East District, consisting of 16 Elders and Sisters. As it turned out, the two AP (Assistant to the President) Elders assigned to the East District were out in the Provinces conducting training and couldn’t come; their loss. So we had 14 (hungry) missionaries come.

Wonder of wonders, we found turkeys for sale at Lucky’s Supermarket at an exorbitant price, and they were Norbest turkeys all the way from Utah, less than 150 miles from our Provo home. Did I say they were pricy? They were expensive, $45 for the 14 pounder we bought. But Lucky’s had them so we were on for a real Thanksgiving dinner.

Then came the next problem. We have a toaster oven. A small toaster oven. No match of the bird, even though at 14 pounds this turkey was by no means ‘big’. Normally, to feed our clan at home we buy a 26 pound bird. But we are in Cambodia and we actually found a turkey to buy. Thinking this through, we remembered the Turkey Roaster we have at home, so we set out to buy one in the big city, Phnom Penh.

This is what we pictured in our mind:

Turkey Roaster

No luck. Not that they aren’t for sale here but we couldn’t find one in all the stores we know about. So we called Kosal, a Khmae friend who ‘knows all’, and he told us to go to a shop near Central Market because they have one. When parked and started walking toward the store, the shop keeper ran out to meet us; Kosal had told her we were coming.

No roaster ovens, at least not what we were expecting. What we found was:

Halogen Roaster

A Halogen Roaster oven. A little small, but the shop owner had a metal ring that could sit on top of the bottom glass bowl and increase its capacity. The lady wanted $48, but I didn’t have $48 on me, just $45, so I told her it was $45 or nothing. With a grumble, she took the $45. I felt bad about it until I read the suggested retail in Cambodia was $32. Small wonder she wouldn’t let me out of the shop to comparison shop.

We still had concerns – would our turkey fit? Would the power stay on for the cooking time? Would we have enough drippings for gravy? A lot of things we just didn’t know.

Beset with these concerns, we decided to cook the turkey several days early, so we thawed it and put it breast-side down into the roaster on a short rack, then set the temp and time and watched. The machine heated up then cycled on and off maintaining the temperature. Since the timer only went to one hour, we gave it a second hour and watched some more. The turkey had the ‘tender timer’ button but I had placed the turkey in the pot with the timer facing down where I couldn’t see it, so at the end of the second hour, I flipped the bird over and found the timer had not popped up, so I gave it another hour. Well into the third hour, I began to panic because the radiant energy from the halogen bulb was beginning to darken the breast more than I liked, so I put a tent of aluminum foil over the breast then noticed the drum sticks were loose and almost coming off. Finally, lack of patience got the best of me and I took the turkey out of the roaster and pulled off the drumsticks, then noticed the tender timer had popped up. I had cooked the turkey OK.

We sliced the breast meat and pulled off the dark meat, placed it on serving trays and poured a thin gravy over the top, wrapped the trays with foil and froze them. So the meat was taken care of.

No thanksgiving meal is complete without mashed potatoes, so we went to the Ta Khmau Old Market to the vegetable vendor we use and asked how to buy 10 kg of potatoes, expecting her to tell us to come back tomorrow, but not so, she had enough potatoes on hand to give us the full 10 kg right then.

During the previous month, we looked for the other ingredients we wanted to have for our thanksgiving meal, and were lucky enough to find some canned cranberries but were not able to find pumpkin pie filling. We did find squashes that were labeled ‘pumpkins’ so we cooked some and had a passable replacement for the orange pumpkin flesh we use to get great pies. Fortunately, our toaster oven was up to the task of cooking the pies.

Sister Tuck really wanted green bean casserole, the kind made with mushroom soup, green beans and French-fried onions. The canned green beans were very difficult to find (they don’t seem to have canned green beans here) and when we did find them the price was out-of-sight. But, the markets have plenty of yard-long green beans so she decided to try them. She became alarmed when she found a caterpillar amongst the yard-long beans so carefully went through them to insure no beasties in the final product. Cutting and pressure-cooking the beans made a passable substitute for canned blue lake green beans but the end result left a bit to be desired.

When the time came for the dinner, the missionaries showed up and we all sat down to a great feast. I warned the elders that a 14 pound turkey only went so far, but when I dished it up, one of the Elders exclaimed “that’s a lot more meat than I expected” making me feel good about the turkey and the roaster (the mashed potatoes saved the day).

While the missionaries were feasting, the Americans told their Khmae companions, “Now, this is a real American meal.”

Everybody was happy and there were even some leftovers.

Happy Missionaries following the Feast

Love that transcends Language

admin — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 05:17:27 +0000

Kay Sopheap is the Elders Quorum President of the Ta Khmau 1st Branch, a short stocky man in his late forties. We worked together months ago trying to hammer out home teaching, meeting for 2+ hours every Tuesday afternoon, having a translator with us so we could communicate. I know perhaps a dozen or two Khmae words, and Pheap knows the same number of English words.

Yesterday, at church, he came up to me and shook my hand then drew me to him in a hug. When he released the hug, he threw his arms wide and we hugged each other again in a big bear hug.
I love Pheap and I know he loves me. We didn’t need words.

Flags at Half-Mast

admin — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 10:36:15 +0000

We opened the gate and pulled the car out, preparing to drive into Phnom Penh when I noticed a row of Cambodian flags across the street, rustling in the wind with one at half-mast. Due to some national holidays, all the moto drivers I know were gone, so I asked the single moto driver whom I didn’t recognize what was going on, and received a blank stare. Not knowing basic Khmae really hurts communication when the other person doesn’t know English, but I persisted, and asked again moving my hands “the flag is at half mast, did someone die?” Then I asked if someone was sick, and he pointed his thumb down, shaking his head and said “King”. “Oh” I said, “The King died.”

I immediately ran to get our flag and flag pole. When I started to tie the flag at the top of the pole, my moto driver friend shook his head indicating we needed to tie it at half-mast. A short piece of rope solved that problem and soon we were flying the flag properly.

I was amazed at how few flags we saw as we drove through Phnom Penh, but did notice the flag at the Independence Monument was at half-mast. We suppose the news of the King’s death had not been spread widely yet and expect a big deal to be made of it in the next few days.

The King

The King has died, and of the many tributes of him I have read, the one that touches me the most is his comment I paraphrase “they worship me as a god. I wish I was really a god and could relieve their suffering.”

I was impressed to see pictures of mourners dressed in white lining Russian Boulevard waiting to see the King’s bier as it traveled from the airport to the Palace, then to see the picture of the crowds at the Palace. Our translator said there were a million people in Phnom Penh honoring the King, which is remarkable to me since Phnom Penh has a population of about 2 million.

It’s hard to know what is in the heart of another man, especially one so different from me, but I can tell from the words and actions of the common people I know here in Cambodia that they loved their King and wish to honor him. Now, several days after his death and triumphal return to Phnom Penh, I see many more flags at half-mast. Virtually every home along the streets I walk has a flag out, and many people I see are wearing a black ribbon honoring him.

I understand that for the 7 days following his return to Phnom Penh public entertainment and alcohol consumption are suspended in the King’s honor. This will be interesting to watch since beer seems to be a part of so many Cambodian men’s lives. I have even heard that the Phnom Penh Water Festival has been cancelled, although the provinces can still have their Water Festivals. I don’t expect this prohibition to impact me or what I do or most of the church members at all. We do have a friend in the branch whose wife owns a restaurant that serves beer that may be impacted, so I will watch and see.

Cambodian Church Music

admin — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 11:40:19 +0000

Currently, the music sung in the Church Meetings comes from a booklet of about 40 hymns and 5 children songs translated and published at least 10 years ago. While this is a real blessing to the Cambodian Saints, many wonderful church songs are omitted. To resolve this, the Church Priesthood Review Committee called two committees to review hymns and songs that had been translated.

Sister Tuck is on both music committees, one for the regular Church Hymnal and the other for the Children Sing songbook. The committees are called to review the translation and make sure the words make sense, fit the music and are doctrinally correct. Sister Tuck focuses on the words fitting the music. Since she does not speak the language, we have a translator go through the songs in Khmae and Romanize the words so that Sister Tuck can sing them. Kunthea, our translator has gotten very good at this and has found many translation errors and probably ought to be on the committee as well. Each committee has four people assigned to it with one of the employees from the translation department overseeing the review work. Committee meetings are held periodically to combine everyone’s findings.

So far, just over half the hymns and songs have been translated and reviewed by the committees and turned over to the translation department to consolidate the review findings.

After this phase of the review process completes, a Priesthood Review committee will do another review then the books will be sent to be typeset, reviewed again, and then printed. Since the finished products will be the standard Cambodian Hymnal and Children Sing books for years to come, it is imperative they be done correctly, and the committees Sister Tuck is on is only an early step in the process. While we would like to take the completed books home with us when we finish our mission we do not expect the process to be finished in time.

Sister Tuck is pleased to be part of this project and is excited by the wonderful hymns and songs that will soon be available to the Cambodian Saints.