Sellers Cambodia Mission Weeks 6,7,8

 It seems like one day just simply blends into the next.  Dan has been working so hard renovating health centers and hospitals, meeting with doctors and hospital directors and planning visits for our upcoming doctor visits from the states.  We welcomed three doctors from Intermountain Hospital in Salt Lake who are experts in laparoscopic surgery.  Dan and Dr. Anderson spent a week alternately with them as they took them around to various hospitals and meeting with doctors and administrators.  This was basically a fact finding mission to determine the need for further training down the road.  And boy is there!  They had some stories to tell which didn't surprise us, but they will be coming later to train doctors in the fine art of laparoscopic surgery which is much needed here.  So we did a fair amount of wining and dining and enjoying the experience.  These are friends of Dan's who do a lot of charity work overseas as does Dan.

Our translator, Karona and I took a day to visit all eight church buildings in Phnom Penh to determine the status of all of the piano keyboards.  Most of the churches in the Asia Area do not have regular (acoustic) pianos, but have electric keyboards.  These are larger than the ones I teach keyboard classes on and of course much more versatile.  They even have an option for pushing a button and having the hymns play!  (so why am I wasting my time teaching keyboard?!)  Each building has a very nice one for the chapel and some slightly smaller and not as fancy ones for the Primary room and some of the other rooms.  It was sad to note that electric cords were missing on several keyboards, and several others have shown signs of abuse.  Of course, electric keyboards are not going to take the abuse like an acoustic piano, but having acoustic pianos in these humid and hot climates would wreak havoc on the tuning and possibly the insides of the pianos.  Therefore, electric pianos.  Since not many here can play a piano well enough for a Sacrament Meeting, it stands to reason that we default to the electric keyboards.  It was fun to see all of the different church buildings, including several that are rented houses turned church building.  

I answered a knock on my door on my birthday, lamenting that this was a milestone that was bitter sweet--quite old, and yet glad to be here still.  There stood three sister missionaries, two elders and Sister Audrey Yan bearing two cakes and a sign declaring my age!  They sang to me and served me such a delicious cake that Audrey had made that rivaled Costco's giant chocolate cake (that we all miss).  What a surprise!  It was nice to see the birthday wishes on the mission 'news chain' all day, in spite of the fact that they advertised my age!  Well, on my birthday I ran seven miles, did 700 sit-ups (in three segments) and made 70+ cookies.  Okay, glad that doesn't happen often!  Oh, did I just advertise my age???!!!

Speaking of running, Dan and I have been running every Monday for about five months to the temple site and back to record the progress made.  We are sad to say that there doesn't appear to be a lot of progress.  For weeks it just looked like the ground was graded but at least now there are trenches for some pipes and gravel for a make-shift road for trucks and equipment.  The ground-breaking was the middle of September so it's sad to not see much progress.  We got word this week that a supervisor from the church will be arriving in June to oversee the construction.  That's good news!

We were blessed here in our branch to have a baptism of three Chinese women!  These women have been searching for this for a long time and are so excited to be a member of our branch, as well as adding to our Chinese group.  We have had four Chinese members baptized since coming here and another will be baptized soon.  So exciting!  Two weeks later we witnessed another baptism in a different ward but with a young woman who was so excited to be baptized that she literally bounced!  She provided treats and gifts for all who attended her baptism.  She is in the process of studying for college because she wants to to to medical school.  It's so nice to see the enthusiasm of these new members.

Cambodia was ravaged from 1975 to 1979 by a terrible leader named Pol Pot.  He was instrumental in killing hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, including anyone who was educated or looked educated (glasses, etc.) and women and children.  It was much the same as the extermination of the Jews in that his army would scoop people up from the street, steal them from their homes, etc., and put them in prisons and torture them before killing them.  We visited the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum which is the site of the largest prison in Cambodia.  There were rooms (it was a school before becoming a prison) showing where and how people were tortured and killed.  They even had a room full of human skulls!  I could not go into some of the rooms because things were too graphic.  There was a 'survivor' on site--a 90+ year old man who then sold us a book that he wrote of his experiences in the prison.

A few weeks later we visited the 'killing fields' which is another place where people were tortured and killed, then dumped into mass graves.  They again had skulls and actual clothes on display that had later been collected and saved.  We saw some bones and pieces of clothing coming out of the ground in places which apparently happens when there is a big rain.  Again, very sobering.  I haven't seen the movie, The Killing Fields and probably won't, but I've heard that the movie First They Killed My Father is very good.  Our good friend Vichet remembers when his own father disappeared.  He was a very smart and educated man so of course he was a target.  How many times does history have to repeat itself?  The Khmer Rouge set this country back so far, and the current government has not been able to overcome the deficit.

We were invited along with a set of missionaries to go to the orphanage that we kind of adopted for dinner and family home evening.  It's amazing how much food they have to prepare for their 20 people!  These kids were so excited to see us!  Of course they were sure to tell us how much they enjoy the basketball standard and the soccer goal that we took them a couple of months ago.  They have so many needs!  However, they are all so happy!  It's heartwarming to see the interaction between the caretakers and the children.  There is a group of people in Utah who have created a trust for the orphanage but they struggle each month to make ends meet.  We were impressed with how much these children know about the gospel as was evidenced by their participation in the lesson.

Elder Ron Rasband was scheduled to come here a few weeks ago along with his wife and Elder Homer, president of the Asia Area.  They were to meet with all of the missionaries at the stake center near our apartment.  In the evening they were to address the general populace of the church, so everyone was excited.  Many of us cleaned, patched, planted flowers, etc. at the church building in preparation for the meeting.   Alas, a "Covid-related" problem prevented it. All were still excited, as we met in a huge auditorium at the Sofitel Hotel.  We had all meetings via Zoom from his hotel room in Singapore, but we still enjoyed a wonderful meeting with a wonderful experience.  They were very warm and engaging with the audience which made it a very uplifting day for all.

This week we have been teaching Temple Prep classes to a dozen sister missionaries in preparation for attending the temple in Cebu, The Philippines.  None of the Cambodian missionaries have been through the temple due to Covid.  Now that the temples are open, our mission is working hard to get them all temple worthy and sent to the temple before the end of their missions.  I think this may be the case all over the world.  We were to take the first group to the Philippines next week but the temple and patron housing is overwhelmed with the number of patrons wanting to attend the temple.  Last week Mongolia sent 18 missionaries to Manila!  Our group will go in May which will be too late for us as we will be going home in May.  

Today was a lovely handover ceremony at the Ksach Kandal Referral Hospital.  Samnang, our boss at the service center and the district governor of Koh Thom both spoke which went on and on!  Two speakers took one hour!  Luckily we had a fan going behind us or we would have melted!  They were most appreciative of the equipment we have given to them, as well as an incinerator and generator.  Attendees were hospital and health center workers and government officials.  

This week I have been teaching a hymn conducting workshop in each of the stake centers.  The first two nights were not well attended, but the next two promise to be better attended.  I suppose that it's no different here than anywhere that the chorister doesn't understand that they are actually supposed to be  following a beat pattern instead of just waving their arm around.

From now until the end of our mission we will be extremely busy with finalizing projects, handovers, etc.  We have two groups of medical specialists coming soon:  Ultrasound Training and Helping Babies Breathe.  Both groups again are people skilled in their area of expertise who train and help all over the world, and they are friends of Dan's.  They are coming in on each other's heels and at the same time as our replacements. .  We will have two weeks to train our replacements, Neal and Carol Ann Clinger from Idaho Falls.  Neal is a retiring Interventional Neuroradiologist. We will be extremely busy taking them to see the projects that they will continue, taking them to meet people that they will be working with and basically teaching them what they need to know to carry on the work.

We are starting to get a bit 'trunky' as we can see the end of the mission.  However, we don't have time to let down our guard as we will be busy every minute.  We plan to go home by way of Thailand (next door to us) and Singapore as we will probably never be in this area again.  I know that when Dan gets on the plane for the final leg home, he will heave a great sigh of relief, although we will both miss the beautiful acquaintances that we have made here.