Well we weren't sure what was going to happen to us the last couple days. We got together with some guy (Som Rasmei) for the last few days. We thought the plan was to go with him out to the farms for an afternoon, or a day and do some work with them. We finished our travel back to Phnom Pehn and his son picked us up from the bus station and started driving. We thought we were going to their house and just going out from there for the next day, but we just kept driving. Finally after an hour of driving we figured out that we were not anywhere where we should be. Was he kidnapping us? Nope, just driving us to a place they have out in a small community an hour and a half away. It was night and dark out, and pouring rain, so we could not follow where we were going. While we were driving he asked us if we heard his story? He told us that Elder Oaks had talked about him in May 2006 general conference. "Only 5 percent of the people in Cambodia are Christians. A family in that country was searching for the truth. While their 11-year-old son was riding his bicycle he saw some men in white shirts and ties showing someone a picture and asking who it was. He felt he should stop. As he watched, he was prompted to say, “That is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and He came to save man.” Then he rode away. It took the missionaries a month to find him and his family. Today, the father is a counselor in the mission presidency." President Som also gave us a story of his life starting with him going through the Khmer Rouge time, and then on to the rest of his conversion story and on to now. Kind of interesting. His wife had all in her family killed by the Khmer rouge except for her and her sister because a friend, who was supposed to get her to go, warned them to not go back to their town like he was supposed to tell them to, or they would be killed.
We got out there and they gave us their bed and pulled out a spare bed and slept in the other room. While we were getting ready for dinner, we walked into the kitchen and there was a HUGE spider sitting on the wall next to Som's wife, she didn't mind it though. I kept my eye on it though, and added on top of that, there was a HUGE spider in the bathroom, that I had to watch as I was in there. So I started getting a little nervous, then I looked in the bedroom. Oh crap I thought as I looked at the holes on the top of the wall to outside. Anything that wants to can come visit us tonight. Som said that the spiders that were in the house weren't dangerous, but the tarantulas were dangerous and they sometimes visit. They said spiders weren't the things to worry about, it was the snakes to worry about. They kill people, not spiders. He told us that snakes often visit the house when they are gone, and also that he killed 2 in the last week out back their house. Well I thought to myself, at least the holes are on the top of the wall, so the snakes can't get in. I thought this until I looked at the doors. They had big cracks on the bottom to outside. Lucky for us they gave us a mosquito net to put over the bed. Dinner was great. Shortly after we went to bed slept soundly, until 6am when their family gets up. So up we got and went out for breakfast. We went to a Muslim restaurant and had some weird beef soup. We then went to a meeting and said hi to the whole organization he was with and told them we were here and wanted to see how things are run here in Cambodia. Then off to his next meeting where they were teaching kids about cleanliness and how they need to wash themselves. I guess the way the girls wash themselves is in the rivers they just pour water over their clothes and call it good, but they were told they need to wash under their clothes too. We also watched a movie of the presentation that Dudley's made while here, about the father being in charge of the family, and the importance of family council. At the end of their meeting, we were told to get up and ask the kids some questions and then give them a shirt as a reward. I asked them "what can you do to stop the spread of bacteria?" I.e wash hands. They could not get it. So I just gave it away. Cleanliness is a thing that really needs to be learned here.
We were soon on our way and off to the field. We stopped at one of the traditional fields and helped them for a couple minutes, or in other words, they let us put some rice into the ground, which they probably redid anyways. Then off to lunch back at President Som's house. We had rice and vegetables, surprised? Then we had a nap for a half hour before heading out to the farms again. We stopped at a farm and the lady took us through it to look at it. The church is funding an organization to teach Cambodian's a better way to farm that produces 2x more than their traditional way. After walking through the fields for a while she brought us back to her house and we sat outside and drank coconut juice right out of coconuts that were just picked for us. Too bad we don't like the taste of coconut juice because. It was a special treat from them so we drank it and acted like we LOVED it until our stomachs were so full of juice that we couldn't even make anymore go down. She wants us back during Mango season, so we can sit around and eat mangos together. She was so nice, and we talked about Canada and how well it is off compared to here. She wanted to live our easy life, because it is so easy to buy things here. We assured her that most people live with dept for most their lives, which makes for a pretty miserable life. So I think she is just content living here and owning nothing except her house, land, and animals, because she had no dept. It sure was fun there and it made us feel kind of part of the whole experience. After that we went back to their place they rent and went out for dinner. We ate from off a fire mountain, kind of same idea as a fondue. We sat on top of a table and ate. We forgot our camera. After that we went back to their place and sat outside and listened to the bugs and geckos, and you name it for a couple hrs till we went to bed and layed in bed and listened to them all, but this time through a mosquito net.
This morning we got up and went to another meeting with a bunch of younger people, that walked around a farm looking at the new way to farm. It was fun, because we felt part of them. Then off to Phnom Pehn for the night. AND we went to heaven for lunch and dinner. At McDonalds, or in their name, Lucky Burger. Mmmmm!!!! Soft and hard ice cream. We almost ate till we were sick of ice cream, were it possible.

Hello?....Helo?... Anyone there?

hey, has anyone heard from our families? Did the rest of the world blow up while we were here? We just haven't heard anything in a few days! This morning we woke up late. Ate breakfast, packed, ate icecream, walked around, and now we're waiting for our bus to the capital - Phnom Penh! Please just keep in mind the internet is our connection with familiarity so it's nice to feel connected!

The Day After...

Hello! You can rest assured that Bradyn and I didn't die during the night from some bug bite contracted while scrambling through thorns (of which we are still picking out pieces from our limbs) and ants trying to get back to our kayak in one piece. We decided that although it was our cheapest play day when speaking in monetary costs, it was our priciest day speaking in physical costs. But we also decided that the Lord was looking out for us and we were so blessed. In large part probably because of so many prayers on our behalf!

Shortly after we got back to our hotel, the lightning display that we had seen while out on the ocean broke out into a storm. The wind howled and the rain poured all night long and most of the morning. We were so fortunate to get back to the mainland and that we weren't stuck out on the island, injured and in the pouring rain! As it was, it was dark long before we got to shore. But we made it back in one piece. We just had a hard time sleeping last night. After we said our prayers, Bradyn asked me if I see sea shells and a million crabs when I closed my eyes. I saw that and a bunch of waves! While I was trying to fall asleep, I kept waking up with a start, feeling like I was slipping on another rock.

After a rough night's sleep the alarm went off earlier then either of us wished, but we had to get up to catch our bus. At least that's what we thought. We had booked seats through our hotel the night before but they had failed to give us tickets for it. At least we hadn't paid yet. Our tuk tuk driver showed up and off we went through the rain and lightning, looking for our bus. On the way the tuk tuk got a flat tire so we had to switch rides. Bradyn was able to bargain that so that we didn't have to pay more because of the ride change. So we got to the bus station and saw all sorts of buses lined up. We didn't know what was going on and the rain was pouring! Pouring! And our driver keeps driving past the bus station. Bradyn and I just looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. Turns out we were taken to the shared taxi station and told that there was no bus to Kampot (yet we had booked it the night before!). A taxi driver approached us and we asked how much a ride to Kampot would be, the answer $5 each. Great! Cheaper then the bus by $2.50 each. So we jumped on that idea even after we were informed that there were six passengers. four in the back and two in the front. While Bradyn and I were waiting for our taxi to get ready to leave, the driver suddenly approaches us and says, now there were two passengers, Bradyn and I and the taxi would cost $25 total. We didn't like the sounds of that so we were prepared to go back to our hotel and arrange for different transportation, but we didn't have to. We did have to wait for another hour and a half while our driver tried to round up enough passengers to make the trip worth his time. We piled NINE (read it!) nine people into a small car for a two hour ride to Kampot. It was all part of the experience right? By the time we arrived at our destination, Bradyn and i crawled out of the car, numb from the waist down because of lack of circulation. It's all for the sake of experience! And we saved ourselves $15 by going through it.

The rest of the day was spent touring the caves in the countryside. We went to two caves and at each one there was a group of small children wanting to be our guides. Previously, our driver had told us he would be our guide so we just let him deal with the kids at the first cave. Four of them tagged along and told us all sorts of things about what we were seeing around us. Smart kids and their english was great! They were cute too! One girl, I thought she was 4, but turns out she was 7! The kids here all look so much younger then they are. It's crazy!

We walked on. The first cave was supposed to be the "most impressive because there's a 7th century brick temple located inside the main chamber"(Quoted from our guide book). So in my mind I imagined climbing through a cave for fifteen minutes or so and coming upon a large open space where a brick temple - like a little ankor wat, was built. Wrong! We were in for a disappointment. Keep in mind this was the whole reason we came to this area and rode in the taxi. So, back to the story. We arrived at the entrance gate area to the cave and had to pay $1 each to enter. Up we climbed. Up cement steps and then we descended a few more down into the cave. There at the bottom of 20 steps, barely inside the entrance to the cave was a brick doorway - the 7th century brick temple! We were suprised I guess. Disappointed, but I guess it's pretty hard to get a large temple in a cave hey? It was preserved very well though. Since Bradyn and I are not so good at the archeology thing we didn't spend much time looking at the temple. We were back to the tuk tuk before long and just before we left the children asked, "could you please give us some money for school?" We gave them each 1000riels (equivalent to 25 cents basically, but we had already arranged for a guide previously.) They were quick to be laughing and talking with us again. They showed us grasshoppers the size of mice! They were huge!!!! I guess that's a whole meal in and of itself!

We were on to the next cave. Along the way we stopped for a quick snack of grilled bananas, coated with coconut and wrapped in banana tree leaves to cook. It was...good? Not bad, but a little wierd.

The next cave we arrived at and kids were running after our tuk tuk as we drove up to park. Once again a crowd of boys, this time quite a bit older, followed us wanting to be our guide. We told them before we left that we only needed one guide and were going to pay $2. That was it! the guiding is a five minute job! This time we were willing to pay one a bit more because our guide/driver said he wasn't going to guide us through this cave. This cave was more interesting then the first, but the boy who was guiding us was also supposed to shine the flashlight for us to see where we were stepping. He didn't do such a good job. The lack of light combined with injured feet from yesterday made the going slow. When we left that cave we weren't impressed with the boys and their behavior. They acted quite inappropriately and so we were happy to leave.

We got back to the hotel, bought a fresh coconut to try drinking the milk straight from it and then headed out in search of food. Supper tonight was interesting! I wouldn't say appetizing by any means. Bradyn ordered grilled crab and I ordered grilled chicken. Bradyn's order came and suddenly I was worried about what mine would look like. Bradyn's crab came out on a plate and it looked still alive! It was all attached and didn't even have any seasoning on it! I was glad it was Bradyn's meal and not mine! Unfortunately niether one of us knows much about eating crab so we didn't know how much of it he was to eat. We broke the body open and passed that up. So Bradyn ate the meat in the pinchers and some in the legs.

My order came. Grilled chicken legs with everything! I couldn't eat much. I more so played with the toes of the chicken. It tasted like the smell of the markets so I just couldn't finish it. But like always, we had rice to fall back on!

Ok have a look at this picture. Can you see the thrill of hiking to and seeing their cave temple? Ya, me niether. But here it is, one small room with a buddha statue. They even made us pay to help maintain buddha!

Look at the grasshopper! Yes it is as big as it looks! YUCK

Yum! Grilled crab. The only problem is that I didn't know how to eat anymore than the pinchers, or even if you do eat more. So I left it except for the pinchers.

D&C 122:something

"And above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good. "
Today was one of those days. We set off with our day happy for a day we finally decided to go kayaking on our own and go visit a couple islands. We rented the motorbike and took most of the morning getting ready, buying snorkel set and food and getting lost. We got to the kayak rental place and took it for the day. The waves were white capping the whole time, so it was fun to rock back and forth and get eaten by the swells. We finally made it to our first island and took our goggles and mouth piece and started looking in the water. Kind of dirty ocean water, so we couldn't do very well, and on top of that the snorkel set would not keep water out of our mouths or our eyes. So we opted out and started to walk around the island. We collected seashells the way around. It started pouring on us, but smart of us, we brought our rain jackets finally. The only problem was we weren't smart enough to bring them with us around the island, and there was no going back by then, so we got soaked, may as well been swimming. We had a lot of fun though. There was a million crabs all over the place, and lots of shells for collecting. We got around and had lunch, a baguette . Then off to the next island. The waves were even better now, bigger. We paddled for an hr and made it there. There was lots of shell around, so Nikki got started right into it. The tide was coming up, so I said if we wanted to walk around, we should get going before we can't. Off we went. We walked the shore, then the rocks, then the water. We were having fun, and slipping all over the place. Nikki found this sand dollar looking thing and I carried it, she told me to guard it with my life. Death was better than breaking it!! So we kept walking, until Nikki fell and broke her finger. We didn't turn around, that's not us, we kept walking. We walked and slipped and walked, I took the camera and put it in my pocket and, still had that shell that I had to guard. I took one step and tripped and tried to catch myself by moving my feet right into a sharp rock, and gouged my toe in two places. Here sharky, sharky, sharky!!! My toe was cut the whole way across and another big one on the tip. And on top of that, I fell flat into the water. Our camera was still OK though. We kept walking and soon ran into a problem , the tide had come up. So we tried to climb up higher, but had to go into the trees. Remember where we are, THE JUNGLE!!! This island was small and with only two little houses on it, so it was just run right over with unexplored jungle. Fun you think? Well let me continue. We started to trek up the hill and into the trees and vines. These are spike trees and spike vines and spike plants and spike everywhere. Each step was followed by a scream of pain as spikes tore at our flesh. The spike vines were like barricades we had to push through. To add to that any pause in our steps resulted in large red ants climbing on us and biting us. I felt like being a gentleman and letting Nikki go first and braking through the webs. We ran into one that Nikki had pushed through and there was the biggest, scariest looking spider I had ever seen, so, yes I screamed like a girl. For Nikki the worst thing was the spikes, for me I didn't care how many spikes jabbed me, I was too scared of the spiders. Yes I'm a wuss when it comes to spiders. I would do anything for Nikki, but not that! We kept on going, and saw these HUGE millipedes, or whatever they were, and huge worms, and huge ants, and huge spikes, and huge .... I think you get the idea. I thought we were going to die from some big thing. I was just waiting for a human eating spider to come out!! We pushed and we pushed and we cried with pain, and cried with pain, but we made it through, to a cliff edge. We wanted to cry. We were tired and hurting, and I was too scared to go back in to find a new way. So we started scaling the ledge, the big problem was that every time we would put our feet or hands somewhere it was a big red ant pile. OUCH!!! These are the ones that bite and HURT very bad for a long time. But we made it down and ran into the water to get all the ants off of us. We were both so grumpy by then that we didn't care if we left each other to get eaten by the ants. At one big drop off I jumped and turned around to help Nikki, but I looked at the ground and I was standing on red ground because the ants were so thick, so I said she was on her own and took off. But I did come back and help her while I danced. So we made it out, and started walking through the water and rocks, because the tide was coming up too high. We had to time the waves and jump from rock to rock in between the waves. We did this until all of a sudden Nikki screamed with pain, so I ran back to see her. Her big toenail was standing up, broken almost all the way off. OUCH!!! Where was the closed toe shoes? In the hotel! Where was the first aid kit? In the hotel! Smart thinking eh! At least we packed them for this trip. We had no option but to keep going because it was getting late and would soon get dark. We pushed and Nikki cried with pain every little movement that her toenail made. But we finally made it to the boat and that was the happiest part of our day. We headed right off, watching the sun setting at the same time. We paddled on the calm sea. That sure helped our spirits out. We paddled and paddled and ya, paddled. We soon had the privilege of watching a lightning show going on all around us while on the sea. It soon became our only light as the sun was down. We finally made it to shore, but it was not the right one. We had to walk for a couple km in the water so we didn't get eaten by dogs. One of us pulled the kayak and the other one followed, and by now the waves were huge, and pushing us all over. The water and sand would mix and climb right into our shoes. We finally made it, following the light that the guy would send out every little while. I saw a firefly in the process. Banged, bruised and broken, we hopped on our bike and headed back to the hotel and straight to the shower to clean off the sand. Nikki's toe nail was all the way back by then, and my gouge is black with dirt, and who knows what else I picked up in the jungle trekking. Nikki has rashes all over from rubbing and I get big white blisters everywhere my sandal strap was, and also blisters all over my shoulders from getting sunburn 3 days ago, while we were on the beach for 2 hrs. Nikki has since done surgery to herself and removed the toenail with my leatherman scissors. Now we are all bandaged up and off to bed.


All geared up and ready to hunt for shells! Notice happiness and lack of pain?



Here's the fragile sand dollar that Bradyn took such good care of until we made it to shore and had to pull the kayak along. He soon found it broken in his pocket!


Once again, Happy!!!! Here is Bradyn on some of the rocks we climbed over. We decided we weren't boring, but may be stupid!




Here is our thick jungle we pushed through. If you look close you can see spikes on everything, including all the leaves.

See! We weren't kidding about the huge spikes!!!! About two inches long. OUCH!!!



Here is my broken toenail and if you look close, its Bradyn's gashed toe. BATTLE SCARS

So pretend this was written and posted LAST sunday! It was written last sunday but I just didn't post it! Sorry!

Today has been a relaxing day with nothing on the agenda but HOT! I think the weather has gotten hotter the more in land we move. We woke up shortly after six, which has become a normal wake up time for us here, and got ready for church. The night before we had called the elders to get directions to the building where church is held. It was nice and easy! After breakfast we got a ride with a "tuk tuk" driver (kind of a cart pulled behind a motorbike) then walked the remaining few blocks. Their language here looks so different then anything I've seen before. Not like asian symbols and not at all like letters! The only way we could tell it was the church was the arrangement of the words on the sign and the fact that there were people sitting outside with shirts and ties and skirts.
What a welcome they gave us! The members would smile and stick their hands together like an asian bow to greet us. I guess that's a kind way to say hello! Those who didn't greet us that way were anxious to shake our hands and practice what little english they knew. Unfortunately Bradyn and I did not know their language like they knew ours. When they would say something, we would quickly open our guide book to guess what they were saying. Oops! But I now know how to say how are you without using the book!
Bradyn and I were reflecting on the day this evening and talking about it all. The missionaries were such an added strength to the teaching and running of the branch here in Siem Reap. It was the last Sunday here for two elders, one was going home, the other was being transferred. It was so neat to see the love those elders had for these people. But who can blame them? I would love to spend more time among them and get to know and serve them! They are such wonderful and accepting people! And humble! That's what I want. I want to serve and love people so much that it breaks my heart to leave them! Bradyn and I have vowed to have an early retirement so that we can spend many years on missions! I'm excited! I just wish we could go now! Unfortunately we haven't been able to get as involved as we had hoped. We have contacted one of the counselors in the mission presidency and he will take us with him for a couple of days and we're going to work in an orphanage for a couple of days, but that's about all we can do. We've learned our lesson and know now what to do for our next trip (sometime down the road). Another thing that we noticed today about church was how simple the gospel really is! The talks, the lessons, everything was taught like youth talks. So simple! Give a principle, give a scripture and apply. There's nothing complicated to it! The church is new here and so the members are learning bit by bit, but the gospel principles don't get more complicated. Understand and have a testimony of the simple things, then more understanding will come. It's a great pattern. The rest of the day we spent time walking around, looking for cheaper hotel but didn't have much luck. We're going to stick it out for one maybe two more nights and go from there.

So here's the bike in the shop that would fix it properly! These guys were honestly life savers! What good people Cambodia has. :)

Here is one of the greatest gifts the Lord gives us each day! Isn't it beautiful? I once read a thing from Young Women's called "A Letter From Home"and in the poem the Lord talked about gifts he gives us that most people don't even notice. One of the things he talks about is painting the sky colors as the sun sets. Ever since then I've tried to notice sunsets more. They are beautiful and a great time to think and reflect!

On our walk back from the beach Bradyn and I saw a crab. Here Bradyn caught the crab and managed to pick it up. Brave soul!

Here's a picture of us and our new found friends. Although by the end of the day, I think they were bored of us. I guess that's what happens when you can't talk to one another very well.

Here's Bradyn in charge! Hoist the anchor and let's go!

We decided that Sunday was the perfect day to sleep in, especially after we learned church was 6 hrs away on bus. We woke up at 8am and went to bed at 9pm. Sick and sore. We decided that today would be a good day to rent a moto (moped looking motorbike) and go tour around town. It costs $2 a way to town and back, or $5 to rent a moto for the day, so we took what we thought was the better deal. We headed off to find the hidden beach that had kayaks and we wanted to find out prices. First of all we couldn't find the right road, and when we did find it it wasn't even a finished road. It kept getting worse and worse, until we were driving through mud bogs, but were we surprised to see mud, its the rainy season. The next thing we knew it just kept getting worse until we were forced to turn around. We finally got out onto better roads, when the footpegs fell off. Oh crap!!!! I looked under and out of the four bolts in the frame 2 had broken. We thought it was a $600 expence on the way. We drove along, Nikki holding the foot pegs, when 2 boys 21 yrs old drove by and looked at us, then turned around to see if we needed help. I told them my problem and they said for us to follow them. Speaking to them was hard, because they knew very little english, but they got us to a shop. The guy at the shop stuck two bolts on it and said that the other 2 holes were broken. He stripped one of the holes that were good, to try and force a wrong bolt in. It was still wobbly so we thought it was game over for us. Then the pegs fell off again. Oh crapper this time. They looked at it and then said we should take it back to the people we rented it from and ask for a new one!! Not in our plan. So they took us around town looking for a shop to fix it. Everyone turned us away because it was lunch time, until after the 5th turn away who took the bike and put the pegs back on, this time with all 4 bolts, that apparently all worked. It was finally sturdy!!! So we gave them both $5 and took them for lunch. We played pool with them while we waited for lunch, and Nikki wrote down the words to a song one of the guys played for her. Then he asked Nikki if he could see her again. I was away playing pool then. Remembering that 27 yrs old is getting married early here, so I'm sure he never thought we were married. We just let them think what they wanted for the day. They then wanted to hang out with us longer, we didn't know anything to do, so we said we needed to go put our pictures on cd. They said they would do it for us, Okay. They led us to one of their houses and went to burn it for us while we waited. After sitting across from his mom for a while and smiling, because we spoke none of each others language, they finally got back and told us to go with them because we needed to buy another cd to burn the pictures onto. So we went and followed them all the way across town to the other guys house where we tried to burn the pictures again, but to no avail. So we headed to a photoshop and got it done. By the time that was done, they got sick of us and went home. They were very nice and a very good help. Saved us $600 and they really wanted nothing out of it. They even paid with their money for us and would not let us pay, so we just tipped them for their help. Came back to the hotel and went and read scriptures on the beach and had our own little sacrament meeting watching the sunset over the ocean. Beautiful!!! Nikki then drove the moto around to go get some icecream. I first thought I was going to die, but she did rather good. One thing I didn't tell her until we were well on our way was that the last time I drove a motorbike was when I was 16 yrs old. She told me to shut up and dont ever say things like that again!!! There are no road rules here in Cambodia, everyone and noone has the right of way all the time and helmets are almost unheard of. So lots of fun, but still alive!!! We will see what tomorrow can bring.