This week was great and at the same time was not so great! I got sick early on in the week and it has put me out of commission for a few days this week. It all started coming on around Tuesday afternoon/evening and I am still dealing with a bit of the sniffles today. Even though I was sick I still went out a bit and this week was wonderful!
On Wednesday, Harold and Christine committed to be baptized on December 22nd. We are so excited for them. We have some word of wisdom issues that we are going to have to work through, but nothing that the Lord can't help them handle!
On Thanksgiving, Sister Orton and I had TWO Thanksgiving appointments. We first had a CAMBODIAN Thanksgiving with the family of the First counselor in our Bishopric, Brother Nhiev. HAHA! His whole family is Cambodian! Its great! He and his wife both served missions....Sister Nhiev served in Guam and he served in California. Pretty cool! They are so great. Thanksgiving at their place was great....TONS of family speaking a language that there is NO WAY i would ever be able to understand! I dont know how Sister Rachael Kohler is doing it in Cambodia!! LOL :-) Good for her! I'll stick with my English, sometimes that is hard enough to speak. HAHA! Some of their family are not members of the church, as well as some of the friends that came over for Thanksgiving as well. It was great to mingle with them and even answer some questions about the church for few of them. Incredibly, even though I could not understand the language, unlike the other missionaries their I could understand EVERY word that the cambodians said with their really thick cambodian accents! It was great!
Our second Thanksgiving was more tradition with Sister Webster and Sister Morrow. Sister Webster is such a sweet woman. Her husband is a trucker and so he was on the road this Thanksgiving so she had us and Sister Morrow (who turns 71 this month) over for Thanksgiving dinner! It was a wonderful evening, although my sickness really started settling into my lungs and I was really really tired the entire evening. Sister Webster, bless her heart, was so kind and let me fall asleep on her recliner while they finished preparing dinner and stuff. It felt like being home there!! It was so great! I LOVE this ward! I never want to leave!! I have met some of the most amazing people here. Some of the most charitable hearts EVER!
Friday was spent at the apartment unfortunately because I had a bit of a fever. Although, we did go to dinner at a members home that night and it was the most AWKWARD thing I have ever been a part of in my entire life!!! I dont think their are words to even describe how the dinner went with her, especially once her Hometeachers showed up and she was all upset that they weren't going to teach her the EXACT message from the hometeaching message from the ensign....which their isn't one this last month because it is the conference ensign, but thats ok. It was quite an eventful evening and unfortunately I dont have time to give you all the details, just know that I have a good story to tell you when I get home...dont let me forget to tell you!
Saturday, we had a cool experience. We got to go to the "dedication" of a Buddhist Temple! I guess this kind of thing only happens like once in a lifetime or at least once in like 50 years or so. It was way cool. There were over 150 monks present from all over the world, some of them from Cambodia. Brother and Sister Nhiev were there to help explain things to us. It was great. It was this massive celebration with AWESOME food. It was nothing like I expected it to be, but it was very cool to be a part of something historical like that. Something interesting that they do at Temple dedications, they dig these pits around the temple (like on the temple ground) and then their is a big deep one that is dug right in the middle of the temple itself.....and before the dedication is complete during this 3 day celebration, people will come by and throw things in to these pits. They will throw things in that they desire to have or to be in the next life....say you want to be beautiful, then you would throw in some make up and a mirror or something. If you want to be smart, you throw in some paper and a pen or a book. If you want to be rich, you throw in some money....get the picture? I guess in Cambodia, these pits are much larger than they were at this gathering, but they do the same thing with them. I guess, if you fall in they wont pull you back out though. You would be considered bad luck. So in cambodia if a child were to fall in on accident, they would bury the child alive. That means the family would get to have them in the next life, but once something has gone into the pit it cannot be pulled back out. Pretty crazy hu?? I thought so. The whole thing was great though. Definitely different from the dedication of one of our temples....espeically since the Spirit was nowhere to be found at this event. It made me sad! It was so much about worldly possessions and this and that.
I am so grateful for the knowledge of the gospel and the peace that it brings into my life! SOOOOO GRATEFUL!
Unfortunately being out in the cold again on Saturday did me in for Sunday and Sister Carlson was also sick..... (she's new to our area), she's companions with Sister Martinez. So we did a little tradeoff for Sunday. Sister Carlson and I stayed home sick, while Sister Martinez and Sister Orton went to church and did missionary work like we wished we could do. We were so sick, but we decided to build a fort in the middle of our apartment....since we had studied as much as our hazy brains would allow us too. I will send a picture to show you. We look so happy in that picture, but we truly were quite miserable, but you dont want to look miserable in a picture....especially when you are in a fort...haha! :-) We are mostly recovered today though, Sister Carlson is a little bit more under the weather then I am at the moment....lol. Hopefully by the time we have Presidents interviews this week we will both be in tip top shape!
I am so ready to get back to regular missionary work and be health and well again! It will be so great!!
I love this work! I am so grateful to be a missionary! Life is amazing and tough and wonderful all at the same time!!! HAHA!!
Hope ya'll had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Love
Sister Heckel
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