HIIIIIIII

This week was incredible. i know i havent been writing a lot, but today i have a little more time. and i hope to be able to describe to you the wonders of this mission and the miracles that happen every day. 

first, me and my companion, sister her are serving in an area called tuk la,ak (which means dirty water haha). my comp is hmong, but shes super white so thats a party. shes been serving just 2 more transfers than i have. we get along really really well. we like to eat the same food and we feel the same way about almost everything.  (ill attach pictures)

our apartment is super nice! we have a gym at the top floor, so every morning we can actually work out. we dont eat a lot (or any) khmae food-because neither of us really likes rice (dont worry mom, im still learning how to make all of it haha). we eat a lot of homeade tortillas and veggies. its been hotter in cambodia than i ever realized it could be. i have literally never sweat so much. 

we live in a house with 2 more incredible sisters, who are serving here in camodia, but vietnamese speaking. i look up to them more than anyone else-they have a hard mission here for a lot of reasons. but one is blond and from america, the other is this cute tiny little viet from vietnam who wants to be fat and is trying to learn english. this is actually really hard, because all day im speaking khmae, but at night time i have to switch back into english for the viet sisters and half the time i forget, so i speak to them in khmae and they look at me blankly and i look back at them blankly because it takes me a while to realize that what i just said was khmae and not english lolz. but its so fun and i love them with all of my heart

our area is in north stake, which means it was one of the first areas open in cambodia. it has the oldest members i have met (there are actually kids here who were born from parents who were already members). this is a huge change from my last area, because that area had just opened a couple years ago. the ward is great. lots of returned missionaries, and strong members. we dont know a lot of out inv because they all went to their hometowns (way out in the provinces) for the khmae new year. 

even though sister her and i are both new to the area, we have seen some really incredible miracles. i was contacting, which is difficult in this area, because our area is just a bunch of businesses. and all the houses have big gates that are usually closed. so in order to contact, we find allyways and walk and hope people are outside:) but it was really cool, we were walking, and everyone was in a hurry so no one wanted to talk to us. but we came up to 3 neakmings (older ladies) and they were sitting in chair outside their houses. so we sat and talked to them and they were just the cutest and they invited us to come back. and they asked us to call them mom (instead of us calling them aunt-which is normal, they asked us to use a pronoun that means mom). and that was so incredible. the people here are all so kind and inviting, and even the language invites us to call each other family. but it is very very rare to call anyone besides your mom, your mom. 

this kind of leads into another thing i want to share with you all about family and gods plan. being here in cambodia, i have learned more about family. some of these people i have met and taught and been taught by, are family. even though on this earth, we may not have the same blood in us, i know that there was a time we lived and loved together. and gods plan is perfect and intricate enough that even though we live on opposite sides of the world, we can still know each other. and i just wanted to share that our family is so much bigger than we can see. there are people on both side of the veil, that we maybe cant see or that we dont know yet. but they are there. and its so wonderful that through gods plan, we can know and remember each other. 

so everything is truly going so well. god is the best. the gospel is so happy. and so real. i hope you all have a great week!

sis smith

ps please please please pray for senior couples! we have 2 and we need waaaaay more!!

heres some pics of me and sister her at english class, and all of us that work in the office.  also of us on transfer day helping with the new missionaries!!​