Why thanks, that was very American of you

Okay I am super pooped from email time today and Im running out of gas so I'm probably ging to make this a short one and save the other cool stories fro next week.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

I hope you were all kind and gracious to your friendly neighborhood monks, joined in on the 11 am trash-burning party and ate some Chinese cabbage soup. 

What? You mean.....you didn't do those things? Because here in Cambodia, we are all about the monk life. 

I made Cab Chae for everyone in the house, which is one of my favorite Khmer foods. Its actually the Chinese cabbage soup I just mentioned, but Sister Ky taught me how to make a Khmer version when we were in Battambang and it is MY FAVORITE. Sister Jepsen also really liked it, but for some reason I couldn't convince Sister Mathews and Sister Spangler to eat the pig skin. Go figure.

This is what happens when Sister Spangler doesnt know how to set the timer on the camera and takes an unannounced candid of us eating soup. Please note Sister Mathews (who refused to eat my soup and ate plain spaghetti instead). #weeklyplanningincambodia

In other news. we helped a family scrape paint off their stair railing for a couple hours and now I'm pretty positive that I have lead poisoning (among other diseases.) 

We also had one of our super less active LAs tell us she was too busy to say one prayer with us.....after we helped her cook and clean her house for 45 minutes while she just sat on a bench. Dont get me wrong, I love serving the members, but sometimes the Cambodian idea of "busy" really throw me for a loop. 

We had a great lesson with Bong Sokha (when is it not a great lesson). We reviewed about prophets, and at the end  of the lesson after we had read Doctrine and Covenants 1:38, she just goes, "Even though God can't talk to us, He send the prophet to talk to us and its the same. I know that the prophet will never lead us astray, not even a little."  So theres your weekly Bong Sokha quote. Shes the reason I keep on going some days. 

And heres the real story of the week. During weekly planning, while we were taking a break and eating soup together, Sister Jepsen showed me some of her pictures from Battambang. If you guys want to go back through my emails a whiel back, you will probably find one where I talked about a wheelchair investigator I had in Battambang named Chendaa who was INCREDIBLE. And I was only able to meet her a couple times because she lived so far away that it became too difficult to meet her or for her to go to church and even though I biked all the way out to her house, it was near impossible to meet her. But either eay, she was amazing. Well, she and Sopheap, another wheelchair investigator that i had that ALSo ended up not working out, got baptized with Sister Jepsen!!! They both moved really close to a village that has a couple members and were able to start learning again after I left. Because they have crippled legs, Sister Jepsen had to carry them into the baptismal font and she was telling me the funny story of how it all worked out and so I started laughing and then...........................it happened. While laughing at this story it just hit me how happy i was that they had gotten baptized, how sad I was that I hadnt been there to see it and just how much I love Battambang and serving in Cambodia and I just started bawling. I know I just told you last week I cried too but I promise I dont cry that much! I think my last transfer is just really filled with emotions. Either way, I was laughing and crying HARDCORE at the same time and all the other sisters were like ..............what is happening to her. It was just a swirl of emotions when I realized how close I am to leaving this place and my heart truly ached. It was a sadness about ending my mission that I really hadn't experienced before. And Im not even done yet! All I know is this: when I get home, your patience will be much appreciated because apparently I cant control my emotions anymore. SO moral of the story: it is dang hard, but I love my mission and everywhere I've been and everyone Ive taught and all the experiences Ive had here. And it hurts sometimes when I think about leaving in just one month. 

Like I said, I have a lot more stories coming next week, but im totally burned out for today so you'll just have to wait. (dont worry, they're not terribly exciting.) But, I love you all, I miss you and I hope you have a great week! 

Love, Sister Davis.

                                     Children of the world. Swimming in a flooded neighborhood.

                         Candid sugar cane juice shot in my happy place near Om Som An's

 HAHA FOOLED YA! you guys all thought I was in the city didnt you? just kidding I am. but luckily I am in the citys biggest area and as long as you're willing to bike 2 hours you can get out to places like this, that make me miss the provinces so much it hurts.