Elder Sam Christensen

We received the following email and pictures from Sam on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014. Our questions are in italics.

From: Samuel Christensen <samuel.christensen@myldsmail.net>

Subject: Pchum Ben is Over

Date: September 28, 2014 11:36:30 PM MDT

Hi all,

That's great that you can go to some tourist destinations on your P-days. Yeah, it's fun to get to do some fun stuff on P days. Last P day we tried to get into the tallest building in Cambodia and get to the top to look over the world. We didn't know if we were allowed in the building or not, but we just tried to play the "white skin" card up and acted like we knew what we were doing. Turns out anyone can go in there, but no one can go up because it's still being constructed on the inside. So we went to the next tallest building and did the same thing. No one questioned us when we went into the elevator and went up. Granted, there weren't a lot of people there because of the holiday, but nevertheless. So the highest level we could get to was 23 to look out. Which I guess was high enough. It was really cool.

It's hard to believe what a great tragedy Pol Pot caused for the Cambodian people. It's interesting with Pol Pot because I'm pretty sure he's the one that did most of those atrocities, but I was talking to a member a few weeks ago and he was telling me how Pol Pot was bad, but how really most of the people were killed by Vietnamese people out on the provinces. I don't know if that's true or not, but I think that just reflects the general dislike that Cambodians currently have for the Viets because of various political maneuvers that have taken power and land from the Cambodians. And the Cambodians have a corrupt government leader that they're all ticked at anyways. Maybe you guys can read up on that and get more educated on it than I am.

Do you write to your mission president every week? Yeah we write the pres every week. On a weekly check-in I usually run out of things to tell him: "same as last week, President."

We talked to Homers yesterday about their upcoming trip to Cambodia and I can say that I am a little jealous but will try not to covet. You'll be jealous of the Homers going to Cambodia until you come here and realize how nice America is. I'm a big fan of America since I got here.

Do you actually buy meat at the phsaa? Yes, mother, we buy meat every week at the phsaa. You're going to love it when you come here. It's quite the experience. It costs $5 for one kilo of pork here. How does that compare to American prices? It's so funny to see a dead pig stretched out on the back of a moto or a whole ton of raw meat squished into somebody's little basket on the front of their bike (not in a bag or anything).

We received the letter you sent us from the little girl who wants an American pen pal. She seems very sweet! Do you know her? Yeah, I've never met that little girl. The teacher gave it to me and he teaches out in the kites. She's probably above average educated. It's really an amazing system that America has in public schools even though they always get wrecked in the media. Because pretty much all they have here that I know of are private schools, and if you can't afford to send your kid there then either your kid doesn't get an education or goes to some other kind of probably bad school. I think that in 50 years or so they will mostly only speak English here.

I told Grammy how I was thinking about apple pie here last week. I also told her how I think my internal clock is telling me it wants it to be fall, but unfortunately it isn't.

Our pets at home are so spoiled. There are so many skinny cats and dogs here and I just think about how spoiled Willy is.

They announced to us at the Zone Conference that they're opening two more areas for church stuff in Cambodia, which is a pretty big deal. It'll be really hard for them to establish the church there, but they know how to do it. The next transfer has about 30 missionaries coming in, and that's absolutely massive. Everyone is bracing for the impact.

It rained really hard yesterday and the streets flooded again and I've got some pictures that you'll all probably love and show all your friends, so enjoy those

Ok, I guess that's about it.

We bought 30 eggs today, and that should hold us for the week.