The glorious river, the trash mountain, the dust, the killing fields, the greatest area in all of Cambodia. whatever you want to call it. I'm in Stung Meanchey.
DISCLAIMER: my life is way cooler than 100% of the people on earth so if you cry at any time while reading this letter FIRST tell me because that's hilarious and THEN don't feel bad because you're not alone.
okay, where do i start.
after like 25 hours of travel i got off the airplane and was immediately greeted by a blanket of warm soggy Cambodian air. can i even call it air? i don't know. but anyway, we hit the ground running because about 60 minutes after we got off the plane we were walking around a huge market in the middle of the city talking to half naked tuk-tuk drivers and handing out pamphlets to fully naked children. we contacted for about an hour and gave out about 10 pamphlets and got a couple phone numbers. it really boosted my confidence because i realized that i could actually understand about 20% of what they were saying instead of the 2% that i thought i would.
then for the net 24 hours we were pampered and instructed about missionary life. then immediately after the 24 hours was up we were all kicked out, just like i kicked that rat off my porch this morning, and thrown into the real world; the cold, hard, dusty abyss that is Stung Meanchey. actually it's not cold, it's like boiling. but i digress.
(i feel like an ancient story teller right now this is so cool lol.)
my companion: hey Mom, remember when i was reading mission blogs at home and showed you one and told you that he was going to be my trainer??? well i was right!!
legend has it that he baptized a whole village on his first day. some say that he was fluent in Cambodian after only 2 hours at the MTC. others say he bikes so fast that Cambodian kids rush into the street after he passes to pick up the perfectly fried and crispy tarantulas that get caught in the burning rubber wake of his awesomeness. whatever you've heard about him, it's true. he is amazing. he's from San Antonio, Texas but his tongue moves like a koon khmae. (native Cambo) he's been out for almost a whole year and he is the best teacher i have ever met. i am his second child so he already knows all the ins and outs of training and i am definitely reaping the rewards of that. I'm learning so much from him every day. he's so awesome.
My ward (Stung Meanchey 2) is split up into 2 halves.
the 2 other elders in my apartment are Elder Allred and Elder Sok. Elder Allred lived in Shanghai for a while so we have some mutual homies from the Beijing days. Elder Sok is Vietnamese but he speaks perfect khmae too. it's a wild time all in the same apartment. our apartment is 4 floors tall. the kitchen is on floor 1, the other elders' room is on floor 2, the 3rd floor is haunted so nobody is brave enough to see what's on that floor, and then the 4th floor is ours.
it's a long hike up there with stairs so tall that not even the tallest of babies could climb them. the tallness of the stairs actually gives me comfort because i know that not even the smartest of rats could climb up to the 4th floor. they would get way too tired. all the bathrooms in Cambodia are combination toilet/showers. luckily for me the ceiling in the shower clears my head by at least a centimeter so i can shower in peace. but we don't have a water heater so we don't really spend much time in the shower anyway.
i have a nice mat for a bed with air conditioning in the room so sleep is no problem. except when the power went out the other night, that was kinda rough. also i forgot my pillow at the mission home, so actually sleeping is kinda rough. despite all this it is definitely a suuuuuuper nice apartment for Stung Meanchey. missionaries are really spoiled.
the 2 other elders in my apartment are Elder Allred and Elder Sok. Elder Allred lived in Shanghai for a while so we have some mutual homies from the Beijing days. Elder Sok is Vietnamese but he speaks perfect khmae too. it's a wild time all in the same apartment. our apartment is 4 floors tall. the kitchen is on floor 1, the other elders' room is on floor 2, the 3rd floor is haunted so nobody is brave enough to see what's on that floor, and then the 4th floor is ours.
the real Stung Meanchey is where our investigators live. we have a bunch of investigators so we always have at least something to do. most of our investigators live in a 10' x 10' cement square. it's so incredibly humbling to see all of these people living in such a tiny and dirty home with no money to spare and still have a smile on their faces. i love the Cambodian people so much already. they are all so nice and so willing to talk to us whenever we want. I've started leading a lot of the contacts we do on the street and i can just go up to anyone and say hello and ask them how they are doing and if they've eaten yet and they are totally willing to listen to us and give us their phone number to call them later. they are all so nice and happy and friendly. everything that I've heard about Cambodians is true.
hey Mom, remember when we used to bike around downtown Beijing and we thought that it was suuuper hectic? yeah. well, it doesn't even compare.
there is a reason that nobody drives cars around here. it's because there is basically no road to drive on. there is just a slab of crumpled cement in a crooked path, and that's on the good roads. we ride around Stung Meanchey all day and i haven't seen a single road that is straight for more than like 10 feet. it's all just dirt paths through alleyways and often they are full of water (not from rain though, it rained last night for the first time in 4 months). it is the most fun thing I've ever done. if you want to cross a big road you don't even have to look. i could walk across any road blindfolded and the traffic will just merge around me. it's so awesome. but that also means you have to merge around anyone else trying to get through the street. i am thankful for the front brake on my bike because the back one doesn't work at all. also, it's easier to stop because my back wheel is bent at like a 10 degree angle and the tire is 75% flat. this morning we rode about 20 minutes into the real city after the rain last night and it was probably the funnest thing I've done in years. the street was all mud with 5 inch deep puddles of death water, so we played the game of try to not die and try not to get covered in mud on the anarchy, which is the streets of Phnom Penh. i won the not dying part but i definitely lost the part about not getting drenched in mud.
the food here is amazing. about every 10 feet there is a stir fry stand and each one i try keeps getting better. we are on a hunt for the best baay chaa (stir fry) in Phnom Penh. Elder Allred thinks he knows the best one but he knows nothing. I'm going to find the best one and then make a plaque to give them. so if you are reading this email and own a stir fry shack near Stung Meanchey, be on your game when i come around!!!!! Saturday night we realized we didn't have any food for Sunday because we literally eat out every meal. it's a single dollar for a whole meal. so we went to the store and got some eggs. needless to say i ate 12 eggs yesterday. it was marvelous and reminded me of the MTC. this morning we went to the market next to our house.
it has all your daily needs like cucumbers, dragon fruit, pig intestines, baby duck eggs that have the half-formed embryos inside, and of course live fish in a bowl flopping around without any water. i bought a half kilogram of pork all by myself. (btw Elder Slavins, it cost 10,000 riels. Two and a half bucks.)
we teach English classes every Wednesday and so when we have a spare 20 minutes in between appointments we hold signs for the class out in front of the church. when i was holding it one day i decided to smile at some people for no reason. and to my surprise, they thought it was funny and smiled back. so for the next 20 minutes i just stood in front of the church holding a sign and wearing my biggest grin possible. almost every single person that saw me smiled back. a bunch of them actually pulled up their visors on their helmets just to smile back at me. i learned that day that the power of a smile is so great. it's really awesome what such a little thing can do.
we had ward conference this week so the stake presidency came and taught us all. the choir was singing "Army of Helaman" and didn't have enough people so i joined in. the kid next to me couldn't read at all so i felt better because i could read the whole chorus by the time we hit the 3rd verse. it was super awesome. i didn't get very much out of church but i could understand a decent amount of it. what i got out of it was good, i think. our bishop is super awesome. he's totally swagging and the little part of his tie is always longer than the big part. i can't even express how happy that makes me because I've been doing that for the past 2 years. our ward is super awesome and we had 150 people come this week which is the new record. I'm so excited to be a part of it and help it grow even more.
i saw a moto with 2 ladies riding on it. the lady on the back was holding an IV bag as high as she could over her head because it was attached to the lady on the front.
i love Cambodia
NOTSOSPIRITUALSHPEEL: the Lord was watching out for me when he gave me the idea to buy a bunch of little tissue packs because there is no toilet paper in Cambodia.
SPIRITUALSHPEEL: i got to witness someone's first ever prayer yesterday. a lady was having a rough time with her family so she decided to come to church to find help. we talked to her after church and we taught her a little about the priesthood and blessings and stuff, and then we gave her a priesthood blessing. then we taught her about prayer and how she could talk to God and he would help her. it was so crazy because this concept was so foreign to her.
we talked her through her first prayer and it was an amazing experience. the spirit was so strong. I'm so glad that i was able to be there and that I get to do this for the next 2 years.
i love you all
love, elder osborne