Christmas Day....Skype with Elder Liddell

WE HAD SOME GOOD LAUGHS WITH ELDER LIDDELL ON OUR BRIEF, 40 MINUTE PHONE CALL.  NICK SKYPED FROM A MEMBERS HOME IN SEAL BEACH CALIFORNIA.  WE LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT!  WE GOT TO MEET YEAY YEAY, A SWEET CAMBODIAN GRANDMOTHER

AND BRIEFLY SAY HELLO TO HIS COMPANION.  NICK SOUNDED IN GOOD SPIRITS AND HE LOOKED HAPPY.  MANY PEOPLE WELCOMED THEM INTO THEIR HOMES TODAY, FED THEM, AND GAVE THEM A PIECE OF HOME.  WE WERE VERY, VERY, VERY GRATEFUL FOR THAT.  BOY, DO WE MISS HIM THOUGH.  IT WAS VERY HARD TO SAY GOODBYE.

Cambodian Speaking Elders Sing Their Version of the 12 Days of Christmas

If the video link is sent to me, I will post and share it.  The video is on private FB page for now.  There's something about seeing your missionary son in a video that makes you a bit weepy.  Happy, yet missing him at the same time.

រីករាយថ្ងៃណូអែល

(Merry Christmas)

I'm not sure how to caption this photo!  A sweet sister from the Park Ward posted this photo of some of the missionaries at their Christmas party.  Did they plan to dress alike?  And did Nick just enjoy some yummy Cambodian food?  Regardless, it made our day!!!

NEW GLASSES...PARK WARD PARTY!

Last week was probably the most interesting week I've had on my mission. There has been so many crazy things going on in our ward, and our district. Last week the twin Elder Sams decided to go home, but this week we wanted to do everything possible to keep them here. We especially wanted to help Elder Sam 2, the one who likes being a missionary, stay.

We had some late nights this week. Between talking with president, and dealing with the whole situation, it was hard to see all of the Cambodian areas get hit. Our amount of time to work was significantly lower than usual.  God definitely answered my prayers.  I really desired for Sam 2 to stay, because he truly does love it here.  Sam 2  made the decision to stay, and his brother is going home.   We are all so close because we serve in the same ward our whole mission, and losing someone is like losing a brother. We are so lucky to still have Elder Sam 2 serve in Long Beach and bless the lives of the Cambodian people.

Besides the whole Sam saga, I had a great Thanksgiving. We actually had 3 different meals that day, and yes it was great! All three were a mix of normal Thanksgiving food, and Khmer food. We were lucky enough to be fed so many times.  Our ward is our family! I still missed grandma's deviled eggs though.

Today we decorated our apartment for Christmas and took some pictures.  You asked what I would like for Christmas?  Maybe more sweaters, those cardboard things that hold scriptures at Deseret Book??  Legos, Nerf guns....

Muay Nam is still progressing a lot. He came to church again with his recent convert wife, and two of their grand kids. We write everything for him that the speakers say.  The native missionaries stay can write really fast which helps us a ton! Muay Nam has a date for the last Sunday of the year. Our mission is trying to reach a goal of 70 baptisms before the end of the year, and we want to help!  I think the companionship's are going to get switched up soon, I will let you know.

 Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes, and for the cards. On my birthday we had district meeting, so we were planning most of the day. We had some fun in our apartment, and ate cake. Thanks mom for the package, it was awesome! I had a really great birthday, and I'm really glad I got to spend it out here. I got to teach my deaf investigator too, which was really, really fun.

Thanks so much, have a good first week of December!

Love, Elder Liddell

Happy Birthday Week!

Not much in the way of New news this week. I am very excited for my birthday. We will possibly have meetings on that day, but they usually are really great and a nice break. Elder Sam Skidmore gave me referral all the way from Florida! He met a Cambodian who had a relative in Long Beach... pretty cool! 

Here's a picture of me and my companion in the mission home. He's a really great guy and things are going well. 

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

This is Halloween....Cambodian style!

 I'm excited for Halloween, although we are just going to be cleaning our apartment. It's going to be a fun week. Our ward Halloween party was crazy. The bishop's wife did it all in a Nightmare Before Christmas theme.  It takes forever to attach pictures so I'm just going to send one or two. It was really cool and decked out. The Cambodian people are great.  The deaf man we have been teaching came to church! All dressed up with his hair slicked back.  We were so glad to see him.We have started to find a lot of people which is nice. Hopefully we won't have to transfer even more to the singles ward! 

I can't tell you all what it means to get a letter from friends and family.  I may not have time to write back, but I don't want you to think that I don't greatly appreciate the time you take to just say, Hi! Or telling me what is going on with you and your families.  I love hearing about even the smallest things.  So a big THANK YOU to all of you, from the bottom of my heart!

Exploring Where This Missionary Has Never Gone Before

This week was a great week overall. We met some more crazy people as usual, but taught a lot of Cambodians. Another Young Single adult that we found and began teaching, got baptized. We keep handing them off to the singles ward Elders, so they go to the ward they belong to. It's hard because we want to teach them to baptism, but they get baptized none-the-less, so it doesn't really matter. So, we've had 3 baptisms in about 2 months, which is great news! We should have another pretty soon.

An elder from the MTC in our district sent me and Elder Tarter each 4 ties from Cambodia. They are cool. Thanks Elder Tran!

The ghetto is pretty sad, but I'm used to most the things I see. I'm used to the trash and dog poop everywhere. I'm used to people collecting bottles out of trash, and seeing super nice cars parked at super crappy houses. And junker cars everywhere. The alley's here look like the rougher parts of Mexico, but I don't even notice anymore. It was weird getting used to it at first, kind of a culture shock, but I'm over it now. It's going to be weird coming home and seeing nice stuff! 

 We work with less actives a lot. We also started teaching Sokha's deaf husband by writing on a white board. It's super hard but it's interesting. Sokha really wants to be sealed to him.

The new missionary from Cambodia is awesome. He has a twin brother serving in the Salt Lake mission. 

We went to the top of Signal Hill and to the ocean finally today. I've been waiting so long to do something besides play sports. The new Cambodian Elder doesn't play sports so that's why we got to do it. I was so happy to see nice areas finally. We might go see the Queen Mary soon.  Yea!

CONFERENCE WEEK!!

Just sharing a quick picture...
There is nothing better than seeing a friendly, familiar face when you are away from home.  
This awesome man is Kyle Brodowski.  He grew up with my mom and attended the same ward in southern California.  Kyle married the amazing Laura LaFond, who my mom became friends with in her teenage years....the awesome 80's!  Their friendship led to my friendship with them and their awesome family.

This picture was taken at the Priesthood session of conference, where Kyle just happened to be attending at a different Stake Center than his own.  The ironic thing is their daughter, who is attending college out of state, was staying with my parents at the same time I ran into Kyle. We take care of each other (Que eerie sounding music)!

So, we sort of in a way had two more baptisms this week... more or less.   As the Cambodian missionaries we really only get to teach the Cambodian people, but we talk to everyone.   Anyway,  we contacted one girl, and she ended up getting baptized in the English ward in our same building.   We also started teaching a Cambodian girl, but she was YSA age, so we had to transfer her off the to YSA Elders, which was hard because we knew she was going to end up getting baptized with them, BUT we still were so happy we got to teach her a few times, and introduce her to the gospel. So yeah, basically 3 baptisms, (indirectly) in the past few weeks! 

 

Ming Sunra, who I think I've written about before, answered this to our question "why don't you have a boyfriend?"   She replied, "No money, No honey."   Which we thought was pretty funny. She barely speaks any English, but knows a lot of funny phrases.

 

We have a lot of Cambodian investigators lately that have been much more difficult to teach.  They are really struggling with the effects of the horrible treatment and events brought on by the Khmer Rouge, but we are trying to do our best to teach and help them.

 

That's all for this week, love ya!

Photos from the Field (my height doesn't make me stand out at all)

So this week, we had our first Baptism! Her name is Sokha, and she's about 60 or so. She's been taught for over ten years, but just recently decided to get baptized 3 weeks ago! We taught her a lot, and she seemed so stubborn, but when we shared the first vision with her one more time she finally accepted the invitation.

We had a great activity at the Park Ward.   Here you can see our sarongs.  Pretty sweet!

On Saturday we went to the LA Temple.  There we witnessed two families being sealed together.  The kids were so cute all dressed in white.  We had a great turn out.  I even ran into some friends at the temple.  What an awesome day!

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF THIS LB/CAMBODIAN MISSIONARY

  We get up each morning around 6:30 and go for a run.  "Running for Jesus", as some locals would say.  We then have about an hour to get cleaned up and make breakfast.  I usually eat cereal and a banana, but sometimes I make eggs.  Next is study time.  We do personal study, companion study and language study.  After all of that it's time to make a quick lunch and head out by 1:00. 
  We hop on our bikes and ride 15-20 minutes into Cambodia Town.  We visit with people or go tracting.  This takes most of the day.
If someone is feeding us dinner, we go to eat at 5:00.  If not, we ride back to our apartment and make some dinner.  After taking about an hour for dinner we go and teach.
   I'd say right now about 60-70% of our lessons are in Cambodian, and the rest of the people we contact on the streets.  There are plenty of people to teach, and we usually teach a lot of Cambodians every day.  I have met some Laotian and Thai people as well. 
  We lock our bikes up pretty well, and have things taped up to look pretty ragged.  Biking is fun, but pretty tiring.  When we have a member with us we can take the car, so that's even more motivation to get members to come to our lessons!
  Our ward is named the Park Ward.  It's pretty interesting.  There are a lot of really strong members, but pretty much everyone in the ward is a convert.  So, it does have some struggles.  Our missionary work involves bringing a lot of people back.  About ten years ago there were tons of baptisms, but over time a lot of people left of were never super converted, so they stopped going to church.  There are still some Cambodians coming form Cambodia.  They are really humble and willing to listen, but the older Cambodians are committed to Buddhism. 
  Speaking Cambodian is really hard.  We get to speak a lot, but it will probably take me until next summer before I am fluent.  It's only been three months, and two years seems like a long time, but everyone says is goes pretty quick. 
  That's a day in the life of this Long Beach- Cambodian Missionary.  Take Care.

Sarongs and Death Tacos

Okay,  so I first want to write a little bit about what has happened this week . I think the most important thing that happened is that a woman by the name of Om Sokha, who has been taught for about ten years, has finally accepted a baptismal date! She had probably been invited to be baptized 10 times, but the last lesson we taught her was different. We wanted to try something new, so that she would accept our invitation. What we did was pretty different than what we usually do. We started off the lesson by showing the Joseph Smith Restoration video, and the spirit was so strong in the less. We all thought it was going so well, and write before the first vision part, Sokha went and got us water, so we paused it, until she got back. It seems like something like that always happens right before the most important part... We then watched the first vision, and again read the words from JSH. Then when I invited her to be baptized in my broken Khmer, before I even finished the question she said "When?"  So, we set a date for the 22nd of this month. The spirit was super strong, and she was one of the many miracles I've seen this week. We actually have 5 investigators total with baptismal dates, but I don't know how many of those will actually be baptized. I'm guessing 3 or 4.  Anyway, the work is going great in Long Beach.  I haven't had any time really to take pictures, but I will soon.

On P-Day we always hear songs while out running errands. We've heard a lot of good songs and it's funny to think that I haven't listened to music in about 3 months... We wear our sarongs on Sunday mornings to cook breakfast (which are basically Cambodian man skirts).  We also like to make jokes with the old Cambodians in the ward. 

I also did one of those food challenge things, that dad always wanted to do. There is this thing called the Death Taco, where you have to sign a waiver and stuff to eat it, and I ate the whole thing. It made my arms tingle and I felt way sick later, but I did it! I know dad always thinks those kinds of things are funny, and wants to do them. Anyways, that's off my bucket list, so I never have to do that again! 

I don't know what I've eaten. I have eaten Octopus, that baby duck thing from the Philippines, chicken curry, and I don't really know what else. Nothing has been absolutely horrible, except the death Taco.

Everything's going really well.  Tell everyone hello from me!  

I Ate Balut!!!

Because of Labor Day, we only had a short time to email today.  It was really hot last week, but it's a different kind of heat.....the air has been really gross.  But, enough of that! 
I have a companion Elder L__, and he is from Canada and attended BYU.  My other companion is Elder C____ and went to BYU-I.  He's from Texas.  They're awesome.  Our district is full of awesome Elders.  There are 7 of us until the Elder from Cambodia arrives in October. 
 It was honestly really weird coming to Long Beach, but I realized that the area of my mission I'm going to be in for the entire time, is WAY different that Huntington Beach. It's so  much different in the Ghetto, and having SO many people is kind of overwhelming, but we get to see some pretty funny and weird people so that always is awesome.
Oh, I ate the Filipino dish Balut, or whatever with the baby duck inside yesterday, it was pretty nasty... but it tasted good.

 

We ride our bikes everywhere, all day long-just going straight heroes! We don't mind though, we are leading in our district and have two baptismal dates set.  Lots of amazing things happening.

Thank you for the letters!  Love, Nick

CALIFORNIA....Write Nick at: 1023 Bennett Ave, Long Beach CA 90804; Packages: 6500 E. Atherton, Long Beach CA 90815.

Okay,  so I thought I'd let everyone know how my first week has gone. Well, first of all, it's awesome. On Tuesday we woke up at 3, and didn't go to bed until 10:30 that night so I was pretty tired, but we were able to get right into some lessons that day. We ride our bikes about 15 minutes every day into the more ghetto part of Long Beach. There are all kinds of people and cultures there.  It's pretty amazing.  There are people that blast Mexican music, and it's pretty funny.  There are a lot of Asian sections, and we can always tell the Cambodian houses because of the plants and weird things they have in the front.  At first, it took a little while to get used to the 'culture', and atmosphere, but it's pretty normal to me now. We really don't stand out as much as we think we do, no one bothers us too much.

So my new companion... well I actually have 2. One is Elder Low, he's from Canada, and is my trainer. The other is Elder Clawson. He got to the mission about 3 months ago, and is still learning like I am.  Elder Clawson is from Texas. We live in our own little apartment by the Ximino ward building, and it's awesome. I finally get to eat what I want, and I finally get to have some freedom.

The weather doesn't get any better than here. It's beautiful, and I can see why so many people live here. Not really much to complain about.

Oh I have to tell you about this guy named Michael.  Michael is crazy, he has taken WAY too much of something in his life, and is really hyper. Well, he's been going to church for about 4 months, and never wanted to get baptised because he had some problems. Well, he called us on Thursday, and he was super hyper and said he wanted to get baptised, so we met with us on Sunday, and he promised to obey all the commandments. If he can make it until September 8th, he can be baptized, but I don't know how that's going to work out. He's so hyper and quite messed up in the head now, but I'm pretty sure that he has support to help him make it. Anyway,  we love him to death, and hope he can make it to that date.

The Park Ward is pretty small, and it's pretty funny because everyone comes to sacrament meeting about 20 minutes late. The Elders Translate for the ward at whatever events they need to. We teach English at "Da UCC" which is a Cambodian culture thing, and we get to run around CSULB most mornings (Mom's and Uncle Alan's alma mater).

Where the Park Ward meets on Ximino, Long Beach, CA

I'd like to apologize if I haven't written letters or emails back, but there is SO LITTLE TIME. I am really grateful for receiving letters and such at the MTC, and here is my new address if you'd like to write:

1023 Bennett Ave, Long Beach CA 90804 and for packages still send them to the mission home at 6500 E. Atherton, Long Beach CA 90815.

It's really an awesome thing teaching people about the gospel because their lives get happier, and their understanding and confusion is helped in leaps and bounds. I know that being on a mission has blessed my life, and I love that here I can do so much for others. I'd like to thank everyone at home for the support, and for their examples and testimonies as well.

Su Sudei!

Elder Liddell

P.S. The language is still impossible haha

We leave the MTC Tuesday, the 13th at 4:30 AM, and our flight leaves at 8:40. 

I'm excited for Sammy Watchman.  I am hoping to see the Tingeys and Skidmores today.  Tell JD's family I have a ton of friends serving in San Diego speaking Laotian.  I will tell them he's coming.  
Oh the BEST part about this week is that Elder Tarter and I got a letter from the Cambodian Elders in the Park Ward that basically just said how excited they were for us to come, and how fun and awesome it is. It really gave us motivation to do better. One thing I really regret is how bad I was at scripture study before I came. I was never good about getting into good habits and I have really learned so much in the time I have been here.  
I will let you know where I'm living as soon as I can, but after the phone call on Tuesday morning, you won't hear from me most likely until the next Monday, which is our P-Day. 
Hoping everyone is doing well!

I will get better at writing everyone back.  

Love, 
Elder Liddell

More familiar faces!

From Elder Liddell:  There's a lot to do! I will try to find time to write letters next week, but we'll have to see.  I appreciate every letter very much.  I should be leaving on Tuesday, August 13th.  We're making our travel plans next week.  Here are a few pictures of friends!  

Now THAT'S a Name Tag!

Here come more Titans!

WEEK 6....A TITAN INVASION!

Just a quick note today from Nick!  It is his P-Day, but he said we was going to try to be a host to welcome the Pinnock's and other Titans to the MTC.  

From Nick:   This week was long, but we're starting to finally feel like we know the language. We're working hard but it takes a lot of time. I can't wait to leave, but being here isn't too bad. I hope you have a good week.

LOVE SEEING THESE FACES!!!

THE TITAN INVASION HAS BEGUN!

Okay so I've been here a month! Crazy right, only 23 more to go! The fourth
of July was pretty anticlimactic, but we watched 17 miracles and the
Stadium of Fire Fireworks show from Campus. I hear a lot of people are
coming into the MTC this month. I can't wait to see everyone. The language
is going well, but it's still just memorization and some pretty tough
grammar. Pretty soon we'll have 4 fake investigators. It's pretty hard to
keep track of everyone and what we've taught. I started reading Jesus the
Christ, which is a pretty cool book. I hope everyone is doing well! Not
much going on this week!

Elder Liddell

Week 3 with photos of old friends and new ones!

Okay so It's the end of week 3 and it has inched by ever so slowly. The temple closed for the duration of our stay, which was a bummer, but now we have an hour or two to nap on P-Day. We learned more about reading and grammer. The language is mostly memorizing, but there are a lot of odd customs cambodians have that we have to learn about. You aren't allowed to touch heads, or point the bottom of your feet at anyone, it's worse than the middle finger. My district is doing decently well, and we are slowly learning the language. We listened to a conference talk in cambodian, and couldn't pick out more than 10 words in the entire thing. The language is slightly getting easier to speak, but then the teachers throw in gramatical twists. I'm happy I only have 6 more weeks here, we have to find fun in little ways. We have a mini basketball hoop in our room, which is pretty fun the play games with. The MTC is fun and nomatter how long you are here you learn something new everday!

Love everyone a lot!

 

Elder Liddell

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Week 2 for the Nung Cambo!

Okay this is my generic email for the week. Our first investigator, PuHoong decided to get baptized, but then later decided to wait for his family. Hard work recieves awards, and when I start slacking a little in my language study, teaching investigators gets really hard! We still stink at teaching in Cambodian, but it's coming along. We learning HOW to read on Thurday, and now we are just practicing. It's a very slow proccess, because there are 104 letters, but it's slowly coming! We get to translate some of the book of mormon back to english every night, which is super fun. Our investigator also became our night time teacher. He coaches us with not only language but gospel principals. I met my mission president, president TEW with my compainion on Saturday. Me and my companion, as well as 10 others speaking spanish met him, and we were the only camobodian elders. There are only 4 Cambodian speaking elders in LB, and our first sunday we are supposed to translate English to Cambodian in sacrament meeting. I keep learning a lot about recognizing the spirit. We got to see the quorrom of the 12 at the Sunday devotional, and if you didn't see we were on T.V. twice! It was pretty cool, and we got there 3 hours early so we could sit super close. Some advice from apostles about leadership "Good Leaders take action because of Love." One of my teachers got engaged, and so we won't be seeing him around much! Yesterday at the Tuesday devotional we got to hear Janice Kapp Perry, who wrote a lot of primary songs speak. At one point her husband (who is very old) went up and kissed her. The missionaries went WILD. It was an amazing experience to hear about her inspiration of songs I've known my whole life. One of the Elders in my district from Long Beach, Elder Tran, is a recent convert so he has never hear the primary songs before and started bawling, along with a lot of other Elders and Sisters as well. The spirit was so strong when we sang Army of Heleman! New Laotion Elders came in, and they are wicked cool! Here we call the people in our Zone Pi's and Nung's. Pi means older and Nung means younger, so the Elders that have been here 7 weeks are our Pi-Thais, and we are the Nung- Cambos. The Pi Thais are leaving soon, which is sad but awesome that they finally get to leave! Anyway it was a good second week, and I'm ready to finish my 7 more here at the MTC.

https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/watch/the-work-of-salvation/2013/06?lang=eng

It is sort of like 'Where's Waldo', but if you look carefully, you can see Nick and his companion at the church's broadcast: The Work of Salvation

We all yelled (a lot of oh my gosh, it's Nick!)

It was SO exciting! Especially for his little brother Will.  Nick and his companion, Elder Tartar, look a bit drowsy, but it was like an early Christmas for us!

A Little Note Sent from Nicholas:

Honestly, I love it here. I can't think of any negatives. Everyone is extremely nice, especially my companion.  His name is Elder Tartar.  He's from Payson and played football.  Each day has been really exciting.  Parker Rasmussen and Drew Crump live in my same hallway.  My p-day is on Wednesday.  I'll email more then.  (remind Will to read his scriptures)
Love, Elder Liddell

A final look back as Nick was swooped off into the MTC.  What could Nick be thinking? Gulp, Yea, Yikes, Awesome.....

Nick runs into his friend and neighbor, Ellie Ott, in the MTC.  By the looks of it, things are going great!  I LOVE this photo!

Nick's First Letter!

I'm having a lot of fun, which leaves no time to miss anything (which is awesome)!  My companin is Elder Tartar, from Payson.  I also have Elder Wilson from Provo, and an Elder McBride from Sandy.  They went to BYU and knew each other before coming to the MTC.  WE have 6 beds in our teeny room, but luckily there are only 4 of us in the room.  Most everyone else is packed into their room with 6 elders.  I'll send you pictures when I can.  I have gotten used to the food for the most part.  They have some good things to eat.  I have seen a few people I know (Chris Andjewierden, Tucker Beener, Ellie Ott), and see Elder Rasmussen every day.  
My teachers are Lookru (teacher) Mickelson, Merrill, and Thomas.  They are awesome and are really helping us learn.  We teach a RM who speaks Cambodian every day and it goes bad every time.  We are still trying to string together sentences, so it's awkward, but we are able to get through the lessons okay.  The RM is named "PuHong", and he is really funny, but we have no idea really what he's saying.  Our teachers didn't speak a word of English until yesterday.  They spoke in mixed khmer (Ca-may) and English.  We learn a lot every day and it's a lot of memorizing, but the programs here are good.  We use a program called TALL where a lady says all of the Cambodian words and sounds really funny.  
I'm in building 14M, and learn my daily lessons in building 10M (two floors below Ellie Ott).  I'm tired, but we get 7 hours of sleep which is plenty, because we have a lot to do. 
They walk us to the stadium to listen to devotionals.  Every devotional has been exactly what I needed to hear and the spirit really help me to know what I need to learn.  
Anyways, I love everyone and wish everyone well.  PS.  Write via dearelder.com   That way I get daily mail.  I can only check emails once a week for a very short period of time!