Sunday in Siem Reap

Day 20 – July 3, 2016

Sunday

Out little boutique hotel is pretty cute and comfortable. We spent the morning relaxing and getting packed up to travel to Hanoi, Vietnam. Our driver picked us up at 11 to take us to the Old Market where we had lunch at the Blue Pumpkin. I had the best satay chicken skewers with tamarind peanut sauce! Isaac was happy with his Orange Fanta and scrambled eggs. Calvin and Jeff got a little adventurous with some Khmer curry and Kira went French with  quiche.

We spent the next hour and a half winding our way through the Old Market and bargaining with the shopkeepers. It’s actually the funnest (not a word, I know, but we all say it anyway) thing! I love shopping in markets and bargaining for a better price. I don’t know why it’s so satisfying for me but Iove it. The kids got hammocks for $3, t-shirts for $2, elephant pants for $2.50 and bracelets and magnets for $.50. I bought some silk pillow cases for the world room for $3. We probably spent a total of $20 or $30 and it was so fun.

Our driver met us at the edge of the market to take us to Church. It was a little harder than I thought it would be to find. The driver had no idea what or where the Mormon Church was and I had no data or wifi to use my maps. But we did find it and we were even 15 minutes early!

The Church building was beautiful and walking in felt like coming home. We invited our driver to come in with us and he seemed anxious and excited to follow us in. We were greeted at the door by six missionaries: four Elders and two Sisters. Elder Palmer, a 19 year old from Yorba Linda, California, took us under his wing and got us headphones and set up to interpret while the other missionaries talked to our driver. We had to sit in the front row for the best reception on the headsets but our driver wanted to stay in the back so the missionaries sat with him.

It was a beautiful sacrament meeting. There was no one to play the piano so they asked if anyone in the congregation could play. The kids immediately volunteered me and my stomach was in my throat. I hesitated and said I couldn’t play that well so they sang a capella and it was pretty tough. Just as I was ready to go up and give it a try, another young Cambodian member came in late and went straight to the piano. I was grateful and a little ashamed that I had been unwilling to help. I know I could have played the song, I was just so nervous.

I was so overcome with the Spirit while singing the Hymns that I could barely sing, I was so choked up. It was beautiful and powerful to hear the Cambodian members sing “Follow the Prophet” and “I Know that My Redeemer Lives” and “Love at Home” in Khmer while we sang it in English. The Spirit was so strong, testifying to me that Heavenly Father loves all of His children and the Jesus Christ lived and died for each one of us on this earth.

Fast and Testimony meeting was beautiful. The members bore strong testimonies of gospel principles and of the Savior while Elder Palmer translated their words into English for us. At the end of his testimony, the Branch President invited the members and the foreigners (us) to come up and bear their testimonies. I felt like I should go but I had to take Mikey out to the bathroom and felt like I needed an extra few minutes to gather my thoughts before going up. There was a pause and Jeff and I looked at each other. He said it was my turn, but I wasn’t ready. I knew he wanted to bear his testimony too. He went up to the pulpit and the Branch President translated his testimony into Khmer for the congregation. He bore a beautiful, strong testimony of the love of God for each of His children and how wonderful it is to come to the other side of the world and see that the church is the same, teaching the same beautiful message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He said all of the things that were in my heart, but in a much more powerful and eloquent way than I could. All of us felt the Spirit so strongly. Calvin said “I think everyone cried in church today when Dad bore his testimony” and he knew he had felt the Spirit too.

We knew 2:00 church would be cutting it close to make it to the airport but it was the only way to attend church because we needed to check out of our hotel and we needed a driver to get us there and to the airport. Before the meeting started we talked about maybe needing to leave a little early to get the airport in time, but the meeting was so good that none of us wanted to leave. We quickly loaded into the car and told the driver to get us to the airport as fast as he could. But not before letting the missionaries get his contact info ;) I thought we would be fine, time wise, but I was a little worried about the visa and regulations getting into Vietnam. I thought I had all the paperwork right but when we got to the counter to check in, they told me I had the wrong paper. I frantically searched through my emails, worrying about finding the right documents, sorting through dozens of emails from the company I had used to help me get the Approval Letter to enter Vietnam and worrying about the roaming charges I was incurring on my phone. I finally found what I thought was the right paper but the desk clerk told me I needed to have it printed, not just an electronic copy. Another employee had me follow him out of the airport, down a few hallways to the tiny, little office of Vietnam Airlines where I could print it out. Before I followed him, I had taken a screen shot of the paper and closed the file. When I printed it out, he told me I was missing a page. I frantically searched my emails again but could never find it. I went back and forth between their computer and my phone trying to find the email but I couldn’t find it! I was starting to panic, silently praying in my head that I could find it. The Vietnam Airlines man told me if I didn’t have the right paperwork, they would send us back to Cambodia or hold us at the airport until we paid the fine of nearly $4,000 per person! I started to tear up because I just couldn’t find it. Praying fervently in silence, I had the feeling that I just needed to calm down and think through it and I would figure it out. I took a deep breath and decided to call the man in Vietnam who had helped me. The first call wouldn’t go through. It said the number was no longer in service. Trying not to panic and hoping I had misdialed, I tried again. This time I heard a muffled voice on the other end. I tried to talk to him but I couldn’t understand anything other than that it was Eric, the man I had emailed with. I finally told him I would email him and said goodbye. The guy standing over me told me I had seven minutes before I could no longer make the flight. I quickly emailed with shaking hands as fast as I could, asking Eric Huang to resend the paperwork. “Five minutes.” I kept searching, kept refreshing. Nothing. “Three minutes,” he told me. Still nothing. Finally he said, “If you don’t find it within the next minute, you cannot make this flight.” Within seconds, the email came through! I tried to download and print the two different pages as fast as I could but I was on a different computer and everything was in Khmer. I took another deep breath and was able to figure it out. We grabbed the papers off the printer and ran back to the ticket counter where Jeff and the kids were still waiting. We got our boarding passes and ran through the airport, rushing through passport checkpoints and security lines. Isaac got stopped and they had to search through his bag because he had a piece of coral shaped like a gun. We were the last seven passengers on the plane. Everyone was waiting for us and trying to hurry us through, a little bothered that we were taking so long, but we made it! Phew! I collapsed into my seat and said a little prayer of thanks. We were on our way to Vietnam.

We met a friendly, Portuguese sailor who looked straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean with his scruffy pointed beard, curly mustache and heavy, dark unibrow while waiting for our Visa in Hanoi. I thought he would be so fun to paint a portrait of. If I had more guts, I would have asked to take his picture…He sat and talked to the kids while we waited to get our passports back.

After the long flight that included a layover in Luang Prabang, Laos, and the 2 hours of waiting in lines in the Hanoi airport, we finally loaded into our van transfer to the hotel when the kids asked how far we are from the ocean, knowing we were going on our Junk boat cruise tomorrow. When I told them four hours, Isaac pretty much summed it up for all of us when he said, “I am literally screaming in my head right now!”

Breakfast at the Blue Pumpkin in Siem Reap. The boys loved that they got to eat breakfast on a giant couch!

Getting henna tatoos in the Old Market.

Elder Palmer helping us set up our headsets so he could translate for us.

This tuk-tuk was parked outside of the church building. Someone's doing missionary work every day while driving his tuk-tuk!

We loved attending church with the Siem Reap 2nd Branch today!

Our snack on Vietnam airlines. Cuttlefish Coated Green Peas? I never realized how much I liked pretzels and peanuts. And I love the little wet wipe that tells me I'm a winner!