Week 1 in Tacoma

My area is called Tacoma East, in the Mountainview Ward. I'm the only missionary in the mission called Cambodian speaking, to the confusion of everyone. Missionaries and members regularly ask me, "so where did you learn Cambodian?" and when I tell them the MTC, they're really surprised. They can't imagine that someone who didn't know Cambodian already would get called here Cambodian speaking. There isn't a Cambodian branch here, as I'd been told. Evidently there used to be one 10 years back, and the church dissolved it to try to encourage the members to learn English. But instead everyone just went inactive and joined Buddhist churches that are only Cambodian speakers. My job is to find Cambodians and get them back to church, even though they won't be able to understand it once they get there. Pretty much the whole program is based on the decision of the stake president: if he says he wants to form a Cambodian branch, then I have to find enough people to make that possible. If he says he doesn't want to form a Cambodian branch, then I my companion will go back to teaching in English, and I'll be assigned a new mission call, somewhere I can teach in Cambodian. My companion was called English speaking, so a lot of what we've taught has been in English. But we've taught several lessons in Khmer as well. We technically have an area we're assigned to, and when we teach in English we're obligated to stay in those boundaries. But when we teach in Khmer, our boundaries are the entire Washington Tacoma mission. We can go anywhere to find Cambodian people. But there's a lot here already, so we haven't done that much.

Believe it or not, I have a native trainer! Or at least as close to that as I'll ever get. She's mostly Chinese descent, but some Cambodian. She was born in Thailand and lived most of her life in Cambodia. She speaks Cambodian, Thai, Korean, English, and right now is working on Spanish. She calls me her "miracle". Evidently things didn't go so well between her and her last companion, so she's been fasting and praying for me for months that when I get here we'll get along and be able to work hard. That's pretty humbling. She's also crazy. Day two here she taught me how to skin a chicken (there's two ways: start from the butt, or start from the neck. But it's better to start from the neck because it's less painful for the chicken). She's very abrupt and jumps to a lot of conclusions that immediately put people on the defensive. When she's mad, she takes it out on her driving; in other words, I'm constantly car-sick. She doesn't like to SYL (meaning speak the language, or speak in Khmer with me) because she was called English speaking, so pretty much she says everything in English and I respond in Khmer (because I need the practice). This is her first time in the states. She got here this past January, and the heat was broken and she didn't have any bedding and they didn't have any food in the cupboards. She's very careful to make sure I don't have the same experience she had her first few days, which means she went to great lengths to find me pillows and blankets, make sure I was constantly in a comfortable temperature, and cook me a huge breakfast my first morning. She's been in this area her whole 6 months, at for as long as she's my comp, will still be here. Even though she's called English speaking, she's assigned to me because she knows Cambodian. She will be my companion until someone else Cambodian speaking comes in. Which might mean we're companions for the entire 18 month mission. 

I've been in Tacoma 1 week, and the church is true here too!

-Sister McQuivey