Sua sdei--or hey!

My job, technically, is to only work with Cambodians. But because I'm the first Cambodian missionary in this area in a long time, no one came before me to keep records of where the Cambodians live and if they speak English or have ever heard of the church or anything. We meet up with Elders in each area, look through their area book for Cambodian-looking names, and ask them where would be the best places for us to tract (go knocking door to door) based on what they know of that area. We check up on old names, people who were baptized in the 80s and haven't been to church since the Cambodian branch was dissolved 10 years ago. And then the rest of the time, we're praying to know where to go, and knocking on doors.

I've come up with a formula for identifying Cambodian houses, at least in the state of Washington. Here it is, for your use:

1. Look for shoes -Cambodians all leave shoes outside the front door

2. Look for a quadrillion cars in the driveway - Cambodians all live like 4 generations in a house. Most people who come to the door are Grandparents or children, because the parents are at work. But the parents siblings and their spouses will live with them too

3. Look for Cambodian flags - everyone here is proud of their heritage, and so many cars have tiny flags in them that say American Samoa, Cambodia, Thailand, etc. The Cambodian ones are triangles with a temple in the center and yellow fringe around the outside. They're very distinct and easy to spot from a distance

4. Look for crazy gardens - Cambodians have the most absurd gardens. Everyone in Tacoma is wild on roses, but Cambodians will grow their own lemongrass, sesame seed, bamboo, Aloe Vera. Even in apartments where they don't have a lawn to plant in, they'll have 30 potted plants on the porch and in the house. They also have fake plants next to real ones, like a random fake flower planted in the dirt next to an herb. I don't understand it, but I love it.

5. Look for Buddhist shrines - even members of the church have them, because usually someone in the house is a practicing Buddhist. For a lot of the Cambodians here, it's just a way to hold on to their cultural roots, but they don't really care about the religious aspect of it so much.

6. Look for carpets- I don't know why, but they'll have like layers and layers of rugs. Like the floor will already be carpeted, and they'll put a rug on top of it, and then there will be more carpets overlapping each other covering the entire floor. So everywhere you step is triple-carpeted. 

I've been in Tacoma 5 weeks, and the church is true here too!

-Sister McQuiv