Epic Bike Tails

June 16, 2013

Happy Father's Day to all you fathers (most especially mine :)!

It seems like this week flew by! I guess I've been having way to much fun! I don't know if I can even remember past Friday.Yeah. Monday is not coming back-I've been sitting here trying to think but it's not coming. (I've mostly been doing yoga and trying to get my seminary homework done. )

That's okay though because the most exciting days were at the end of the week. On Thursday I finished a project that mom asked me if I wanted to do several months ago. I just now got around to doing it. The laundry room is really gritty and dirty so mom asked if I would deep clean it. I of course said yes-for some reason I really like deep cleaning once in a while. It took me all afternoon to do it, but by the end it looked SOOO much better! It actually wasn't all that hard because we have this magic cleaning stuff called Duck. I was having so much fun with this magical Duck cleaner that I made my own little commercial of it. Mom came in a filmed me. We were both laughing and it was to just be silly. In all seriousness though, this Duck cleaner really is magical. You put it on a dirty spot...wait 10 seconds or more...and with just a swipe or two the mess is gone (can you tell I'm excited about it)!! Anyway, we can now put our clothes on the floor without grimacing, which is really nice. (for those of you who can, the video will hopefully be on my blog).

On Friday mom and I went to the market in the afternoon to get some of the dresses I'm having made. We've been riding our bikes a lot lately and it's so fun! We're realizing that nothing is that far from home. I don't know why we haven't rode more. When we set off in the afternoon it was cloudy and looked like it would rain, but we decided to ride anyway. A little rain never hurt anybody! We went to the Russian market first for some of the clothes-so far they've turned out pretty good. We then rode to the Olympic market for my dresses. It turned out that they wouldn't be done with them until 2 hours later. We didn't want to wait that long, so kind of bummed we decided to head home....right when the rain came Wow, did that rain come and come, in buckets! We hoped it would die down, but it didn't so we just braved it! I have to say, it was so fun!!!! I love the rain! People watching us must have thought we were nuts, first because we didn't have ponchos and that's just a typical article of clothing brought everywhere by everyone. Second, I probably looked like I was having the time of my life (which I was!). I was smiling and laughing and just loving the moment! We instantly got soaked to the bone. It was so funny because while I was riding my helmet was POURING water into my face as well as the rain. I was sputtering and gasping and trying to keep my contacts in so I could see. At one point my contact started hurting like crazy so I was holding my eye with one hand and trying to steer my bike with one hand-all while in the midst of crazy traffic! Now there's an epic bike tail! I also created a new water sport: Waterbiking! The water was so flooded at some points that our feet were in the water! Anyway, the whole experience was just a blast and definitely epic!

Saturday afternoon I did a split with some sister missionaries in Stung Men Chey. It was the area I last went to, but with different sisters. I recognized the area and even some of the people I had visited last time, which was fun. I went with a Khmer sister, Sister Chin. She's really sweet and the whole time she kept saying, "I'm just so happy to be going with Sister Mackenzie!" All four of us (it's a threesome) went to the first ladies house. It was an older lady. I think we went mostly to visit her 11 year old granddaughter, but she wasn't there so we just visited with this sweet sister. She said she was sick and hurting. We sang and prayed with her and shared some thoughts/scriptures. Then I asked if she had received a Priesthood blessing and she said she had a while back. She said she wanted one so the Elders came later that day to give her one. After, we split and Sister Chin and I went to a Relief Society activity. Before the ladies came we washed some dishes for an very old, sweet lady. I'm not quite sure, but she might have been the one I visited last time. Pretty soon a lot of ladies showed up and the President shared some thoughts on missionaries/service. We each shared a thought too. After they had a dessert. I didn't want to offend anyone (which is common here) so I ate a couple of bites. Ugh. It had the texture of really thick mucus. Sorry. There's no other way to say it. I was so disgusted, but I was trying to be polite and grin and bear it. I found out it had coconut milk in it, which I definitely felt later that night. My stomach hurt really bad all night. Luckily we had to go, so I was spared from eating too much. The last sister we visited was not active. She said she was very offended. The whole time there was just a very angry, bitter spirit. I said some things about going to church to worship God and that we need to show love to our enemies. I don't think it changed here attitude very much, but hopefully it sparked something. We expressed how much we would love to have her back! It was a fun afternoon and I'm glad I got to go with them.