Well I finally did it, I ate durian!!!!!!!! So I have a video of it, but it won't load so you won't be able to see it for about a year, so wait patiently and don't let me forget about it. I admit the texture truly is disgusting and so is the smell, but once you go through the four steps of eating durian you don''t notice the smell anymore and it actually tastes pretty good. I think you have to be part Asian to actually crave it, but I can eat it now with some pleasure.
I wish I knew what to say this week, I keep praying that something I say might inspire someone, like myself to be a better person. I was promised once that if I would bear my testimony as often as I could that testimony would sink deep into the hearts of the hearers. I hope I always have the Spirit to use that gift as well as I can. Being so far from home I realize how much value I have for those hearts and how much I love all of you. When you serve a mission the Lord truly can and does multiple your love. You love people you don't know and love the people you do know even more. Now in a land so far away from the one I knew (and believe every time I go out on the street and see how big just Phnom Pehn is I am overwhelmed by how big this city is and how small the place I left was) I see how much love I have and have had my entire life. I also come to see how much you need that love. Here in a place where it seems the members don't love each other and where the rain definitely doesn't like you (the pictures this week were taken in an alley after a nasty rain storm). I am learning you don't have to have love extended to you in order to love someone else. For example we met a man on a street corner almost our first week here. We visited him a couple times and found out he was actually Kmer, but he learned Vietnamese during the war. After a couple visits he told us he was too busy and didn't want to come to church. We kept trying to visit and when we found out he was in the hospital we called to check up on him. He has no family and other than a friend on that street corner who told us he was sick I don't know that anyone really knew Chu Mot had a place in this world. But when this last week we found out he had died last Sunday I realized what a part he had in my heart. When his friend told us he had died my heart dropped a bit. I felt bad that Chu Mot had no family to mourn his passing and that Chu Mot was not prepared to meet his maker. As the sons of Mosiah my heart ached for him who didn't know enough to enter the next life. I wished that we could have taught him more, that we could have shared the love of the Lord more in his life and that he could understand more about eternity and know that the Gospel is not just about going to church on Sunday, but that it is about preparing to meet God. As we left I prayed that Heavenly Father could send to really amazing men and missionaries to his door on the other side of the veil. That perhaps my grandfather's could visit him and remind him of the testimony of their grand daughter who met him on a street corner and shared her testimony of God's love in broken Vietnamese.
I'm thankful for this work that the Lord has called me to. Whether it be going contacting in a random street because I felt we needed to and only met one Vietnamese family who told us they were too busy. But as I walked away I knew I had to go back, so I did. I don't even remember what I said exactly and I'm sure my tones were horrible, but as I told them of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith's first Vision I felt in my heart what I shared was true. I know Joseph Smith saw God the Father and our Savior Jesus Christ. I know that Joseph Smith Restored the holy priesthood with the power to seal on earth and in Heaven. I have been thinking a lot about temples and the ordinances of salvation we perform there. When was the last time we went? I know for me it has been two months and I miss it so much. The temples which are built through sacrifice are sanctified by the Lord and we truly are endowed with power when we enter that house. I would invite everyone (including myself, I'm already reading it in preparation of helping the members here prepare for the temple) to read the special Ensign about temples, the pictures are beautiful and I feel the power of the Lord's house just by looking at them. We are all so blessed to have the Gospel in our lives. To know that this life isn't the end and that as we keep our covenants we will live with our family for eternity. I love you all so much my family and all of my brothers and sisters in God's family I look forward for the day when I will see us all in God's kingdom, may we live in such a way we are prepared and worthy to enter his presence is my humble desire, Sister Fabricius
Thank you all so much for your love. I am thankful for the temple in my life and for the blessings that await me there so that I may spend eternity with those I love.
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| This appears to be a tiny banana |
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