Hall for Young Ambassadors

The story of trying to secure a hall for the Young Ambassadors to perform in while they are here has been a long one!  We started looking when we first arrived in Cambodia.  Others had made a lot of calls in advance of our arrival to see what might work. The Young Ambassadors have very specific needs but have learned in their world travels that they can be flexible. Some places we looked at had too small of a stage and some had poor lighting among other problems. We finally settled on the Chaktomuk Hall and reserved the days.  After we thought it was settled the manager there told it we had to submit a proposal to the ministry of Arts because it was a government building.  Then the fun began because we told BYU that we had to have the proposal and that we want to invite the King because there is a 3 day holiday that week in May for his birthday. So the proposal request kept going up the ladder at BYU because we all had to make sure that protocol was followed correctly.  Finally they decided who should sign the letter and sent it to Hong Kong for review by Elder Gong, the area president.  He was traveling so it sat on his desk for over two weeks.  He gave approval and then it went back to BYU so it could be signed and the sent by Fed ex to us in Cambodia.  When it was enroute we found out that there was a new minister so we had to get a new letter addressed to the correct minister.  That came by Fed Ex and we the went to the ministry with our Khmer friend Jesse to see if we could make an appointment with the minister.  Her assistant told us she was too busy but to bring the proposal to him for review.  Friendly visit.  In the meantime we have started working with Seyla to help find sponsors.  She is an answer to prayer.  She knows what to do and how to do it to produce this event.  She called the minister's assistant for an appointment to bring proposal to the ministry.  That was a very friendly call.  Next day we went and were stiff armed by the assistant.  He was rude and told us now we need a letter from the US embassy to submit with the proposal.  Not a good visit and such a different response than we got from him before.  So now we are worried because if we don't have a hall there is no performance.  We contacted the ambassador and he said he would have someone look into it for us.  Meanwhile we have the feeling that we should find a new place.  We relook at the big hall on Diamond Island which is perfect but very large and expensive.  But now we have Seyla to help us so we decide to add up the numbers and see if we can make it work.  We know we can with her help and she was able to reserve the hall and get them to lower the price by $3000.  We had to get approval from Shane Wright at BYU and were a little nervous about telling him the whole story including the cost of the hall.  No problem there.  He just laughed with us about our saga and said go ahead.  We cancelled with the ministry so we do not have to worry about being too closely associated with government. It is important for the Church to stay neutral here. 

The girl in blue is Seyla who is a miracle for us.