New Assignment

Hello! How are you?! I am doing great, but man, it has been quite a week!  So I rode down from Siem Reap by myself after emailing on Monday, and it was an interesting 6 hours, just because I was by myself. I made it to Phnom Penh alright though, and everything went smoothly. I took a tuk-tuk to the mission home with all of my things, and then we loaded up in the van and went to my new house. The house that I am in now is a real 'flat' and not a multi-level house like I am used to staying in.  We stay with the AP's, and my companion, Elder Vanfleet, is from Cedar City, and is a really cool guy.  Oh Tuesday. Talk about a crazy day! So we get to the office around 7:30 in the morning and get to work. Elder Wilcox shows me a few things that I will need to be doing, and a few of the programs I will be using, like Microsoft Access. (Oh ya, ha ha, I am now the mission technology specialist. Super funny.) So, in the middle of all of this, President Smedley comes in and says that the maps for redoing the boundaries and adding a district into Phnom Penh need to get done today so that they can be sent in before Friday. So we spent the day wrestling around in Adobe Illustrator with google maps to put together these maps, and I must say that they turned out really good. Then we had to start putting in numbers. Holy heck, I can see why it takes a long time to redo the boundaries in a stake or something. It's not just a case of drawing the lines, and kind of making sure that there is still a decent amount of people in each ward. No, not at all. Apparently, as we've heard from the Area Seventy, this is the biggest and most complicated change in the Southeast Asia area ever, and I got thrown right in the middle of it. Wednesday I was in the office all day long, didn't leave the mission home even once, not even for lunch, we had KFC deliver it.  Thursday Elder Wilcox was able to finish up teaching me what I need to be doing in the office. So I will be entering in baptismal records, and answering questions that people have in relation to membership things. (Like confirmation dates, and if certain people have the priesthood or not, etc.)  I am in charge of a lot of reports that will be made up, and I do a lot of work in Excel. So, pretty busy! Friday was transfers, and things went really great, all the people transferring came in and were out pretty quick. I got to see a lot of people, so that was fun. It was really nice not to have to rush out of the mission home to catch the bus and have a 3 to 7 hour bus ride to go wherever I need to go.   A few perks of the office; USA donuts knows us better than anybody else, so donuts were delivered twice last week :) I will get my license soon so I can drive the Toyota Hiace (see the attached picture of the wicked fast diesel supercharged sports car) Sister Smedley will let me use her oven, so I made muffins this morning. And I get to know a lot more ins and outs. So I am excited to see what this next week will bring.  Life has been on fast track mode for about a week now, so we'll see what happens this next week, ha ha. Oh, by the way, I now am a missionary in the 5th branch, and the 13th(International, English) Branch. We've only been able to go proselyte once this week, but we will be able to go out tonight, and I am excited to go meet a few more people. Church is at a real church house too :D

Happy New Year

I can’t believe that it is the year 2012 now, that is crazy! But I am excited to see what this New Year brings in for all of us.  I have started reading the Book of Mormon again recently, and I am on Chapter 4 or 5 now. I always learn so many great things when I read the Book of Mormon. So many things that I have never noticed before and so many great things that I can apply to myself, personally. I found a really great scripture this week in 1 Nephi 4:2-3 that really goes along with 1 Nephi 19:23, to liken the scriptures unto yourselves. There really is so much application for us in our lives today. Daily guidance, that is for sure. I love when I open the scriptures right to where I left off, and what I read next is something that has been on my mind or something that I have been struggling with. I promise that as you read the scriptures, your minds will be more opened and more clear, and things will be more bearable. It is a wonderful tool. I loved Elder Richard G. Scott’s conference talk on how verses of scriptures can be wonderful friends to us in times of need. That is so true.
Teaching is going really well. I am still learning and growing everyday, and there is so much that I still have to learn and improve on. I went on an exchange with Elder Phan on Friday and met with one of my families that I have been teaching for a while, and their neighbor, who we sat down with one time had a lot of great things to tell us. When we sat down and did a little bit of teaching, she said that she didn’t believe us. She did not believe anything that we taught or said. But we left a pamphlet on the Restoration at their house, mostly for their daughter to read. Her daughter read the pamphlet and told her mom that God is good. And she remembered that when we had left her house, she had felt something. Every night since then, she has seen Jesus Christ in her dreams, teaching the people, loving the people. Speaking her language. And she said that she has not come out to see us when we teach because she has been feeling sick, but she listened in on our lessons. (I had no idea she was listening). She prays all the time now, and we’ve never taught her how to pray. It’s really quite interesting, but awesome at the same time. What a wonderful miracle in her life from our loving Father in Heaven.
I am so glad that everyone had a wonderful Christmas Day! That makes me so happy! I am also so very glad that I got to talk to all of you on Christmas day! That was definitely my favorite Christmas present ever.
We went to see the sun rise at Angkor Wat, and it was pretty cool. Not as many colors as we were hoping for.