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.

Modern Day Miracles

Church this Sunday went super well; we had 125 people at church and 8 investigators at sacrament meeting, which is really good! At the end of church though, there was a bit of bad news; our prime investigator was riding his moto and the police pulled him over and took it, and told him that he had to pay $1,000 to get it back. His daughter’s shoe had fallen off, so his wife got off and went to go get it, and he turned around the corner, into the parking lot to go back and get her. The light was red, and the police will try to get you for anything. The police here are really corrupt, like in Mexico. They can pull you over and take whatever they want and fine you as much as they want. And they were really going off on him, looking for anything wrong or out of place. Well, Sophoan doesn’t have a job, and just barely got clean water to drink because a filter bucket was donated to him by one of our members. All he had, to his whole name is $7.50. He offered them all of it as they tried to work things out. If they took and kept his moto he would be done. He doesn’t have a bike, he can’t afford one. $30 is waaay too expensive. He would not be able to do anything. He lives far away from anywhere and would be completely out of luck. His wife was crying and the policemen wouldn’t budge. He took his girl and bought her some food, and then came back. He had had a feeling before to shut off the valve from the gas tank to the engine for some reason. The policemen obviously wanted his moto. He was praying so hard. He hadn’t completely accepted Joseph Smith as a prophet, and he really liked the Book of Mormon, but he just wasn’t set yet. He had prayed and prayed, but not really gotten a clear answer. He prayed that if the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, if Joseph Smith is a true prophet, if this church is His church, please perform a miracle and help me get my moto back. And then somehow, someway the policeman’s heart was softened. He took the $5 that Sophoan had left (because he spent $2.50 to buy some food for his daughter.), and filled up his gas tank and sent him on his way. That day the policeman made $1.25. But our investigator made his eternal life.

What proof that the Lord’s hand is in our lives, in the lives of His children. I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who cares about and loves all of His children so much.

A Great Thanksgiving

Well, I had a pretty fantastic Thanksgiving as well! We bought two medium chickens at the store, and we had stuffing and potatoes and gravy and cornbread, rolls, creamed corn, and pumpkin pie and ice cream to top it all off. We were running a little bit short on time when it came to cooking everything, but we basically had it all cooked in 2 hours, and we had quite a bit of food. Here’s the adventure; the water was off, so we couldn’t wash our dishes. That made things a little bit tricky. And the other thing was that the pie was taking a little bit longer than we had thought it would too cook. (It was a really, really big pie) And we needed the powerpac to cook our 2 chickens. Well, we ended up having to substitute, and our stuffed Thanksgiving fowl was cooked in the rice cooker. Ha ha! We had to hold the ‘cook’ button down so it wouldn’t pop up to just the warm setting though. We were able to do that with a chopstick and a Vietnamese Book of Mormon :) Ha ha! But the chicken turned out super good in the rice cooker, I was so happy! It all tasted great.

Sunday was a fantastic day! 130 people came to church, usually there are about 110. We had 7 investigators at church, and a few more visitors. Super awesome! Our family from Srah Srang came, so that was great! As well as a few less-active and recent converts who haven’t been to church since I’ve been here. It was so great to see them, and everybody was so happy!  The work is going forth and nothing is stopping it!
Oh, I also got some kinda freaky spider bites on my neck. They were just like surface problems, but they were painful. They felt like burns I did call Sister Smedley and took some antibiotics for a few days and put Neosporin on them. I guess I wasn’t the only elder to be bit either. They aren’t a problem now, just peeling. 

First Thanksgiving

I hope that you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving! I have had a great week, and things are going great here!  I am excited for our dinner today, it looks like things are going to turn out pretty good. We'll have cornbread, chicken, pumpkin pie (we've pureed the pumpkin and made up a crust), mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes (hopefully there are yams at lucky's, and then we can have yams instead). But things are going good. The work is going really well, and we are teaching probably close to 20 people right now. We are teaching 5 families too! So it's all super! Combined with the other elders, we had 10 investigators at church, and we are teaching 11 families. Super awesome!
I have to tell you a little bit about our awesome investigator. On Saturday we went and visited them, and we had a great lesson, and then we were talking with them. They said that they will try super hard to go to church, but they aren't sure if they will have enough money for gas to go there and back, so they would have to see. We know that he has been out of a job for 2 years, and just hasn't been able to find anything for some reason. He knows English and has computer skills which will get you almost anything. All he wants is a job that makes $50 a month too, nothing too much. (I would say average salary is $50) They have a house, and they have food, but they can't afford a $6 water filter thing that they have here, and we learned that he and his wife have been drinking unclean water and been having some serious health problems. All this and all he can say is, "I am so blessed because we have food, we have a house, we are happy, and I know that God is watching over us." And he wouldn't let us leave either until we had eaten dinner with him. I walked away from that house in tears. My heart was full when I left that house. What humble, humble, grateful people. Such an example to me. He also has an incredible desire to serve God. He was a pastor in a protestant church, and a missionary too, and spent 2 years in an MTC learning from the Bible.  He has such excitement to spread the gospel; he asked us the other day, "Elders, when do you have free time? I want to take you to Kampong Thom for a day to teach the gospel to the people there." And he has such a desire to serve God and preach the gospel. God surely prepares the hearts of people to hear the message of the Restoration, because he loves the Book of Mormon. On Monday he had read to Mosiah 3 (in one week) and said that the prophecies are much clearer than the Old Testament. On Monday we extended an invitation to be baptized and he readily accepted, and he wants his wife to be baptized too, and I think that both of them will be baptized on the 31st of December, and confirmed on the 1st of January. It will be a great end to 2011 and start to 2012!

Loving Seim Reap!

I had a great week, and things are going well here. 

The mission is super excited because of our goal to establish 5 stakes here, but we have some good hard work ahead of us. To have stakes we need to have 5 units; so we want to split Siem Reap into two branches, and add another branch in to Battambang’s 2 branches. Then each unit needs 15 Melchizedek Priesthood holders who are full tithe payers, and we need another few on top of that. I am not sure where we’re standing right now, but we’ve got lots of work to do! And we are excited to be a part of this.

I heard some other news as well! Vietnam is basically open for proselyting now! How amazing is that?! So I have a cool story for you. Elder Le Nyguen from the MTC had originally had a mission call to Mexico, and then it was changed to Cambodia, Vietnamese speaking. He is now going to be sent to Vietnam to preach the gospel there! They still can’t wear name tags or approach people; other people have to approach them first, but things are really starting to look up!
This week while my companion was in Phnom Penh, I was proselyting with Elder Phan, and in his area, I got to see some of the Angkor Wat.

  We are really working hard on finding families to teach. As we pray and search hard though, the Lord is truly answering our prayers in a very large abundance. We are meeting tons of new people and families, and we are really looking forward to getting the chance to meet each of these families and hopefully start teaching them.
Ok, I don't know to what extent the warranty covers my shoes, but they are... a little bit messed up.

Yes, I have beat the life out of my "soul", ha ha! Actually, the soles are pretty good, just cracked. We really don't do a lot of walking. I've done most of my walking barefoot because of mud and water. I think that it is cracked from the Cambodian squat, but I don't know for sure.  I have mostly been wearing these shoes while in the country.
Um, the week after next week, or maybe it's two weeks? is Thanksgiving, and if we want a dinner, we have to make it on Wednesday.  I hope to make a pumpkin pie :) We're excited!  Have a great week!

First Transfer

I must say, I have had a very full week. Last week on Thursday I packed up the bags that I could, and realized that I had built up quite a food storage in my stay in Kampong Cham, ha ha! So I ended up packing a fair amount of food. I was able to pack everything though, including my helmet and pillows. But it is a very good thing that I didn’t have to fly anywhere because I was surely over the 50 lb. a bag limit... ya. I’ll have to see what to do when that time comes. For now I will work on diminishing my food storage and be a little more careful with how much I build up, ha ha. At lunch time the Shelley’s took all the missionaries out to lunch because I was leaving, so that was super nice of them to do that for us. I had a good time, and I surely miss them and the other missionaries that are serving in Kampong Cham. That evening we went to a members house, and took some noodles and sauce and made spaghetti.  That was fun! Some of them liked the spaghetti, some of them didn’t, but it was still pretty fun. I had a great time serving in Kampong Cham, but the Lord has need for me in Siem Reap now!
Friday was full of bus riding! I gathered my last bits of things, and headed off on the bus to Phnom Penh with Elder Kong at 8am. We got to Phnom Penh around 11ish, and headed to the mission home. We also went to the service center and got some lunch, and then when we went back to the mission home, a lot of the missionaries started showing up for transfers. I was able to see quite a few of the Elders that I was in the MTC with, and now I have been able to see all of them since I’ve been back in the country, so that is awesome! Elder Christian came as well, and I got to meet him at the mission home, so that was cool. Then we boarded the bus and headed for Siem Reap. Oh wow... we were supposed to leave at 2:30, but didn’t leave until closer to 3, and didn’t get to Siem Reap until about 10pm. That was a long bus ride. And it was past bedtime too! Super exhausted. We got to the house, and it is super nice. This house is brand new, I think the elders have been living in it for maybe 2 months now, so not very long at all. I think basically you could call it a condo. There are a lot of stairs, and it’s a pretty big house. It goes up to a fourth level, but there isn’t much up there, just like a balcony. But the 2^nd and 3^rd levels both have a bathroom and 2 bedrooms on them. All in all 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, and only 4 elders, so tons of room cause you always share a room with your companion. But it is a super nice house.
Siem Reap is very, very different from Kampong Cham. There are tons and tons of hotels, places to eat, and lights out at night (this is all in the actual city, Sraa Sraang is pitch black at night, and so is most of the ride out there except for my bike light). I have a hard time remembering that I am actually in the same country, it’s a bit of a culture shock. But it is a really cool place, and I am excited to get to know the area and the people here. Ha ha, another difference is the people here have quite an accent. Kind of like the difference between British accents. How can such a small country have different accents?? It is different, but not to the point that I can’t understand it. But I love it here, and my companion is awesome too! 

Church was great! The branch is strong, and the branch president is really good.  They have currently set a plan, a goal to have the very first stake in Cambodia :D  They are hoping to split Siem Reap into two wards and Battambang (where they just finished the new church building out there, and they are about to start a new building here in Siem Reap- by the way, the church has been in Siem Reap for 5 years now) into three wards. This is super exciting!