Only 6 months left!

I am so excited for conference, especially hearing all of you talk about it! I have to wait until October 20 and 21 before I can watch it though! Oh, so far away! It’s because this upcoming weekend is the Pchum Bun Holiday, and the chances are that attendance would be very low if we showed it this weekend.  

On Monday I loaded up into a Toyota Camry with Elder Mornh and a member from Kampong Thom and headed up to Phnom Penh. I was privileged to be able to translate for the interview with President Moon and this member, and it was an incredible experience. It was an interview for the Melchizedek Priesthood, and President Moon said something that I’ve heard a few times before, but this time it really stuck out to me, and has been on my mind ever since. He said that the 10% that you pay for tithing is something that you may need, and it’s not important to the Lord or the church, but you can’t make it without the blessings that come from paying it. His quote really struck home, and its application in all of the commandments from the Lord. How many blessings we truly do receive from following His commandments, and those blessings are so essential to our lives. 

Well, it was my 18 month mark. Can you believe it? I sure can’t. I’ve been on my mission for a whole year and a half, and it has gone by so fast. I have learned so much though. Probably changed a lot, and certainly have grown in my testimony of the gospel. What is probably even harder to believe is that I only have 6 months left. I don’t know what I will do when I go home; it will be strange! And it will probably be cold. 80 degrees is comfortable. :)  

Last week went great! We had our investigator interviewed for baptism, and she will get baptized on this Sunday! We are so excited! She is happy as well; she has been investigating the church for a long time.  

We have a member in the branch who has just become this gospel-sharing machine! She gave us 11 referrals last week! It was so exciting! We’ve been super busy with all of our current investigators, so it will be a challenge to fit our new investigators into the schedule, but we sure will make it work! We are super excited to have so many people to teach. 

 

Moving Onward

This week was a really great week, and I had a great opportunity to go back to Kampong Cham and have a zone conference. My how things can change in one year! So many things have changed in Kampong Cham. It makes me wonder what will have changed when I go home. It was great to meet with a few members there, and visit them. What a blessing it was to have been able to serve there. The people are so wonderful and loving.
On Tuesday I had a chance to go on an exchange with Elder Mornh, and then Elder Grimnes needed our help, so he took us out to deliver a bike to a family that was 16 miles out. It was an absolutely beautiful ride. When we walked up to the house I was very humbled with the circumstances. No mode of transportation, and the father is in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down because of a few shots he was given by an untrained doctor. They have nothing, and they want to go to church so bad. He said that he still feels the Spirit in his life, but that he feels that there is something missing, and that is from not being able to go to church. I was grateful to the former missionary who came back and then left his bike here for this family. They will surely be able to use it, even if it means selling it for the money. There was a special spirit in the lesson as we taught, and I only hope that the Lord will pour out his blessings on that family so that they have enough food to eat. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to meet them.
Saturday we had some service in the morning and helped a Sister put in a fence! That was fun. Then we helped the Senior Couple translate for their class, and helped with mutual, which was a blast! We played a game called Mafia.
Sunday was a good day too. A lot of recent converts and less actives made it to church, which was great! That evening we had mission prep class, and it is turning out to be a lot of fun!
It is amazing how many people have dreams here. I think one of the reasons is that in this culture, dreams typically have a deep meaning. A recent convert's daughter had a dream that her mother stayed after church, and Christ was there with her, and she wouldn't go back home. She was wondering what that meant? In Cambodian culture, if someone you know is with god, you need to go to the wat and do a little praying thing to ask to keep their spirit here so they don't die. So I think that one reason could be that. Another is because they never dream about white people, and when they have a dream about Christ, it can very well be the answer to their prayers, or ours for them! Sometimes you need a good hard 'slap' to wake up.
Sister Rytting finishes her mission on September 21. I can't believe it. She has 4 proselyting weeks left. And that means that I will have been out on my mission for 18 months. That is ridiculous! I can't believe it! Time is just flying by so quickly.

Baptisms

Wow, what a week it has been! Elder Decker and I have been super busy this week teaching tons of lessons.  Elder Decker is feeling much better, just still really tired in the mornings when he wakes up. Once we get out, we’re running on all fours. Even though we only had 5 days to proselyte, Wednesday to Sunday, we were able to teach 32 lessons this week! Wow, what a busy schedule it was to do that. But things are going super good. There were 114 people at church, which is super great because this is just a small branch that has been growing immensely over the past 6 months to a year. We had 15 investigators at church too, which is super awesome, and such a blessing for them. And it is a miracle for us to see them learn, grow, and change.

This week I had the opportunity to perform a baptism! Yay, my first one! These are just the first of many baptisms to come; we are working with a lot of families, and I am excited to see them continue to learn and grow. 

This week we met a lot with a recent convert family. Well, we were at their house a lot. We sit down, and then our investigators start coming over and we teach them a lesson, and then the next one comes. And then another recent convert, and then another investigator. So many! We have 17 investigators that have a baptismal date, and many more that are on the way to getting one. And our recent converts are giving out referrals like crazy! We got 9 new investigators this week, all referrals from recent converts.

President Moon is amazing. I am so super excited to work with him and get to know him. We learned a lot, and he has a great vision for Cambodia.  I will surely miss President and Sister Smedley though. They were incredible. Two of the greatest people I have had the pleasure of serving my mission with.