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.