First Week In Stung Meanchey.

Well the new area. Battambong was big and beautiful, this area is kinda the opposite. It is the smallest area in the mission. And it is known for "trash mountain" There is a huge dump not too far from where some member of our ward live.  I am meeting a lot of new people and it is great. I am now serving in a ward so that is fun. I finally got used to saying branches, presidents, and district, now I am to go back to bishops, wards, and stakes. But it is great. I just introduce myself has Plo, cause in my last area they couldn't get Plothow down, and Plow means road in Cambodian, so I just call myself Elder Plow and they all remember so that is fun.  

The new comp is awesome!!!!! He is a hard worker, but super chill, and he is so kind. so so kind. He just has a genuinely good heart. He is awesome. You should go on mormon.org he has an account and look him up. Vichhary Khlot. He is Khmer, so cool. 

Stung Meanchey is in Phnom Penh, I am about a 20 min bike ride from the mission home. And I can ride across my area in about five min, so super small. ,Yesterday I was going through my CBR book (a book with pics of all the members and there adresses etc.) And I saw Steven Fischer, he must have served in this area before. 

Edward's neighborhood at dusk.

Transfer to Stung Meanchey!

Last night came transfer calls:

I am going to Stung Meanchey 3! I am going to be serving with Elder Khlot who is a native elder, and we will be zone leaders over the Phnom Penh South Zone. It is one of the two newly organized stakes known as Phnom Penh South Stake. I am going to be serving in a ward! Crazy. I have heard that Elder Khlot is a really nice, chill missionary. I personally don't know him that well, but everything I hear about him is great. Elder Garrow said (before we knew about transfer calls) that E. Khlot was one of his favorite companion, and he has had some cool comps. Everyone loves E. Khlot he is just super nice. He only has two transfers left, and he has been in Stung Meanchey for 2 transfers already, so probably I will be with him when he ends, cause pres rarely sends people to a new area their last transfer of their mission. So hopefully my streak will continue and I will get him for two! yay! I will probably go down on Thursday. So that is exciting. So I have 6 transfers left, and I am not sure what is going to happen, but next transfer I am happy. I am sad to leave this area. We have done some good work here and I have enjoyed working with Elder Brewer.

This week was good. We had 5 investigators at church so that was good. Some of the old recent converts are struggling getting to church :( noooo! but Hopefully they will come back.  This week we got a lot of new investigators, we dropped a lot last week, and we got a lot of new ones this week. In Cambodia the people are nice, so getting new investigators isn't difficult (especially when they like talking to Americans), but helping them awaking the desire to follow Christ is the hard part. But it is all a great adventure, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

A wonderful branch member.

Meat market

Tiny banana

Record Setting Church Attendance

Well another week in Battambang. Overall things are going very well. The branch yesterday had 140 members attend. That is a record! About 3 weeks ago for zone conference we made branch attendance goals for July. The highest this year was 118, but that was back in Jan. Since I've been here that highest was about 108. And we set a goal for 150 which was super high, but we were all excited to do it. Last week was 120 which was great, and this week was 140! Super awesome. We still have three more weeks to get 150. Yesterday I bore my testimony and I told all the members about the goal and that we only needed 10 more to get the goal, and encouraged them to keep coming. Because we have a lot of once a monthers. (thumbs down) So overall the branch is doing great. The new branch president is a boss.

I love the Fourth of July, I arranged an early morning pancake breakfast. It was super fun. We listened to American songs and to Marthin Luther King Jr.'s famous speech. It was fun. For lunch we had pizza and ice cream. And at night I was going to burn some trash on our upstairs patio but I was too tired after a long day (phew), but overall it was fun.

Fourth of July Ice Cream Party (Before)

(After)

Repair work on Elder Brewer's bike.

Edward's Study Area--Post-It Note Heaven! 

At the barber shop waiting for a hair cut.

With a member of the branch.