Elder Ed Plothow: Pchum Ben & Khmer New-Year, But We Continue to March Along...18 Month Mark

So now Phnom Penh is pretty quite, and it will just get more quiet. Everyone went to there homeland for Pchum Ben. That and the Khmer New-Year are the two big holidays and everybody's goes to their homeland to drink, so there you go. I am not sure why everyone have roots in the provinces away from Phnom Penh. The amount of people whose ancestors are actually from Phnom Penh is small. I've asked some people but nobody really gives any good answers, and google is a no-no for me; so, oh well.

This week we taught some more new investigators, some of them seem pretty promising, but now pretty much all our investigators our gone and won't be back until the end of the week, so I hope that we can start meeting with them again, but only time will tell. We are expecting a baptism this Sunday. He has been taught by missionaries for a long time but has never quite felt fully prepared, and it was hard for him to quit drinking. But now he has quit and finally feels ready and wants to get baptized. So that is great. He has a cousin near him that got baptized in June and his aunt is a strong member in Utah so he has a good support system. We are trying to get the rest of his family and his cousins family to learn. So that is great!

Yesterday was good and bad. We has lesson after lesson fall through, and all the people were contacted showed zero interest. But we kept going and going, and at about 7:45 p.m., right before we were about to go home, we contacted this guy who is super awesome. There was a light in his eye, and he was smart and knows how to think for himself. He said we could come back and meet him again tonight (mon) at 7. Many of our return appointments are very skeptical, but his I really think will go well. He is one of those people that the spirit will easily touch.

Last week we started teaching a full family, their interest is very small, but hopefully the spirit will touch their hearts. So right now we have a lot of investigators in the beginning stages, and we have 3 actually progressing or showing signs of progressing. One is someone we contacted a few weeks ago and he is really cool. He really wants to see God, but hasn't and just feels at peace when we pray. We keep telling him that that is his answer! He is busy, but he said he still wants to go to church and get baptized. He is still testing things out, but he's good. :)

Yesterday we tried to teach these people who were drinking, so we tried to set a time with them again when they weren't drinking and they said, "we drink everyday and we never miss a day." We tried to get them to realize drinking is not good and life has so much more to offer! But they are perfectly okay with drinking and living the way they are until they die. I don't understand how some people are so satisfied with a lowly life. They have no ambition. I wanted to stand up and shout "Arise from the dust! and stop being lame." But sadly people have agency and there is nothing we can do. Just gotta find those righteous, or at least those our desire for a better life.

But ya that is about it for today, I went on another exchange and friday, it was good, I got some cool pics of his area.

Our zone got 7 baptisms this week so that was great.