Dry Feet and A Couple of Good Investigators

Well this week was pretty good. Elder Asay and I really worked hard.  And I feel that this week we worked very  hard. We contacted a cool guy, he cuts hair and he believes in Buddhism and Christianity. Most people here think that religion is more like guidelines of life so more than one can be correct. He was really cool and when we visited him after the two days of the initial contact he already read to chapter four in 1 Nephi. Our other investigators are doing well. We are hoping for two baptisms on Nov. 30th. One is pretty solid and progressing very well. Seriously no problems with him. The other is a teenager and is a son of a moderately active member. So he is on the border, but we will see what happens. 

Yesterday was great at church. A lot of less actives and recent converts came, it was great! I taught 2nd hour, Gospel Essentials. And third hour was awesome. The elders quorum president who has been a member for a little over a year gave his testimony. He was the guy I wrote about last week who had no food. He was like, "I left my old church were they were paying me 130 dollars a month just to teach at church on sat and sun. And came to this church which I get no salary. But the blessings that God blesses me are my salary. This church is so much better than...then he names off Buddhims and a bunch of other christian religions" His favorite scripture his in Matthew where it says seek first the kingdom of God, then the other things that you need will be given to you. He is a boss.

Buddha actually said that there would be another come after him that would be more holy than him, and would be the last. And he would have scars in his feet and hands. Once I saw a picture of a monk looking guy with scars like Jesus so ya cool stuff.  

The rain is ended and both I and Elder Asay are happy about it. Riding through flooded streets and having our feet always wet gets old after a while. :)  

Every day we usually teach a lesson in the morning at 11:00. Eat lunch. Have one lesson between the hours of 1:00-5:00 and we do a lot of contacting in the afternoon. And from 5:00-8:00 we have three lessons. The early afternoon are rough hours, and we pretty much contact the whole time during those hours. But the barber dude we found during those hours so it can still be somewhat productive.

For thanksgiving we are going to the senior couples house, the Belchers.  They are cool and nice. And they said we'll actually be having turkey and thanksgiving food. Not to be ungrateful, but last years ham sandwich did not fulfill my Thanksgiving crave. :) But this year will be much awesome.

 

We have an investigator who is super Buddhist. He likes meeting with us but nothing sinks in. No matter what we tell him or ask him, he just responds the same way. But hopefully the Spirit will chip away at him a little by little. 

This week I was sick on Wed. First time taking a full day off of proselyting from being sick. And first time throwing up on the mission. I think it was food poisoning. I slept all day. But now I am feeling great and back to my normal self. 

Our bikes broke down to we took a ride on a Tuk Tuk.

A selfie with Elder Asay

From the courtyard of the chapel.

Elders from the zone eating lunch.

Elder Asay eating lunch.

Bon Om Tuk

So this week was Om Tuk, which is probably the third biggest holiday in Cambodia. It celebrates the end of the rainy season and the reversal of the Tonle Sap River.  To celebrate all the major Wats (temples) bring a really long boat two people wide and about 20 people long. And race each other at Phnom Penh. I wasn't able to see it in person but the mission president showed us a video and it was cool.

Our investigator pool is looking up. Yes, we gain and lose investigators a lot. But we have finally got a few that seem to stick. Our most positive investigator right now is a very quiet and sober man. Doesn't talk much. But he has kept every commitment we have given him. And he is 2 for 2 for church attendance. Right now he has a date for November 30th which I think he will be ready for. His aunt just got baptized with the sisters yesterday. 

We have a new couple we have been teaching for a couple weeks.  One is the son of a recent convert at trash mountain. They are gaining faith and doing very well. They aren't ready to go to church or to commit to baptism, but they both said since we started teaching them, they have felt more love, less anger and he drinks less (didn't even teach about the Word of Wisdom yet) and they are just overall happier. She got a new job but said she would ask for sundays off to learn and maybe go to church. They are really cool. I love it so much when people feel a change in their life!!! IT IS THE BEST!!!! 

Another investigator is still doing well, he is so solid, not able to come to church because he was out of town but still doing well. As soon as he is married he'll get baptized. 

We are teaching another man and his daughter. His wife and other daughter are recent converts. His only problem is drinking and smoking. And he is trying to get rid of that. We are not going to baptize him until he has quit for a good while. 

Another young man is fifteen years old. His mom is a less active, recent convert. He is super nice just has problems coming to church but yesterday he did come so that is solid. 

So these are the investigators we have been teaching for a solid while. More than just one or two lessons. 

But yesterday we taught a new guy. Very potential. It was one of the best first lessons I have ever taught. We taught him yesterday morning. 

A less active we have been working on for a while finally came to church and paid tithing so that was great. 

So now it is raining pretty much every day. And the streets are flooded a lot. Especially the one in front of our house. It is always flooded. So everyday our goals is to make it past our road without getting our feet wet. Sometimes we win, sometimes we have wet feet all day. :( But anyway, one night after a long hard day of work we were biking home through our flooded street (by the way, has potholes all over the place so I am taking dips and ups all the time and when it is flooded we can't see where they are) but I was biking and I my front wheel started going down. And I expected it to stop falling, but it didn't. And it just kept falling and falling until I went flying off my bike. It turns out I peddled into a big drain pipe and I flew off my bike and into the flooded street. Good times haha. But the bike was fine and I wasn't going very fast so it wasn't a problem, just a funny story. 

Wednesday, because of the holiday, we had meeting at the mission home all day so that was fun. And English class went well. Elder Asay was sick on Thursday so we stayed home all day. I had pretty much a two day break. :) 

Yesterday we visited a really active, awesome member who was sick and had no food. That was kinda sad. These people have hard lives. He is one of the coolest members ever. We blessed him and then he said, "Elder, the prophets were right, I should have collected my food storage, if I had I wouldn't be in this problem." He wasn't complaining or mad at God or anything, but he felt bad he hadn't done better. So that showed a lot of faith. 

We are giving a lot of blessings, and a lot of people are being healed. God's work is really amazing. 

I am loving life, the mission is great. Elder Asay and I are getting a long really well. I enjoy training much better than a zone leader. 

This is a picture similar to one Maggie sent from Chile. The sign in her picture read, "Smile"(see below). This one reads, "Do Not Litter".

This is a random image taken from the internet showing the Bon Om Tuk celebration.

The Work is Slowly Moving Forward

Well another week has gone by. The work is progressing, ever so slowly, but it is progressing. Sometimes in missionary work we have to have "spiritual eyes', aka look at the long term perspective. Because sometimes the day to day work feels like you are going no where but in reality you are moving forward. So right now things are going slowly. But don't worry I am still happy and loving things, just things are slow. The biggest ray of light is one of our new investigators. He is a boss. He didn't come to church yesterday, and I am not sure why, but he is still awesome. We met him Thursday and pretty much the whole time he just talked about his faith. He has some things to work on, but we are confident that he will progress. There was a big get together with all his neighbors and they were all telling him to drink and he said, "nope". And he said it killed the mood cause he is the leader of all his friends. He says he prays everyday. He also talked about before that he was hiding and avoiding us and really didn't want to learn, but we persisted. And he was like, "Don't you ever get tired, doing this all day?"  And pretty much just praising us for all the work we do every single day, and all our effort. We meet him at night and once he saw us in the morning proselyting and realized that this is an all day, every day thing. And it was nice to be appreciated, and to see someone truly change their life and repent. It is amazing knowing that if he would have continued on the path he was on he would have had a hard life, and minimal if any happiness between him and his wife. And it was so amazingly awesome just taking our message and our teaching for what it really is. Precious and valuable! Wednesday we had a hard morning. Two investigators right after each other went really bad, and they didn't believe that there was a God and super hard hearted.  One of them prayed and didn't feel anything (cause he has a rock hard heart of unbelief).  So that was hard, but Thursday night we met our good investigator and it just made everything else worth it. We go around giving out free diamonds and most people refuse to take it, or take it and throw it away, it is so awesome to see those who treat it like a diamond. But he isn't married and living with someone, and he said maybe in march or feb they will have enough, so I won't see him get baptized but I don't even care, just knowing that he has changed his life and has faith in God is enough. 

We have another investigator. He was a contact and he said that when he prays he feels happy inside and that his problems are somehow solved. His parents are dead and really wants to see them again. We taught him the pos. And he committed to be baptized on November 23rd. I hope it turns out. So right now he is the closest guy to baptism. 

We have another investigator whose wife has been a member for a year, and has been trying to quit smoking and drinking for about a year, and says he is finally ready to quit, so we are teaching him. He is a little frustrating. But hopefully he can progress.  He came to church yesterday so that is good. 

There are now two old Cambodians ladies who love Elder Asay and me. They were cutting wood and we went and helped them for fifteen minutes, and now they love us. :) They said we can come back and teach them but we will probably give to the sisters cause we can't teach girls. 

Wednesday night there was a devotional we were able to go to. And Elder Snow, the head of church history, and Elder Wong, the first person ever to speak in his native language spoke. It was great. Afterwards he gathered the missionaries together and gave us a pump up talk. They talked about John six, and Jesus said, "Will you also leave me?"  Peter answered, "whom else would we go? " And it is true. Right now I am doing exactly what God wants me to do. "What else compares to this? What else would I do for these two years, that could possible be better than this." 

We are contacting a lot, giving a lot of blessings, and getting about 20 lessons a week. We are teaching a lot of new people, and dropping a lot of new people. 

Edward with Elder Klhot.

Edward's district

Mr. Snake, would you like to hear more?

Trash Mountain area

Many of these homes belong to members of the ward.

The name of Edward's area is called Stung Meanchey which means "River Has Success".

On the way to the Killing Field Museum.

Killing Field Museum

New Companion

"Right now I am surrounded by probably 25 kids playing video games haha. Our bikes broke down and we had to email at another place while our bikes get fixed--a little annoying.  

Well last Friday Elder Khlot ended his mission, and I picked up my trainee. His name is Spencer Asay. He is from Mapleton Utah, so not too far away from our neck of the woods. He graduated from Maple Mountain High School in May 2014. He is tall, a little taller than me. This is the first time I have been shorter than my comp. He played football, outside line backer like me. He is super cool, He already knows the language quite well. I am pretty impressed. I already can tell he is a hard worker, and smart, and humble too, willing to take advice from me. So I am super pumped for these next two transfers. I was really nervous at first, but I am getting more confident, and things are improving! 

Conference was great! I loved it. Can't wait till next time (if you know what I mean... :) ) The church is powerful, awesome and so true! 

We had a investigator whose faith really grew this week. He was doing well before the holiday but when the holiday hit we lost contact with him, and he stopped answering his phone so we worried that he lost interest. But I met with him once again before Elder Khlot left and we read some of Alma 32 with him about what true faith is, and it was a great lesson. Then the next lesson he felt that his prayer was answered, and he was asking us, "So when are you coming back to teach me?" And he was saying that he was going to go to church next week. (yesterday he couldn't go because he had a big project at work.) So that is great. We picked up another potential investigator. On Saturday we taught him the POS, and when we talked about the Atonement, and then baptism, I could see the spirit touch his heart and he got really interested! It was super cool seeing him go from little interest, to really wanting to get baptized. He has never heard of the concept of baptism before but he accepted a date for it. We are planning them both for Nov. 9th. So we are hoping they will continue progressing! "

Edward did not tell us who these people are, but they must be members of his district.

It's nice to see dry land!