Did I Dial the Wrong Number?

 a chicken in a box in a tree

Bong Heem wouldn't meet with us yesterday morning since he was at a party down the street unfortunately, but when we met him earlier that week, we had a really good lesson. He kept asking us why he wasn't having a great experience when he prayed to ask if the Book of Mormon is true. I love it when people ask me this question, because it's a question I had to struggle with for a very long time. I was always amazed when people would tell me their experiences reading the Book of Mormon and then asking God if it is true and getting a feeling from their head to their toes that it is true, and then they knew without a doubt. Or somebody receiving an answer in a dream, or any number of ways of getting the answer. So I would always say to myself as soon as I read the Book of Mormon all the way through, then God will reward me with an answer like that. I was so ready to get that answer when I knelt down and prayed after reading it all the way through that when it didn't come, I felt like the remote to the TV was out of batteries, or like maybe I dialed the wrong number. I don't really know how to describe it, but I didn't get anything. Then what I did get was a thought that told me to look back through the course of reading the Book of Mormon. How did it make me feel? Did it improve my life? What ways was the Holy Ghost telling me that it was true as I read? 

I got to share that story with Bong Heem and then we shared Alma 32:41-43 ["But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life. And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst. Then, my brethren, ye shall reap the rewards of your faith, and your diligence, and patience, and long-suffering, waiting for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you."] and that was when I knew that he understood and it all made sense to him. You can't just plant a seed and get results the next day. You can't just plant rice and have a full stomach when you wake up. There is a process and patience involved. 

This kind of helped me realize that the people we are led to by Heavenly Father to teach are those that are 1) prepared to receive the gospel and 2) are the people that we can teach most effectively with our own personal experiences. 

 

The road from the national road that leads to our house

 

a pic of the house from the front

The weather is just something to talk about now. I'm fine. In fact, if you want to get technical it's a hundred degrees but Cambodian 100 degrees is like a Texas 105. When Paul is taught that nothing would harm God's messengers I believe that included the weather. It's definitely bothersome, but they say the hotter your mission the hotter your wife will be... (maybe you shouldn't send that out)

Elder Hall

P.S. Oh yeah and today officially marks my one year mark in country!