Rain is My New Enemy

Our investigators are all doing really good. We had 7 of them show up to church yesterday and we got to meet the family of the girl that was baptized in Japan. Our walk-in from last week showed up to church again and told us he knows that the Book of Mormon is true. Man, everything is going super well and I'm so thankful that I have the opportunity to work with these people in this area at such a busy time. 

I gave a talk last Sunday about pioneers, and I said their journey is like our faith. They started off very low and then as they climbed up the mountains into the higher place (the temple) they had lots of storms and several different trials. You can kind of tell by the topic that I have been reading a lot in Isaiah lately.

When I go to bed at night I have about 15 to think to myself so I would just start thinking of home so that my dreams would be about home too. But then you emailed me about making the most of my last 6 months and I listened to a Jeffrey R Holland talk about being a Preach My Gospel missionary, which made me realize I need to know the Book of Mormon way better than I do, so I now use those 15 minutes to do a warm up run for the chapter of the Book of Mormon I am going to read the next day. It helps me figure out the context and go to sleep with thoughts that are more focused. I think it is having a positive effect on my personal study and for planning the lessons and having more spiritual lessons. If I can keep it up I can definitely use these last 5 months with 100% effectiveness. Also, there is a very high chance that the transfer after Elder Bostrom leaves I will train, because there is such a huge group coming in. So I will be able to show that little guy what it's like to be a real missionary. I plan on spending the first days just contacting for at least 8 hours a day to break him in. Haha. I might be jumping the gun though, because I might not train. It would just be super cool. 

Ok so the bike: I didn't end up getting a Giant. Too expensive. So I ended up getting a used Specialized Hardrock HR or something like that. It's an American bike so the durability isn't too questionable, and all the reviews on their website sounded like the bike holds its value well. I got it plus a seat on the back to put stuff, plus a pump for $210. I'm hoping I can sell it back for more than $100 when I leave. It rides so smoothly and I have a hard time not just leaving E Bostrom in the dust all the time it is so fast. All my stuff I can put on the back of my bike now. It makes everything so much less stressful. I like it. The Giants ended up being about 350. 

My Monday was kind of like yours, mom. We had to bike down to Chaom Chao (30 min plus) to meet someone at 6PM. We already had a member waiting to meet us at 6 to help with the appointment.  So at 4:30 we went to buy bread so we could put it in our house and then start down to Choam Chao. But on our way to the bread store it started pouring--like cambodia pouring. Think of Texas pouring and then quadruple that. This is the kind of pouring that can fill a huge 4 lane road with a foot of water in about a minute. I wish I was exaggerating. So with the rain we didn't even have time to take the bread to our house; instead we had to go straight to a member's house and start bucketing water out of his flooded house. So we did that for a little and then it was 5:45, so we had to get down to Chaom Chao. We put all our bread and stuff at the member's house and said we would be back at 6:50ish to get it. We tried to take a back way to Chaom Chao, but it was FILLED with water and cars. It was a road that has a drop on both sides of the concrete road, so it was really sketchy trying to go around cars thinking that this day could be your last if you fell into the open sewer on the side of the road. It ended up taking maybe an hour to get the short distance there, so we called the member and told her where we were so she could meet us. While we were on the way to get to the investigators house, though, the water was a little too deep and she flooded her moto's exhaust pipe and ruined her spark plug. So by the time we got to our investigator's house, he was not there and it was 7pm, so we had to start going back. I felt super bad for the member help because we made her wait for us for like 30 extra minutes, then she had to fix her moto, and then the investigator didn't even get home in time. Then the member we bucketed water for said they couldn't wait for us anymore to get our stuff, so I told them to give all our stuff to the guard at the church and we would get it from him. Then we started the trip to get our stuff and back home and my bike started giving. The result of that day was 0 lessons and 0 contacts, yet we had expended so much energy....SO that is why I resolved that rain is my new enemy. 

This week was really good besides that. We had so much to do and so little time to do it. The pioneer party was on Saturday and it turned out really well. All the investigators and members that had a part in the program were all really good friends with each other by the end. They spent the whole week preparing with each other and we had to teach all our lessons around their practice time, but it was really nice since we could just show up to the church and all our investigators were already there. Three baptisms are all still set for next Sunday. Two more are set for the 20th of August. Everyone is doing super good.

And the new bike was the cherry on top. 

I love you mom.

Elder Hall

Pioneer Day in Cambodia

Alright: Email for those who think Cambodia is cool--

Maybe I didn't mention it enough last year, but Pioneer Day is one of the biggest holidays in this country. BIGGER THAN CHRISTMAS! Disappointing, but at least they get excited about pioneers. This last week all the youth spent every hour of free time planning their dance for pioneer day (which is this coming Saturday). So this was an excellent opportunity for Nimol and his brothers and sisters to make relationships with members. It was good. They're all friends now and don't have to ask each other for their names anymore. 

So there is this girl that got baptized in Japan and now she is in Cambodia. I might have already told you about her. But anyways, she gave us another referral this week for her cousin, and now he is doing super well. On Wednesday I went on an exchange with Elder Try in Tuol Kork to see what that area is all about and if there was anything I could do to help them improve. 

The theme of this week was repentance. I am so grateful for the Sacrament that we can take every Sunday to renew our baptismal covenants. I know that our Savior Jesus Christ died to save us from our sins. 

A lot of concern comes when we contact people and say that. We say that Jesus Christ can save you from your sins, and they counter with, "Well if I did it, I have to suffer for it," and it kind of hung me up for a sec. Until we were at a recent convert's house later that night and he talked about an example as a parent. Their kid goes to school and destroys something. The parent has two options: Leave the kid to suffer the consequences, and kick him out, or fix the problem as the parent and discipline the kid. Which path provides a better future for the child? Obviously no child would be able to pay for something that is expensive by himself. So the message is clear. We suffer our own consequences the way Jesus would have us suffer, which is by having a "broken heart and a contrite spirit." It's a lot easier to contact when people can see that you have similar goals as they do. 

Alright. Try to make it another week without a picture of me. I will have Elder Bostrom take some this week so I can forward to you. 

I love you mom!

Elder Hall