Thank You, Mother Earth!

My week was super good. We had 6 investigators at church, and 5 of those have a baptismal date. 

Alright so on 4th of July we were gonna have a sick cook out at one of the steak centers...I mean stake centers with all the elders in the city (like 40) and all the beef 10 dollars a person can get. However, we ended up lacking a grill so we scrapped those plans and just had a regular p-day. BUT at night we were biking home and there was a huge lightning storm with no rain. There were some of the coolest lightning strikes mother earth had to offer, and it took me a while to realize it was her present to all Americans overseas. Thank you mother earth. (We sang the star spangled banner every day last week.)

For people that don't believe in God (everyone in Cambodia, because nobody actually believes Buddhism), we just kind of show them what kind of happiness can be found in this life and the life to come where all they have to do is try to find out, and those that don't believe that find out, they find out. There isn't too much blatant atheism here. All I know is that if you don't believe there is a God and you aren't willing to pray to him and ask if he is there with all your heart, you are missing out on a waterfall of happiness that could help you in your life. So that's just what I try to get across. 

Thorn: we have to go home at 7 PM every night now. 

Rose: Part of my patriarchal blessing was fulfilled because of that. 

Rose: We got a super cool referral from a recent convert from Japan.

Investigators

1. She is a devout Buddhist and wishes she could be Christian and Buddhist. She really likes all the traditions that God forbids in the first of the ten commandments. She knows what we teach is true; she just has the cognitive dissonance from doing all the Buddhism things, too. We encourage her to read plenty and pray plenty and she is waiting for a stronger answer as to whether the Book of Mormon is true or not. (She asked once and felt peace in her heart and that nothing else matters, and we taught her that this was an answer from God and that is how the Holy Ghost speaks to us.) Her baptismal date is set for the 24th of July.

2. She is super rambunctious at church and in lessons, but she reads the Book of Mormon, and is super good at encouraging #1 to read and pray. Her baptismal date is set for the 24th of July.

3. Just got referred to us from a girl who got baptised in Japan three months ago. He doesn't say much, but he came to church and accepted to be baptised on the 24th of July as well. 

4. A recent convert's grandmother. She has a hard time making it to church since she is super poor and doesn't have anything to ride. She received a very clear answer to a pray a while ago, and now uses that as a very firm foundation for all of her motivation to listen to and follow what we say. 

5. A member's younger brother. He works for her (on Sundays) selling stuff out in front of their house. He had a brain problem because he said he learned too much when he was in college and it made him have some problem and now he has an aversion to learning. So we try to avoid the word "learn" with the fear that he will just shut down, and we say "discuss" instead. He came to church yesterday. He has a baptismal date for the 16th of July.

6. A member's little sister. She was messing around with friends too much in Svay Rieng (a province on the eastern side of Cambodia) so her mom sent her to live with a member here in this area to get baptised so she doesn't do too much stupid stuff. We are working with her slowly but surely. 

I love you mom! I cant wait to show you to all these people one day

Elder Hall