August/September 2008 Pictures

"The work is going great and I’m seeing myself changing all the time haha. The gospel really is for us, to learn and grow, and lead us back to our loving Heavenly Father."

Yesterday was probably one of the best days of my whole mission! Everything just went well, great! It started off with my translating for 5 hours at the hospital. There is this organization called ‘Operation Smile’ and it’s a bunch of doctors and med students from all over, (alot from England, and they all have crazy accents, sometimes I have a harder time understanding them then I do understanding Cambodian!). They come and do plastic surgeries on cleft pallets and teeth and stuff like that. Yeah, well they stuck me in the nursery haha! So I had a good time! Oh, and they had free food all day so that just added to the fun!

"Tomorrow I’m going to meet Elder D. Todd Christopherson! Cool huh! Well I hope I’ll get to shake his hand. He’s on a tight schedule, in the morning he is flying to Siem Reap to talk to the members up this way... We had an incredible conference in Siem Reap with Elder Todd Christopherson and well he is amazing haha! He talked alot about how the apostles consider the missionaries as companions cause we both have the same mission and purpose, but different callings then he talked to the members and it was just incredible too! And half way through he just stopped and said that he felt like he needed to pronounce a blessing on the members there. The blessing came from God no question. I saw an apostle of the Lord receive revelation and the blessing was amazing! He promised that they will always have enough food to eat, that they will feel the Lord's love stronger than ever, that everything under there hands will prosper and so much more! The help of actual angels and the list just goes on! The blessing was long. I have it all written down in my journal. Then we packed up on 4 busses. All 239 members from Battambong and had the longest 4 hour drive I have ever taken in my life!"

"Well, I’m having the time of my life! Things are just going good haha! Area, investigators, members, companion (By the way if I have a native comp for the rest of my mission I would be completely happy) language, every thing is just good!"

"Well this week we had alot of good lessons! We had one last night with 3 of the poorest people I’ve ever met and we committed them to be baptized and they said yes and they were so excited but then they got thinking they just can't because of their job... They are basically slaves. They make bricks for 2 dollars a day and they all have families... So they really don’t have time to go to church and all that, but they asked if they could pray that God would help them find time to become members! So now they are praying and I’m just waiting for a miracle!...Last Monday we went to teach them and they told us that they have been praying for a way to go to church and the Sunday before they asked their boss if they could get off that day to go to church and their boss didn’t even hesitate to say yeah no problem! But when they were getting ready to go a bunch of trucks came with clay to make bricks, so they couldn’t pull it off... but the best part about this whole story is that they made the effort to do the impossible with out us asking them to do it! Their faith is really so basic but so pure..."

"We should come out here and go fishing! It’s pretty fun to watch cause they use little boats and a big net and about 10 people and they just go fishing haha! One time me and my comp were watching them pull a cast in and this huge fish probably 3 or 4 feet long, big ol sucker, jumped out of the water and knocked a guy out of the boat haha. They had a good time laughing at him! All 30 boats out on the water were just dying haha! Well that’s my big fish story... and no one even caught it! "

"This month we finally got an inactive named Kohn, that I’ve been working with, to come back. The guy is a stud! He is the reason about 20+ families got introduced to the gospel and got baptized. And now that he is back and as strong as ever and he’s been working with the other 4 or 5 inactive families in his area for the last 2 weeks! We didn’t even know about that until yesterday! He goes and basically fellowships them and talks to them about how they need to come back to church with him, and 2 of the families said that they will go this week! Man I love that guy... haha he is the best member we have in our branch!

"I’m still in the same area and I really don’t want to leave haha. I know this place so well and I swear every kid under 12 knows this stupid handshake I made up haha. So I have a crowd of kids following me around haha. I love the kids! I’m goin to adopt one for sure and I’ll teach it Khmer!"

On their way to an appointment...

"It's been raining. Most of the time it's just like 100% humidity and it feels like it's raining, like you can feel the drops... but there are no clouds haha. Yeah I feal like I'm swimming most of the time!"

"So I don’t really have any good stories for you this time... Oh wait yeah I do! My companion got his bike stolen by a drunk inactive member! haha. And the peddle brakes so when the guy tried to peddle off he peddled backwards first and it locked up the brakes and he ate it hah. A good thing he stole the helmet too! But he had the helmet on sideways... yeah I dunno how he pulled it off either... Anyway it’s all good, he ran into a couple of trees and then came back and even posed while I took a picture him haha. I fixed the helmet for him first so he didn’t look like a complete moron... oh good times haha."

The Battle of the Cambodian Super Bugs!

"Haha the next pictures I send you will have a bunch of pictures of huge bugs! Like today I saw a preying mantis that was 7 inches long! Yes I did measure it! haha... That thing could eat Cooper! "

10 inch centipede!

Crazy Cambodian ants!!!

"Well I got a good story for you! I almost got eaten! Yeah me! It was the biggest spider I have ever seen! and guess where it was! It was in the bathroom behind my toilet! So I was caught completely off guard! I mean when you wake up and go into your bathroom you just done expect a monstrosity of a spider... easily the size of your hand, to come running out from behind your toilet! But it's o.k., I went and got my baseball and then we battled it out... Yeah I now take a different approach to the toilet in the morning..."