August 18, 2009

Wow. Well ok. The first week has been freaking crazy!!! My trainer's name is Elder Sweeten. He's awesome. He's really good at the language and he's teaching me a lot. My first area is a branch in Phnom Penh. I was a little bit disappointed at first because most of the Elders from my district went out into the Provinces. But the city is turning out to be crazy!! There are 7 rules while driving. And the first rule is...there are no rules. I've almost gotten hit so many times. It doesn't bother me anymore. It’s just kind of life now. Basically if you can turn the moto on you can drive. Kids are like 10 and they drive around everywhere.

I don't understand a whole lot of language yet. But it’s coming really fast. Some people I can understand a lot. And some I can't understand at all. People talk faster in the city than people in the Provinces, so its harder to understand them. But Elder Sweeten has been teaching me all the slang they use so I can understand a lot better now. He teaches me a lot of language everyday.

I had my first baptism on Sunday. I only got to teach him one lesson, but I'm still going to count it anyway. We have 3 more investigators we've committed to baptism who we are preparing right now. And we just committed a Vietnamese family to baptism on Monday and they said yes. And we have a few investigators that are learning really fast so we hope that we can commit them to baptism soon too. One investigator is Mr. J. We went to visit the Vietnamese family and they weren't home so we asked the next door neighbor (Mr. J) where they went and he invited us in. Then he pulled out a Book of Mormon and a picture of Christ and said that he reads and prays every night. So we've started teaching him as well. He seems golden. But he has a few Word of Wisdom problems. So we're going to have to work on that with him.

The food here is ok. I don't like some of the spices they use on the food, and I was really sick for a few days. But I went out and worked anyway. And I've been blessed for it. Kids here absolutely love us. When ever they see us they run up to us and climb all over our bikes and stuff. It’s really funny. And everyone here thinks that all white people come from France because the French were the first white people to come here I guess. So that's kind of funny too. And they all think it’s really funny when 2 white kids come up to them and speak Khmae.

We just got back from the market as well. We bought our week's worth of food for 5 bucks.

President Smedley had an amazing dream. He saw two pictures of the country. One was completely filled in red, representing all the people in the country. And the other one was littered with red dots everywhere, representing the people in this country who are ready to hear this gospel. So when he woke up he created his dream on the computer and printed it out and gave a copy to all of us. And then he told us that we need to commit EVERYONE to baptism because there are so many people here who are ready that we need to commit them and then prepare them and that we will be blessed for that. Everyday is filled with lessons. We ride from one lesson to the next to the next. It’s crazy. This work is wonderful. And I've never been so tired in my life.