This week was amazing, just like every week on the mission. 7/17/2016 Week #54

Hello Family

Well well well, its monday agian. This week was amazing, just like every week on the mission. 

To start off we had a really wierd thursday morning. We went straight to he church to meet an investigator and we found two hobos sleeping at the church. We woke them up and tried to help them, they were heavily under the influence and couldnt believe we spoke khmer it was funny. 2 minutes later a lizard jumped off a shrub and bit my companion on the arm. It was awesome. 

So we had some really good lessons this week and we are seeing some investigators really starting to progress. Sophiap and Tidaa are doing great, they are just way busy but they came to sunday school and loved it. It was super cool to see them get invlolved and stop being shy. Rithia is in france for the next 10 days wich is a bummer, but we gave him some chapters to read from the BOM and he got really excited. My comp and I have been really trying to help this Less Active named Cone. Hes hilarious, he showed up with a white shirt and tye and passed the sacrament. It was awesome, and that other old lady that we found a couple weeks ago gave a talk during sacrament meeting. It was cool seeing people make changes and then help the branch. Good stuff right there. 

These past weeks and actually my whole mission I've studied a lot about how to listen better to the Spirit. i just want to get better at it. I heard a way good quote from my main man Ezra Taft Benson he said "When you do good, you feel good, and that is the Holy Ghost Speaking to you." Super simple. As a kid i always read scriptures and heard stories of a "burning in your bosom" and how that is the way you know if the church is true or not. For me it doesnt work like that, it comes by living it. As i live it, i love it, and I feel it which makes me want to share it. Oaks put it in a great way, "Surely the work 'burning' in this scripture signifies a feeling of comfort and serenity. This is the witness many receive. THis is the way revelation works... I have never had a burning (caloric heat) in the bosom." Packer said "The Holy Ghost communicates with the Spirit through the mindmore than through the physcal senses, Personal revalation comes to the mind as thoughts and to the heart as feelings." The Holy Ghost is a voice we feel not hear. 

I love this mission. Not going to lie, there are some tough days, like days that just are terrible.

Ha this area is a little bit tough. Its just not easy, every day is like a mountian i have to climb, and some days when i wake up and its 5:30 in the morning and im dead tired, im not going to lie i have no desire to do anything ha, but thats where i have to make the descion if my mission is about me or others. On the mission you get to make lots of decisions. you talk to yourself a lot, ive gotten to know myself better haha. Its been fun, im really excited for the next year. thank you so much for the chocolate!! it was greatly needed. You da best "Come what may and love it." Its the only way to have a good time on your mission. 

live long and prosper         Love, Elder Smith

We all got new bikes!

Well I hit my year mark!! 7/10/16 Week #53

Ayyye

Well it looked like the 4th was a ton of fun. America is the best. S/O to Ellie, you da best. Im so sorry about your accident. hope you feel better. You got prayers coming from Asia. 

Well it was a successful week. Even though this area is super hard to deal with, it was good.

The work is going pretty well, we have about 5 pretty solid investigators, it's been fun seeing our investigator pool get bigger almost every week. Elder Medley and I have set some good high goals, we will see if we can do it. I've kinda realized there is no such thing as a "bad area" people talk about areas and about how crappy they are but i think its maybe because they just didn't try or work that hard. You cant call an area crappy if you've worked your hardest at it, you will eventually love it if you try. 

We had a way good lesson with our two golden investigators. We taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ and they had a lot of questions. It was a ton of fun. The man we are teachings name is Sopheap and his wife Teeda (translated Angel) is like 15 years younger than he is. He works for the government and has a ton of money so he gets a young beautiful wife. Little side note, Sopheap has the weirdest laugh ever. i just think of a little gremlin who buries his neck in his shoulder and stares at you when he laughs, it gets me every time. Our member help said she thought sopheap was Teeda's Dad. I had to tell her that wasn't cool after the lesson. They want to get baptized, but they are super busy with their jobs so it will happen in like 5 or 6 weeks. I'm super excited. 

We also had 2 amazing lessons with Rithia. At the end of one of the lessons, he said "Elda, when i talk to you guys and i learn, and i read this book, i just feel happy. I dont know why im just so refreshed." it was fun trying to help him realize it was The Spirt of God telling him what he was doing is right. 

the first couple weeks of teaching a new investigator are so cool. You get to watch them pray better, ask questions about Nephi and Lehi and teach them that their families can be together forever. Its so fun. Some people you have to just let go because they aren't interested, but sometimes they notice the Spirit and they run after it. Its so cool to just sit back and watch the spirit work on them. 

So i hit a year, man time is just so weird on your mission. But I've been thinking about my mission and what Ive put in and what I've gotten out of it. I've worked hard, no regrets and now i have one more year. As i thought about this past year i started to become so much more grateful for Cambodia because its given me the opportunity to change. Im so grateful that Christ has given me an opportunity to just change for the better. There's no other thing, organization you can volunteer at, a job or church thing that offers anything like a mission. You get to leave everything you once knew, your family, friends, house, school, everything and then be put in a group of people you have never met and live in a new place. The only ounce of familiarity you have is your Heavenly Father and your scriptures, I think that is part of the reason why missionaries and myself start having such a strong desire to read and pray. Its something that isn't new, and you start to cherish it so much, and you just start praying and reading like you never have before. You rely and depend on your Father in Heaven and you get to watch first hand God helping you and making you a better missionary. Missions are dope. I highly recommend it. 

Have a good week guys

Lots of love form Cambodia

ELDER SMITH

made my sick comp soup cause i'm oh so sweet

getting pretty good at Khmer writing

the other elders we live with are from Vietnam, this is what their freezer looks like everyday

"The Elders are coming. Everything is going to be ok." 7/03/16 Week #51

yoyo fam 

Those pics and videos of McCall seem so much fun. You got me missin home again, but its all good. It's a good thing to miss home.  It's just summer in Idaho is the absolute best.  But what Im doing here is so much more important. I love it here. truly. I think this past year, everything just seems so much more real. The gospel, my relationship with God, what i want to do in my life, its not just an idea. I love it.  i just love life and i want to help people have dope lives and the best way is through the Gospel. For p-day we missionaries are going to go play some basketball and try to find a burger somewhere to celebrate the 4th! It'll be fun. Almost as fun as McCall...ha just kidding that is a lie. The reunion looks like so much fun. I'm super jealous. Yeah on Friday im going to hit my year mark! Its crazy, it feels good though knowing that i have given a year of my life to the Lord, but i hate how I'm half way done. 

Well this week was awesome. We had a really cool thing happen to us. A couple days ago all of our plans fell through in the morning so we just started contacting. We both had the idea to go to this one part of our area that we both hate, because for some reason everyone there is just super mean, but we decided to go contacting over there anyway. After like 2 and half hours of complete rude shut downs we stopped on our bikes and started feeling sorry for ourselves. So we started biking again down this dead road and all of the sudden this old lady started yelling, "Elder!" So we stopped and started talking to her, turns out she is a less active member who just moved from across the city because she was having some problems, and didn't know what to do. So she prayed and felt the spirit tell her to just go outside and that everything would be ok because the Elders were coming. It was so cool. We talked to her for a while, and saw her at church yesterday. I love being a part of little miracles. Really makes you feel good. The Lord is aware.

last night we had a funny/sad thing happen. This old man in our branch invited us over to his house because he said he won a prize. He cut us a ton of jackfruit when we showed up. He and his wife were super happy. They received an email and a text message that they had won 1 million dollars. Obviously it was a scam so we read it and had to tell them that no, they did not win and they shouldn't give their bank account number to them. They were bummed. I felt like i just ruined Christmas for them.  But someone had to do it.

So this week my comp and I made contact with 2 new golden investigators. I'm so pumped. They are really educated and THEY CAN READ! Which is awesome. They are a new couple, but the husband is like 45. its like a 20 years difference but whatever. The guy his name is sophiap and his wife is teedaa. They are so awesome, they feel like they have been really blessed and they want to thank God for all of their blessings. We had a really good lesson about the Restoration. I think in a month or 2 they will be ready for baptism. Our other investigators are doing really good too. When i first got here we had 1 investigator now we have 8. Thanks to our Heavenly Father and a little hard work. Life is going good. 

Love you guys

Elder Smith

Throwback with Elder Baecco at Khmer New Year