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

Saw some crazy stuff and had some cool experiences Week #50 6/26/16

 Well this was a pretty good week, saw some crazy stuff and had some cool experiences. We had transfer calls and Elder Medley and I are doing one more transfer together which means I am probably training next transfer which will be a blast. Last week i talked about this family that we contacted and this week we met with them at their house. Man they are poor. Their kids dont live with them, they are living at the construction site where they work. It was humbling. We rode our bikes through these houses and had like 50 people staring at us. Super tough area. But we found their house and had a great lesson with them. Some other people seemed interested too. It was cool to see. We will meet them again tomorrow. Im really excited.

The coolest part about this mission is the opportunity we have to introduce who Jesus Christ is to people. we usually start our first lesson with them by explaining who God and Jesus Christ are and then teach them how to pray. As lessons progress on i see someone who at the beginning just prays to an idea, but over time they start praying to their REAL Father in Heaven. Its so awesome.

This week was good. As we were riding our bikes under the bridge i saw this dude dragging a rope across the road over his shoulder. Like 15 feet later there was a dead dog. He was just dragging it to his house for dinner.  no one cared. It was totally normal.  Also we had this lady almost kiss my comp as we were teaching a less active member. Funny stuff. Cambodia is treating me well. Everything is going well. I love the people here.

Love you dudes

Elder Smith

This is my main man Khon (cone)--he used to have 7 cats but has eaten a couple of them

Rainy season has begun!

could there be anything better than my favorite candy bar turned into cereal?? 

This area is a tough one, but that's not stopping us! Week #49 6/19/16

This week was better than last week, thats for sure. It was filled with laughing, contacting and finding some new investigators.  The work here is still pretty tough, its hard keeping the faith when its a whole month of people saying no, buuut we work hard to help people, not to help ourselves. 

First things first, so in our are there is a little place, and it is called the Ghost Village. It could be the sketchiest place in the entire world. There are tons of super small houses, so much poverty and graves. Graves everywhere. There are graves where they just put the body on the ground and put a couple feet of dirt on it and leave it. Its way sketchy, but a less active member lives there, so we went to see her. The sisters didnt know her so we brought them a long so they could know where her hut was. As we got there there was this drunk dude, he came up to my comp and me and was pretty aggressive. He totally went for my comp and elder medley had to jump away. He then went for me, i couldnt leave becuase the sisters were right behind me so i had to  shove this dude and let the sisters go past while this crazy drunk dude was trying to get me. it was crazy, but we laughed pretty hard about it after it was done. You never know what you're going to do in cambodia, thats what makes it fun. 

So this area is a tough one. BUT, thats not stopping elder Medley and me. We picked up 3 new investigators this week. The first dude is Davith, hes a super old investigator that hasn't been taught for awhile but now wants to get baptized, i saw him at english class and he wants to learn agian. he's way cool, knows like perfect english. We got along really fast. Im pumped. This other guy eaung was a refferal. He really wants to learn too. And the last guy is the one i am way stoked for. We havent taught him yet but hes seems golden. We were contacting towards the end of our area next to all of these construction sites and i saw this man walking, i dont really like contacting by these places, because they are filled with drugs and alcohol. These guys live in the buildings until they finish building them, but after we passed him i just felt like we needed to talk to him. So we did a 180 and started talking to him. Turns out he has a family and he just got there, and he believes in Jesus. It was aweosme, as soon as we starting talking about the restoration he got chills all over his body. He invited us to teach him on tuesday. If all goes well, we could have a family to teach. Im so pumped. Please pray that the lesson will go well. Im so stoked. 

Our Branch Missionary president is a 70 year old man. He's hilarous. I think he's the member that i have become the closest too. He gives 0 cares about anything excpet the gospel. He's way hardcore. Elder Medly and I had a meeting with him and we made him cry becuase of how hard he was laughing. He told me he loved me. #oldmanlove He's just awesome, for fathers day he came into sunday school and someone gave him a piece of candy and he gave like a 20 minute toast to his Dad, he was toasting to a jolly rancher. it was funny. Im loving the members and this area. we got a good week set up, i know your prayers are helping. thanks so much. love you guys

elder smith

eating dinner on the run

This is what you have to do when your tire explodes- bike shop

went on an echange with the vietnamese elders

I didn't see this but an elder in the mission did--lots of good analogies with this one

Built a member's house this week! Week #48 June 13, 2016

Good week.

To start this off We had a way good/tough lesson with bong rhith yesterday. We gave him the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity lesson. I was pretty nervous, because he talked about some problems he has. We started explaining about how essential prophets are to Gods church and if we dont have them, then we cant have His church. And that through Prophets we recieve commandments and scripture. As we explained what we need to do and what we cant do you could see that he was a little uncomfortable. He had lots of questions which was good, but as we talked for a while, he has to make some big changes if he wants to get baptized. He lives with his girlfriend and has some other issues, so right now bong rhit could use some prayers. Hes such a cool dude. In khmer you say "That brother has a good heart" The spirit is always willing but the flesh is weak. hopefully he will make the right decision. We committed him to Pray and ask if these Commandments came from men or God. So we will see what happens in a couple days.

We were contacting along the road one day and we came across this one dude named Pu ta. He's super friendly and pretty interested. We will have to see how it turns out.

This week we got to go help a member build his house. It was so cool. It was just this guy some members and his brothers helping build his house. How cool would if be if Americans did that. So we almost finished all of the cement stilts that are like 15 feet tall. It was super cool. I think eventualy i will come back here and buy some land and make my own house here. It would be way cool.

MIssionary work is not easy, its fulfilling and so much fun, but man some days its just hard ha. But it feels good at the same time. Cambodia is my new home. I love this place. I hope one day all of you will be able to visit the asian promise land. its the best.

love you dudes

elder smith

Map to an inactive house that a previous elder made-let the adventure begin!

Doing some service in Phnom Penh

#homies

Experienced a miracle this week! Week #47 June 5, 2016

Well I experienced a pretty cool miracle this week. The other day Elder Medley and I ditched our bikes and decided to contact on the road by foot. Just trying different styles. While we were walking we heard this car zoom past us and my arm got nailed. It felt like my arm got like ripped out of my body. I looked over and the cars side window totally broke off. The car stopped and then just sped away, but what was crazy was I literally felt like no pain. Literally none. I feel like I should of gotten like a bruise of something. Nothing. The lord truly does protect his missionaries. Thanks for the prayers homies.

This area is kinda tough. There has only been one baptism in the past year. Idk why but missionary work is just tough here. We''re trying our best, but man there are just some days man. Like cmon.. Just learn with me dude, it will help i promise ha. Its all good. Cambodians will never cease to surprise me. you get to talk to some of the wierdest people ever.

Our area has some really tough places though. Tons of poverty. Its hard to stay way happy and pumped when you walk through places like this. There is the one house that we visited the other night where a less active lives and it kinda just broke my heart a little. Just tons of drugs, alcohol and babies crying. Its tough. We got it so good. I just love these people so much.

I kinda wish i was cambodian sometimes. Life is just simpler here. they just dont let things bother them. They are the chillest. Like the other day at church the men organized a service thing at some members house. So i was like hey, what time? He just gave me this look and was like in the morning!? I was like yeah, but what time? He then just looked at everyone like how someone does when they are about to roast someone and was just like just in the morning. Come whenever you want dude. Come at 7 come at 10 who cares. ha everyone started laughing. im trying to become more chill, so i can become a cambodian.

love you guys. thanks for all the prayers, you are the best

peace out

Elder Smith

Our salon where we get our hair cuts

totally got lost trying to find a member

My new comp-he's the best

And his pants ripped

Banana delivery man