Cutting the Grass and Shopping for a Cemetery

Our investigator told us this past week that the reason his wife could not come to church is because they need someone to stay home and take care of the cows.  Well, Elder Chan had a great idea to cut grass and give it to them the day before so that they would have no excuse.  Well, Saturday we cut grass.  Not regular grass, but really tall grass that we filled in two 50 kg rice sacks.  It was a lot of grass.  Then we strapped them to our bikes and got it to the church and then afterwards got it up to their house.  (Notice the picture above.) Guess what!  They both came to church! I was really excited about that and the wife seemed really happy at church.  Hopefully, we can get them to progress a little bit faster now.  

 Car Stuck in the mud. We tried to help push it out. 

I spent a lot of time working with Elder and Sister Yates, the senior couple up here.  He really has no one to translate for him now that one of the counselors in the district presidency moved to Phnom Penh.  So I had to do some translating and help him.  They are trying to purchase land to start a cemetery up here.  It is a concern among a lot of the members that when they die they have nowhere for their body to go because the Buddhists just go to the Wat and are cremated.  Well, Elder Yates, the District President, and I got in his car and went to go look at some land for sale.  We saw some amazing views!  We were in the middle of rice fields and driving up close to some hills.  It was really pretty. 

Internet shop with all the kids playing games.

I will start by telling you that today and the past week or so has been a national holiday called Pchun Bun.  Pajum Bun is how it sounds.  Really only 3 days are the important ones.  A lot of people are out of town because most people go to their birthplaces or homelands.  Today was very hard to find an email place.  Everything is closed!  It will be difficult to find a place open for lunch.  Most of the hard core Buddhists go to the Wats and give food to their deceased ancestors.  It seems really quiet here.  

We actually had a good day at church despite the holiday which was not expected.  We will listen to General Conference (the biannual event when the Prophet and Apostles teach and council the church) next week which is something I cannot wait for.  I am super excited.  

The following pictures are of a typical treat for the festival they just had. They take rice, but they do not cook it. They just get the raw rice and wrap it up and put banana or pork or other stuff inside. then the wrap it in banana leaves and boil it. Then they eat it. It tastes pretty good. 

 We have done a lot of work to help a recent convert named Naradipo’s parents have a desire to learn about Jesus Christ.  They came to her baptism. We had a great lesson in which we committed her to fast for her family.  Well, she committed. Right now her parents are still not interested, but her older sister is now learning with us.  According to our Branch Mission leader who is also their brother-in-law, if both of the daughters become members, their parents will see their good examples and decide to learn as well.   

 Manually aerating the ground for a member. 

Crazy story.  So, I contacted a lady and committed her to learn. She is now the sister missionaries’ investigator.  Well, she was eating in her house at 9 PM, and a robber was running from the cops in front of her house. Because he had nowhere to go, he tried to get into her house.  Well, the police and the robber started shooting at each other, and he was killed. It left her door pretty much ruined with bullet holes.  Also, the blood came into her house, which she had to clean up herself.  It was impressive that she that still came to church.  I tried to go to her house to give her a priesthood blessing, but she was away yesterday.  Her house is in a very populated main road area too.  We are always safe though; we are always home by 8 at night.

Viraneath is still doing well.  When I was studying one day, I felt that we really needed to teach him about the Sabbath day even though we were not even finished with lesson 2.  Well, we had a really good lesson with him - full of promised blessings and such.  He committed to talking to his boss.  He is showing a lot of promise as well.   

A scorpion outside of our house.

Landmine Warnings and Baptisms in Battambang

Last P-day we went to Phnom Banon.  It is a 12th century temple at the top of a hill.  The stairs were huge and never ending.  It was really cool though and it was fun to ride out there.  There was a “danger, land mine” sign right off the path.  No worries, I was smart. 

   

Elder Chan, the new missionary I am training, is great.  He is super funny, and I seriously love to be with him.  He has been through a lot in his life.  I mean it.  He was feeling a little homesick, but now he says he is better because he is starting to know the members better.  I really love him and serving with him is great. 

The whole Zone of missionaries at Phnom Banon - except the senior couple (elderly missionaries) 

The highlight of the past week was that two of our investigators were baptized.  I will tell you about one of them. After much prayer, fasting, trying to teach by the spirit, etc, Boramy committed to baptism and was baptized on Saturday. She was then confirmed on Sunday.  She told us that initially she was very nervous, even when she went into the font she was scared, but that after she had been baptized, she was very happy and felt so much peace in her heart.  I especially liked hearing her testimony after she was baptized.  She talked about how she is grateful for the gospel and that she knows she will be happy as she follows the commandments.  I am very excited that now she and her husband are both members.  I have told both of them several times that the gospel will help their future family tremendously.  I am very excited for them and I am grateful for the opportunity to teach her.  It taught me a lot about patience.  You cannot force someone to be baptized, but I feel like we definitely followed the spirit in helping her make the right decision. 

I want to tell you the story of the man in the picture of the baptism. Well, when I first got the BB (Battambang),  I went to our Branch Mission (BM) leader’s house to introduce myself and to do some service.  While I was at his house, I met Borei.  I contacted him and committed him to learn with us and attend church.  He is actually a very good friend of our BM leader.  I do not know why our BM leader had never invited him to learn before. Maybe he was nervous or maybe he just did not think it was time.  Well, I was very excited when he came to church the next day, but less than excited when I found out he actually lives in branch 2's area and that he would need to learn with another set of elders.  Well, over the last month or so he really progressed and made it to the waters of baptism.  I interviewed him for baptism, and I was so overjoyed to see him ready to be baptized.  I felt the spirit very strong, and I feel like I was truly needed in this situation to invite Borei to come to Christ.

We had one sad moment when a potential new family that we found met with us and afterwards the mother gave us a note that we read later that told us the her husband was not happy she was learning.  He is still allowing her to learn, but he was not happy about it. He threw their only phone into the pond next to their house.  Smart move.  I had been trying to call her that whole day with no answer.  She actually came to church with her daughter though, so we will see where that goes.  

You probably think we are lame, but we think these pictures are funny.