A Stake in Phnom Penh - Elder Gibson

(Church specific vocabulary that Garrett uses has been hyperlinked to explanatory materials.)

Luen is still really awesome.  We taught him about Word of Wisdom, and he fully accepted it.  He has a habit of smoking, but he told us that after today he would smoke no more.  So that is really awesome!  I just hope that he can break the habit fully.  He is progressing really fast.  He has made a goal of being baptized on November 6^th.  We will see if he makes that, but even if he doesn't then, it will be the week or two after.  He showed us a picture of he and his wife.  His wife died about 4 years ago.  After he explained her and talked about her, and I simply made the statement...and this is you?  I pointed to him when I said that.  It was supposed to be a little bit funny, but he found it hilarious.  We had a meeting with everyone in the branch during 3rd hour talking about how they will stop paying to clean the church building and that the members will have to. The Branch President asked if there were any questions.  Luen raised his hand and asked if he would need to bring his own cleaning supplies or if the church would bring it.  The man is not even a member yet and he is already worried about cleaning the church.  He's a great guy.  

We had 6 people (investigators) at church this last week – the most Elder Sok's and have ever had!  I felt really good about it until I saw Elder Mitton, my good buddy from the MTC, and he told me they had 22 at church.  Oh the joys of white washing (both missionaries being new to an area).  Nonetheless, 6 is still really good.  One of them, Vanna, we had only taught once.   But she still came with one of our members.  

As for Chanlina and James, still no miracle.  I do not know what is going to happen.  There is some talk that the District President will pay for James’ school, but he would have to get permission from James’ old teacher out in the provinces.  I do not know. In some ways, I would rather the District President not do that so that we could just see a true miracle, but maybe the District President paying is the miracle though.  I don't know, and I do not even know if he will pay.  But, they are progressing well.  Chanlina has finished all of 1 Nephi.  She has had it for only a short while, and she works all the time. It is amazing that she finished it.  She shared 2 Nephi  1:20 with us about keeping commandments and being blessed.  She is really awesome.  James is doing well too. He reads, but not as much as his mom. The other day we were standing outside with James waiting to see if his mom was coming home so we could teach.  Elder Sok tried to go kill a rat that he saw in the alley/road.  I asked James if he liked to eat rats.  He said yes and that they were very delicious.  But that he would only eat rats/mice out in the provinces, because they do not eat garbage like the Phnom Penh rats.  Emma, that was for you.

We have one more investigator, Mei who will be baptized for sure on 11/6.  It was supposed to be this week, but we have an Asia area conference, so we are waiting one week.  We are completely done teaching. Now we are just preparing her.  She is really awesome, and the best part is that her brother, Bourey, who is 17 will baptize her.  We worked with him and helped him to get the priesthood.  It is really cool, and it definitely will be a great experience forever for both of them.  She is one of the investigators who had a dream that told her Joseph Smith was a true prophet.  She prayed and that night she dreamt was swimming in an ocean with a lot of people around her.  Then she was helped out of the water onto an island by a few men.  She says that this is how she knows that he is a true prophet.  

We had a meeting with our whole branch on Sunday.  They unveiled the plan for making Phnom Penh into two stakes: Phnom Penh North and Phnom Penh South.  This is really big for the church.  The goal is to do it by June 24, 2012.  That would be really big because they obviously have never had anything more than branches and districts here.  And looking in the long run, once they have enough stakes, they can get a temple.  It is pretty exciting to be here when they are trying to do such big things.  We have been told to really focus on helping and teaching families and Melchizedek priesthood holders who pay tithing.  They must pay tithes.  As you know they cannot have a stake until they have a certain number of priesthood holders who also pay tithing.  So, that is pretty exciting to try and be a part of working for the 1st stake that Cambodia has ever seen.