Garrett Saw a Big Pig

Maly was confirmed this week.  I was surprised and a bit terrified when she asked me to do the confirmation – as she sat in the chair to be confirmed.  I assumed she would pick the Branch President or Elder Sok.  The Branch President quickly tried to explain to me what to say in Khmae.  I could do it in English, but I had never even practiced in Khmae.  I did it with some help from the Branch President.  He had to whisper some parts to me.  I tried to give a good blessing after she was confirmed and I felt the Holy Ghost, but it wasn't my best. The words were not flowing very well, and it just was not great.  I can testify though of what I felt in my heart.  It literally felt like someone was squeezing my heart and that my heart was so warm, almost hot.  I was very thankful for the spirit that I felt.  I was kind of disappointed afterward though.  I felt like I let Maly down because I did not speak very well at all.  For the rest of sacrament meeting, I kind of sat there frustrated and sad.  I really just wanted her to feel the spirit so much.  I do not know if she did, but she felt happy afterwards. And she is still really strong.  I know that the spirit can penetrate even the worst language, but I just wished I would have done a little better job.  I am grateful for the experience.

The two kids, Rado and Rada are progressing well.  Last night we taught about Joseph Smith.  I really love teaching them and I feel the spirit so strong. Especially Rado, he really listens and his eyes are
glued on you the whole time.  I feel really happy when we meet with them.  We plan on baptizing them on the 8th of January.  Our other investigators are doing well too.  A few of them have just dropped off
the map and this week if we do not meet with them we are going to have to drop them.  For the most part though, we have really good investigators.

Update on Chanlina and James.  We met with them for the first time in a couple weeks last night.  She has been working a lot and has not come to church.  She also has made several trips to the doctor because she is scared that she has cancer.  It was a sad meeting.  We are going to try to meet with them a couple times a week again and try and show them the blessings of church attendance.  In regards to her health we prayed for her, we gave her a blessing, and we can only hope that she does not have cancer and that whatever is afflicting her will go away.

We had 3 men given the Melchizedek priesthood this past Sunday.  That is really important as Cambodia definitely needs more priesthood holders.  Now we just need to make sure they keep paying tithing and stay active.  One really cool story is that we have been meeting with a less active man since we got here named Sim.  He has slowly started to come back to church and change.  He has started to laugh
again, he is happy to see us, and he has come to church for about a month now.  He is really progressing.  We came to teach another member who lives near his house and his wife, who was sitting outside, told us that Sim got quite upset with her when she tried to spend 1000 riel to buy a fried banana.  He told her that that was tithing money.  Yes!  I just hope he will see and recognize the blessings that he will receive from tithing and that he will continue to pay.

Last Saturday we met at Branch #5.  All the missionaries in the city gathered to help with the redrawing of the boundaries of the congregation.  They have some trouble with people going to different branches, etc.  So we met and had huge maps on which we tried to pinpoint people’s locations so that President can redraw boundaries. It is very hard as many of the "roads" that people live on are not roads recorded on any maps.  It was fun though, and we tried hard.  We had no idea who a lot of the people even were.  But it was fun to try and help in any way that we can to help Cambodia progress.

Dad asked last week if people ever give us problems.  I remember after I wrote about one man who both the Vietnamese elders and Elder Sok and I saw during our last transfer.  He was an American, a complete bum, and was just walking down the street.  He told Elder Sok and I, "go back to Utah you sons of.....".  He called the Vietnamese elders some names that I won't write.  It was kind of weird but kind of funny.  I just figured I would tell you because I remembered that after I wrote you.