Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Sam sent us the following email, video clips, and photos on Sunday, March 8, 2015.  Our questions are in italics.


From: Samuel Christensen <samuel.christensen@myldsmail.net>
Subject: The challenge of thinking up clever titles died a long time ago
Date: March 9, 2015 12:05:54 AM MDT

Hey guys!

Right now we have almost no investigators. That's just another reason why we shouldn't baptize them. No I'm joking, but seriously we have 1 or 2 good investigators, but they can only meet once a week, so there's nothing to do. We keep waiting for it to pick back up, but up to this point it hasn't. So we ended up getting a ton of Recent Convert/ Less Active lessons this week--19. It's nice because a lot of the less actives who I've been visiting since I got here seem to finally be turning the corner. A lot of them just need a lot of time to find themselves. Others still don't want any part of the church. Most just say they're very busy--they're not. So yeah, pray for new investigators.

The biggest thing we did this week was go up to Seam Reap for District Conference with Elder Gong, who is our area authority. He's a pretty cool guy. They had all of the provinces gather up there. After the entire training I got to have a short one-on-one interview with him. He's a very smart and insightful guy. I know this sounds dumb, but I really can feel how much he cared about me and loved me. Kind of like I told Peter how I felt when Cecil Samuelson said hi to me last year. 

Do you ever have anyone “slam the door in your face”?  No doors slammed in my face cause they don't really use doors here.....

We got to see Angkor Wat from a distance, but nothing special. It'll be cool to go there in about a year.

I don't know if you guys know, but because members don't ever fellowship new members, it is now the missionaries' responsibility to continue to meet recent converts for an entire year after their baptism. So we get plenty of time to keep meeting people. In America I feel like someone just takes them under their wing. Only the people who already had connections get taken care of here.

Hey you guys should all go watch the Jeffrey Holland Book of Mormon talk from 2009. That's probably the most epic talk of all time. I heard Holland is coming to Cambodia in a few weeks. You guys will have to see what info you can scrounge up about that.

The thing about the church members here is that first, they generally like the missionaries. But lots of these people really are quite prideful. They talk bad about other members and do lots of arrogant things. The old members like to treat it like an exclusive club. But Elder Ngov heard them talking about how the missionaries this and that that wasn't complimentary about us. It's just dumb because they really don't realize that missionaries do so much for them because that's just the way it's always been. So they kind of start taking missionaries for granted. This doesn't apply to all people, but definitely to some.

Generally contacted people are nice just because you're so different from them, but then they all lie and say they're too busy to learn. If there's any one thing to say that gets people to learn, I want to know it. Help me out with that. Like I asked a guy this week if he wanted more happiness in his family and he said "yes, but I have a family now, so I can't really learn." Ok, we'll get ya next time man.

How often do you run into Caucasian people like those you mentioned in your last email?  Usually not a lot of white people. But one guy from the groups of white guys that we met last week, we ran into again last Monday. He's like "I love to hang out with you guys. I'd like to do it again." So we set him up and all 6 of the elders met him for lunch on Thursday at the Mexican food place. He was pretty cool, but man, lots of these people just believe the Bible is completely infallible. Like they need a reality check. It all makes so much sense if you really think about it fairly. But now they both have book of mormons and the ball is in their court.

There's probably more to say, but we're kind of in a hurry to go play soccer. This is the first time I haven't worn church clothes on a p-day. Wow, so freeing.

Peace and love


Video Link to "Bats, Bike Repair, & Grocery Shopping":  http://youtu.be/ayysw8Tm9Is

Sam's email:  samuel.christensen@mldsmail.net

BATS!

At least they're honest



Sam with another elder in his district

Sam with his district

Elder Um (one of Sam's former companions) is on the right.

Sam's current companion, Elder Cook, is in the foreground.



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