Subject: It is the 27th of April
Date: April 26, 2015 11:38:53 PM MDT
Hi Guys,
We had our best statistical week of the transfer this week with 23 total lessons and 14 new investigators. My companion counts new investigators differently than I would. I would have said 4 new, solid investigators, but 14 is good too. Regardless, it is picking up here and that is good news. That family from before is continuing to progress and came to church yesterday and when we taught them yesterday before church the mom got really stoked to learn about the temple and saving ancestors and stuff. Apparently she is training with a women's handicapped Cambodian professional wheelchair basketball team with the hopes that she can go outside of the country? I don't know, I was confused about it too but thought it was kind of cool. One thing that I've felt this week when we've been teaching people (and maybe skipping over points that I think are important for them to know), is that they are still understanding what we're saying and our message because they've heard it before. I've heard this or read it somewhere, but basically what we're doing here is reminding people of the plan that they learned and knew a long time ago in heaven. I've seen it in a few peoples' eyes where it does seem to resonate with them a little bit even though, logistically and orderally, it doesn't make much sense what we're teaching. Well that's enough of that.
We were shocked when we read that you had eaten baby duck! I sent a video of eating the baby duck a different time. It's harder to eat in the daytime when you have to look at it. Do you still find stray hairs revolting? Yes, I still dislike hairs: I picked 2 of them out of my rice/pork breakfast that we bought, and am often picking them off of my bar of soap in the bathroom. Except those hairs are black and I'm not sure where they're coming from..... But I probably have a little more patience than I did with them before. There is a lot of hair at our house between all the animals.
Did you like Ephraim’s Rescue? Ephraim's rescue was ok, but I was hoping for Meet the Mormons.
Where were you in that picture of you squatted down in front of a bunch of skulls??? The picture was at phnom sompov at a memorial for a place that they would hit people and then push them off a ledge to fall to their death in a cave. I even managed to capture a ghost in that picture. It's called like ghost cave or something like that. How was your second visit to Phnom Sompov to see the monkeys? The monkeys played a more minimal part of the trip because there were a lot of people at the mountain this time for the holiday. The lizard picture you sent last week is so cool! Is it a gecko? Did you see it in a zoo or something, or was it just out in the wild? The lizard was wild and I accidentally sent the blurry picture.
I also loved studying the picture of your bedroom. I noted the positioning of the fan (aimed directly at your bed). We put the fan on swivel mode.
Were you able to find all the baseball pictures of you that I put in Dropbox a couple weeks ago? I did get the pictures but haven't gotten to print them yet. Lots of things trigger memories of baseball. Sometimes it's a smell, sometimes I'm sweating and something reminds me of a particular time sweating playing baseball. This last week I put my church pants on, and they're so casual now that it felt like I was wearing baseball pants. I was just feeling like "ok, let's go" like it was normal. I don't know how to describe that..
When I watched that video clip of the zealous elder dancing with his sign and chasing motorists down, I laughed out loud! I had to watch it several times, and I laughed each time! HILARIOUS! His mom and dad need to see that someday! That elder is always like that. He's great. I have a longer video that I'll send sometime. He said his parents don't need to see it because they've seen it for 18 years.
Do you currently have an English class going in Battambang? I teach the middle class of english still. I teach it all by myself and usually do the gospel thought all by myself. There were 13 people in my class last week. At the end of class we tried to get meaning out of the first verse of "Good Riddance" by Green Day. Meaning that I explained it and they kind of grasped it. But then I looked it up on someone's phone and we listened to the first verse twice and they enjoyed that.
Peter and I were wondering this week how you do your laundry there. Do you have access to washing machines and dryers? We have our own laundry machine and then we just hang our stuff up to air dry in the house.
When will the rainy season begin? We keep hearing that our current water supply is below normal and is going to get really low by summer because we got almost no snow this past winter. That is worrisome. It's finally started to rain a little here. People are in dire need of rain here too. Like if they don't get it, they won't survive. Because they just rely on catching all the rain water that runs off their tin roofs into their big pots and storing it. If they don't get rain, then they have to but water from the water truck which gets it from a well, and if they don't have money to buy it, then they don't get water. They're in something of a drought here in Battambang too, so they really need rain. One member we talked to was really scared about it.
Did Elder Holland ever make it to Cambodia? I know nothing about Holland coming here anymore. Hmmm.
We're leaving in 30 minutes to go down to Phnom Penh again for another leadership meeting, and it should be good. Our area has been put through the grinder the past few months, but we're looking to climb out now that the holiday is past us.
We had one of our best investigators get baptized the other day. Our member help, and now his good friend, baptized him. He's a really good guy and when you guys come we'll go visit him and hopefully by then his family will have learned and joined, including his kids Krista, Roseann, William, and Phillip. He didn't get confirmed, but we're counting on next week.
Also, I've been making better progress in reading the scriptures for personal study. One is that sometimes I get more time for personal study.... The second is that the scriptures become more applicable when I have someone to compare the Lamanites to, if you know what I'm talking about.
I hope you guys all have a good, happy week!
Sam's email: samuel.christensen@myldsmail.net
Video Link: Sam Eating Baby Duck https://www.dropbox.com/s/jgsmgcqhbvafy05/Sam%20Eating%20Baby%20Duck%20.mov?dl=0
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| It looks like one of the entrees is a bat... |
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| baby duck in its shell |
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| Sam's companion, Elder Kim, is on the far left |
