Sam sent the following email & photos on Sunday, January 24, 2016.  Our comments are in italics:

Date:  January 24, 2016 at 8:39 PM

Subject:  Call to Repentance

Well, once again I find myself cornered into no time to write. I know yall probably don't like me for that (or maybe by this point my letters are boring anyways so you don't really care). But I will say that we're doing good. We're working hard. We got a bunch of new investigators.  This week the Church had a worldwide missionary broadcast.  I am not sure if you have seen or will get it by dvd this week.  Kind of cool and some nice messages.  I did see the world-wide training and since Elder Elieson and I have started applying it the quality of our lessons has gotten way better. I'm really hoping that as we work hard we'll find a family of people to teach, because as of now it's mostly teaching single individuals. But it's way better to be out there doing stuff. In the allegory of the olive tree in verse 72 i think it says the Lord will be there working with us. I think that's true for us out here.

Boo called me out for not sending pictures, so here's a few:

Sam sent us the following email on Sunday, January 17 (actually in the wee hours of Monday, Jan. 18), 2016:

Date:  January 18, 2016 at 2:42 AM

Hey guys, I'm doing good. Sorry, I ran out of time to write an email. I love you guys. Everything here is going well. We didn't get out as much as we were hoping to last week because of transfers, but we did on Sunday and we will now. I did a bad thing by challenging the lesson king (Elder Kim) to a competition of lessons for this transfer. Loser buys the other companionship ice cream. But it's fun. Today was a good day. I feel good. We are getting a lot of people to meet just in the short time we've been out. We'll see what we can do. Have a good Martin Luther King Day--the best day of any year!

Peter wrote the following to Sam in an email on Friday, January 8, 2016:

The Church announced today that Viet Nam will become its own mission.  Wow! you probably already knew.  I would guess that is good for Cambodia as now your mission president can focus on the kingdom of Cambodia and not be stretched too thin.  It sounds like there is already a couple who will step right into the VietNam presidency.  How exciting is this for the VietNamese.  They are coming of age. And for those missionaries serving in Cambodia who are in VietNam, switching to their real mission would be exciting.  

Then Sam sent us the following email on Saturday, January 9, 2016:

Subject:  Vietnam

Date:  Saturday, January 9, 2016 at 1:29 AM  

To: Mom, Dad

Hey!

Sounds like you guys heard the good news! It is good news. We only just learned yesterday, too. It'll be good for both our mission and Vietnam. Right now there's only 8 missionaries total serving in Vietnam, so I guess that's enough and they're going to get a lot stronger over time.

Operation: Laboratory basically means that we're back out proselyting FULL-TIME. An answered prayer. The idea is that we get our area really good, then when we do exchanges we bring people into our area to help train them rather than just going to their area and tagging along. Therefore, we must make our area a "laboratory" (that word used by those in the missionary council or something under Elder Oaks), which is sick and we're stoked for. They said in these videos we watched that some presidents won't even let their assistants have chairs in the office because they're not supposed to be there. We'll be taking the same approach and taking over Chatomuk. Probably starting in full next Thursday, so P-day will be back to Mondays. We're back, baby!

We had a MLC meeting on Tuesday and that was good. Not a ton of cool stuff to relay out for you guys.

I got to go on an exchange back into Teuk Thla yesterday. It was the first time I've been back in that northern area (my birth area) since mid-November 2014. I'm not famous there, but it was good to be back. There was a lot of less active homes and things that I was able to show them to. Going back there and riding around it didn't feel like I skipped a beat. Still felt like I knew where everything was. And you still get a flood of memories come back when you smell some stuff or just feelings you get. So it was a good, productive day. Especially the night  where we (miraculously) were able to track down a moved less active--the guy I sent a picture of last year and said he plays guitar. Yeah, that really was a miracle, but a story for another day when I don't have to type it because typing isn't that fun. 

Peace and love nas

Sam sent us the following email & photos on Friday, January 1, 2016:

Friday, January 1, 2016 at 8:46 PM

Subject:  Tiger Woods doesn’t hold the caddy bag

Hey Gents,

We've got some real good news on the homefront here. I won't tell you what it is yet, just tell you I'm pumped for it and it's going to be really good. The church is true. We're about to enact Operation: Laboratory out here. Hasten the work. "Don't believe me just watch"- Elder Elieson-quoting a song. Things are about to be getting better out here.

We had a good new year. They celebrate it big time. We rode around by Independence monument and it was packed. Full of ផ្លូវ (ភ្លៅ?).  Play on words.... 

We got to go on two more exchanges this week. On Wednesday I got to go into Tuol Tompung and proselyte with those guys. They're way good. They did operation: SIC (Suits in Cambodia)--a contacting technique. Then yesterday we went out with the Chbar Ampov guys and they're doing good in a tricky area. It is good because I feel like if I'm cool I can be a good influence on a lot of people. And that should be getting better because we're going to be getting some stuff done in the upcoming weeks.

The retention rate of recent converts in our mission is rising and President is really excited about that. I really like President Christensen, he's a baller. Lots of times just like one of the guys. This should be an eventful upcoming week.

Here's a request: the pictures I will attach are of an Elder we just shipped off to the Provo MTC last week. I knew him from my first area and he'd help us teach a lot and is a good guy. Could you print these pictures off and maybe send a small package to him in the MTC. Nothing huge, just a little thing to know that we're grateful for him and put the pictures in? He'd really appreciate it, I think. His name is Chaoboran Oroum and he's going to the Sacramento mission. Thank you guys so much!