Sam sent the following email & pictures on Sunday, Nov. 16, 2014.  Our questions & comments are in italics.

From: Samuel Christensen <samuel.christensen@myldsmail.net>

Subject: I'm Moving

Hey I don't know if you've sent stuff for Christmas already or not, but if you havent, you could send like a companion book to reading the D&C to help give more background info. If you have sent it already, just wait and send the D&C book for next year or something. Also, Ty wants to know the recipe for eggie pancakes and I don't know it off the top of my head.

[Peter updated Sam on the Ebola epidemic, ISIS, and other world (and baseball) news.]  Another missionary told me about that guy in America that was quarantined in the hospital and ended up dying. He also told me that a few people got into Cambodia with it and when they found out about it, they quarantined them and then they killed them. Meaning that they didn't "let them die," but rather they "killed them." So I'm not sure if that's true or not. But wow, that's pretty crazy. I hate not being up to date on world events. Like I know that when I run for president in the future one of the questions in a debate will be "In the year 2014 in the month of November, what political group in the middle east led an uprising in Iraq" and I'm going to flounder because I don't know any of this stuff anymore. I used to be so smart. That's awesome for Trout. It also just sounds so cool how you said ISIS probably would have taken over if the US hadn't stepped in. Oh I love America.

Tell Bompa Lloyd happy birthday from me. 88 and still going strong!

And Emily, I forgot to tell you, but I actually did get the letter that you wrote to me in October. 

I got another hair cut this morning and it feels really uneven and lopsided. I haven't really had the opportunity to look at it yet. I don't know why they just can't do it good. You have like one moment of truth when they finish and they wait for your approval and you do all you can in 5 seconds to identify problems and then you pay them and leave and then you realize they forgot to cut the top. That's exaggerated, but still. It's only $1.25 though so I guess you get what you pay for.

Jessa Homer told us that the reason why are no McDonald's restaurants in Cambodia is because Cambodia's meat quality doesn't measure up to McDonald's standards.  I didn't know that about McDonalds. Hmmm. Burger King's here. I guess that tells ya something.

[For some reason, Peter decided to read a Cambodian newspaper on the Internet.  He learned that Dominoes Pizza will be opening up in Cambodia and that Cambodia has a 3-day water festival/holiday coming up.]  Dad, you're reading the "Cambodian Daily"???? Yeah the water festival destroys proselyting.

Sam, if the tempos of the pre-recorded hymns on the keyboards at church are such a problem, why don't you just play the hymns yourself?  Mom, I don't play the piano for them because they need to learn to become self-reliant and not dependent on the missionaries. Otherwise they will never progress. [Heidi's note:  Yeah, I'm not buying that excuse.]

[At the conclusion of Emily's mission next month, she is going to bring some converts she absolutely loves home with her for a short vacation.]  That will be cool to meet German and Francisca and Eric who we've definitely heard so much about. Maybe I'll bring a few friends back to the states too when I'm done.

Our guy who is the golden investigator that we were really hoping would get baptized yesterday didn't because he didn't pass his interview on Saturday night. He didn't tell us something when we reviewed with him, but we were so happy because he really did tell it when it counted. So he has to get another interview and hopefully he'll get to be baptized next week instead. 

Which brings me to my next point. I'm transferring to the Battambang 2 branch. So I'm kite-bound. Battambang used to be super famous for having really good members out there. They speak really clearly out there, and it's probably going to be a little more like what you all were expecting with a call to Cambodia. So that will be interesting to go out to the country-side. I think it's about a 7 hour bus ride or something from Phnom Penh. My new companion will be another native, Elder Roem. He is infamous in the mission. When I say infamous I don't mean in the "more than famous" sense. In the "he is widely known as the most difficult companion in the mission" sense. So that kind of takes the cool level down a notch or two. To be honest, I'm already really worried about having to go out there with him. I hope we're going to be living with other people because I knew about this guy from multiple sources even before yesterday and he is a psychopath. He told his last companion that when he's mad he just wants to make people hurt. I think that sentence comes across so frightening because of his limited vocabulary, but still. So I thought things were tough, but they're about to get a whole lot harder. But we'll see. I can't judge it til I've actually tried it otherwise it's not fair. I thought for sure I'd go somewhere in the city because the kites were pretty full. And I started to get excited about that because I was hoping maybe I could come back for Somuen's baptism because I've been with him since the beginning. But I guess that won't happen. It'll be sad to leave Teuk Thla. There really are a ton of people in and around here that I will miss. I'll miss just riding down the street and waving to my "friends" who maybe I've talked to only once or twice, but I've just waved to them every day for 4 months. There's a lot of stuff and people I'll miss here. Darn it all.

So yeah, that's what's happening here. Business as usual. Are you guys going Christmas tree hunting? What day is Thanksgiving again?

Keep up the good work guys. Maybe go see interstellar and tell me how it is.

 

This guy is a less active who is super cool and writes songs and stuff

You'll definitely notice the power lines when you come here.

 Somuen and I switched helmets for a sec.

Sam advertising English class in Teuk Thla.  The sign reads, "Learn English Free"

Sam sent the following email & pictures on Sunday, November 9, 2014.  Our questions/comments to him are in italics:

From: Samuel Christensen <samuel.christensen@myldsmail.net>

Subject: All the pictures I send home I have helmet hair because I wear a helmet every single day

Date: November 9, 2014 11:05:44 PM MST

Seriously, since my first day in the country I haven't not worn a helmet, so every picture that I send to you guys my hair is all messed up.

Jessa gave her homecoming talk in Sacrament meeting on Sunday.  She did a really good job.  She ended by bearing her testimony in Khmae.  It is a language so different from anything we are used to.  It is pretty cool.  It's weird because now I know enough Khmae, you know, that it doesn't sound weird to me anymore.  But we have an investigator who prays in Thai sometimes because he knows I like to listen to it cause I think it sounds cool. So maybe it sounds something like that. 

I learned a little bit about Cambodian government and some stuff like that, and man they're just so messed up. Just so, so messed up. I may have said this before, I can't remember, but the infrastructure of their government is about as strong as the infrastructure of their buildings. To clarify: not strong. I sure do love America. Even as it falls deeper and deeper into liberalism like gay marriage and recreational marijuana, it's a lot better than most of the world. What's up with the Ebola thing? I only know a little bit about it, but I know it's a big deal.

Transfer calls will come next week and I'm assuming that I'll probably be transferred. Maybe not though. But probably. And I'm also assuming that I'll just go to a different place in the city and not to any kites. Maybe not though. But probably.

I was wondering if you have to speak in Church much?  Have you had to give a talk or have you gone up to bear your testimony? I actually haven't spoken in church at all. They have been really nice to me. That or they think my Khmae is so bad that they don't even want me to try.

Are you guys taking lots of pictures and videos of the stuff you do to document them? I know everything seems mundane and like it hasn't changed much from week-to-week, but in a few years you'll look back and say wow, that changed a lot.

All the families of American missionaries currently serving in Cambodia received an email last week telling us that there is an opportunity for us to donate money or small gifts to be given to the native Cambodian elders and sisters for Christmas.  A local guy is collecting the donations and will be flying to Cambodia with them the first part of December.  Are there things  you think the Khmae elders and sisters might especially like?  That's nice they're taking stuff over. No, I can't think of anything they'd really like. I'm sure candy would be fine. I'm good with candy. I still have plenty of good socks, I haven't used the slime yet so wouldn't need any more of that, my shoes are still great and I love them. Candy should cover it.

Will your mission celebrate Thanksgiving in any way?  Do they even have turkeys in Cambodia?  I have no idea what we'll do for Thanksgiving, if anything. I know sometimes the senior couples will host a Thanksgiving for the missionaries, but that's only sometimes. We'll see. I don't think turkey is really big here. Plenty of pigs, cows, and chickens. You're really going to have to gather intel from the Homers on what you and Peter and going to eat when you're here. Seriously, I don't know how Peter could do it and be vegan. Asking someone what their favorite food here is synonymous with asking them if they prefer chicken, cow, or pork. Like, I don't think they'll understand if you say no meat. And even if they don't put meat in it, like heck they're going to clean the pan before they cook something vegetarian. If you thought the local Burger King had a hard time with "no cheese," try talking to these people. So yeah, ponder on that one for a little bit. Ensures are SUPER expensive here, too, so you'd have to bring them all from America. Some American cereal brands that have been shipped over I've seen at about 12 dollars for a normal box. It's ridiculous.

I (Heidi) taught the Laurels lesson today.  November’s “Come, Follow Me” theme is “Spiritual and Temporal Self-Reliance.”  I’ve felt like the girls need to understand the importance of maintaining activity in the church all their lives (spiritual self-reliance), and they need to recognize common pitfalls which can lead to inactivity so they can guard against them.  I was looking at statistics on the Internet, and found that of the 15,000,000 members the church currently has worldwide, only about 30% (4.5 million) regularly attend church meetings. I think that's a good lesson for your young women. Church inactivity is obviously a huge problem. That's probably why so much of the last general conference they focused on getting your own personal testimony. So here's a question, all those people who are technically members but are completely inactive, are they going to be like the tares among the wheat at the second coming and burn or is mercy going to save them?

The stake president spoke in our ward yesterday and he absolutely threw down. He talked a bunch about reading scriptures, praying, and going to church, and expounded on each of them. But when he talked about reading the scriptures, especially, he said he's met a lot of people who say they're too busy doing this or that to read. He says that everybody's busy, but that "if you're too busy to read, REPENT!" Oh my eyes almost welled up with tears of joy and I was about to stand up start clapping and singing hallelujah. That's all we hear every single day is that people are too busy to do any church stuff.

There's one guy here we found who lived in America for over 20 years. Long story short he's had some life problems, but apparently he was baptized. But we decided to review lesson one with him, which was a good idea cause he doesn't really know. But after we finished and put the bow on it with moroni 10 and reading and praying to know, he's just like "Well yeah, that's why I choose the Mormon," in his Mexican-American English accent. Pretty funny.

If they encourage "defensive driving" in America, then people embrace "offensive driving" here. 

We had a drop by with the guy who was told not to pay his tithing a few months ago [Sam told us about this guy--he's been inactive, but he showed up at church one day and bore a fervent testimony about how the Spirit told him not to pay his tithing...]. He didn't know we were coming and what a shock that must have been to him when we rolled up, cause he had to get back in his house real fast and try to hide the mug of beer that was in has hand. But we both saw it. Actually, now I'm stoked to meet him again and lay it down on him. I was thinking either DC 82:3, Mosiah 2:36-39, or a scripture about how God sees everything. Maybe one about how the Spirit of the Lord doesn't dwell in unholy temples.

I also found it interesting this week how when life is easy, it's easy to go to church and do all the church things you know you should do, but the second life gets hard, Satan tells you that you don't have time or ability to keep reading or praying or going to church. When in reality, when life starts to get hard, that's the time that you need help from Him the most. You should increase your scripture study and pray more often. Make sure you're still going to church. It's like that saying that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. I'm not sure how that relates, but somehow it seems like it does. I know this is easy for me to say as a missionary, but, like I tell a lot of people, we as missionaries meet a lot of people, and I can promise that people who are honestly and truly trying to live every Gospel principle are miles happier than those who are not or do not care to. 

Ok that's enough of that. I don't want to become that guy. A guy named Vanny who is a super cool guy that I like here says to tell my family hi from him. So hi from Vanny.

Because nothing makes me want to buy toilet paper 

more than a picture of a dog eating toilet paper.

[This picture shows some of the Church-owned property
adjacent to the chapel Sam attends in Phnom Penh.]

Do they have this Fanta flavor in America? It's super good.

Sam sent the following email and pictures on Sunday, Nov. 2, 2014:

From: Samuel Christensen <samuel.christensen@myldsmail.net>

Subject: Hi Guys, I'm fine so don't worry too much about me

Date: November 2, 2014 11:38:33 PM MST

Heyo,

Yeah I know that my email last week wasn't as upbeat as sometimes, but I'm fine. 

I got the group letter and it was fun to get accounts of their families from each of them. That's so crazy that Emily is going to BYU. By the time I get back, she'll have been there longer than I was.

Halloween was normal. No one celebrates it here. One guy thought it was Thanksgiving.

There's really not too much to report out here. We have a couple of solid investigators, and a lot of not solid investigators. So there's that. 

At sacrament meeting yesterday I decided that I'd do something for the good of the ward and tell the little girl who pushes the button to make the piano play itself to go to the slowest recommended tempo. Because every single time we sing a song, the tempo is automatically set too fast and it sounds horrible because they can't keep up with it. So I told her to go to the lowest one, because when I've controlled the organ I've found that that's best. But when the opening song came and it was playing through the introduction the first few notes I heard i was like ohhhhh crap. It's wayy too slow. But shoot, she didn't know that. I don't know if she went slower than the recommended or not, but it was pretty dang slow. The lady conducting did, though, and she decided to speed it up on her own and take it at her own pace. So she was trying to lead everybody and go fast while the piano was going slow and it sounded so bad. I just sat there in shame. Eventually the conductor lady went and turned the piano off and they made an announcement that they were going to sing the last 3 verses without accompaniment. The other two songs were fine though. But sometime this week I'm going to find out the ideal tempo for all of them and write it down on the page that we've already made for them that has correlating page numbers. Sometimes it's like the law of Moses here where they're not ready for the higher law, so you've got to spell out every little thing for them.

And fast Sunday meetings here are the same as they are in America where certain people get up every single month and as they're walking up you're thinking "no, no, no, sit back down"--those people that you can take to the bank because you know there's no way they're not going to impart of their wisdom to the congregation. Like, the 2nd counselor's wife always gets up and goes forever. She thinks she's so funny. And people like her here love to say how they've been members for so long, and it seems like they're bragging about it. They're like "yeah, been a member since 2005. long time." So honestly everyone in the congregation is shuddering when she gets up and the bishop you can tell is getting agitated, and the only person smiling is the second counselor either because he's scared of her, or he thinks that what she says is actually worth something. But I timed it and she only went 6 minutes, so it could have been worse.

I can't think of much else to say other than don't worry about me, I'm doing fine. I told Ross I probably complain more on this email thing than I would in real life.

Thank you guys. I miss you and love you.

This is a water label that Elder Yorgason and I always used to laugh about.

That's supposed to be a cheesy smile, but instead I just look like a maniac.

 

One more label:  Serve well, everybody.

This is typical Cambodian construction.

Sam sent the following email and pictures on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2014.  Our comments/questions are in italics.

Hey Everyone,

This past week was better than last week. Still hard in plenty of ways, but missionary-work-wise it was a lot better. I think my companion is really sick.  He's taking medication that has some wicked side-effects. We had regular interviews with the president this week and he said my companion is very sick and to just do what he can do. So I have his OK, and we just do what he can do.

We saw Jessa and the Homers today at stake conference and it is a little surreal to think they were just in Cambodia and are now home.  Carol said that there is just no way to get the full impact of what you see there through pictures.   Yeah, the Homers are right. Like, you just can't capture everything here in a picture or a video or a letter. You've got to be here and live it. Sometimes it's awesome living it and sometimes it's not.

You said last week that you hadn’t had rain for about a week and a half.  It rained a bit more this week. 

We had 26 lessons this week and got 7 new investigators, so number-wise it was a very successful week. I did have a bike crash, and on the way to emailing today I lost my wallet with my church debit card and old byu id card and about 75 dollars in it. So that's a bit of a downer for today. Ughh. I never carry that much cash on me, but I put the 70 dollars in today so I could break the 50 at the grocery store, and then I must have dropped it on the ground, and when we came back to look for it 3 minutes later, it was gone. So someone's taken it and is 75 dollars richer. And I'm fine from the bike crash. But yeah, various things that just make life a little tougher. Like I get that it's all part of the plan, but sometimes I wish the plan was a little different.

I see Elder Yorgason almost every P-Day, and Elder Zierenberg is closer to the city now so I get to see him sometimes. We had an exchange this last friday, and it was good. On Friday and Saturday we got 7 lessons both days. 

Do you have much interaction with your mission president?   Sometimes I interact with the president. I try not to if I can avoid it because he is just such a big presence that no one really knows what to say to him. How is the ward doing at staying for the Sunday meetings? The ward still leaves by 3rd hour. But I've come to expect less from them, so it's not as big of a deal as it used to be. We saw a picture of you talking on a cell phone.  Wow, how is that speaking Cambodian on the phone? It's hard to speak on the phone sometimes, but now it's do-able. If I really can't understand what they're saying I hand it off to someone who can, and if there's no one there to hand it off to I just say, "so you can/can not meet at X time?" cause usually they just go off on an excuse for why they can't meet and they're always busy and can't find 30 minutes in their life. Yet they make it to English class.

English class has gotten a little bit more stressful, because now I'm the only English-speaking person in my district, so I have to teach the class all by myself. So every Wednesday I get to stand in front of a bunch of Cambodians and represent the only English person in the room and straight up teach all by myself for one whole hour. But it's not too bad if I get enough time to prepare for it. It is what it is.

Are you doing the magic trick with the three ropes? I do magic tricks when the moment is right. But then they all want me to teach them and they get upset when I tell them it's no fun if I show them how it's done. Are you having any trouble with mosquitos? I haven't had to worry about mosquitoes at all since I've been here. That's mostly a problem out in the kites--the city isn't too bad. There are tons of bats here though. 

That's all I have. I don't know. I'm a little down right now, probably because of the wallet thing. I know it doesn't really matter, it's just a little frustrating on top of everything else. I'm sure I'll be fine. I just miss home sometimes.

Sam

Mamy Poko Pants. We truly are witnessing the degeneration of society.

Sam sent us the following email & pictures on Sunday, Oct. 19, 2014.  Our comments/questions to him are in italics.

Peter told Sam about the Royals & Giants going to the World Series.  Wow, that sounds like a wicked World Series match up. I wish I could see what goes down.

I hope Bompa Lloyd is doing ok and give him my best.

For me it was a little bit of a rough week. It's been kind of a difficult transition companion-wise. I'm not going to write about it a lot here, but I did in my journal. There are a lot of things happening that aren't necessarily "ideal," but that's the name of the game. I mean, they always say that living with a companion on your mission is great practice for being married. If that's the case, then I'll be well prepared if my wife loves to smack her food, doesn't clean any of her dishes, doesn't shower for weeks at a time (and counting), and urinates all over the toilet seat.......Every time. Besides that there are things that I'd like to change as far as the work goes with Elder Um, but apparently he's very sick, so we have to do all we can.

How are your investigators?  Our progressing investigator pool is a little low, and we threw up a couple of goose eggs this past week. Kind of a tough time. Any more rats in your apartment?  No more rats because we're in the nicer place, but our apartment is getting dirtier than it was before. I'll let you guess why. I'm trying to keep it clean.

I heard that Cambodia gets about 10" of rain in October.  The wettest months are Sept., Oct., and Nov.  I'll bet you are feeling that.  Yeah, this is supposed to be the rainiest month of the year, but up until yesterday it hadn't rained for like a week and a half. But I don't expect that it will give up that easily. It'll probably come back in full force.

[Sam sent us a letter from a little Cambodian girl who wants to have an American pen pal.  We gave the letter to my 11-year-old niece, Isabelle.  Then we asked Sam who Isabelle should address her return letter to.]  If you send that letter back, yeah, send it to the mission home and actually just address it to "Teuk Thla Elders" then maybe inside it you can put a little sticky note that says "give to Ret, the school teacher, in Tuol Kouk Ward" and hopefully it'll find its way back even if I've left. Letters here are terrible. I'm not sure, but I think Emily has tried to send me two letters, but I've only gotten one. I've heard that a lot just get lost in the mail, but some also come like 4 or 5 months late. Don't ask me where they go.

Have you seen Meet the Mormons yet?  Do you know if it will be showing in any Cambodian theaters?  I heard all the missionaries in America got to see Meet the Mormons. No, I haven't seen any of it and I don't know if I will or not. It definitely will not be aired in Cambodian movie theaters. Maybe one day they'll translate it and give it to the churches or something. Movie theaters aren't typical entertainment for people here like they are in America. So they're not very common as far as I know.

One of the new missionaries that came in this last transfer is 6' 9". And people thought I was a monster.

Aside from that, yeah that's about all I've got. A planned baptism for this week fell through because the guy wanted to wait, but we were glad because he is actually legitimate. He's super cool.

[Now Sam briefly describes the following 3 photos he sent:]  

Statue of some guy, somebody's accident, and flaming garbage. Gotta love it.

Have a good week you guys.

Statue of some guy

somebody's accident

flaming garbage

John & Carol Homer arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, last Thursday (Oct. 9) to pick up their daughter, Jessa, who has just completed her 18-month mission there.  The Homers were so nice to deliver a package to Sam for us.  They went to Teuk Thla on Sunday (Oct. 12) and found Sam at church.  They took the following photos and sent them to us.  John also called us on Sunday to tell us that Sam looks great and is doing really well--such a comforting report!

Jessa, John, Carol, & Sam outside the LDS Church in Teuk Thla, Cambodia

Sam with his new Khmae companion.  I think the bag Sam's holding contains ties
John brought from the US.  John had learned that many of the Khmae men don't own
ties, so before his trip, he gathered a bunch of them to donate.  I think Sam
is supposed to give them to his branch president so he can distribute them.

Above & below:  John snapped these candid shots showing Sam engaged in the work!  Isn't he precious?!?!?

Okay~Following are the email and pictures we got from Sam later Sunday night (Oct. 12, 2014).  As usual, I am inserting our questions to him, and italicizing them.

From: Samuel Christensen <samuel.christensen@myldsmail.net>

Subject: It's still hot in Cambodia

Date: October 12, 2014 10:41:58 PM MDT

Hey Guys,

Did you get the package we sent?  So yes, I got your package from the Homers. Thanks so much, there was a lot of good stuff. The little pouch magic trick especially will get everybody's attention. I don't know if Hi-chews are Asian or not. Have you ever had Milkita candies? They're all over the place here and are pretty good. John said the other day that this is probably the best 2 years...of Nate's life. He's probably right.

So yeah, I'm still in the same area, and it's actually pretty fun because now I'm the only one that knows the area and the people, so instead of being a little sidekick following along, now I get to actually do something that I feel has meaning instead of just tagging along. My companion is 23 years old and he's been a member for 13. He knows a lot of English, but his accent is a little hard sometimes. I think he's excited to have an American companion because then he gets to practice his English. And because he practices his English and told me that when I speak to him he wants me to speak English, my language isn't quite like I think you all think it is. Also, we live in a 2-person house so it's just the two of us. Not four. He does cook pretty good even though I think the sanitation is a bit suspect. I know you keep saying to do everything I know is clean and sanitary, but most of the time I just let him go to town and do his thing. He cooks and I wash everything.

Last Monday's front-page Deseret News headline announced, "Same-sex marriage now legal in Utah."  Is this an issue in Cambodia?  I haven't met anyone who's gay in Cambodia, so as far as I know it isn't really a thing. I don't know, maybe it is.

Do many Cambodians have TV sets and/or cell phones?  I would say about 50-50 have tvs. Even really poor people often have tvs. Their programming is terrible though! They have the lamest shows you've ever seen. And everyone has some type of phone, even if they don't have money on it.

When Elder Yorgason was here before, it was easy to not--I don't know how to say this--not be the one who was working hard, because I knew that everything was going to get done and be all right. Now that he's gone, it's more of a choice to work hard or be a little more lax. Kind of like when a kid goes off to college and makes decisions for him or herself, or a mother bird leaves the nest. So I actually get to choose to work hard and do everything that's good because it's better that way. Cause if I didn't push it and do it maybe now it wouldn't get done.

We just finished conference the other day. I was actually excited to watch it. The Saturday morning session was so good! There is no way that it is that good every time and I just sleep through it.....right? My favorite talks were Lynn G. Robbins, Christofferson, I think it was Uchtdorf. Then Holland's was also good in the later session and Bednar's was good too.

Have you heard anything about the new church movie, "Meet the Mormons"?  I'd be really interested to watch that movie. Hopefully it gets a lot of attention and a lot of good press. You haven't seen it yet?

Ok, I'm in a hurry and have to go. I don't want to turn into that lame, typical missionary that only talks about working on his mission and boring spiritual stuff. Don't let me become THAT guy.

"Here's our friend that heard the whisperings from the Spirit about tithing...

...and another classic sign. No grenades in grocery stores, people."

P.S.  Hey I just watched the trailer for Meet the Mormons. You guys should definitely go see that.

We received the following email from Sam on Sunday, Oct. 5, 2014.  Our questions/statements are in italics.  In his second paragraph, Sam talks about meeting a guy named Brian Melcher.  He was a missionary to Cambodia several years ago.  Peter and I met Brian about 6 months ago and asked him lots of questions about his mission.  He told us he and his family were going to be taking a trip to Cambodia in the fall and that they would try to look Sam up and see how he was doing.  So that visit is what Sam describes in paragraph two.  The photos at the end are some Brian emailed to us.

Hi

General Conference was great.  Some of the speakers spoke in their native tongues--Cantonese, Portuguese, Spanish.  I recall saying something about thinking speakers should speak in their native language. Uchtdorf is still speaking in English, right?

Yeah I saw Brian and his family. He certainly does love his mission. We were at a baptism for 3 people in our ward who just turned 8 and their dads baptized them.  When I first saw him it was pretty funny because I saw these 3 white people [Brian, his wife, & his son] walking up to the church and I was the first one to talk to them and then about 3 minutes later he asked an elder standing right next to me if he knew an Elder Christensen with red hair. The elder's like "ummmmm yeaahhhh."  I thought for sure Melcher was looking for someone else, but then he said no it's me and then I knew who he was.  I guess Melcher served with the stake president who I've previously said is a total boss.  After the baptism they had some little refreshments, but elder Yorgason and I had already started our fast so we told them we couldn't eat anything. But Melcher heard that and he's like "oh man, that's awesome. I'm so jealous of you guys right now." I'm like whyyy...cause we're fasting?

So we got transfer calls last night, but Elder Yorgason got the call to be the next AP on Saturday night. Right now I'm in a tripan and he's getting trained because APs go in a week early. I'm obviously staying in Teuk Thla, but before I was just in TT North. Now there's just one TT because they're taking both the south elders out and putting one pair of sisters back into TT. My new companion is Khmae, I don't really know him yet. We'll switch on Friday. And the two new sisters are both Khmae. I'll be the only one that knows the area at all. I have to learn sort of the south area in these few days I'm with the south elders. It's going to be really really hard. Like the guy who's in TT South right now was saying last night how stressed out he was because he has so many referrals and people he thinks he has to meet and he has no idea how to keep up with it all. Now I have that problem plus all the people in my area. It sounds like the work is just blowing up here, but usually these people wash out after a lesson or two. There were just a lot of contacts because we had a massive English class turn out last week. It will be nice to have sisters back in TT though to help because there are so many rules about meeting with girls that it makes it super hard to do it and since they had taken sisters out last transfer we had to tread water. So yeah, I have to try to find out everything that goes on in their area. My area is easy, I could do north no problem. Their area is hard and their organization of stuff is more than suspect. uhhhhh. I haven't said much about Elder Yorgason, but I'll just say now that he was the best guy I could have ever imagined to be my trainer. He was just a great, great guy. In a lot of ways he reminds me of Peter. He'll be a killer AP. Yeah so this transfer is massive.

When I get back we'll all have to take a family trip to California and we can go hang out in Long Beach for like a day or two and I can speak Khmae, and then we can head up to Mexico town and Emily can speak Spanish. Then we can go to Hermosa and Orange County. That would be super cool.

My final thought is this: If so many people that don't even know us think we're prophets, why do we get cut off on the road so often?

Sam and his companion, Elder Yorgason

Sam with Brian Melcher and family

Elder Yorgason & Sam