A new calling and a little nudge

Well, another week down!!! So crazy!! The MTC is seriously the biggest roller coaster of my life!!! Especially when we have meetings with our investigators! I feel like my comp and I are learning the hard way how to teach in a second language haha. Our teachers portray people that they met on their missions so they have a solid role to play! These past couple weeks we have had two investigators and their names are Bong Visna and Bong Thaa. So we have been teaching them and we both felt like our lessons were going really good and we felt like they were understanding what we are saying, but we soon found out that they did not haha :) Our teacher talked to us in class and explained that Cambodians are extremely proud and when they don't know what is going on they do not really want to embarrass themselves, so they will just agree with whatever you are saying and not really know what you're saying because some of the words you are using are words they have never heard before! For example: Jesus Christ. Haha- so that was some frustrating news but we have just decided to start from square 1 with these investigators and ask lots of questions so that they will have a better understanding of what we are teaching them! Our teachers have decided that we cannot take any notes anymore. We just have to go in with what we know and that has to be good enough, so that's kind of intense as well, but it's a good intense :) It's definitely coming more from the heart rather than just writing things down on a piece of paper and reading them off to them. Overall it's just a lot of ups and downs!! One positive thing about the investigators is Bong Thaa committed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about the truthfulness of it!!! IT WAS SO AWESOME!!!! The Spirit was so crazy strong and when we got out of that meeting we were dancing around and doing our handshake that we made up hahaha!

As far as other news goes, this Sunday we were both asked to be the Zone Leaders for our Zone here at the MTC! I know- I am as surprised as you are haha ;) Of course we accepted the calling!! It really is going to be so easy because I absolutely love everyone in my Zone and we all get along really well so I don't think there will be too much "MTC drama" here! But I guess you never know! We are both super excited about the calling though!! We feel like it will only help us become better missionaries and set a good example for the other missionaries that are in our Zone. We are also excited to get to work closely with our Branch Presidency! They are such awesome men and show so much love and compassion for all of the missionaries! It's so awesome!! :) 

Ok, so I have one spiritual experience that I was not planning on sharing but I feel impressed that I should share it with you. So this Sunday we had the opportunity to go to a devotional and we heard from Brother and Sister Warner! He is really high up in the Church, but I can't for the life of me remember what his calling is! I'm sorry!! Anyways, so I was super tired on Sunday and as we were singing the opening song I was having a really hard time keeping my eyes open so I knew that it was going to be a long night ha! I was trying as hard as I could to stay awake, but as Sister Warner got up to speak I could not keep them open any longer!! I was out for the count!! No one noticed that I was sleeping because we got out of class late so we were sitting on the very top row. Anyways, I was asleep for what I would guess would be 5 minutes when I felt someone tap me twice under my left armpit. I immediately looked up and looked behind me and looked at my companion (who was leaning forward on the right side of me). I asked him if he tapped me underneath my left armpit and he looked at me like a crazy person haha! I couldn't have been more confused about what I had just felt, but I was only confused for a few moments. It was no more than 10 seconds from when I had been woken up that Sister Warner started talking about how she had recently been to the country of Cambodia, and continued to share some of her experiences while in the country. I was overwhelmed by the Spirit. I knew in that moment that the Lord knew that I needed to hear about her experiences and so He sent one of His angels to come and wake me up so I could hear the message that she had to share about the wonderful people of Cambodia. I like to think that Grandpa was sitting in the seat to the left of me and he gave me a little nudge to wake me up so I could hear the wonderful testimony of Sister Warner. I know that angels are all around us! I gain a stronger testimony of that every day! So happy to be where I am at today! The mission is so crazy hard but then you have experiences like that, it is so crazy worth it!! I love you all and am so thankful for the letters that you all have sent me!! I know that this is the church of God and cannot wait to go share the Gospel with the humble people of Cambodia!!

I love you all! Until next week :)

Elder Steadman :)