Pioneer Day... Cambodian style

Hello Everyone! This week has gone by super fast!! So this week I have had lots of super awesome things happen to me, but to start out I will talk about the fun things that have happened:) So this week we had the Pioneer Activity! This is something that our ward has been practicing for over a month now! A part of the activity is a play that reenacts the life of Joseph Smith and the things that he did while on the earth. I was cast in the role of Oliver Cowdery and this was just an absolute blast!! There is a part in one of the scenes where a whole bunch of bad guys come busting into the room where Joseph Smith and I are and just start beating us up and then they pick us up and take us away! In the rehearsals they told me to make it look like I really did not want to go and to struggle really hard to not let them take me, but every time I did that they had a hard time taking me! haha So I found a good medium to where it looked like I was struggling but it also didn’t look like I was throwing Cambodians off of me :) haha Anyways the play was just super super fun and it came together really nice I thought! After the play there were some people that had some other performances, which were super fun to go and watch! One of the coolest one was a kid that knew how to beat box! It was unbelievable!! He is not a member of our church but he is a friend of one of our members and now he wants to start learning from the Elders so that’s pretty awesome! :) Overall the activity was an absolute blast and it was fun to be able to be with all the ward members in less formal setting and be able to have fun and laugh with all of them:) 

Ok, now for the cool story! So this week we were teaching a family and they are a super strong family and they come to church every week, but this last week there was a rumor spread that they had killed a chicken that did not belong to them and in Cambodia that’s a pretty big deal because they are super honest and trustworthy people! Anyways they were really frustrated with the situation and they were also getting made fun of a little bit by people that they did not even really know! So when we went over to their house this week on Tuesday they expressed to us that they no longer had a desire to go to church and that they didn’t want to go because they were just going to get crap from other members. We tried to console them and help them as best as we could, but they were super frustrated so there was not much that we could do. We ended up leaving the lesson super frustrated too because we felt like we were not really able to help them out as much as we would have like to! For the rest of that day we were both a bit down and were still not sure what we should do, so we prayed and we just felt like we should give it some time and then go visit them in a couple of days! So that’s what we did, and when we came back to visit them on Thursday the wife shared with us an amazing story. She told us that when she went to sleep that night she dreamed that she saw Christ and that he told her that she needed to go back to church and that’s where she belonged, and that she needed to stay strong for the rest of her life. When she told us this story we were overwhelmed with joy and gratitude for our Heavenly Father! It really made me remember that we are just very small tools in the Lord's hands in bringing people to the knowledge of His truth! I gained a stronger testimony in the fact that Heavenly Father knows each of his children personally and knows what they need in order to feel loved by Him! I also learned that I need to trust in my Heavenly Father more! Sometimes I feel like when I cannot fix something then there is no way that it can possibly get fixed by anyone else, but that is so wrong! It was a good lesson for me to learn that He is the real person in charge and when it’s out of our control that’s when we have to pray our very hardest for His help! This week has truly been a blessing to me and I have learned so much from it! I love being able to serve my mission in Cambodia and to be able to spend my time with the wonderful people here! I still don’t think there is a place in the world with happier people than the people here in Cambodia:) I am so very, very lucky! I appreciate all of your love and support as well, and I will talk to you all next week:)

Love,
Elder Steadman:)