Thanksgiving... Cambodian style

Break out the Christmas music people! Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is on its way here!!! :) I hope everyone has had a great last week full of thanks! :) This week was a fun Thanksgiving unlike any I have ever had before! As some of you may know by now, I am living in a third world country so Thanksgiving technically does not really exist here, but the elders and I here in Siem Reap still wanted to celebrate this wonderful holiday with each other (and it was an excuse to eat American food! haha) Anyway so this Thanksgiving we planned to do a lunch with all of the elders and the sisters here in Siem Reap (8 people total). Each of us was in charge of making different things for the lunch! And President and Sister Moon were nice enough to give us a 2-hour lunch break on Thanksgiving Day so we didn't have to hurry and go straight back to work! ha So I was in charge of making mashed potatoes. I figured that was an easy enough job and that I did not really have to worry about doing anything until Thanksgiving morning! haha Well that bit me in the butt! haha When I went down Thanksgiving morning to make the mashed potatoes I realized that we have nothing to mash the potatoes with! haha Oh the things you just forget you don't have in a third world country! ha Well, that was not going to defeat me! I was still confident that I could make some dang good tasting mashed potatoes without a potato masher! So after I had cooked the potatoes, I bent one of the forks that we had in the kitchen and started to mash them up with a fork! haha Now there were 8 people that I was cooking for so I peeled like 16 potatoes so that there would be enough for everyone to get full and let me just tell you right now, I literally wanted to amputate my hand after I had finished it hurt so bad! haha I had a heartbeat in my hand for a solid hour and a half! The pain was so very real but the results were a success!!!! I mean I hate to brag, but let me just tell you right now that my potatoes were delicious!!!!!!! haha Our Thanksgiving was a total success (except for the deviled eggs....probably because of the name....just sayin’.) You will have to check out the video of how they turned out. 

But all of us ate our hearts out as everyone person should on Thanksgiving! :) It truly was delicious and even though I was not able to be with my family this Thanksgiving, it just made me all the more thankful for the wonderful family that I have back at home and all of the many things that they have given me throughout the years including love, patience, advice, laughter, support, and so many other things that I just do not have time enough to go on and explain! I CANNOT EXPRESS HOW MUCH I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!! I am so grateful to have a family that loves me so much and cares so much for my well-being! That unfortunately is pretty rare in the world now days, but I was lucky enough to get put in a family full of love and full of happiness! I will never be able to thank my Heavenly Father enough for that gift given to me! I am also so grateful to my Heavenly Father for the opportunity to come and serve here in Cambodia! Heavenly Father knew that it would be hard for me to leave behind such an amazing family for 2 years, so he continued to bless me by sending me to the best mission that this world has to offer!! I am forever grateful for the opportunity I have to come and serve the loving people of Cambodia! It truly is an honor to go out every day and share with these wonderful and humble people the beautiful message that we have to share with them! And that is that they have a Father in heaven that loves them and wants them to return back to Him! Some people here do not have the kind of family that I have. They have very hard lives and live under very hard circumstances, but I have the wonderful blessing of giving them knowledge of another father that they have! A Heavenly Father who loves them more then they could possibly comprehend! And He has mounds and mounds of blessings just waiting for them! That is what I get to do every day! How great is my life!!!

I am so thankful for all of the blessings that my Heavenly Father has given me! I do not always feel worthy to receive all of these gifts that He has sent out to me, but I am so thankful that He continues to love and bless me each and every day of my mission! This week has been a great week! It seems like the weeks keep going by faster and faster! I cannot believe it’s almost Christmas already!!! Time is almost going a little bit too fast! haha But next week we are going to have a baptism! It’s one of our investigators who is a middle-aged women and she is so awesome! I am so excited to be able to be here to watch her make these important covenants with her Heavenly Father and to be able to continue down the path that our Father in Heaven has prepared for all of us! Things are super good here in Siem Reap! I love my mission so much!! Thank you all for all of the love and support that you have given me! I really truly can feel the love from you all! It’s your prayers that help us missionaries go hard every single day! Without you all, we would not be able to be as effective! I love you all so very much and hope you had a great Thanksgiving! :) Start busting out some Christmas music and sing real loud for me!!! :)

Love,
Elder Steadman

This is Ming Mom... the lady who wanted the
phone number of Austin's boss :)

These next pics are of Austin and the other missionaries helping to build a house for a member. He said they called him "the elephant" because he could lift things that normally would take 3 Cambodians :) He said it was a lot of fun and he's pretty sure quite a bit easier than American home construction!