The "work hard and play hard mentality"

Hello everybody!! This week was another great week!:) So last Monday on p-day we went on a giant search for a football!! Turns out that it is next to impossible to find a football here in Cambodia!! They don't even have a word for it! Haha we had to use the word for the actual sport of football and then add on “ball” at the end of it! Ha so we called it, “the ball of the sport where you hug people” (because that's what they call football haha) So anyway, we found this one lady and she did not have one, but she said that she might know someone in Phnom Penh who sells them so she called him and he actually had them! She got him to ship one down to Kampong Cham and 3 hours later we had a football!!:) It's not the best football out there, but it's a lot better that not having one at all!! We have been waking up every morning at 4:45 and going out and playing for like an hour… just throwing it around and running some routes!! It's been soooo much fun! Makes me feel so American!! Haha by like 5:30 when people actually come out of their houses, there are tons of people who stop their moto's and just sit and watch us play! Ha I think it's because they have never seen that sport being played so it kind of interests them I guess!:)

The rest of this week was super fun as well! On Friday we got to meet our new president!! He is seriously so awesome!! He walked in and at first it was just kinda weird because he was shorter than President Moon so it was kind of weird not having my president tower over me anymore! Haha but he is so awesome! When he was a kid he was a surfer bum in Hawaii, but then his parents moved him to Utah so he could, in his own words, "focus on the more important things in life!" He served a mission in Hong Kong for a year and a half and then 6 months before his mission ended, his mission president asked him to go to Vietnam to open up that mission! He told us that his mission president flew him out there and then was like, “Well, you’ve got 6 months… learn the language and share the message of Christ!” How sick is that?!! The coolest part is that he did it!! He and 3 other elders translated all the lessons and also translated the first 20 chapters of the Book of Mormon! He has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon because he saw the people there truly become converted to the Church just from those short 20 chapters in the first book of Nephi! I thought that was so cool! He is such an energetic guy! One of the coolest things that I noticed is that he and Sister Christensen are madly in love!! Haha it was super cute! They were seriously all over each other! I'm assuming they’re still getting used to the whole mission president thing and having to tone it down a little bit in front of us, but I thought it was so awesome! They tried calling each other President and Sister Christensen for like the first 5 minutes and then they were just like, "Oh this is way too hard," and just started calling each other by their first names hahaha:) It was super cute! I wanna be that in love with my wife after 30 years of marriage just like they are!! :) Overall they are so awesome and I cannot wait to be able to spend the next 7 or 8 months with them!!:)

Also, this week it was Elder Lauritzen's birthday!! So on Saturday we surprised him and went and bought some super good pizza and brought it home and we also bought his favorite chocolate milk and when they came home at the end of the night, we had a small little party for him!!:) It was lots of fun! And he was super appreciative!:) AND if that's not enough for you all, we also had a baptism this week! I know… this week was insane!! Bora was baptized this week! He was so excited! He should have been baptized quite a while ago, but because of work he has not able to come to church super consistently until these last three weeks. He has finally been able to come now so on the fourth week he was able to get baptized! I tried to get him to smile in the pictures, but for some reason Cambodians just hate smiling!! Haha I promise he was happy though!!:) I was very honored as well because he asked me if I would be the one who would baptize him! Of course I said yes!:) It was a great baptism and he is very excited to be able to receive the Holy Ghost this next week as well!!:)

So yeah, this week was pretty much jam-packed full of just super fun stuff!! I feel super lucky to be able to be out here serving at this time in my life! It's been so fun serving with my companion too! He is such a cool kid and we pretty much lived the same exact life before we came out on our missions so it's super nice to be able to have someone that you can relate to and also that you can help continue to progress forward and he can also help you to progress forward as well!! And having Elder Lauritzen and his companion in the house just makes it that much more fun! We are all about the "work hard and play hard" mentality in this house!!:) I love my mission right now! I love being able to help the members here grow, as well as the members in Brae Choe!!:) Well, for this week I think that's all that I’ve got for you guys!! I sure love you all! You are all in my prayers! Please continue to keep me in your prayers, as well as my investigators and the people that I teach! I promise you all that the prayers you are sending my way really are felt by me and by the people that I teach as well!! I hope you all have a great week!! :)

ដោយសេចក្តីរស្រលាញ់
អែលឌេីរ ស្តេតមិន
Elder Steadman:)