"Is this real life!?!?!? :)"

Hello everybody!!:) Well I hope you all had a very great week, but there is one thing that I can promise you right now and that's that your week was not nearly as great as mine! It's hard to even think of where I want to start!! I guess I will start with the more sad part of this week, which was saying goodbye to all the members from Brae Choe and Kampong Cham! It was fun to be able to take pictures with them and say goodbye to as many of them as I could before I headed out to my new area!! They were all super sad to see me go and I was also kind of sad as well because I really have fallen in love with them!! I look forward to being able to see all of them next year when I come back with my Mom and Dad!!:) Ok, so there is the sad part of this letter! Now on to the happy stuff!!:)

So as most of you already know, we had the amazing opportunity to be able have Elder Holland come and visit us here in Cambodia! He lives in the same state as me, but I never had the chance to meet him until we met up in Cambodia!! Haha kind of ironic!! :) So all of the missionaries got to be able to come down to the city to meet him! For those of us that were in the provinces, they had us take buses down on Saturday and then we had a little bit of time in the evening that night to go and visit some of our old areas and see some of our old members and recent converts as well!! So you know where I went baby! Straight to Stung Meanchey!!:) I got to see so many of the members there and it was so fun!! They all remembered me over there, which also made me super happy as well! They told me to go serve in Kampong Thom and then 2 months before I leave to come and end my mission in Stung Meanchey! I told them that I was super down for that and I would do the best I could to try and make it happen!!:)

Then on Sunday we had to go to this place called Diamond Island! It's super pretty and that's where all of the members were invited to come and listen to Elder Holland speak!! So we had to get there at like 8:30 and that was even more fun because I saw even MORE members that I knew!! I tried to take as many pictures as I could, but I could not take as many pictures as the people that I met! Seriously, I cannot even explain to you how cool it was to see all of the members all in one place and to see their faces light up when we made contact!! I LOVE MY MISSION!!!:) Lots of the young men that I saw were getting ready to head out on missions and so that just made me super excited and happy for them as well!! The Spirit was SO strong in the room and then it only grew stronger as soon as Elder Holland walked into the room!! He stood up and gave a perfect talk! It was a great amount of encouragement and hope for the members here in Cambodia! He also talked about how we can break the barriers of religion and teach about Jesus Christ in a way that will hopefully create an interest inside of the hearts of all of those who listen to us! He especially emphasized the importance of celestial marriage and how amazing it is that we believe in life after this and truly a happily ever after!! It was so amazing and then when the meeting ended we took a million pictures and then we had to hustle over to the stake center to eat, and then after we ate with all of the missionaries we got to meet with President Holland again, but this time it was just the Elders and Sisters!! It was so awesome! Before we went into the room he wanted to shake each and every one of our hands, so I got to shake his hand! It was an experience I don't think that I will ever forget! I felt that he was a truly inspired man of God when I looked into his eyes!! Then we went into the Chapel and he gave another amazing talk! He talked about the importance of teaching the fundamentals of spiritual learning to our investigators! Just because we have been learning about Jesus our whole life does not mean that our investigators have! We have to teach them the most basic fundamentals, just like we had to learn, in order for them to properly grow in the gospel!! So once again it was a very amazing and inspiring talk from Elder Holland! He did not singe our eyebrows too badly so I was kind of surprised by that, but also a little grateful!!:) He also talked about the importance of converting yourself out here on your mission and changing yourself into the amazing person that your Heavenly Father wants and needs you to be before you return home from your mission! I hope that when I come home people can see a noticeable change in me! Anyway, so Sunday was amazing and then that night we had more time to go and visit members so I went and visited some more and took some pics that I will be throwing on to Dropbox!!:)

Monday was super cool too! If you guys did not know already, my companion is Elder Quirante now!!:) Haha it still just seems to good to be true!! We got to our area on Monday afternoon and we cleaned up our room and organized all of our stuff. When we got here, the Elders who used to live in our room told us that they broke the air conditioner right before they left, so it was nice and toasty for us when we got there and then we ended up having to call the landlord and get a new machine! It was kind of hectic for the first couple hours and we were sweating our guts out, but neither of us really seemed to mind! Every once and a while we would just catch each other's eye and then laugh because it's just so cool that we are actually companions! We set some really good goals for what we want to accomplish this transfer with each other and I think that we are going to be doing an insane amount of work! We just have to go and find some members to help us know who to meet now! Apparently there is a member here that literally goes out and proselytes with the Elders like every day, so we are going to be giving him a call!!:) Then Monday evening we bought some sparkling cider and celebrated our first night back together since the MTC!! Haha it was so awesome! Don't worry… we took pictures!!

Well, for this week that's pretty much all that I’ve got for you!! By next week I should know a few more investigators and members that I can tell you more about! For now just pray that we will be able to quickly become familiar with our area so that we can start doing some mad work! I love you all and you are all in my prayers!!

Much love headed your way from the Kingdom!!:)
Elder Steadman

Ming Vee :)

Ming Chen (his Cambodian mama)