As far as other historic news here at the MTC, we heard from our
teacher that Cambodians really like tomatoes. For those of you who know me at
all, you know that I HATE tomatoes!! But this week Elder Q and I decided that
we better give them a chance if we are going to have to eat them in Cambodia!
So we left the tomato on our hamburgers for one of our meals this week...not
gonna lie- I had to choke it down, but I did do it!! We are going to wait for a
little while to do it again because it scared me a little bit, but I am willing
to give it another shot!!! :)
Ok- now for the awesome part of the week!! :) So every Saturday
we go to something called TRC and basically it is where return missionaries
will come and you have the opportunity to go and teach them a small spiritual
thought and visit with them! They don’t play any investigator role, they just
are who they are so it’s super nice! Anyways, this kid named Ryan has come
every week to visit us and he is super cool, but he is kind of hard to read and
doesn’t really share anything personal with us, which is totally fine! So this
week it ended up just being him that showed up to the meeting and so we had
decided that we wanted to teach about faith and the blessings that can come
from being faithful. Throughout the lesson we quite frequently asked him how he
felt about what we were talking about (because that’s what you do when you
don’t know how to speak a language), and he kept on giving us just these small
one word replies and no information to really work off of. We didn’t really
know where to go with the discussion....so we kept asking more questions :)
haha Eventually we asked a question and I don’t know exactly what it was, but
there was a long pause. Then he asked us a question without answering the
question we had asked him. He told us that he was going through a lot of trials
in his life and that he was not seeing any blessings from all of these trials
that he was going through, and he asked us when was he going to see the
blessings come out of all of this! Immediately as soon as he said that, I knew
exactly what I wanted to share with him! We turned to D&C 121. For those of
you who don’t know anything about this chapter, this is when Joseph Smith was
in Liberty Jail. The conditions were awful and the people of the church were under
an extreme amount of persecution at the time. In the beginning verses Joseph
Smith is crying out to the Lord and he is asking him where art Thou, and how much
longer do we have to suffer? It’s a point where even the Prophet of the Church cannot
fully see what God has in store for him and the people of the Church. But in
verses 8 and 9, Jesus Christ answers Joseph and says, "My son, peace be
unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small
moment. And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou
shalt triumph over all thy foes." After we had read this he seemed
satisfied with the answer that we gave him, but I could not tell (especially
speaking in khmai) if we had affected him in the way that we had hoped. Anyways,
after that we closed with a prayer and after Elder Q had finished saying the
prayer, Ryan asked for permission to speak in English for a second and we of
course said yes ha. He then told us that today he wanted us to know that we
really did make an impact in his life, and that the scriptures and thoughts and
testimonies that we bore today helped him through the rough times that he
really is going through. He then said that if we can find a way to help him
with all of his crazy problems, that he knows for a fact that we will be able
to do amazing things in Cambodia and that he knows we will be able to touch
lives there. It was really hard not crying because it was just what I needed to
hear as well! The mission is awesome, but it’s sure not easy and I would
definitely be lying to you all if I told you I was never homesick! I would be
lying if I told you that every single minute of every day I am excited to be a
missionary!! We all have trials and we all have things that sometimes we don’t
completely understand. Sometimes it’s hard to know why something so awful could
happen to us, but God knows the reason why, and even though he doesn’t always
tell us why it’s happening the way that it is, he does promise us that we will
be exalted on high if we endure well!! I know that to be true!!!
Well if that would have been the end of the week it would have
been a great week, but at Sunday nights devotional we were spoiled even more!!!
The person assigned to talk was Brother Elliot (he is the guy that plays the
organ in General Conference) and so for his talk he played the organ and then
shared a story and then played the organ and shared another story and it was so
awesome!! He told us that awhile ago he got in an accident and his right arm
was completely immobile so he could not play the piano with his hands.....so he
learned to play with his feet....ha! It was unbelievable!!! He literally played
an entire song with just his feet!! It was so awesome!! Oh yeah, and I forgot
one tiny detail!! He had a guest with him that had just gotten back home from
his mission a week ago. I don’t know if you will have heard of him or not…his
name was Brother David Archuleta?!!! Yeah, I told you this week was amazing! He
bore testimony to us of the power of missionary work and you could tell that he
was such a solid missionary! We then got to hear his first concert since he has
been back from the Mission and it was absolutely unbelievable!!! The Spirit was
so strong and it was a devotional that I will never forget for the rest of my
life! President and Sister Nally (the MTC Presidents) are ironically my
good friend JM's grandparents, and JM's family was also at that devotional!! So
after it was over I went and said hi to them, and they went and snuck us into
the backroom where David Archuletta was. It was a little crowded and there were
a million people taking pictures, but I caught his eye and he smiled at me and
looked at my tag and smiled brighter and I smiled back at him, and that was
better than a picture for me!
So overall, this week has been such an amazing spiritual week
and I have been so blessed to be here and learn so much about the gospel!!! If
there is one thing that I have taken out of all this week and what I feel has
been most stressed, it’s that the Book of Mormon can answer questions of the
soul!! I have found that when I start reading the Book of Mormon with a
question or purpose in mind that Heavenly Father will help answer those
questions through the Book of Mormon!! I LOVE THE BOOK OF MORMON!!!! I invite
everyone today to read the Introduction to the Book of Mormon and pray and talk
to your Heavenly Father! He wants to hear from all His children ALWAYS!!! I
love you all so very much and appreciate your love and support so very
much!!!
All my love,
Elder Steadman
Elder Steadman
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