Lessons in love and the language

Hello Everyone! Man another great week over here in Asia!! :) Haha First of all I want to talk a little bit about Zone Conference! Zone Conference was super awesome this week! We talked about the importance of looking at people as people, not as numbers! And also looking at a person as a child of God! As we were learning about this I really thought about how I wanted to look at all of my investigators! So this week when I met all of my investigators, instead of picturing them as the people that they are right now, I pictured all of them as what they could be with the gospel of The Lord in their lives! Well, amazing things happen when you do this! I have found a love for my investigators that I did not know that you could have! It honestly is very difficult to explain because its a feeling that I really have not felt before, but the best way to describe it would be the undying desire to help them continue down the path of God so they can receive happiness beyond what they now can comprehend! I have gained a desire to help them find the happiness that I have found with the help of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! We had some investigators who were supposed to get baptized this week, but as we met with them I could tell that they were a little bit overwhelmed and maybe not knowing fully what they were doing, so I told them that if they wanted to wait a week or two, that would be completely fine and that we would help them understand better before they were baptized! They seemed very relieved and thanked me! They said they want to get baptize this up-coming Sunday, but they just want to review over the lessons that we have taught them so they can have a strong knowledge of the Gospel before they get baptized! I’m really happy that they have a desire to know for sure that what they are doing is right before they get baptized! The last thing that I would want for them is to get baptized and feel like they have no clue what they got themselves into! So my companion and I are going to do our very best to help them this next week so that they can have a strong knowledge of the Gospel before they are baptized!

My investigators are all doing so great! The biggest trial is just getting them to come to church! People here in Siem Reap are super busy all of the time because this is like the most visited place in Cambodia as far as tourists go, and lots of our members are tour guides or something along those lines so they are busy a lot of the time! Especially these next couple months… there are lots and lots of people that come here on vacation for Christmas, which means all of my investigators are super busy as well! Ha but that's ok because they all have great faith and I know that as we continue to teach them they will realize the importance of what we are teaching them and then they will have a desire to make those sacrifices in order to be able to come to church! :)

Ok, I have got a great funny story for you all this week! :) So this week my companion had to go to Phnom Penh for some training and so I was companions with one of the brand new missionaries for like 3 days! His name is Elder Jensen and he is super cool! He reminds me so much of what I was like when I first got to the country as well! haha But anyway, in the morning we practiced Lesson 2 with each other and practiced some sentences and things that he could say during the second lesson with our investigators and he did super good! So when we went out for the day, we taught one of our investigators at the church and we were teaching them lesson 2 (the Plan of Salvation). Anyway, we were doing good, and he was remembering all of the things that we had practiced that morning, but then we got to the Atonement...haha. So he was talking about how Jesus went into the Garden of Gethsemane to pray and what he wanted to say was, "ព្រះយេស៊ូវបានលុតជង្គង់ចុះហើយអធិស្ឋានទៅកាន់ព្រះវរបិតាសួគ៌"… which means that Jesus knelt down and prayed to Heavenly Father. But instead he accidentally said, "ព្រះយេស៊ូវបានពត់ជើងតូចហើយអធិស្ឋានទៅកាន់ព្រះវរបិតាសួគ៌"… which translates to, “Jesus peed and prayed to Heavenly Father.” Hahahahahaha When he said that I just looked straight at my investigator and he had this huge grin on his face and we had a gggoooooooooddddddd laugh about that one hahahahahahaha :) I felt bad for him cause he had no clue what he said, but then when I told him what he had said he was sufficiently embarrassed! hahaha It was a great laugh though! Easily one of the hardest laughs I have had on my mission and that story went straight into the journal right when I got home! haha I thought I would share with you all as well so you could have a little laugh and know that we missionaries have a good sense of humor as well! :) Gotta love trying to learn a new language!!! Honestly, I know all of you cannot read what I put in there, but those two sentences are really close to each other so it’s an understandable mistake... but a hilarious one none the less:) 

I love learning this language and all of the funny, embarrassing things that happen to all of us along the way! I love serving my mission here in Cambodia! I feel so blessed each and every day that I have the opportunity to serve these wonderful people! I can’t think of a better place in this entire world to give two years to my Lord! I love all of the hard, sad, happy, and funny things that come with serving a mission! I hope you all have a great week as well! That’s all I have got for this week! Until next week!

Love
Elder Steadman:)