What’s up everyone!!! I hope you have all had a great week this last week! For those of you who do not know, this week was transfer call week, which means on Sunday we get a call saying if we’re going to be leaving Siem Riep or if we are going to be staying for another transfer! Before I got the call I was really, really hoping that I would be able to stay in Siem Reap because I am working with so many people right now and really did not want to leave all of that behind! One of my investigators, who is a middle aged woman, asked me how long I would be staying here in Siem Reap and I told her that this week was transfer calls and so I could be leaving but there was the chance that I could stay as well! Her eyes started to water and then she said, "Can I have your bosses phone number? I need to tell him that you need to stay here until you are done teaching me." haha It was so cute and I felt SO lucky that I have been able to have the opportunity to be able to get to know her as well! :) Anyway, so they finally called to tell me if I was transferring or not and.... I'm staying!!!!! :):) Man I was so excited when I heard that I have one more transfer to serve here in Siem Reap! :) The work really is starting to progress here and I am loving the time that I have here to be able to do all I can to help the members and my investigators progress, as well as my myself!!
This Sunday we were supposed to have a baptism, but when we went to meet with them earlier in the week, we found out that two of the three investigators did not have any type of verification that they were married by law, and so before they can get baptized they have to go get a paper from the leader of their Phum (area) that they are officially married and that he recognizes them as a married couple. After that they can get baptized. So that was another setback this week, but they are still so awesome and it will be an amazing day when they are able to receive baptism and become members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints :)
Ok, so I have a bit of a funny story this week for you all! So yesterday in Church we were headed into third hour and one of the members came up to me and asked if I would be willing to help him teach this upcoming hour. Of course I told him yes and that I would be happy to help him teach a little bit during the next hour! So when we got into the room, he started the class and after the prayer he got up to speak and said, "Ok, now we will turn the time over to Elder Steadman to teach the lesson for today." I was completely caught off guard :) haha He waved me up to the front of the class and handed me the book and told me that I could pick any lesson that I wanted to teach and teach that! haha I am sure my face was beet red! I had no clue whatI was going to do for the next 50 minutes! I was quite sure that I didn't even know how to speak khmer for 50 minutes!!! haha Well, I opened up the book (which was in khmer by the way, and I'm still a slow reader haha), and the first thing that I saw was teaching the gospel! I figured that was a subject that I could probably talk about for a little while so I went with that! A little cool miracle was that during my personal study earlier, I had read a great chapter in D&C Section 50 about what our duty is here on the earth, and luckily it tied in perfectly with what I was going to teach on that day! Coincidence? I think not! (Name that movie...) Anyway, I went on to teach about why we teach the Gospel and when you break it down and get to the very bottom of it, it’s because we love our Heavenly Father! Our Heavenly Father has told us that if we love him then we will love all of his children! When we are teaching and sharing about the gospel we are showing that we love our fellow brother and sisters and when we show that we love them, we are showing that we love God! I then did a small example and drew up on the board two stick figures. I told them that one stick figure was a member of the Church and then the other stick figure was not a member of the Church! I talked about two different situations! The first situation was that we wanted to talk to him about the gospel, but that we got scared and we thought he might think that we are weird or he might reject us, so we don't end up talking to him about it and we end up going about our own ways and doing our own thing. The other example is that you get up the nerve to talk to that person because you know that what you have to share is very important and can bless his life forever, so you decide to take the risk and to talk with him. Then he decides that he wants to learn and then he learns with the Elders or Sisters and decides that he wants to get baptized and be a member of the Church as well. Once he is a member of the Church, he finds a beautiful woman and gets married and they have children who grow up to be members and some of those children go and serve missions as well and come back and have children… and so you can see that in a matter of only about 50 years, you have the possibility to help hundreds receive a knowledge of the Gospel, all because you had the faith and the courage to talk to that one person and invite them to learn about what you believe to be true! I know with all of my heart that its our duty as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to help our Father in Heaven spread His work here on the earth! I know that we are doing a work that is of far greater importance than we can now understand it to be! I am so grateful to be able to dedicate 2 years of my life fully to The Lord and His work here on the earth! I love this gospel and I encourage all who have the wonderful blessing of knowing of this gospel to go out and share it! Share what you know to be true and the power of the Holy Ghost will help them know that what you are saying is true! I love you all so very much and hope that you all have a great week!
All my love,
Elder Steadman :)
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