Livin' it up in the jungles of Cambodia

Hello everyone!! :) Well another week in the books!! This week was a little different from the regular though as far as new areas go! Ha so I’m not going to lie, the goodbyes this week were super hard! I love the members of Stung Meanchey sooooo much and cannot wait to be able to see them all again next year when I come back to visit with my parents! So there were some hard goodbyes, but I went onto the bus to my new area with a positive attitude and ready for another amazing adventure! I think that adventure is the perfect word to describe the next couple of months that I am going to be spending here! Haha so it turns out that I am not really serving in Kampong Cham! I am about 20 miles out from the city, literally in the middle of nowhere!! Haha I'm not kidding when I say that either!! There is literally nothing here… it’s so crazy! The closest market to our house to buy any kind of food is about 25 minutes away, and in our area there are only a few shops including a bike shop, a shop that sells bamboo juice, a small gas station, and 1 factory where lots of the people in this area work! Ha it’s so sick! I literally feel like I am just living in the jungles of Cambodia!! Our house is super nice though! It's just me and my companion here and all of the other missionaries are in the city super far away from us so that's kinda cool that we’re just out here all alone livin’ it up! :) haha Our house does not have a shower, so I finally get to have the pot and bucket experience for showering! Truly I think that I would have been disappointed if I did not have the chance to experience that in one area while I was here! And come to find out, I think that I like it better than a regular shower!! Once you pour that first bucket on your head and you get over the initial shock of how cold the water is, it’s awesome!! :) Honestly, I kinda like the cold water because it cools me off after a long hard and hot day in the sun!!

Anyway, so in the area that I am in now they do not even have enough members to have a branch yet, so all that we have down here is a small group! And we also have a group leader here and he is so awesome!! Literally the nicest guy you have ever met in your entire life! So we also do not yet have an official church building here to worship in either, but luckily we have rented out a nice little house that we have made into a small sacrament room! Unfortunately, they do not have ac in that house, but it’s ok because we got permission from president so that we do not have to wear our suits on Sunday at all, so that's pretty tight! :) Anyway, this week was super good! We just went around on Saturday and Sunday and my comp, Elder Xiong, showed me all of the members and our investigators as well! We have tried to do lots of contacting since I got here and luckily we already have a new investigator, so that's exciting! :) On Sunday there was a power outage so we did not have any electricity to turn on the fans in the Church building, so needless to say it was an extremely hot Sunday! Haha, but luckily the electricity came back on in the evening so we had ac to sleep in at our houses! :) We had 23 people at church which from what I understand is pretty average, but we are hoping this next week we will be able to have a lot more members who are inactive come back to the church so that they can take the sacrament and meet some of the new members that we have here as well! This area is going to be a lot of fun! I can tell that this area is going to stretch and pull me in a lot of ways, but I can also see that this area has an incredible amount of potential! It just needs two missionaries who are willing to put in the work and effort... and luckily it does! :) I am excited for this next transfer!

My comp is a total stud! Before he came on his mission he was a cook so as you can imagine I am just in jungle paradise!! Every night we always have an amazing meal! This Sunday he made egg rolls that were seriously to die for!! And I must say that I am VERY happy to do ALL the dishes every night with no argument at all! :) haha Man I don't know how I get so lucky with everything in my life, but I sure do feel blessed and know 100% that my Heavenly Father is looking out for me over here and loves me very much!!:)

Well for this week that's pretty much all that I've got for you!! I will let you know how this next week goes! Love you all! Keep me in your prayers and pray that the people here will have a willing heart to learn about Jesus! They strongly believe in Buddha here and so lots of people don't want to learn, but I know that through the power of prayer that Heavenly Father can and will soften their hearts and lead my footsteps towards those who are currently being prepared to hear the message that we have to share with them! Thank you all so much for all of your love that you are sending me each and every day through your prayers! I truly can feel it every single day! Being a missionary is the greatest blessing I have ever received in my entire life! :)

Love you all so much! :) Until next week! :)
Elder Steadman:)

P.S. A note from the missionary mom: Austin is playing it down, but he hurt his wrist in his bike accident a few weeks back and has been in quite a bit of pain. They are sending him to physical therapy to try to help it heal so he can stay on his mission. Please keep him in your prayers that his wrist will heal properly. Thanks so much! Love, Mindy

New adventures ahead

Hello everyone! Well another week down already! This was another great week here in Cambodia! So this week I did some fun things and some things that I thought would be fun that turned out different than I expected! Ha anyway, so first of all this week I was able to go on an exchange with Elder Lauritzen! It was super fun! At the beginning of the day we decided that we were going to work as hard as we possibly could! And we did!!:) We had lots of lessons and were able to visit lots of members, as well as have some good contacts in between the lessons! It was a blast!! By the end of the day, we both smelled soooo terrible, but we felt proud of the stench that we gave off!!:) haha He is a hard worker and I'm pretty sure he is way further ahead of where I was when I was his age in the mission as far as the language goes!

Another thing that I did this week was I had the chance to be able to go and be a translator for this organization called Operation Smile! When I heard about it, I was super pumped because I have not yet had the chance to be able to go and be a translator for someone else… especially for a doctor who helps people for free! So I was super stoked! They told me I was to go on Thursday from 12:00-4:00 and so when Thursday came around, I was at the hospital by about 11:45!! It took me a while to find them because they didn't tell me where to meet and I was trying to explain to the front desk lady what I was there for, but she did not seem to know where they were either. Then this guy just came out of nowhere and asked me if I was there for Operation Smile and I told him yes, and then he told me to follow him...so I did! Haha Anyway, we found them and they gave us these plastic chairs (that were too small for me) and just told us to hang out in this big room and when they needed a translator they would just call me over! So do you all want to guess how many times I translated that day? It wasn't easy, but I managed to keep track of how many times I translated for the doctors that day!! A whopping 1 time!!! I was so ticked! We just sat on those plastic chairs for 4 hours and waited and then the one time I translated she called me over and asked me to ask the patient if there was anywhere on him that hurt....yeah... I looked at her to make sure she was serious because this dude had literally just got out of surgery from his mouth getting completely redone, but she just looked at me like, "Well, go ahead and ask him." So I did! He looked at me kind of weird and I kind of gave him the "it's not me… it’s the crazy doctor" look and then he just pointed at his mouth and I figured there was no need for me to translate that back to her haha… so yeah, that was the extent of my translating! I really feel like that experience was a huge help in really stretching me in the language...NOT!! So yeah, it kinda sucked and I would have much rather been out proselyting and helping my investigators, but I guess looking back now it's kind of funny how big of a joke it was!!! Ha the only thing that was cool that came out of it was that I met a doctor who was actually Mormon as well and she took down my mom’s number and told me that she was going to call my mom and let her know that I was happy and healthy! Ha she was a really nice lady so that was pretty lucky that I got to meet her!!

Hmm… I think the only other funny thing that happened to me this week was I finally convinced my companion to get rid of his unibrow! I have been trying to convince him to get rid of it since we started being companions and he finally agreed to let me pluck a gap in between his two eyebrows!! Haha that probably sounds really rude that I told my companion that he has a unibrow haha, but here they like to speak EXTREMELY straightforward when it comes to things like that so I guess I have become kind of numb to whether or not that would be offensive to a white person or not! Haha anyway, it took me like an hour to pluck all of his hairs, which is understandable considering that there literally used to be no gap haha, but now he is looking super sharp and all of the American Elders have been complimenting him on his new and improved look!! Haha I must say that he really is much better looking with that baby out of the way!!:) haha

Church was super good this week! We had investigators show up to church, which was awesome!! The lady that I talked about last week is still progressing and yesterday we watched the Joseph Smith video with her and at the end when Joseph Smith's father gets baptized she just smiled and told me that soon she would get to do that too!:) She is so amazing!! Another really cool thing that happened at church this week was there is this kid in my ward and he is super cool and he is around 19 years old! When I first got into the area I kind of made friends with him and when I first got here I asked him if he had a desire to go and serve a mission and he told me that he did not really want to go on a mission. Well, as I have been serving here, I have been trying to teach him and show him just how amazing and fun and spiritual missionary work is and I have tried to take him with me to lots of investigator’s houses so he can practice teaching as well. So this week at church we were talking and out of the blue he just told me that he wanted to turn his papers in this year!! I was sooooo pumped!! There was another story exactly like this a couple weeks ago! I don't know if I told you guys or not… I forgot already! Anyway, when he told me that, I was so pumped! And now he has tons of time to help us go out and teach our investigators because he is on a break from school! I was so pumped to be able to talk to him and be able to show him how amazing this work is, and through the convincing power of the Holy Ghost he has changed his mind and decided to go and serve the Lord!! Oh so sick!!:) I love this work!! I love my mission!!:) So after church this week we usually have that Preach My Gospel class, but this week Elder Lauritzen and his companion had a baptism, so we invited all of the student that usually go to the Preach My Gospel class to go to the baptism instead so there could be a lot of people there to support him!! It was a good baptism and the Spirit was super strong as well!! Overall this week was a lot of fun!!

Oh and one more thing happened this week… I almost forgot to tell you....TRANSFER CALLS!!! So the Zone Leaders called and told me that this transfer I am leaving Stung Meanchey!! I am not going to lie, when they told me that my heart sank a little bit because I just love this area so much and I have had so many amazing things happen here so I was a little bummed to be leaving so soon!! But I know that this new area is right where Heavenly Father wants me to be!! I am going to serve in Kampong Cham!! Literally everyone that I have talked to says that it is a super cool place to be serving!! It's a province, so that's going to be sick!! Another cool think is that my area is actually like 25 miles out from Kampong Cham! So I live with just my companion in our own house! The other Elders live in the city, but we live at a place called Skun! And that's our proselyting area! Where I am going to serve, we actually don't even have a church building! It's just a rental house, but then apparently every 3 weeks all of the members take the long ride to Kampong Cham to worship at the church building that we have there! So yeah, I am going to be in the middle of nowhere so that will be sweet!!:) ha It's a really new area so apparently there are not really any less active members so we just will be trying to find new investigators and people to teach, so that's pretty cool!!:) Honestly I am super excited, but it's just super hard saying goodbye to such an amazing ward like this one here in Stung Meanchey!! It really is just as hard as saying goodbye to family! I just don't know when I will be able to see them all again and I just love them all so much!! It's so hard saying goodbye!! That's literally the worst and hardest part about missions!! Becoming so close to all these amazing members and then having to say goodbye and not knowing when you might see them all again! Plus I have already served here twice, so the chances of my coming back and serving here again are like slim to none! Dang it man!! Haha I already feel homesick!! Not homesick like from America, but homesick as in my home here in Stung Meanchey!! I have been here for so long and could easily fill out the rest of my mission here with great pleasure!! But I know that Skun has great things in store for me as well and I am excited to go and have a sweet adventure over there!! :) Oh yeah, and my companion’s name is Elder Xiong haha… he is American! I know- I was surprised too!! Ha he came out in the same group as Elder Lauritzen and he said that he is just the sweetest guy ever and super easy to get along with, so that's super good news to hear considering it will just be the two of us posted up out in the middle of nowhere!! Haha how cool!! Just gonna go live in the boondocks in Cambodia for a couple months!!:) Can't wait for the adventures that lay ahead!! Well, that's all that I have got for you this week! I am sure that I will have lots to tell you all when I get into my new area!! Well, I have to get going! I have got to go say a lot of sad goodbyes!! Not fun!! Haha wish me luck!! Much love to you all!!:)

Elder Steadman:)

This is what a mission is all about...

Sup peeps!! That phrase is still popular right? Man I feel like I have been on my mission forever!:) haha Well it was another great week here in Cambodia!! Nothing out of the ordinary really! Just some sweaty lessons, crazy food, sweaty bike rides, naked babies everywhere, sweaty contacting, talking with a lot of drunk people, sweating while thinking about how much I'm sweating, topless old women, wondering why my companion does not sweat nearly as much as I do, half-naked middle-aged men yelling at me to come and drink with them, oh and have I mentioned that I have been sweating a lot lately? Haha for some reason people love being naked here in Stung Meanchey!! Haha I think I really would have enjoyed this place before my mission as well, considering that I was not all that big of a shirt fan before my mission either!! :) ha No but seriously, this week was soooo awesome!! So I have like a super cool story for you all this week!! But before I tell you that, this week has also been crazy because we got 9 new investigators just this week!! Haha so nuts!!! And 7 of them came to church!! So that's super awesome!!

Anyway, so the cool story! So this week on Saturday we went to go meet with one of these families that had 3 new investigators that we had found earlier in the week! We met with them on Thursday and then planned to meet them again on Saturday night. When we came back over on Saturday, we were bummed because they had left for the evening to go out and party or do whatever normal people do on weekends...totally forgot!! Ha anyway, so we were sitting outside of their house and then their neighbors came out and they were talking to us and asking us some questions and then the topic came up of why we were trying to find them and what we wanted with them. I told them that we were missionaries and we teach people about Jesus Christ! As soon as I said this the wife started to laugh at me and make fun of me a little bit! Well this just made me want her to listen to our message even more because I knew that it could bless her life so much!! Anyway, we kept on talking about Jesus and then we got to the subject of prayer and she really started to gain an interest! It was so cool to literally watch her whole countenance change! To go from someone who thought we were crazy to eventually inviting is into her house to continue to teach her! Yeah...she invited us into her house!:) So then we began to teach her and her husband about prayer and the power of prayer! She had told us about how busy she is and how she does not have enough time to even breathe during each day! She told us when we first started to talk to her she had absolutely no free time to meet with us, but as we continued to teach her, her heart was more and more softened! She told us she could learn on Wednesday evening, Saturday, and Sunday!! We were so pumped! We continued to teach on prayer and taught them how they could pray on their own at any time they wanted to and that they could pray for blessings that they wanted to see in their lives! I promised her that if she prayed with all of her heart, that Heavenly Father would help her have more time in each of her days and help her still be able to have enough money to support her family! As I said that promise to her, I knew that it was direct inspiration given to me from God! We then asked them if we could come again on Sunday evening and they immediately accepted!

So the next day was Sunday and we went back to their house to meet with them! They could not come to church because right now she still has to work on Sundays. Anyway, we went back over and we felt very inspired to share the Plan of Salvation with her! It was so awesome! She could not keep her eyes off of us and she and her husband listened to every word that we said! Also, a neighbor came and joined in as well! The coolest part of this whole experience, and one of the coolest things that has happened to me on my whole mission, was at the end of the lesson I asked her to say the closing prayer. She was nervous, but still agreed to say it! She asked me what she could say or ask for and I told her that she could ask for good health or for safety or for more time off or work or even if she wanted to she could ask about the lesson that we just taught! I told her that she could pray and ask Heavenly Father if everything that we had just taught her was true and if it really came from God or not. Right as I finished saying that she looked up at me and stared me right in the eyes and said, "I know it's true. I can feel that it's true already." I could not wipe the smile off of my face for the next hour after that lesson! I felt like I was on cloud 9 all the way back to my apartment! How amazing!! To watch someone go from making fun of you for believing in Jesus to looking up at you with such a strong hope and desire and faith in her eyes, and have her tell you that she knows that what you’re telling her is true… that's just about the greatest gift that any missionary could ask for!! Not to mention this all happened in a matter of 2 days! It's amazing the miracles that you are able to see out here on your mission!! I know that this was not at all because of me!! God placed her in our path because He knew that she was ready to receive this gospel and as long as we were a little persistent, He knew that afterwards she would know that what we were saying was true! It just reconfirmed my testimony that God knows each and every one of us perfectly! He loves us all so very much! I felt so lucky that God trusted me with this wonderful young couple! I am so grateful that He gave me the right words to say at the right time so that we could help these 2 lost sheep come back into the fold!

I am here to tell you all there is not a greater or happier service to be doing on this earth than serving a mission for the Lord! And on top of that, I get to be doing that service in the very best place that this whole world has to offer!! I would not change these experiences for anything! I don't know why I am so lucky as to see and feel and do all of these amazing things, but I am eternally grateful for every experience that I have had so far out here on my mission and can't wait for another year ahead of doing the exact same thing, but just enjoying it slightly more because I don't have to worry as hard trying to learn a completely new language:) haha Anyway, that was my amazing story for you all this week! I will definitely keep you updated on how they are doing! If you ever are lacking in things to pray about in your daily prayers, please feel free to put her (Bong Srey) in your prayers that she will be able to get some work off so that she can come and worship on Sundays and also not feel so overwhelmed with life!!

So yeah, that's pretty much it for this week! We have a lot of new investigators, which is super good because a week ago we did not really have a lot at all, but now we are going to be a lot more busy which is good!:) It's not that fun when you’re not busy!! Haha but when you’re busy, you sweat a lot...it’s a love/hate relationship!:) People would always tell me you would get used to the heat and now I'm beginning to think that what they wanted to say is that you get used to sweating your guts out for 2 years, rather than your body adjusts to the climate here...that makes a lot more sense I feel like!:) haha Well, I think for this week that's all I’ve got for you guys!! Just want you all to know that I know that what I am doing out here is absolutely 100% true!! I know that this is God's work! I feel and see His hand in it every single day! I have learned so much more about love while I have been out here really truly trying to gain a love for the people here in Cambodia like my Heavenly Father has a love for them! Which really has not been that hard because they are the greatest people in the whole world! I am so grateful for all of the hard trials that I have had out here on the mission as well! A mission has been the most spiritually and physically exhausting thing that I have ever done in my whole life and yet somehow, everyday I have the strength to be able to wake up and do it again and again! I'm grateful to Heavenly Father that he gives me that strength everyday! I know that without Him I am nothing! I am so grateful for the Atonement! Man, am I grateful for the Atonement! Without it, I would be soooooo very lost in this life! I know that it's something that needs to be used by all of us every day! Not just the times that we do something terribly wrong! As we use it every day it will be easier and easier not to run in to any of those big mistakes! I love my Savior and am so grateful that he died for me and also lives again for me as well! I know that through him and through his Atonement, we can all be saved!! All he wants us to do is trust in him and follow him to the end! I know that this church has the fullness of the gospel once again restored on the earth and I am so grateful that I have this time to be a full-time representative for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! I love you all and hope you have a great week!! Many prayers headed your way from the Kingdom!!

Love,
Elder Steadman

Zone Conference

With President & Sister Moon and Elder & Sister Gong

Engulfed by the Spirit

Hello everybody!:) Well this was another week that's gone by in the blink of an eye!! So this week was a super good week!!:) This week we had the amazing opportunity to go to Zone Conference and Elder Gong from the Quorum of the Seventy came and taught us, which was so awesome!!:) Zone conference was so awesome and I learned so much about what I can be doing to become a better missionary each and every day! The focus of Zone Conference was on the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ!! Elder Gong really related the importance of helping all of our recent converts, as well as our investigators, have a strong testimony in our first Prophet of the dispensation, Joseph Smith, as well as a strong testimony in the Book of Mormon. The importance of having faith in both of those things is important because really those are the only two things that set us apart from any other church in this world! Everything that we have been taught that differs from other churches comes through modern day revelation and has also been given to us through the olden day prophets in the Book of Mormon! He told us that they had recently done a poll and that only 5% of the recent converts in Cambodia said that they actually had a strong testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith as well as the Book of Mormon! Obviously as a missionary serving here in Cambodia, this was quite an alarming statistic to hear and definitely woke us all up to the seriousness of helping our investigators understand the importance of these two crucial factors of our church BEFORE they are baptized! Elder Gong helped us know what we could do and ways that we could teach that would really help our investigators understand the importance of these two things! Sometimes as missionaries we can give them the Book of Mormon and because we read it every single day and we know how to read it and how to use it, we assume that our investigators will automatically know how to read it as well!! Well it turns out that this is almost never the case!! Haha If we give a new investigator a Book of Mormon, we need to do more than just hand it to them and commit them to read it! We need to help them know how to read it! We need to show them what a chapter is and what a verse is and what the first book is called and show them how there’s a small summary of what they are going to be reading and then commit them to read after we have thoroughly explained what we want them to read! And then most importantly, when we go back to visit with them again, we need to read it with them! Honestly this is something that I have definitely been lacking at doing! In the past when investigators have told me that they have been too busy to read, I have testified of the importance of reading the Book of Mormon and that it truly will bless there lives and then recommitted them to read it, but one thing I have not been good at is actually just taking the time right at that moment to actually read with them and ask them questions and get them thinking! It is something that I have committed myself to do better at for the rest of my mission and I truly believe that if I do this I will be able to help all of my investigators have stronger faith in the Book of Mormon and know with all of their hearts that the Book of Mormon comes from God! 

My favorite thing that I heard in Zone Conference was when President Moon got up and spoke. When he stood up and spoke he started out by saying, "I am here because of a book." I just loved that comment so much!! To someone who does not know our religion or what we believe in, that comment may sound like we are insane! And to someone who does know our religion and what we believe in, that still might sound insane!! Haha but I loved that comment because that is the exact reason why I am here in Cambodia right now. I am here because of a book! That comment is rich with meaning!! That book has changed my life forever and has given me more happiness than I could have ever possibly imagined! It has helped me through hard times and has taught me each and every day how I can become a better person!! It teaches me every day that I can do just a little bit better than the day before so that each and every day I can do my very best to become what my Heavenly Father sees in me! With His help, I know that I can reach the person that He wants me to be in this life! I have also seen that book change other people's lives completely! I have seen people who have been constantly drunk or who beat their wives, repent and become a wonderful man of God worthy to hold His holy Priesthood because of the power of that book! I know with all of my heart that the Book of Mormon is a book from God! I know it with every fiber of my being and I am so happy that I have this time that I can go and share that message with the wonderful people here in Cambodia!! How blessed I am to have this opportunity!! I will never be able to repay my Heavenly Father for the gifts and miracles that he has given me since I have been out here on my mission!! My only goal in life right now is to go and tell as many other people as I possibly can about this wonderful Book so that they can receive all the blessings that I have been lucky enough to receive in my life! I love the Book of Mormon and I love our beloved prophet Joseph Smith for opening this last dispensation and enduring terrible amounts of trials and afflictions he did so that we all could have this wonderful book and receive all the blessings that it can bring to us! I cannot wait to thank him personally in the life after this for everything that he did for everyone in the world during his short time period here on the earth! He is one of my greatest heroes and I know that he truly was a Prophet of God!! Anyway, there were quite a few other things that I also plan on applying to my teaching that I was taught in Zone Conference, but if I wrote them all down we would be here all day so I will save you all the boredom and stop right here!:) 

Another thing that was cool that happened this week was that we had a baptism!! :) His name is Bong Bros and he is just the coolest kid ever!! He is 22 years old and has just been a total rock star investigator!! He has always accepted every invitation that we have given him with faith that Heavenly Father will help him obey all of the commandments that He has laid forth for us, and he has been able to obey all of the commandments!!:) I felt super honored because he asked me if I would be willing to baptize him and of course I happily accepted!! It was a beautiful ceremony and I was so happy for him knowing that he had just entered into one of the most important covenants of his life with his Heavenly Father! Now we are just going to try to get him to go on a mission because I know that if he did, he would just be a rock star of a missionary!! :) So yeah, Sunday was a good day! I will send some pictures of the baptism so you all can see as well!! :) 

We also had a Preach My Gospel class that we taught and it was so amazing!! This week’s class was an opportunity for the members to share their testimonies of the Book of Mormon, but for most of the class it was just the members joking around with each other and then us trying to get them to focus. Finally, there was only about 15 minutes left to teach and Elder Lauritzen stood up and started to speak. So he is a brand new missionary… he has only been out here for 2 months, but he has the courage of a lion and is always trying to speak! Anyway, he got up and started to share his testimony about the importance of what we are teaching and even though he was not speaking perfect Khmer, the Spirit was so strong! As he sat down, I felt prompted to stand up and share some thoughts with them as well! I got up and told them that we had 9 minutes left in class and that I wanted those last 9 minutes to be filled with the Spirit! I was pretty straightforward in telling them that during the last 50 minutes that we had been teaching, the Spirit had not been with us, but I told them that if they were willing to maintain reverence for the last 9 minutes and pray that the Holy Ghost would enter, I promised that those last 9 minutes would be an amazing spiritual experience. After that I reopened the class to share their testimonies of the Book of Mormon and immediately a member, whose name is Dom, offered to get up and share his testimony. Just 20 minutes before, he had shared his testimony of the Book of Mormon, but this time as he bore his testimony, he spoke from his heart! It was not known facts that he had memorized, but what he knew to be true with all of his heart! As he shared, he began to cry (and he is not the crying type) and testified that as he was getting ready to go out and serve his mission; he said he knew that this was something that was absolutely essential for him in his life and would forever bless him, as well as many others, and he said that he knew that while he would be gone God would protect his family. There was not a dry eye in the whole room and it felt as though almost the whole room was literally on fire with the Spirit of God!! As he sat down another person got up to share their testimony as well, and the Spirit was still as strong as ever! Then we were all out of time and I got up and told all of the members that this feeling could happen every week for a full hour, not just 9 minutes, if we came into this meeting with a spirit of reverence! I told them I love to joke around as much as the next guy, but I also love feeling the Spirit so strong like we were just able to feel and I testified that it can happen every week if we allow it to! We had a closing prayer and all kneeled as we prayed and the girl that prayed began to cry as she was praying as well as!! The Spirit was literally engulfing all of us during the entire prayer as well!! To date on my mission, it was probably one of the most spiritual experiences that I have had!! I am so grateful for Elder Lauritzen to have the courage to stand up and say something so that we could end on such a spiritual high! It was a great way to end a Sunday!

That's pretty much it for my week this week! I feel so lucky every single day to be serving here and to be sharing all of these wonderful spiritual experiences with the people here in Stung Meanchey!! :) I am so lucky… it's not even fair!!:) I love my mission!!!!!:):) I hope you all have a great week this week! I'm always sending prayers your way!

Love always,
Elder Steadman

Miracles

Hello family :) Well, I hope you have all had a good week this week! It has definitely been one of the best weeks of my mission! Definitely a week filled with lots of emotions!! Ha anyways so this week church was awesome! We were hoping to have some investigators come to church this Sunday because like I said a little bit in my last letter and the one before that, our investigators have not really been coming to church, which has been kind of hard. But this week I felt pretty good about them coming to church and when we got there all but 2 of them were there!! I was super excited and felt like a lot of our hard work these last couple weeks had paid off!! Not only that, but when we got to the church, there was also a person who came who was not yet an investigator! He showed up because he wanted to learn more about Jesus and so now we have another new investigator!! Then we had a Preach My Gospel class after church ended and I was the teacher! It was super fun! We memorized the first vision! It took us forever and a year but we did it! I think we must have said it 200 times in all, but it was pretty cool by the end of the class to hear 12 of our young members recite such a sacred experience, not to mention probably one of the greatest and most significant moments in all of history!! Pretty cool stuff we are accomplishing over here in Cambodia! Also, after church one of my investigators had some pretty good news for me!! He has 3 friends that he goes to school with who also want to learn about Jesus, so today we are going to be going and teaching them in the evening… so that's awesome as well!! Overall this Sunday was an awesome day!!:)

I have one more story for you guys this week! This is not going to be a terribly long letter!! Sorry! So this week I called one of my investigators to meet with her and when she answered the phone and I asked her if she could make some time to learn with us that evening, she told me that she was going to have to stop learning with us because her husband did not want to learn with us anymore. I guess after we taught him about the Word of Wisdom he was positive that he would not be able to stop drinking coffee and tea so he told his wife to tell us that they were not going to be learning with us anymore! When she told me that my heart just dropped! I begged her to just let us come over one more time and she finally accepted! When we went over that night we met with her and her husband. When we got there, he immediately started to express his concerns with not being able to obey the Word of Wisdom. He said and that he believed in God already and that is all that’s important is that he believes in God in his heart and that is good enough! As he was talking, I was trying my very best to just listen to him speak and not worry about what I was going to say and just have the faith that whatever I needed to say, Heavenly Father would give it to me in the time that I needed it! Well, when he finished talking I thought for just a second and then I looked at him and I asked him if he had prayed about Joseph Smith. I didn't address anything that he had just recently shared with me; for some reason I felt like that was not what I needed to ask him! Rather I asked him if he had prayed and asked if Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. He told me that he had not yet done this. I then went on to explain to him that the Word of Wisdom will be something that is next to impossible to obey and will be something that is frustrating and annoying in his life if he does not yet have faith in Joseph Smith… because he is the reason why we have the Word of Wisdom! Through the prophet Joseph Smith we received the Word of Wisdom from God, but if he had not prayed to know if Joseph Smith was a true prophet then it would be impossible to have faith that the Word of Wisdom comes from God as well! I asked him if we could come to his house again the next day and bring the movie of Joseph Smith and his life so he could see himself in a story-like mode, the history of Joseph Smith. Reluctantly he agreed! We went over the next day and watched the movie with him and the Spirit was definitely present! I testified to him after that I was a representative of Jesus Christ and that I knew that everything that Joseph Smith said he saw he really did see! The Spirit was so strong and I could tell that both of them were feeling the Spirit as well!! He still has some fears with obeying the Word of Wisdom, but he has agreed that he will continue to learn with us! When he said this, I was so glad that he was willing to open his heart back up and keep on learning! It truly was a miracle! It was so cool! I felt so lucky that Heavenly Father also gave me the words to speak that would touch him in a way that he would want to keep on learning!

This week has been such a good week! I feel better than I have in a really long time and I love that I feel like I have the Spirit with me all of the time and it feels so very good!! I don't know what the future holds for me as well as I did before, but I feel so at peace with where I stand with my Heavenly Father this week!! I ask this week especially that you all keep me in your prayers!! I can feel all of your prayers each week lifting me up and helping me keep on going! Thank you all so much for your support! You will never know just how much it means to me!!

All the love I possess!!
Elder Steadman:)

Happy 1 year anniversary Elder Steadman!

Hello everybody!!:) Well this was just another week that went by as fast as ever!! So this week I was lucky enough to get a package in the mail from my amazing parents!!:) It could not have been any better! There were a whole bunch of letters from some of the youth in my home ward included in the package and it was so fun to be able to read their cute little notes that they sent to me! It definitely was one of the highlights of my week!:) Thanks Mom and Dad!! I love you so much! :) So this week was another really good week! One small surprise that we had was on Monday night… I was calling the sisters because every night I have to call them to make sure that they are home safe and so when I called them one of the sisters picked up the phone, but when they answered the person talking was not the voice that I was used to talking to every night, but it sounded so familiar!! Finally I asked who it was that I was talking to and she replied Sister Jepson! Ha I was surprised and asked her what she was doing in Stung Meanchey and she told me there was a small emergency transfer for the sisters because there was a problem in another area and now she was going to be serving here as well...in my same area!! I was super pumped when I heard about that! It's been so fun to see each other around so much! It's super weird as well because the last time that we were with each other was in the MTC and we did not know the language at all! Haha and now we are able to speak and listen to the people without hardly any difficulty...most of the time! (Keep praying for me!) So yeah, she is in my district so I am able to see her all of the time!! Now we just need to get Elder Quirante over here and I think I will be the happiest Elder on this entire planet!!:) So that was the surprise that happened this week!:)

Reunited with an old friend :)

As far as other news goes, this week was a little bit hard to get lessons! Ha mainly because this week was Chinese New Year and so everyone and their dog does not go to work… they will just go back to their hometown and so most of the time Phnom Penh is kind of a ghost town because most people are from a Province! The people that did not go to a Province would gather together and drink their faces off!! Haha so contacting was kind of funny this week!! I think we got invited to a house like every 10 yards we walked because everybody wanted to have a drink with the random white guy! Haha but once I told them that I didn't drink and actually wanted to teach them about Jesus instead they lost interest in the random white guy quite quickly!! Hahaha it was ok though because even though I did not get any potential investigators this week, I was giving it my all and also had some dang good laughs along the way! :) Drunk people in Cambodia are different than like any drunk person in the world! One job that lots of men here have is called driving a Tuk Tuk! It's a motorcycle with like a small carriage thing attached onto the back of it so that they can take people places! Anyway so it's kind of notorious that if you have this job, you also enjoy drinking a lot haha because you have a lot of down time so lots of them will just get together and drink with each other! So we had to go to the mission home this last week for my companion because he is in the process of getting his visa and stuff so when we went we decided to take a Tuk Tuk to get there. So we went up to this guy and asked him how much it was and he was absolutely plastered! Haha he could not really put a complete sentence together so we started to walk away, but then he offered us a price that was literally half the price that it usually costs to go to Phnom Penh! I turned around and made sure that I heard him right and he nodded his head (kind of in a circle motion) and so I hopped in! Ha it was a price that I could not let go! Plus the permanent driving speed here is like 10 mph cause there is always traffic so it is literally impossible to go any faster than that! So in my mind I was thinking, “What is the worst that could happen!?” Haha but before my mom kills me for telling this story, here is the craziest part! Cambodians are amazing drivers! This guy could not complete a sentence to save his life, but he was an unbelievable driver! He avoided all the bumps and was able to snake through traffic no problem! It made me kind of laugh a little bit! So I guess it's not true what they say! There actually are some good Asian drivers!;) Man I love Cambodia:) Anyway, we offered him a pamphlet and asked him if he wanted to learn, but he was not interested at all! Maybe one day though he will remember that pamphlet and give the Elders a call!:)

Let's see, other than that nothing exciting really happened to me this week! We had some investigators show up to church this week, which is always an amazing blessing!:) There was one investigator who called us and told us that he was not going to be able to come because he was going to one of his friend’s wedding, but then when we got to church we saw him walk in and he had also brought his sister, who we had never met before! He told us that he left a little bit early from the wedding so that he could come and worship! I was so pumped!! After first hour we asked him if he was going to continue to stay and he kind of hesitated for a second because he was originally planning on just coming for that hour and then going back, but then he decided that he wanted to stay for the other hours as well and he stayed for all three hours! Not only that, but his sister ended up staying even longer than that! At the end of third hour they were practicing singing for an upcoming Sunday and she stayed to sing with the members! It was super cool to see the members just instantly welcome her into the group! The Church here in Cambodia truly is amazing! Everyone is just best friends… it does not matter how long you have known each other or how old you are, as soon as you walk into the church building you are family!! It's amazing to watch! I think it's exactly how Heavenly Father would want things!:) Anyway, so we talked to him after third hour and he expressed how glad he was that he had stayed for all three hours and really enjoyed getting to know people better because usually he ends up leaving after first hour, but he told us that because he stayed longer he was able to make more friends and feel a lot more comfortable! :) He is going to be getting baptized in a couple of weeks and he is very excited!:) Anyway, that pretty much sums up what happened in my life this last week! I am so grateful to be out here serving in Cambodia! I already feel like I do not have sufficient time left here to do everything that I want to do and be everything that I want to be, but I am so grateful that I still have the time that I do left! :) Which to some may seem like a very long time, but the way that my mission has been going so far, I am very scared it's going to go by way faster than I want it to! Ha I love my mission and would not want to be with any other people in the entire world right now than the people of Cambodia! This place has filled a spot in my heart and will forever fill that special spot for as long as I live! I know that this church is the church of God and that He is the leader behind this Gospel! I know He loves each and every one one of us so very much and through His wonderful plan, we can live with Him again someday! If you don't know of this plan, I invite you to learn with Elders or Sisters close to you and find out for yourself just a little bit more about how much your Heavenly Father truly loves you! I promise that this message will bring more happiness and blessings to your life than any other thing this world could possibly give to you! I love you all and am always and forever thankful for your love and support! Thank you for those who have not forgotten about Elder Steadman way over here in Cambodia!!:) I hope you all have a great week! Much love coming to you from the Kingdom!!:)

Elder Steadman

Dead lizard... time for a prank...

Valentines and Vietnamese

What's up!!:) Well this week was another great week here in the kingdom of Cambodia!! :) This week one cool thing that happened was transfers! So luckily this transfer I did not have to leave my area, which is super good because this is the best area in Cambodia!!:) So in my area there is another Elder that is serving here… his name is Elder Lauritzen and he is brand new and he is super cool… we have like the exact same personality and get along super well, so whenever we get to see each other it's always fun to talk and joke around with each other! Unfortunately, he’s been living at the other house in Stung Meanchey, but this transfer the AP's called him and told him that he and his companion would still be proselyting in this area, but that they would be moving into our house for this next transfer! When they told me this I was super excited because we were going to be able to be around each other a lot!! He is a super cool kid! Hopefully one day I can be his companion as well!! 

So that was the exciting news that happened this week, but this week there also was some sad news. Since I have been in this area we have had an investigator named Ming Bopha and she is super awesome! Her testimony is unbelievable and she has such a strong desire to get baptized, but unfortunately this week we ran into some very bad news with her! We met with her on Wednesday and she started to cry and she told us that her husband was not going to let her meet with us anymore. So really fast just some background on her husband. He beats her and is only around the house one week out of the month and the rest of the time he is in a province. She has asked to get a divorce for him and he will not let her. He does not let her leave from the house ever unless she gets permission from him first and he hates us because we go to her house and teach her about the gospel of Jesus Christ and he hates the "Jesus" church. For a long time she still wanted to learn with us so she would let us come over to her house, but now he is coming to the house and does not tell her when he is going to be coming. So this week she told us that she is not going to be able to meet with us anymore because he is going to be at the house a lot more and he does not want us to teach her. The one good news about all of this is that they have a kid who the dad loves a lot and that kid loves to come to the church and play with all of the kids at the church and so he has decided to let them come to worship at church each Sunday, but will not allow her to keep on learning with us. When I heard of this I really didn't know what to say to her, but then a scripture popped up into my head and it was 1 Nephi 3:7 "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." And then I bore my testimony to her that the Lord has prepared a way for her to accomplish what she has gained knowledge of! The hardest thing is sometimes we just cannot see that path as clearly as our Heavenly Father can, but that does not mean that the path is not there! We have to show our faith in him by taking those first few steps in the dark and then once we have shown our faith then He can begin to light the path for us so we can begin to see what His plan is for us and what we need to do in order to be able to follow down His path. I committed her to keep on coming to church each and every Sunday and to pray that her husband will have his heart softened. I promised her that as she does this with faith, one day her husband will soften his heart and allow her to follow and become baptized and become a member of this church! It was really hard to say goodbye to her because she has been learning for such a long time and her testimony is so very strong, but I know that one day she will be able to learn again and until then she will be able to continue in faith by coming to church and reading the Book of Mormon. So yeah, that was pretty much the hardest thing that happened this week, but overall this week was really good!

We had a lot of investigators at church this week as well! Still not all of them, but soon I think we will have all of our investigators attending church!:) One thing I want to do a little bit better this next week is contacting! This week we struggled a little bit at going out and contacting people and trying to get more investigators! I think I fell into some of Satan's temptations this week by finding things to do besides contact haha… not that they were completely unproductive things to be doing, but contacting and trying to find investigators would probably have been the better thing to be doing! For some reason this week I was being kind of lazy in going out of my way to talk to people! Usually I like to talk to everything with a mouth, but this week for some reason I was a little bit lazy! But that's ok, because this next week that's not going to happen! You just wait and watch… I'm going to have some new investigators and some cool stories to tell you all here in the next few weeks!!:)

I am so grateful to be out here serving my mission right now! There is not a better place to be serving than right here in Cambodia!! One funny thing that I have decided to do this transfer has to do with a little planner that you get every transfer; this book is where you put all of your notes and plan who you will be teaching and at what times you will be teaching them. So I went to the mission home last Sunday to get a new planner for this upcoming transfer and I saw that the planner had been translated into three different languages. There was English, Khmer and Vietnamese. Well, I know how to read English already and I also know how to read Khmer, so I decided to mix it up a bit and go with Vietnamese! I can’t understand a single word it says, but it's ok because I have what it looks like in English memorized already! So yeah, basically I'm weird!! Haha you have to do the weirdest things to entertain yourself sometimes out here on your mission!!:) It's going to be a Vietnamese planner with nothing but Khmer and English written in it!:) Anyway, that's all I have for you! Sorry it is kind of short and boring this week! We did not have a whole lot happen, but maybe next week will be more exciting! We have a baptism set up in a couple of weeks, so hopefully I will have some pictures of that for you all to look at in the near future! Know that I love you all and that you are all in each and every one of my prayers!! Oh yeah and Happy Valentine's Day to you all as well! This is a different Valentine's Day than I have ever had before, but it's filled with more love than any of my previous ones in the past! I love the people of Cambodia more than words could EVER put into description! It's an everlasting love and I also have a deep love for my family back at home! Thank you so much for all of your letters that you all send each and every week!! I don't know what I would do without my sweet momma bear and dadio!! Along with my two gorgeous sisters and my absolute stud of a brother!! It truly is the perfect package that I’ve got back at home!! Could not ask for a better family!!:) I love you all so much!!:) I also love all of my friends!! :) Especially those of you who have taken the time to write me!! You really find out who your true friends are out here on your mission!! Haha You know who you are so there is no need to list off names!!;);) I love you all and hope that you all have an amazing week full of love and happiness!! Much love headed your way!!:)

Elder Steadman

Another transfer in stinky, wonderful Stung Meanchey

Hello everyone!!:) This week has gone by in like 2 blinks it feels like!! So I don't know where in the world January went but it seems crazy to me that we are already in February!! I'm not going to lie to all though this week was just one of those weeks where not a whole lot went down!! Honestly, I was pretty grateful for it!! The last couple weeks there have been some crazy surprises and curveballs that I did not see coming! Ha so having a week with no AP calls and just me and my companion doing missionary work was pretty nice!:) Except at the beginning of this week we were not really allowed to do a whole lot of missionary work because my comp had a whole bunch of doctor interviews as well as interviews with the Australian embassy so that he can get a visa to go and serve the rest of his mission in Australia!! I was super happy for him that he is close to being able to go and serve there, but as far as the beginning of this week went, we did not have a whole lot of time to meet our investigators which was kind of a bummer, but luckily later in the week we were packed with lessons every hour! That's always a good feeling!! :) Also- I almost forgot! This Sunday was transfer calls! This was like the fastest transfer ever!! So the Zone Leaders called me on Sunday and told me that my companion and I would be staying here for another transfer! I was obviously super excited about that news because I love Stung Meanchey!!!!:) I am hoping I can at least serve here a couple of transfers more! I really would be not mad at all if I spent the better part of my mission here!! It's the stinkiest smelling place in Cambodia, but you cannot find a better group of people in Cambodia than the people in Stung Meanchey!!:)

Anyway, this Sunday was a pretty good Sunday! We had a few investigators at church, which was good! Not as many as we were hoping to have, but hopefully we will have some more next week!!:) This week I also got to give a talk in sacrament meeting! They asked me to talk on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the importance it has played in my life!! Well obviously this was like the easiest topic ever to talk about for 10 minutes because my knowledge of the Atonement has changed my life in pretty much every possible way you could imagine!! I cannot even imagine where in the world that I would be right now without the Atonement of Jesus Christ!! I was able to share some of my favorite scriptures about the Atonement and also share some spiritual experiences that I have had in my life personally as well!! Overall, I expressed the importance of using the Atonement of Jesus Christ every single day! Sometimes we can feel scared or we can feel like we don't have a good enough reason to use the Atonement, but in all reality all of those thoughts are coming straight from Satan!! Jesus knows that all of us will do wrong and make mistakes and whether they are big or small he wants us to come to him each and every day and ask him for forgiveness so that each and every day we can feel clean and free from all of the things that we have done wrong in that day! Another part of the Atonement is also comforting us in times of difficulty in our life!! Jesus is the only person ever who can know exactly how we are feeling and exactly what we need in order to feel comforted! If we ever feel like we are alone and don't have someone that we can turn to, once again, this is Satan trying to convince you of something that could not be further from the truth!! So show him just how wrong he is by getting down on your knees and find out just how much someone really does know how you are feeling! I promise if you do this that whatever you are going through, you will start to gain a knowledge that you are not going through your trials all alone! There's always at least one person that's by your side for every single struggle that you have! He is always trying to help you keep moving forward and as you pray, you will be able to better hear that still small voice that will help you and bring you comfort!

Anyway, I also had to teach third hour about fasting! I didn't know that I was going to have to teach beforehand, but it ended up going super good!! I shared one story in my life that I have never forgotten of when my family and I were able to see a miracle when we fasted as a family!! I remember that when my mom had my little baby brother Luke, she was in the hospital and she had a problem with her leg and was not able to walk. When she went to the doctor they told her that it was going to take quite a few months, and could even take a year, to be able to fully heal. When we heard this news, my dad decided that we were going to fast as a family for my mom that her leg would be able to heal quickly! I remember that this was the first time in my life that I fasted and had a real desire to see a miracle happen and truly believed that through our fasting we would be able to see blessings come from it! I think up until that point in my life, I fasted because I had to and my parents told me I needed to, but that fast I did it because I wanted to and I truly did believe that it would help!! Anyway, I remember that it was only a couple weeks after we had fasted that my mom was able to walk and then a couple more weeks and she did not have to wear her brace that the doctors had given her! Looking back, this truly was a miracle that Heavenly Father gave us and I believe with all of my heart it was because we fasted and we fasted with true desire and faith as well!! The reason we fast is to show that our spirit is stronger than our body and when we don't eat, we humble our physical body and our spirit is then strengthened! I am so grateful for this commandment because basically this commandment is just a reason for Heavenly Father to pour out blessings upon us! So that lesson went really good as well and the Spirit was super strong!

Other than that I don't really have a whole lot to share this week! I am sorry that this week was not very exciting… hopefully something a little crazy (but not too crazy) will happen next week so I will have a little bit more of an exciting letter for you all!!:) I am so grateful to be able to be serving a mission right now at this point in my life and I would not trade the experiences that I am having out here for anything in the world! I know that the message that I go out each and every day to share with the people of Cambodia is a message from God and I feel so very honored that He has trusted me to go out and share it with the wonderful people here! I could not imagine wanting to be anywhere else in the world!!:) I love my mission so much and I love the person that it's helping me become as well! I love you all as well and am so thankful for all of your support that you give to me each and every day through your prayers! I love you all and hope you all have a great week over there in the land of the free!:) Much love headed your way from the Kingdom!!:)

Elder Steadman

Soccer with Elder Q & the other missionaries in Phnom Penh

"Church pills" and potholes

Hello :) So this week has been super awesome! And super fast!! Seems like the cooler the week is the faster it goes!! This week was a week that was very much needed!! The reason why I say that is because the last couple weeks we have not had a whole lot of success with investigators and last week we only had 1 investigators show up to church, which was kind of sad! So we have really been trying to work closely with all of the members so that they can trust us and then give us referrals of people that they know that want to learn about Jesus Christ as well!! Well this week we seriously had like 7 referrals come from the members!!:) It was so awesome to see our prayers get answered so quickly! We are way too blessed over here!!:) Not to mention, all of the referrals that were given to us were awesome!! This week we have been running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to teach everyone at the times that they are available to meet during the day!! What a good problem to have as a missionary, right!?:) Most of our investigators are super busy until the evening, so our day doesn't really get crazy until about 4 or 5 and then it just goes absolutely insane!! It's not even the hot season yet, but I'm still sweating like I just finished a marathon!:) Haha it's a good feeling though, working your heart out to help people come closer to Christ!:)

So one of the referrals that we got from the members was a husband and wife and her three kids! They originally learned with Elders about 4 years ago, but then she had to move unexpectedly and had to leave her house and she did not have a cell phone so they had no way to contact her to find out where she was, so she did not learn for a really long time. Then she met one of our members and the member had the courage to talk to her about our church and then asked her if she wanted to learn again and her response was, "Of course I do! I would do anything to start learning again!" How awesome, right!? When we went over to her house, she kept on trying to apologize to us for not keeping in touch when she moved, but we just told her not to worry about it another second longer! We were just glad that they were able to be found again and have the opportunity to learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ again! We taught them the first lesson and lots of things came back to their remembrance, which is pretty cool!:) And then we invited them to come to church this Sunday as well! She immediately said that she would be there!:) Unfortunately the husband works on Sunday, but he said that he was going to do everything that he could do to try and be able to make it to church as well!! Well, when Sunday came around, the anticipation was high and we were as curious and anxious as ever to see who was going to be able to make it to church! We called all of our investigators before church started to remind them and also invite them again so they felt welcome! Anyway, 1 o'clock came rolling around and we didn't see her, but then I got a call from her and she told me that she had been trying to find a ride, but hadn't been able to find one. She said she was going to try and find one as fast as she could and she just called to tell me she was going to be a little late! I told her not to worry about it and that we were just happy that she was going to be able to make it! Sure enough, about 15 minutes later she showed up with her cute kids! She has the fattest little baby… he is so cute! I will have to take a picture with them next week! :) Anyway, her husband was not with her but she said next week he would be able to come because he had requested work off already for next Sunday!! She stayed for all three hours and all the members made her feel really loved, which was awesome! Then the coolest thing happened! At the end of the third hour we had an awesome surprise...her husband showed up!!:):) We were so pumped! He apologized for not being able to make it for worship, but said that he wanted to show us he has faith by showing up anyway!! Man I love my mission!!:) This family is so amazing- it’s not even describable!! We walked him around the church and showed him all the rooms so he would feel comfortable next week when he comes, and then there was a member just hanging outside of the church when we got done, so I introduced him to the member (who was about his same age) and they just hit it off! He told me after, "I already have a friend to sit by next week. I love this church!" I know that this almost just sounds a little too good to be true… Trust me, I know! I had to keep pinching myself just to make sure I wasn't going crazy! :) Haha anyway, that was one cool story that happened this week for us!

Oh and I have a good funny story to tell you all as well! :) So this last week we went to go visit one of the old members of the ward and he is super awesome! He is a little bit out of it because he is like 70 years old, but he is seriously so hilarious!! So the other day we went over to teach him and he was really good at paying attention while we were teaching the lesson, but then when we finished the lesson he told us that lately he had been sick but then he found some "church pills" and these pills had completely cured him of his sickness!! He asked us if we wanted to see the pills! Of course we had to see with our own eyes what these "church pills" were all about! So he went into his house and a few seconds later came back out holding a little bag with pills, which he then handed to me. They were knock-off ibuprofen… I think! Haha he then told me these pills were also "repentance pills". All you have to do is pop one of those suckers and your sins are just cleared right out of you!! So far, this was the hardest it has been for me on my mission to hold laughter in the gut that I just wanted to bust out!! :) hahahahahaha He then continued to tell us that they were LDS certified and if we needed any we could just let him know because his neighbor (not a member...but apparently sells LDS pills) is the guy that sells them to him! Hahaha in my head I was thinking, “Man I wish I knew about those babies a long time ago!! That seems so much easier than the way I was doing it!!” ;);) hahaha Just kidding… but seriously, how funny right!? :) ha He is a little off his rocker, but he is one of my favorite members here because his heart is so sincere and he just loves me to death, which just makes me love him to death right back!! He told me that he looked up my last name on the Internet the other day on his computer (he doesn't have a computer haha) and he said it’s a name of much prestige and he feels honored every time he has the opportunity to even say it! How can you not just love this guy!?:)

Ok, one more story for you all this week and then I'll let you go! Hang in there, I'm almost done!:) Here in Stung Meanchey the roads are notorious for being very VERY bad haha, so when you ride your bike, you always have to be on the lookout for potholes and semi-trucks and crazy moto drivers… it's pretty much like the super old jumper frog game that everyone has played at least once in their lives! Haha except if you get squashed there is no second life!! Haha anyway, so I was riding my bike and I was looking over to my right for just a second and then when I looked back straight ahead there was a huge pothole! And when I say a huge pothole that is an understatement! This looked like a huge meteorite landed in the middle of the road and they removed the meteorite, but never fixed the crater it left in the road! This thing was huge!! From a distance, I'm sure it looks like a road leading down to an underground parking garage.... HUGE PEOPLE!!! Anyway, by the time I saw this cliff it was too late and I just had to go at it straight on! So that's what I did! I was waiting for what seemed like minutes for my front wheel to finally hit the bottom, and as I finally came down I put all my weight on my left wrist and then heard those pops that everyone loves to hear inside your wrist. Haha the pain shot through my body like lightening and I knew it was pretty bad! Well, long story short, I found some tape at my house and I taped it up and now I just ride my bike with my right hand!! It's definitely a bit of a challenge because of the roads, but that's ok because I have always wanted to be better at riding my bike with my right hand anyway!:) Nothing can keep me from going out and spreading the good word!! :):) Anyway, that's my small accident story for this week! :) Don't worry mom, I will make sure and be more careful the next time around!;) Even though these roads are like a nightmare, I would not want to be in any other area in Cambodia right now!! I love this ward and all of the members!! :) I am so lucky to be here at this time!! It's hard to relay in words just how much I love everything about my mission right now! Every hard, happy, sad, funny, and painful thing that happens… I just love it! I love the ride man!! You’ve gotta laugh a little, right!? I mean who sprains their wrist riding a bike, right!?:) Haha I guess that's why my buddies at home call me accident prone!:) Haha well that's all I’ve got for you this week! I hope that you all have a great week and know that I love you all so very much and you are all in my prayers every day!!:) Don't miss me too much… I'll be home sooner than I want!;)

More changes and record-breaking...

Note from Mindy: Sorry everyone! I really enjoyed Austin's letter last week and in my mind, I posted it to the blog like every other week. However, when I went to write him this morning, I realized that was apparently all in my head! I apologize for the delay... now you'll get 2 letters from him within a day or two :)

Hello everyone! :) Well another week down! Seems like time is going wayyyy to fast for my liking! Haha well this week was another week that had a good surprise that we didn't see coming, as well as a pretty cool spiritual experience! I guess I will tell you about the surprise first this time! :) So this last week on Friday we got another call from the AP's! I'm telling ya, I am really getting sick of them calling! I mean don't get me wrong I love them to death, but I am always so scared every time they call that they are going to take me out of my favorite area!! Ha well this time I had a pretty good reason to be scared! I answered the phone and they told me that there was an emergency transfer that day! An emergency transfer is when somewhere there is a companionship that has a problem or someone goes home early or something along those lines and then they have to move a whole bunch of missionaries around in the middle of the transfer!! When he told me this, my heart dropped!! I was scared that I was headed out, but then he told me that one of my companions (Elder Bostrom) was going to be the one leaving the area!! I felt super bad for him because they told him that he had to pack his stuff that night and they would be there to pick him up the next morning at 6:30 a.m.! That gave him all of about a couple of hours to get his stuff all put together, because they called us at 6:00 in the evening on Friday! So we cancelled our 7:00 meeting that we had and we went and let him say goodbye to as many members as we could in the hour and a half that we had before we had to go into our house! I took tons of pictures for him so that he would have some good pics of this area to jog his memory! He was bummed I could tell, and I could not blame him. I would be way bummed as well, but he took it like a sport. I know his new companion and he is like twice as cool as I am, so I am sure he is going to love it in his new area!!:) This is the second emergency transfer that I have been involved in in my mission and in both of them, my companion ended up leaving me! And both of them were in Stung Meanchey! Haha so I'm not the best guy to be companions with in Stung Meanchey if your goal is to stay in the area for a long time! :) Haha anyway, that was the surprise that we had for this week! Now it is just me and my companion that I am training (Elder Sorn), and he is just an absolute blast! I am not kidding when I say that he is like a stand-up comedian!! He is one of the only Cambodians that I have met who really understands sarcasm, which is like my favorite humor in the world, so being companions with him is a blast every single day!! Work hard and laugh hard!:) 

I asked Austie why his comp is dressed like it's
winter and he said, "Haha he's not use to AC!" 

The other cool experience that happened to me this week was on Saturday I went on an exchange! That's when you go to someone else's area or they come to yours and you are companions with each other for 24 hours! So I went on an exchange with Elder Nuum, but he came to my area instead of me going to his and my companion went to his area with Elder Nuum's companion for the day! Elder Nuum is Khmer and he is super cool! He is almost done with his mission, but he still works super hard and is always looking for someone to talk to on the street, which is super sick! Not to mention he has been on his mission for almost two years so with all that experience, it seems like all of the contacts that he has are amazing! He totally knows how to take ANY conversation that we are having and relate it to the Gospel of Jesus Christ! It was so cool to see and I was just trying to take as many mental notes as I possibly could of things that I could start applying in my contacting so that I can have successful contacts like he does! Anyway, on Saturday we were walking around just contacting some people and then we were close to a house of one of our less-active members in the ward and I felt like we should go and visit him! So we walked over to his house, but when we got there no one was home and all the locks were around the door. So my first thought was, “Why did I have a strong impression to come here if he is not even home!?” I asked this middle-aged woman who was standing close to his house if she had seen him and she said that he had been gone since the morning and she did not know when he was going to be coming back home! So then I just started talking to her a little bit and asking her where she lived and it turned out that she was next-door neighbors with this less-active member, which seemed weird because I had been to that house quite a few times but I had never seen her before! Anyway, I asked her if she had seen us before and to my surprise she told me that she had learned with the elders before! She then went on to tell me that she had learned with them all the way up to just a week before she was supposed to get baptized, but then both of those elders got transferred and when they got transferred they had not kept a teaching record for her and so when the new elders came in they had no idea about her or that she was an investigator! Then she said that she stopped going to church because she felt weird because she wasn't a member yet, but no one was helping her to become a full member! My heart was so sad that those missionaries had not been more careful in making sure that something like that could never happen to one of Heavenly Father’s children, but my heart was also full of joy that Heavenly Father put her in my path so that I could talk to her and re-invite her to learn with us again! When I asked her if she would be willing to learn again she accepted without any hesitation and not only that, but she invited us to her house on Sunday evening so that we could begin to start teaching her again!! I told her that I would never let something like that ever happen again to her and told her how happy I was that she was still willing to learn with us!!! As we were walking back to our bikes, it hit us just how cool that experience was! When we were contacting, we had no specific place that we wanted to go or people that we wanted to talk to, but once again Heavenly Father guided our footsteps and led us to another one of his lost sheep that was ready to come back into the fold! Man I love missionary work!! As cliché as it is, these truly are the best two years!

Unfortunately, as it sometimes it goes on the mission, Sunday did not go exactly as planned! When I woke up I had a super sick stomach and I could not get up in the morning to proselyte, but I knew I really need to make it to church so I toughed it up and went! I kind of had to chuckle a little bit to myself as I was getting ready and thought about how a year ago if I was even remotely close to as sick as I was that day, the VERY LAST thing that would be on my mind was if I was going to be able to make it to church or not! Haha oh how things have changed in just a short year!:) ha Anyway, after church and the church meetings were over I went back home because I could not stand it anymore!! Ha gotta love the stomach bug! Speaking of records that no one wants to break (referring to last week’s letter), I hit up the bathroom 15 times on Sunday!! Haha I mean you can't help but laugh a little bit at that one! That's just ridiculous!! I wish that I could tell you all that I enjoyed all of those 15 visits but I would most definitely be lying to you! :):) Haha but it's ok because I am feeling a lot better now and hope to be able to go and enjoy a good p-day! Please pray that I don't go trying to break that record ANY time soon!:) Hahaha but you all have to know that even on the hard days or the sick days, I would not want to be anywhere else in the world!! I love that each and every day I get to wake up and my only worry is what I can do to help people come closer to, or have a new knowledge of, their Heavenly Father! There is not a better or more enjoyable work that I could be doing right now on the face of this Earth!! I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to be able to come to Cambodia and teach these wonderful people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ! I love my mission! Every single minute of it!!! I appreciate all of the prayers and love that all of you send to me each and every day! It is what gives me strength and what keeps me healthy (almost all of the time....pray harder;)) so that I can do the Lord’s work with all of my heart for these short two years! I love you all so very much and am always sending prayers your way!

Much love!:)
Elder Steadman
ដោយសេចក្តីស្រលាញ់,
អែលឌេីរ ស្តែតមិន

Umm... stomach bug? Or maybe this could be the problem!