Agents to Act

Okay I think I did a little better at journaling this week.

Tuesday

We had our service project today which was so awesome! Hahaha it was kinda last minute but I was determined to help this poor family out. For crying out loud they have a swimming pool under their bed because of the flooding. Anyway so I was a little bold and just bought pipe and hoped it was long enough and bought a mesh grate to block any big icky wickies from clogging it in the future. And then we went and ordered a cubic meter of gravel and had it shipped to her house. Then we started digging and laid the pipe down, then covered it in gravel then put gravel around the very muddy parts so now it looks very nice. . . but I don't have the after pics I forgot sorry, haha. Anyway such a solid day. Oh and earlier today some little Cambodian kids that I played with earlier came and said "Hi" and I bought them lunch cause when I asked if they were hungry they shyly said trying to be polite "yeah little bit" then I was like a little or a lot hahaha and they said a lot. So I bought all three of them some "me chaa" some noodles and veggies and some beef. It's like my go to meal, so chinging! Anyway, it makes me happy to do that for them cause idk they just my friends tooo.

Wednesday

So we got transfer newss and Elder Rabe is leaving😳 to Thma Koul which is still in my Zone so that's good. But yeah that means I'm leading out my area as a gon(child in Khmer language)(trainee in mission language) after only one transfer after whitewashing (having two new missionaries enter the area at the same time.) Anyway sorry for all that super secret language I had to decode for ya'll haha. Anyway crazy stuff!

Thursday

So in Cambodian culture I guess it's a thing to like decline service😆we have to basically force ourselves to be able to help them. Even with the gravel the lady wanted us to leave and she could do it herself, but it was literally like 75 yards away from her house so we figured out how to word the question so she was trapped into telling us it was fine for us to do it then. But yeah, with this ING family we said we were gonna come over to clean but once we got there they already did. . . so yeah. But there was still plenty to do because it is always so littered with trash. Then this night we went to an Italian restaurant with a real Italian! He doesn't know English but I can say I wasn't all that impressed. I know that's prolly harsh cause he doesn't have all the materials but yeah I've been spoiled with my mom and dad's and grandparents cooking. Never have I ever had better food than at home.

Friday

Oh we went and supported our two recent converts ming po and vwisa. Vwisa was in an end of the semester dance thing. It's very Cambodian hahaha and also they're pretty young. During the 30 year anniversary there was a group that danced a similar dance professionally and it looks pretty sick actually. But anyway so I'll share that bit of Cambodian culture with you haha also I'll try to find the video of Battambang during the 30 year anniversary.

Satruday

Yoooo today was the samsup chnam (30 year anniversary) for how long The Church has been established in Cambodia!!! Crazy that most of the members in our church reading this have been a member longer than the church has been in Cambodia, crazy! Okay, any whooo, we started a pretty big service project this morning. We were only able to serve for two hours but it was productive, I think at least, it's so hard to tell cause no matter what you do there will still be so much trash everywhereee. . . it's like trash a little dirt, more trash, little bit more dirt, and more trash. And for anyone that knows me I'm like half OCD so it just really discourages me when I look back and see trash after I just spent 2 hours cleaning up trash. So you might be wondering how do I go on??? Well, I'll tell you the secret, in a way I think sounds profound😏 (read this in a cool accent) "The treasure doesn't lie in what is seen, but rather the improvement from dirty to some what clean" "When bad thoughts start to overcome, take a look at the bags of dung you've gathered and flung." Anyway so those are my quotes I made up and used to keep doing a job that seems endless and right now, it is, cause we didn't even get half way, lol. Anyway so after that we watched the 30 year anniversary via zoom in the church. It was so super cool but also wasn't cause it kept glitching and pausing so we only watched prolly 25% of the whole show. But it did just un freeze so we could see our Battambang members dance. It was actually so hype and I'm so sad we weren't able to travel to Phnom Penh for it.

Sunday

So today was pretty good. We visited some members with pu ra again and that went well. I learned how to make that banana rice thingy where it's wrapped in banana leaves and boiled. So that was cool. I wanna make it all by myself now but idk if I'll ever have time😆They tear the banana leaf stem to like tie the banana leaf tight around the rice wrapped banana, so interesting and like useful haha. Super neat. Anyway then we visited the cripple guy's family and saw that our service project worked!!!! It drained really nice and there was only an inch or two of water in the house seeping in through the back walls. Which is so much better than almost 2 feet of water😄 Anyway then we had church which was sweet as always. Really had a good time though this week. Okay that's all hahaha

Monday

Super lit, we played volleyball for like 6 hours hahaha so fun! I could play everyday all day!!!

Spiritual thought:

Just when something good is gonna happen or just happened, Satan will do his absolute best to destroy the amazing work you have done to get there. He is a destroyer of everything good, so recognize his tactics. I'm making a little football reference now :) when you go up against another team you spend the whole entire week or in some cases couple of weeks before the game studying their tactics and what plays got them touch downs. You study and study so you can stop those big plays from happening. Well the scriptures have all the answers to how the devil tries to catch us in his snares. It also gives us a playbook on what plays will completely crush the powers of darkness. One thing I've heard from my football coaches or any of my other coaches is that often what it takes to win is just doing the small and simple things. Don't worry about the entire game, focus play by play and do your job, that's how games are won. So it's just the same in our life. It is such a long experience in our mortal eyes, so just focus one day at a time. Do the little things that will help you be successful. Okay one more thing, I've also heard time and time again that we're going to make mistakes, realize the mistake, figure out why it happened, and how to improve. Then move on, often times the whole entire games momentum shifts just because of one mistake. Like said by my coaches, "the play's over, forget about it and move on. Don't let a previous play ruin the current one, and then the next one and the next." This results a game full of regrets, so pick yourself up and tough it out. We've also got like a gizzillion people waiting to help us, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, angels on high, prophets, apostles, parents, other church leaders, MISSIONARIES!!!! Anyway tons of people. So don't lose hope.

I love each and everyone of you. Have the bestest week and remember the Lord in every thought 💙🧡

Love your Elder Acton😄

OH AND HERE'S MY GOOGLE PHOTOS FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS IT!

I think I'll still do both just because my missionary friends can't access the videos on the pdf and some people don't have Google photos. So shout out to my mama for continually doing this blog she's amazinggg and shows her love for me daily (which is really hard to do when you're on the other side of the world I might add)

Elder Acton's Photos