6 Months in Cambodia!!!

 Heywood, it's your Elder Acton out here with another weekly. Sorry it's been a little while but basically what's happened over the last couple weeks is that I'm in an ocean town with an American comp that has really good Khmer and work ethic, so we've been killing it downs here in Sihanoukville. He's the Zone Leader and I'm the District Leader so it's pretty crazy busy. It's about a three hour long bus ride to the mission office in Phnom Penh so the other two elders and Elder Olsen and I are kinda secluded, which is pretty fun and exciting.

At church we usually get about 20-30 people and the majority of them are new investigators and new members, so very young in the Gospel. This last week I gave a talk for like 10 minutes in Sacrament Meeting, which was scary but honestly really fun and nice too. I just jotted down some notes in English that I wanted to talk about and then just spoke Khmer. Then second hour was super good too and we had more people at second hour then I used to have in Battambong which is crazy because they get like 100 people at their Sacrament Meeting.

Anyway, we have been contacting more recently and it's good and sad hahaha. It's really hard to be so likeable, haha now before you think I'm prideful let me explain. All Khmer love white skin, long noses, tall guys that also speak their language. So at first EVERYONE speaks to us and wants to be our friend which is really nice. As we get talking we start bringing up Jesus and this is where it gets sad. They totally shut off and any chance they get they leave, in the middle of your conversation. Or, before you tell them you teach of Jesus they tell you they have so much free time every day, but then after you tell them they say they're way too busy to learn and have no free time at all. For example, I was calling this one lady and when I said I was a teacher of Jesus Christ she told me she work 24 hours a day. I thought that was pretty remarkable and I'm still wondering how she's alive if she doesn't sleep. 😁

Anyway, so it's hard to see people just not even have a soft enough heart to listen to what we have to share. But then there's the diamonds in the rough who are absolutely stunning. And they make all the unsuccessful contacts worth it because we find the one that is willing to learn. And sometimes just super eager! There's one lady who is super interested in learning more and she learned some when she was a teenager a little bit too so she's already got a little bit of a background. She's amazing!

There's also this other family that is coming along quite nicely as well! The father is already coming to church and the mother is reading the pamphlets. Last night, we went over to teach them and their two daughters. Half way through the lesson though it starts pouring rain so super hard and since they're pretty poor they just have a tin roof and not attic or anything. But they still looked like they wanted to learn so we keep going with the lesson. In olden days, prophets preached by yelling the lesson to a big crowd far off. But for us this night, we were yelling the lesson to the four people four feet in front of us😆. The rain on the roof was so deafening loud but we kept going and finished the lesson. By the time that we finished there was 1 foot of water right in front of their house, so of course I jumped off and did a cannon ball . . . just kidding. But I did in fact jump up and splash muddy water all over myself haha, super fun! I love the rain so much. As we walked home it kept raining super hard and we were soaked by the time we got back to the house. But before we arrived to the house, we walked up this hill and the water run off was literally a river on the road. I also went to a gutter where the water was coming off the house like a fire hose. So of course I used it to take my shower but I was doing so I felt power leave my body, I felt empty, and when I looked down my tag. . .my MISSIONARY TAG, it was gone!!! I wanted to cry but the spirit said run so I did. I ran down the road where the river of water was running, about 50 yards of running I see it rushing down the road with great swiftness. So, I do a ninjistu triple back flip quorkscrewer somersault move and reach down and grab my tag. . .raise it to the sky and say thanks to Heavenly Father "He's real!!! He and Jesus Christ live, He's real. I love Him!" I say with all my heart as I run up back to my comp who is in unbelief that I found it. Anyway, then we walked home and rang out our tie, socks, pants, shirt, and everything else😆. What a day it was. Anyway, that's about as much as I have for today.

Sorry if my English is bad that's Khmer's fault😆

Also hey did you know that Jesus came to the earth 2000 years ago to save YOU from death and sin???? Well He did and He's waiting for you to come closer to Him!!!

Hey, are you putting on your spiritual armor everyday? The prophet says we can't survive without it.

Put it on! It's our decision our choice, we all have enough time for Him.

Okay I love you all so much and hopefully tomorrow we can all be better people than we were today.

Much love from Elder Acton

P-day Adventures from last week

We rode bikes, in rain, to a waterfall

Mangos in Cambodia are the BEST