Week 13

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week seemed to fly by! It seems like just yesterday I was sitting in this little computer shop emailing everyone! The owners of this shop are actually members of our ward! The wife is a little bit inactive, but the husband is our ward mission leader! They are so awesome!! They are both about 28 years old and love the missionaries! A couple nights ago the wife got in a crash on her moto bike and had road rash all over her leg. She asked me if I had any medicine so I brought her some Lavender and Melaluca yesterday and today she gave me a huge hug and showed me how much better her wounds were! She was so happy :) Because all the areas in the city are fairly close together, there are quite a few missionaries that email here. The husband just came and brought me some bananas and cake (i think)- Cambodians LOVE to give us food. I am still learning to accept everything they give us... :) 

BIG NEWS! I had my first baptism this last week- her name is Vitchikah. The very first day I was in my area, we taught her the first lesson and she has been so accepting since then. She had an issue with drinking coffee but because of her love for God, giving it up was no problem. She is so cute and was so happy afterward. She bore her testimony about how it was so important for her to continue to remain active and come to church EVERY week. I love her! 

We also had a zone conference this last week and the training was focused on teaching the Restoration of the Gospel as it is written in Preach My Gospel. There is real power when we teach pure and simple doctrines. 

I went on exchanges with Sister Melton (Sister Training Leader) shortly after that and we made that our focus. We taught a new investigator of hers the Restoration and had an incredible experience. We took time to plan out what points we wanted to make, and then I was responsible for saying the first vision. I was really nervous because I haven't ever said it in a lesson (memorized), but I practiced it until I felt comfortable with it. As Sister Melton led up to it in the lesson, I could feel the fear starting to take over and the doubts starting to rise. I quickly pushed those thoughts from Satan aside and said a quick prayer telling Heavenly Father that I knew I couldn't do this on my own and that I desprately needed the spirit to be present to help our investigator feel the truth of the first vision. The time came and I was able to say the entire thing, slowly, while looking at our investigator in the eyes. After I finished, I paused, testified, and then asked her how she felt. With a huge grin on her face, she told us of the good feelings that she had. We were then able to testify that those feelings were the spirit telling her that this was true. It was such an awesome lesson and really felt the power of the spirit. The spirit truly is the key to conversion.

The language continues to be a little bit of a struggle, but I am slowly understanding more each day. I had a little bit of a hard time in a lesson we had last week with Vitchikah. We had two members present, and I only was familiar with one of them. As I began the lesson, I was struggle to find a word I wanted to use to ask our investigator a question and the member just looked at me, laughed a little, and then said, "Oh. She doesn't know Cambodian..". Members and investigators have said that to me in the past, but for some reason, this time it really hurt. I was trying so hard, and I was frustrated that she couldn't see that. At first I was angry, but as we went on through out the day, I realized that I needed to not be offended and to let that comment be my drive. Since then, every night when I go home and I try and study extra hard, reading from the simplified Book of Mormon over and over again and defining every word I didn't know until I can read sentences fluently without awkward pauses. My companion is a huge help because she is able to tell me the correct pronunciation with words I didn't know. I also started asked members what words mean and that has helped a ton!

Also, I want to tell you all about some crazy cultural things that happened this week! 

First of all, I saw two dogs attack and kill a kitten... gross. 

Second, there is a random Chinese holiday that all the Cambodians celebrated yesterday- they put food out in front of their houses for ghosts and then eat the food at night... I am still trying to figure that one out. 

Third, on my exchange with Sister Melton, we went to find a family and had to cross the bridge of death!!!! I named it that because it is sooo rickety and if you fall you will fall in a very very dirty lake. 

Fourth, visiting teaching. This isn't really cultural, but because the church is fairly new here, they are still trying to figure out some of the legistics. I decided my new project is to implement visiting teaching in our ward because it is impossible for us to visit all 50+ of the less active sisters! 

I hope all is well back home for everyone. Thank you for your support and prayers!! 

Love, Sister Lindley