Week 12

August 4, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was so awesome! I have seen so many tender mercies from the Lord and have felt his love for me and for the Cambodian people in abundance!

First of all, the week started off on a great note. Last Monday night, I was informed that the Vietnamese sisters were being relocated and that the Sister Training Leader would be moving into our apartment with her companion. She is from Utah and we get along so well! It has been so great to be able to talk about some of the challenges American sisters face in coming to Cambodia and how those challenges can be overcome. I love her so much and it has been a blessing to have her live with us. My companion served with her previously and so she loves having her with us as well! I know it was inspired by the Lord!

This week, a lot of our lessons to Less Actives have been focused on the principle of hope and faith and how the two work together to uplift and inspire us. It was really a lesson that I needed myself! On Monday night, I testified to a less active about how even though I didn't know Cambodian and even though I was far from home, I can feel the Love of the Lord because of my faith and hope in the Savior Jesus Christ. The spirit was so strong and she came to church yesterday! YAY! 

Tuesday was an interesting cultural day... haha. We were teaching our investigator, when out of no where her naked toddler (super common) just pooped on the floor right in front of us. I was a little bit shock, but I just laughed and tried to help clean it up... (my companion was a champ and did most of it). Right after that lesson, we were in a less actives house and right when we walked in the little boy peed on the floor haha. The grandma just grabbed a tshirt and mopped it up and then WE SAT RIGHT WHERE HE PEED! I am not going to lie... I had a hard time laughing about that, but its just another thing you have to accept about the culture here! 

Another interesting thing I noticed is that EVERYONE is sick here. And the medicine that they use is not effective. The reason I know that is because it is normal for them to show us their medicine when we go visit them. That is actually one of the first things they do. Most of the things they use are random pain pills, but they also do this traditional burning method to heal themselves! Basically they take a metal lid and rub it back and forth all over their backs to "heal" them. It looks super painful, but they believe it works. I need to start sharing essential oils! 

I have seen miracles in abundance this week, but I will just share a couple quick ones. First of all, after church on Sunday, an investigator that we thought we may have to drop, came up and told us she knew she should be baptized in two weeks. We were so excited and happy that she had received that confirmation. It was such a miracle! 

Another miracle was the Sunday as a whole. When we went to get on our bikes to ride to church that morning we noticed that my companion had a popped tire. It was no problem because she just rode on the back of my bike. After church we rode super far to visit an investigator, but she wasnt home! I noticed it was getting harder and harder to ride my bike with my companion on the back and we saw that both my tires were also flat! We were about 4 or 5 miles from home! We had been praying for opportunities to contact and this turned into the golden opportunity! We contacted as we walked all the way home!! It was so fun and such a blessing. Sometimes the worst situations can turn into the greatest blessings!

Thanks for all the support and prayers! Keep the faith :)

Love, Sister Lindley

Week 11

July 28, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, I survived another week! First of all, I want to give a shout out to my sister, Megan. Happy Birthday last week!! Also, it is good to hear that everyone is doing well and having a great summer!

So first of all, we teach so many lessons every day. It is a blessing because it keeps me somewhat distracted from the culture shock I have been facing. This last week we spent an entire day at a ward activity (I will get to that), and we still had 27 lessons. I dont really know how that compares with work in other places, but we were pretty happy about it. Right now we have 7 investigators with baptismal dates in the next month or so and they all seem to be progressing well (from what I can understand). 

The language continues to be a huge barrier and I think that I actually understand less in each lesson, but I try and focus and just understand the main idea of the conversation. One lesson this last week with a less active was about 90 minutes (i timed it) and I didnt understand a single word. All I knew was that she was talking about some illness with her knee (because she kept pointing to it and it looked swollen). Haha. 

One little miracle that I would like to share was with a recent convert and her husband. Her name is Om Phaney and I don't know what her husbands name is. We just call him "Om" because that is the respectful title for someone of his age (old). So he has never really shown interest in the gospel before and always says he is too busy to learn with us, but he randomly came to church last week and then when we went to teach Om Phaney, he wanted to sit in on the lesson. We decided to switch our lesson plan from Family History to lesson 1 and from his facial expressions, i am pretty sure he was interested. At the end of the lesson we asked him to pray and he didn't know how, so his wife prayed first and then he prayed after. It was a simple prayer, but very beautiful. 

My favorite investigator to teach is a 17 year old girl, Vitchikah, that I talked about in my last letter. She speaks a little english and wants to learn more so I teach her in Khmanglish (cambodian/english). She asks very deep questions and remembers everything we teach her so well. She loves reading the book of mormon and wants to be baptized. 

On Saturday we went to a ward activity in the province. Our mission president approved us to go. It was about an hour outside of the city and honestly I had no idea what we were going to do. When I asked my companion, she told me that we were going to "hang out". Turns out, it was a Pioneer Day activity. The bus we went on, dropped us off 5 km from our destination and we walked in the scorching heat/humidity to get to a cambodian style pavillion. Once we got there everyone just talked and then we had "lunch". The meal consisted of ant stir fry, fly soup, carp looking fish (with all the guts), and every part of the chicken. I opted out of all that and just had a small portion of rice. All the member kept pointing at me and saying eat, eat! I just said no thanks and then my companion would tell them I didn't like their food so now I am pretty sure they all hate me. Hah. After "lunch" it started pouring rain, as it usually does each afternoon and so we all just waited for it to stop and then went to a nearby zoo. It was really dirty but we saw elephants, tigers, lions, and fed monkeys. Between not eating much that day and the heat, Saturday night was rough! I felt like death! I told my companion I needed to sleep early and turned in at about 8:30 (we usually go to bed at 9:30 and wake up at 5:30). 

Oh, one other crazy thing was that one day last week it rained a TON and we had to get to a lesson on the other side of town and so we rode our bikes through about a foot of water for about a mile. I didn't even know that was possible, but trust me, it is. It was nuts! 

Also, I have 27 mosquito bites on my legs/feet! I swear the church is infested with them!!! oh and we got exactly 100 people at church yesterday (that was our goal). Usually we have about 70 so it was a miracle.

Anyway, I love you all. Thanks for your support! 

Love, 

Sister Lindley

Week 10- First week in Cambodia!

July 21, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

I am officially in Cambodia and all I can say is wow. The poverty here is so real. After a long (VERY LONG) couple days of traveling, we finally arrived in Cambodia. 

The Mission President, his wife, the Assistants and a senior couple were there to greet us. They took our bags to the mission home and all of us newbies headed to a big market in the middle of Phnom Penh to contact! I was with a local Cambodian that knew no English, so it was very interesting! Haha. I just kept saying "We are missionaries for Jesus Christ. I know through Jesus Christ we can feel peace and happiness", and then my temporary companion would take it away. We contacted around 30 people in about 45 minutes! It was crazy.

The first couple days here were spent in the mission home doing orientation things. We were informed that the mission goal is to have 800 converts this year and teach 20 lessons every week. The main problem with the work here is that there are about 12000 members and only 2000 actually go to church every week. So we are working with a lot of less actives. Most of them just say that they are busy even though when we go to visit them after church they are just sleeping... Haha. So I met my companion on Friday afternoon. Her name is Sister Kuouch and she is actually from Cambodia. She is from Steung Mien Chey (from the Rent Collector book). She is about half of me haha, she is SO tiny! She doesn't really speak English, and I don't really speak Cambodian, so I don't really know very much about her! She is 21 and has been a member her whole life (which is actually pretty rare here). We also have 2 other sisters in our apartment. They are both in the Vietnamese program and only speak Vietnamese and a little bit of English. The common ground language for all of us is English and they all understand eachothers English, but I don't seem to be able to understand any of it. Haha.

Anyway, on Friday we went straight to the church from our apartment to meet up with Vitchika for a lesson. She is a new investigator for us, but has met with missionaries previously so she already knows a TON. Plus she is Christian already. She is 17 years old and definitely one of my favorite investigators. We reviewed the first lesson with her and she asked me how I knew the Book of Mormon was true. I was able to tell her my experience with coming to find out for myself it was true and encouraged her to continue to pray about it. She said that she would. It was a great lesson. She even came to church on Sunday too. After her lesson, we went to teach Bang Mala (25 years old- investigator). We taught her at her friends house (Bang Kontea- investigator). The house is a 10 feet by 10 feet room with tile floors and cement walls. It is so humbling to be teaching these people in these conditions. We taught her about the Law of Chastity and she said she has problems with it.. but Im not really sure what else happened in that lesson. On our way home we stopped by at Ming Kangs (investigator) house and shared a quick message about the 10 commandments. I said the prayer for that lesson but I literally have no idea what else happened. The TV was on in the tiny room/house and I was just lost.. haha. But my companion said she isn't progressing and we will probably have to drop her. :(

Saturday was my first full day. A lot of the people we were planning to teach were not home, but we managed to teach two investigators and a few less actives and recent converts. Everyone we teach lives in very poor conditions. It is really sad... But they seem to find joy in the little things and that is all that matters. 

However, last night we were riding our bikes and ran into Ming Nuan! We had looked for her the day before but she wasn't home. She is an alcoholic and divorced with her husband. She was just bawling through the whole lesson and saying that she was trying and she was praying but her heart hurt every day and she needed to drink alcohol. She kept holding my hands and saying a bunch of stuff about her life and I wanted so badly to be able to understand but I couldn't! I just said "I don't know very much about your life, but I know that Jesus Christ does and that he loves you." It was a tender moment. I hope she can overcome her addiction, but there aren't very many resources for that around here.

This morning we were able to go to the market to get some groceries. The past few days I have just been eating random things that I can find in the fridge. Because everyone in our house is from Cambodia/Vietnam, all the food is very asain. We eat rice for breakfast lunch and dinner and I managed to find some cauliflour and carrots that I fried up to add to my rice. The meat is interesting, so I just added a fried egg to my food as well. I had 2 granola bars in my bag, and I rationed them out among the few days I didn't have my own food. Luckily I survived :) haha.

Biking around Cambodia is SO SCARY! I have a constant prayer running through my head asking Heavenly Father to protect me. I constantly fear for my life. You probably think that I am joking, but IM NOT. It is terrifying. The heat here is bad... but most house have little fans so we don't sweat too much. It rains at least once a day, but so far it hasn't really flooded. Anyway, its been a culture shock to put it lightly. I hope everyone has a great week!

Love, Sister Lindley

Week 9-Last email from the MTC

July 14, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

I never thought this time would come, but I leave to Cambodia TOMORROW! I am so terrified, but I know the Lord will take care of me and wants me there serving the humble Cambodian people. I actually have a funny story about being scared to go to Cambodia. So on Saturday in class, our teacher finally told us more about Cambodian culture. While we are at the MTC, they like to focus solely on how to teach, and talking about cultural things is like forbidden! (Not really, but it's just not the main focus). Anyway, our teacher let us ask him any questions we wanted to about Cambodia. He gave us an outline of what a normal day in the field would be like, which was super helpful! Anyway, after he had told us a few crazy stories about bike/car accidents (VERY common in Cambodia), he told us that he had recently talked to a returned sister missionary from Cambodia and asked her if she knew what she knows now about how her mission would be, would she still go on her mission and she said NO! haha. And then he went on to say that just thinking about doing his first transfer again makes him nauseous! Everyone was just shocked, but he then went on to talk about how much he learned and how much he loved his mission. It was a little bit of a wake up call for all of us, and kind of put things in perspective. Even though this is going to be crazy and fun and exciting, it is going to be the hardest thing we have ever done! 

Anyway, this past week has just flown by. The week started off with skyping a member in Cambodia! My companion and I skyped this lady named Sister Loy. She has been a member for a while and actually translated for Elder Oaks once when he came to Cambodia. She was SO sweet!!! We had major technical difficulties so we only had about 10 minutes to share a thought with her. We focused on testimonies and each of us shared our testimonies. The spirit was undeniable! It was amazing because for the first time (while skyping) I felt like I understood everything that she said. Part of her testimony was about how impressed she was that we were learning Cambodian! It was so sweet to hear and made my companion and I a little emotional! It was amazing! We challenged her to share her testimony with a nonmember friend and she said she would. It was so fun to tell her that we would be in Cambodia next week and possibly serve in her area! 

On Tuesday we had the privlege of hearing from Elder Anderson of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles! We thought that July was their month off, but it was awesome that he was able to come! He gave a powerful testimony of the Gift of the Holy Ghost and all of its many roles. He said that as missionaries, we represent the things that are unseen but are REAL. He said that in the moment that our investigator feels the spirit they CANNOT deny it. They may deny it moments later, but in that exact moment, they cannot deny it. His wife talked about how lucky we are to have a member with the Godhead with us (if we are worthy). She said that when we are faced with temptation to make a wrong choice we need to think about if that choice is more valuable to us than having that member of the Godhead with us. That really put it in perspective for me. 

One of the highlights of the week for me, was the day I finally finished memorized Joseph Smith's first vision in Cambodian!!! Let me tell you, memorizing things in English is difficult, but memorized things in Cambodian is impossible... if you don't have the help of the Lord. It was a cool experience memorizing it because it was only when I prayed that God would help me remember the words so that I could share this with others, that I was able to do it. I haven't shared it in a lesson yet, but I am excited to share it with a real investigator in Cambodia!

We had our last lesson with our investigators this last week and I actually cried saying goodbye to one of them! Oh my goodness, I have grown to love them so much. That is something that I have learned in the MTC. That the Lord loves all of his children SO much and wants them to come unto him!! One last thing I want to share is probably the most important thing I have learned while I have been here at the MTC. I have really come to recognize spirit and how it guides and directs me. It is different for everyone, but as I have acted on promptings that I have had, I have felt that I am doing what the Lord wants me to do. Dad always says that a lot of times there isn't just one big "voice" telling you what you should do or where you should go, but rather it is when you are doing everything  you are supposed to be doing, and acting in faith that you will find you are following the promptings of the spirit. I am so grateful for this MTC experience. It has been challenging and I have felt homesickness, but as I have relied on my Heavenly Father and the Atonement of Jesus Christ, I have felt more love than at any other time in my life. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have SO much more to offer us than the world does, and I am so grateful that I have come to realize that. 

Thank you so much for all the love and support! 

Love,

Sister Lindley

Week 8

July 7, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

The end is coming! It is hard to believe that I have been here for two months already. I only have 16 months of my mission left and I already don't want it to end! 

Yesterday we had a famous pianist, Josh Wright, come for our devotional and he said "your mission will be the best two years of your life, but the hardest two years of your life". I have already found that to be true. Because it is so hard (even in the MTC), it is so rewarding. Mastering one more word in Cambodian, reading a verse in script, or teaching an awesome lesson just makes everything worth it. This truly is the Lord's work! This letter won't be too long, but I just want to talk about a few of the highlights from this past week.

On Monday we were able to skype some members in Cambodia again. This last week my companion and I skyped the guard of the Mission Home. Near the end of our lesson, two of Elders that are currently serving there popped up on the screen and started talking to us. They said that they were excited to meet us in a couple weeks (now just one week), and asked us where we were from and our names. (This was all in Cambodian of course). I certainly didn't hear them correctly and told them my name was Sister Lindley and then proudly stated that I was from Cambodia. My companion quickly corrected me and we all got a good laugh. I thought, for some reason, that they asked us where we were going. You all are probably thinking I am not doing too great if I dont even know how to say where I am from, but I promise I do. I don't even know where my brain was. Haha :)

Tuesday night we had a devotional by Lowell M. Snow (a former seventy) and his wife. He gave an incredible talk on being converted to the Lord and the gospel, and not just the church organization. He said "don't just belive in Him, believe Him." He also talked about how we make the decision to choose Christ only once, and then from there on out it is whether or not we are willing to act on that decision. Right then in the devotional he told us to make that choice. He said that every disciple of Christ is an excellent missionary, but not every missionary is an excellent disciple of Christ. He also talked about how being a disciple of Christ, sometimes means that we have to make sacrifices. 

During the devotional I thought about my own life and the sacrifices I have made. Honestly, I haven't had to make very many. I decided to make a list in my journal that night of things that I could sacrifice while being on my mission so that I can better rely on the Savior for strength. One of those sacrifices was that I would only allow myself to think about home when I went back to the residence at night. Wow, that has been tough, but I have felt an increase in my focus and love for the work. I don't want to sound "preachy", but I encourage all of you to think of something that you can sacrifice to be a better disciple and devote more of yourself to the Lord!

Another highlight was the progress we made with our (fake) investigators. Bang Ny got baptised on Saturday!!! We taught him on Wednesday about a few commandments and he was so willing and ready to keep them! He also found a new job, so he doesnt have to work on sundays! We were so happy!! He passed his interview on Friday with flying colors. Even though it wasn't real (we practice teaching our teachers to get experience), I really felt true joy that he was able to receive the blessings of the gospel! 

On Thursday or Friday (I can't remember which day), we taught our other investigator Look Puu Trii. He is our more challenging investigator, but we had an amazing lesson. We taught him about faith and repentance and were able to share the story of Alma the Younger from the Book of Mormon. Before we taught him about repentance, we asked him how he felt about that word. He said it made him feel like he was a bad person and that we had done something wrong. Then, the spirit was able to work through us to help him understand that repentance is a beautiful thing because it allows us to change. We talked about the Atonement and he was very receptive. After the lesson was finished and we had said the closing prayer, our investigator put on his "teacher tag" (because he is really our teacher) and was emotional as he told us that that was by far the most powerful lesson we had taught (through the spirit). My companion and I went away feeling very grateful that the spirit was present. Also in that lesson, when we shared the story of Alma the Younger, my companion and I each read a verse in the script! WOW, I am a horrible reader, but I felt the gift of tongues guide and direct me to read each word. It was incredible!!!!

Finally, on Sunday I had yet another incredible spiritual experience. We had mission conference because it was fast Sunday, and I enjoyed hearing the MTC presidency speak. It was very centered on faith as well as the new announcement for missionaries that we will be teaching "lesson 5" before baptism, as well as all the lessons again after baptism. We also are now encouraged to "find, teach, baptize, retain, and activate". I think that this change is great because as we strengthen less actives and members, they will become converted and become missionaries themselves! It truly is inspired to help hasten the work of Salvation! For the film, my companion and I went to watch Elder Bednars talk entitled "Doctrine, Principles, and Applications". WOW. I was so tired and didn't really want to watch the film, but right before it started I said a quick prayer and asked Heavenly Father to help me stay awake and focused and learn something new. I learned SOOO much!!!! He really taught us the framework of how we learn. He said we first much teach the Doctrine (answer the why), then the principle (answer the what), and finally the application (that answers the how). So often in the church we focus on applications. When people say they have an issue with addiction, we turn to applications and give them a million ways of how they can quit. However, that will NEVER work. We need to go back to the doctrine and principle and help them understand the why and the what. Help them understand that the Atonement will help them because Christ has overcome everything for us and that if they turn to him, he will heal them. 

Anyway, the key was this: THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS THE DOCTRINE. True doctrine understood, changes attitudes and behaviors. If we have any question or weakness, we need to try and understand the doctrine and then from there our lives will change.

Anyway, sorry this is so long! I just want to share everything I have been learning with you all!!! 

Love,

Sister Lindley

Week 7

June 30, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

First of all, the keyboard I am typing on is very old and so if I have any mistakes in this letter I apologize. Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dear sister Robyn. I love you. I hope you got my birthday card i sent to you! 

So, on Tuesday we had the most amazing devotional. Because the mission presidents seminar was going on, Elder Christofferson spoke to us! What made it even better was the fact that 5 other apostles were also in the meeting! From memory, I think it was Elder Bednar, Elder Nelson, Elder Oaks, Elder Cook and Elder Anderson. Even though Elder Christofferson was the only one that actually spoke, the spirit of having half of the apostles of the Lord, Jesus Christ with us was amazing. He spoke about the worth of souls. One of the things that stood out most to me was when he said that "Satan's greatest tool is trying to make us forget that we have the potential to become like God." Satan wants us to forget our identity so that we feel worthless and miserable like he does. He also used the C.S. Lewis quote that says something to the effect of "there are no ordinary people in the life. You have never met a mere mortal. Each person you pass will some day be a God or Goddess." It is so true! We need to treat each person we meet with the respect they deserve, even if they are different than us. 

So because our district (class) has 15 missionaries, we only get the opportunity to teach our investigators (teachers) once a week. Most other missionaries in the MTC teach at least 10 lessons each week because they only have 6-8 missionaries in their districts. Our teachers decided we would all create an "investigator" and teach each other during extra study time. This has been an amazing opportunity because not only has it given us more teaching time, but we have learned so much from the other missionaries in our district! Each of us teaches so differently, but because we are all teaching the same doctrine, the spirit is always there! One of the Elders that was teaching me (as an investigator) shared the first vision in Cambodian from memory to me. HOLY COW the spirit was so strong. After that experience I have been making an effort to memorize it! I have it about half way down. There is real power when we testify of Joseph Smith and his experience with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. 

Our investigator Bang Ny was supposed to get baptized on Saturday (after we had already pushed it back), but he told us he has work every Saturday and Sunday now. We had a lesson planned on chastity, but felt it was more important to testify about Church and miracles. We shared scriptures from the Book of Mormon and promised him that the Lord would provide a way for him to be baptized if he had faith. We encouraged him to try and find a new job or some how change his schedule. I am excited to meet with him this week to see if he has found a new job. 

Anyway, the days at the MTC are all starting to blend together as we do the same thing every day. The language is coming along and I can now understand almost everything our teachers say in class (they talk very clearly and fairly slow). I am working to increase my vocabulary right now because I have gotten to the point where I have a basic vocabulary for most every thing church related...so if I don't know a word i can usually describe it. Oh! One other cool thing. Instead of doing the regular TRC thing where we spend an hour each with a volunteer who speaks cambodian, we are now skyping straight to Cambodia! We do it on Monday nights (so last week was our first time). WOW. The Cambodian's speak very very fast!!! But the young 21 year old member we taught was so sweet!!! We taught the restoration to her and she loved it! We understood about 25% of what she said... so we need some more practice. haha. We are skyping again tonight, so that should be good. I will be honest though and say that it makes me very nervous!!! There is nothing worse than asking a question and then having no idea what the response was. 

Our Sunday night devotional was awesome. Elder Allen (over the Missionary Department) spoke to us again! (he came about a month ago as well). But even better than the Sunday night devotional was the Relief Society that we had!!! Sister Marriott (the 2nd Counselor in the YW presidency) spoke to the sisters. My favorite thing she said was that at times we will think to ourselves "I feel inadequate", but we need to always remember that the Lord is not inadequate! Even if we feel that the task at hand seems impossible, if we rely upon the Atonement and grace of the Savior, we can accomplish anything. The Savior makes up for everything that we lack. 

One last thing, today my district got to go and help clean inside the temple!!! As sisters we had the opportunity to clean the chandeliers. It was so incredible to literally be cleaning the house of the Lord. I love the temple!!!

Anyway, sorry this email isn't the greatest! I appreciate all the love and support I feel from you all! 

Love, 

Sister Lindley

Week 6

Dear Family and Friends,

This week has been busy, but every week is busy here in the MTC. I failed to mention last week that my companion and I received the assignment to be the Sister Training Leaders for our zone. We have about 30 sisters in our zone and we are responsible for interviewing them each week so this week was full of interviews. Half of those 30 sisters just arrived on Wednesday and they are all going to Hong Kong. One of the sisters is from Cache Valley (Sister Cox) and apparently knows the cousins that went to Mountain Crest. It was fun to make the connection. From interviewing all these sisters I have really come to see that a couple of them struggle with mental health issues and that they need to be taken very seriously because it really affects not only themselves, but their companion, and the work. It has also been interesting to see that many sisters don't get along with their companions and felt it was impacting their teaching. I felt impressed to share with many of them the story of Alma and Amulek from the Book of Mormon. They suffered many afflictions but because of their unity and give-and-take relationship, they were able to teach with power and with the spirit. I am hoping that helped. I really felt the weight of the sisters of our zone on my shoulders this week because I want them all to be successful and enjoy their MTC experience. It has been humbling.

For the devotional on Tuesday we were honored to have Elder M. Russell Ballard come and speak to us. His message focused on how we as missionaries need to study the doctrine of Christ on our missions and how we have the rest of our lives to study other aspects of the gospel. He spoke about not being ashamed of our message. He said "todays headlines become tomorrows historical footnotes, but the good news of the gospel is always current and constant". He emphasized that we need to look to the prophet and apostles because they will NEVER lead us astray. It also really hit me hard when he said that we are going on His mission, into His world, teaching His children the message of His Father. How great is my calling! I am so blessed!

Sunday was another highlight as we had Sister Janice Kapp Perry speak to us. Her talk was different than most of our other devotionals because it included a lot of singing! She said some spiritual truths are best learned through music. She shared the story of her and her husband meeting and it was a hit. Basically, her husband said a hilarious pick up line and then they kissed in front of all of us and all the missionaries (and the Nally's) were laughing SO hard. She encouraged all of us to write a song with our families. She shared the one that she wrote for her family and it was so fun! I am sorry to say however, that I can't picture our family writing a song. Maybe Megan could do it, but with the rest of our musical talent, I not so sure it would sound great. 

We had to push our investigators baptismal date back to this Saturday because we have yet to teach him some of the major commandments. But we are hopeful that it will go through this week! We taught a powerful lesson to our other investigator about trials and how God won't change the trial but he will change us and strengthen us. We used the scripture from Mosiah 24:14 about God lifting our burdens. We also related trials to Joseph Smith and talked about the persecution that he endured and how God helped him. Our teachers taught us this week not to be afraid to promise miracles, so we promised him that he would receive revelation for his family if he attended church this Sunday and he said we would! Woo! Last week he was hesitant about going to church, but this week he saw the importance!

One thing this mission has taught me is that none of this is about me. A mission is about serving your companion, those in your district and zone, those you teach, and most importantly, the Lord. It seems that some of the Sisters that have come on missions haven't grasped that idea yet and are looking for what the mission will give them. I would be lying if I said I haven't had those same thoughts. However, I would also be lying if I didn't testify that great joy comes from serving those around you. My companion lost her recommend this morning so we weren't able to go to the temple with our district. Apparently the temple is going to be closed for the next 2 weeks, so we won't be able to go to the temple for the next 17 months. At first I was a little frustrated and sad, but I realized that it is okay because instead of saving the dead, I can and will be saving the living. My companion and I decided to go up to the grounds and read our scriptures instead. I am was reading in Alma 28 (ish) and realized that this work truly will bring the greatest joy. Ammon describes it as his soul being filled to the brim with joy. 

Only three more weeks until we head to Cambodia! I can't wait! The language is slowly coming better and better and I can now teach most of the lessons without any notes. It truly is a miracle. I know it isn't my brains that are helping me learn this language, but it is the Lord! I love you all and hope you all have a great week!!

Love, 

Sister Lindley

p.s. We got our name tags that are in all Cambodian this week!!! They are SO COOL and made everything so real!