Happy 6 months!

Hey Everybody,

So this week was pretty chill. This week we had church General Authorities in town, some great lessons, and some record breaking numbers in Phnom Penh East district. 

This week we had a few area authorities come to Phnom Penh and they took the time to speak to the missionaries.  It was great to learn from them and receive updates on the progress that our mission, the Cambodia/Vietnam mission, is making.  They told us that we are one of the fastest progressing missions in the world.  Some 1/3 of all investigators get baptized, and our missionaries know the language we teach in. We have gone from zero to 2 stakes during my mission, and East district (my current proselyting area) is about to become the 3rd stake.  At district conference on Sunday we had nearly 400 people in attendance.  15 new Melchizedek Priesthood holders were announced in our district as well. 

The newly opened area, Prey Veng, had it first sacrament meeting this past sunday.  Elder Krump and Elder Long have been proselyting there for the past 2 and a half weeks.  They had 22 people in their rented house for sacrament meeting.  The work here is great and I'm very excited to be part of it. 

Other news is that transfer calls was last night.  I'm staying in TK/Baku, and Elder Keo will be going to an area in the city.  Elder Horn is coming from the provinces to be my companion.  He's super good and I knew him while I was in my training.  He's khmae, knows a ton of english, and works pretty hard.  I'm excited to work with him and see miracles here in TK/Baku.  I'll miss elder Keo, we ended up getting pretty close in the short transfer, especially at the end. 

This week we also attended a wedding at our church building.  Two returned missionaries got married by President Moon.  It was great and they'll be headed to be sealed in the temple soon. 

We had some good lessons this week and a few things stood out to me.  One is that many people we teach are concerned with the eternal destiny of their nonmember families.  They feel that God's path will lead them to happiness, but their families wont be in heaven with them (because they are nonbelievers).  Some even think that if the choose not to follow God's plan, they wont go to heaven, but they will be with their families elsewhere.  I took the opportunity to clarify and testify that God's plan is all about families.  It is God that wants us to be happy with our families forever, and Satan who desires separation and sadness.  Through God's plan we can receive those blessings.  That is a big thing that really struck out to me this week. We teach about #1 Jesus Christ #2 Families #3 Loving one another.  Those are the three big things that summarize our message.  Its a good message and it changes lives everyday.

It was a good week here.  Shout-out to my sister Belle, her 14th Birthday is on Friday. (:

Love you guys, Elder Z