Happy Khmer New Year!

 We didn't proselyte Friday OR Saturday because of the Khmer New Year celebrations. I thought it was odd when we were told we weren't able to proselyte because of a holiday.  My thoughts were, there's no way it could be "that bad". Well it is. 


Everyone goes to their "home country" which is usually anywhere but the city. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone! It was eerie to walk down a usually bustling street and find it completely abandoned. And there were only random cattle roaming around. We did proselyte on Sunday though. It was still technically Khmer New year. (Feeling like America needs to catch up. Why do we celebrate our New Year for only a day?) 

Sunday's church attendance was pretty pathetic. We only had 30 people there. 5 of which were investigators though.  The night before I had got a text from the Branch President asking me to speak on how the gospel blesses families. I didn't see the whole text message that said my companion and I would BOTH be speaking.  When we got there we were reminded that both of us needed to fill the 35 minutes of speaking time. I had only prepared for an 8 minute talk. Like a champ, Elder Blocker went up first. He gave it all he had for a solid 3 or 4 minutes, and then it was my turn. I looked at the clock, took a deep breath and went for it. I started by stating how this life is a life to prepare to meet God. In the eternities we will be living as families. I felt like the spirit guided me for the rest of the talk. I think those 30 people were glad they came. It was a neat experience. I can't fully expelling how great it is to be able to get up and say things correctly. It takes a long time in this mission

Other news...

We had a sports day on one of the days we couldn't proselyte. It was fun! It was the first time I've tossed around the football in over a year. It was pretty sweet. We played basketball for hours. There's some pretty athletic kids in the mission and it got pretty fun (intense.) The last 2 days I've loved waking up soooo sore. 




The other day we had this huge red spotted lizard in our house. By huge, I mean the size of my forearm. My companion and I chased it all around the house for 30 minutes. It went under couches over dressers, into the kitchen, climbed up on the ceiling.  I would throw socks at it and it would bite at the socks and start hissing. It reminded me of the You Tube that mom and I used to watch over and over of the lizard that jumped on the TV show host. We finally chased it outside and it started climbing up our landlord's front window.  We followed it and it was in the perfect position to catch. I had my broom cocked back and a big orange basket to catch it in. Then out of nowhere a nice older woman came out and was very surprised to see us there. She asked what we were doing and I tried to explain that an extremely large lizard was climbing up the window and we thought we'd do you a favor and catch it. So, if you wait one more second we will take care of it. She told us, "Oh don't worry, where you boys scared? let it come into my house, no problem...." It made us feel really dumb. Then she walked us back to our house and said. I hope you have sweet dreams, don't worry about lizards in your house now, you have nothing to worry about. We went back in our house and it looked like a tornado had hit. Couches crooked, chairs turned over, dressers out of place. It was pretty funny. We got so close to conquering the lizard.

We have a baptism set for next week, I'm really excited, its the 77 year old man that we've been teaching for a while now. He's awesome. I feel like he was the reason I was sent to Pochentong.