Week 61: DONUTS

I am not the biggest fan of donuts, but Elder Whitmore is, and it made my day on exchange with him! I'll get to that later though.

This week was really good though! Lots of things to do and people to help. The Lord is always preparing people to come unto Him, whether we can recognize it or not.

My companion Elder Nielsen is also a beast and has been such a great example to me despite only being in the field for 3 weeks. I have learned so much just being with him. From the looks of it, I will have one more transfer in Ta Khmau and get to finish his training 🤞. I love it here.

We also met a new friend named Ravuth! He started coming to English class a couple of weeks ago and told us he used to learn 2 years ago, but then stopped because he got really busy with school. He just finished studying though, so he said he would like to start meeting with us again!

On Friday I got to do an exchange with my good friend, Elder Whitmore. It was so fun to talk to each other all day and work together. Elder Whitmore ate 3 donuts during our exchange. It was amazing. So much laughter and happiness. The day was pretty normal, but at the end of the night Elder Whitmore saw some member dots pop up in his area book that he had never seen before so we went to check them out. One of them led us to this coffee shop that we thought would be a member's house. At first we weren't sure what to do, but then we decided to go around the corner to check if there was a house. We found a really sus alleyway instead and these dogs started barking at us. At first we thought about leaving but then I saw a lady in her house all the way in the back and she saw us and came to talk to us. She ended up knowing some English and was one of the nicest women I have ever met in my life. She was super excited to go to English class and said she wanted to make us food! I know Heavenly Father led us to meet that lady before we ended our day.

On Saturday, Elder Nielsen and I were out contacting and we had about 30-40 minutes before we were going to meet our friend Ramid at the church. We were a little far, so I felt like we should go to the church a little early and wait for him. When we got there I ran into Chum Deth and his family. They were the family that was baptized last transfer. They have all been sick for about a week, so I asked them if they wanted to receive a blessing. It was the first time they had all received a priesthood blessing and the Spirit was so strong. Sometimes when I give blessing, I feel like I kind of just say the same thing and it's a little repetitive because it used to be kind of hard giving blessings in Khmer. But as I gave them each a blessing of healing and comfort, I felt the Spirit guiding me to say things that specifically applied to each and every one of them and their lives. Things that Heavenly Father specifically wanted them to hear and know.

Ramid saw us giving them the blessing and afterward he asked us what we were doing. It was perfect and gave us the opportunity to teach him about the priesthood and its power.

My កូន and I decorated our room for Christmas, which has greatly impacted my positivity. We also got matching មីង pajamas today. Good good.

Love,
Elder Mendenhall
មែនទែន

📸 All the photos:
Current - Ta Khmau

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tzWgFE7cJhuxBrgf7

Battambang

https://photos.app.goo.gl/eH2QQ25DGxRj8cNH9

Phnom Penh

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Bgcnr25uJdQ1sYcY9

A sampling: