New Haircut and New Investigators

Hello again!

So big news in the Cambodia world. It’s officially been announced so I guess I can tell it now. President Smedley has received revelation that by June 24th Cambodia could not only have a stake, but could have 2 stakes! This last Sunday was district conference and president Smedley announced that to all the members present. It’s so insane to me that this country could go from 0 to 2 in less than a year, almost half a year. So crazy.

I just read the Liahona story in my Khmae book of Mormon. I just want you to know how they described heed and diligence was this: taam seckdei camnua nung seckdei pyiayiam robah puak kee. camnua means belief, and pyiayiam means to try, and seckdei makes it a noun. So it means it was according to their belief and whether they would try. So something interesting for you guys. So next time you teach that lesson feel free to go ahead and through that in there. We need to have a belief, and we need to act on that belief.

As for this week funny stories are:
1st- Lookpuu Lii, who is the person asleep in this picture I think, tried to give me a kiss during the lesson the other day. He is so weird but he is so funny.
2nd- As you can tell from the pig picture I got a haircut. Elder Nico shaved my head. First time I’ve buzzed my hair forever, this country is so much colder now. But anyways the funny part is everything here loved it. This older lady we teach, who is a recent convert, said it was cool. It was so funny to hear it. It would be like hearing a 70 year old lady saying awesome haircut instead of nice haircut. I don’t know it was just funny. Lookpuu Lii liked it too because he said I looked like a monk.

Spiritual Story.
Chaandii, a guy we contacted who hadn't even learned a lesson yet, came to district conference on Sunday. He is the same guy who told us he couldn’t stop thinking about his conversation with us. When we met with him to teach him his first lesson he told us at first when he showed up it was super weird and he was nervous. But as he went in and listened, he didn’t really understand what they were talking about but he just felt really happy, like his body was super light. From there it went to him basically asking us where am I from, who am I, and where am I going. Which is soooooo rare to have a Cambodian with questions like that. We taught the whole 2nd lesson with him and he understood it all and it just makes sense to him. Oh did I mention he waited from 10-12 for us and just read a member's (sokhnaa the one who got baptized recently, they are cousins) copy of the Liahona. And he said I really like this magazine if I read this will I understand better? It so unbelievable how prepared he is for the gospel it’s so awesome.
ps. water festival starts today so no proselyting until Friday night at like 5, it technically got cancelled because lots of people died last year but I guess the people are doing it on their own or something. All I know is the whole country basically goes to Phnom Penh so it’s too dangerous for us to proselyte

Why hello again. So the water festival is officially over now. It was sooo fun. Last Thursday was cleaning the house day and CBR work. Friday was sports day. We biked all the way to northwest Phnom Penh to meet with all the Elders and play basketball and hang out. It was so fun to talk to all my MTC Elders and talk to them about what's going on in their areas. Sunday was really cool because Sokhnaa received the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Monday was zone conference. We went to 5th branch in the city and were taught/instructed from 8-2 with a 1 hour lunch break of course. It was awesome. Catered food, with ice cream and cake! But seriously the conference was really good. It was mostly good because they really broke down tithing for us, what we need to have a stake, what we need to do, and how we need to do it. So it was super good to just give us that focus to get what really needs to be done. They also did a little follow the rules session because it's gonna take so much focus to finally get Cambodia the stake it needs. It would just be so cool if this country had a patriarch. I just wish these people could experience a stake just so they would know how awesome it is.

So to exzplain the pictures, one is a picture of just some member's kids, one is me in front of our church. Yes that is our church out here in kian svaay, it's actually a pretty nice building, it's a rented church so its super weird, but it's nice. Plans are already undder way to get a church out here and once ther eis one its going to explode out here. The third picture is me and Elder Nico in Lookpuu Lii's tree house eating some grapefruit that he gave us for digging some dirt for him. He is so funny he was so excited that day becasue he just bought these 2 new orange trees to plant. I told him my dad grows oranges and then he just starts going off on like what kind of oranges, are they good, are the like Cambodia oranges, I dont even knoww hat he was saying, he talks fast and has a weird accent so it's super hard to understand.I think he is starting to like us though because he prayed for us to be rich when we grow up, have beautiful wives, smart kids, and an airplane so that we could visit him. Which is better than his usual prayer like, I know these elders taught me to forgive today but I'm sorry god I just can't do it I get too angry, amen.

So cool spiritual story this week, chaandii. The super awesome investigator we have. We taught him about Jesus's life, and he went off asking if it’s true that he was born in a manger, the three wise men, all that stuff. He asked us if that was true. He said he saw it in a movie a couple years ago. That was so insane that he knew all of that. I bet most of the members don’t even know about that part of Jesus life yet. He's just so smart and everything just makes sense to him, and he has such a desire to learn, he just has a good spirit about him that is just so rare out here in Cambodia. I can just feel it in him. He has a good heart. In fact when we told him we wouldn’t be able to come Monday because we are going to the city for Elder training he asked if he could come. Also when we told him we will be back on Friday at 11:00 he said he will start waiting at 7am. We told him we can’t leave earlier than 10:30 but he still is gonna wait "just in case". Haha he is so awesome.


 Not much this week because of all the festivities so that's all I got. I jsut want you all to know I know that this is the true church of Christ, and the only thing you have to do to know that too is to open the Book of Mormon and read it. It's amazing to see the sacrifices the people go through to be members and I know the only reason they do it is becaue they know it's true. Jesus is the Christ and our Savior. I love you all, Elder Rucker

First Baptism and New Clothes

So this last week was pretty fun. Friday and Saturday were dreadful because we had no electricity for that whole time, it was sooooo hot and I got eaten alive by mosquitoes because we had to open all the windows. But besides that all good. We got the new Elder in the house, Elder Aan. He is so funny. He is soooo Khmae. The Khmaes have this weird idea in their head if you eat bread you become weak, and you get strong and big from rice. And whenever they talk to us they ask us if all we eat in France is bread. 2 things wrong with that, they think we are from France but try to talk to us in English, and they think all we do is eat bread. Its kinda funny. So when I say Elder Aan is Khmae, when we ask him if he wants some bread he says "no I don’t like bread". But he is honestly the funniest kid ever. He is smaller than you mom. He is a little over 100 pounds and like 5'2'' ish. He is so cool.

Sokhnaa got baptized on Sunday. It’s so crazy to finally have had my first baptism. He is such an amazing guy. He understands so much. He had been learning from the Elders for 1 year! Yeah they have to learn for a long time otherwise if you baptize then you get inactive members like Lookpuu Lii, who was baptized after 2 months and thinks the branch president is jesus. But no Sokhnaa is super awesome, and he is so excited, and he told us he wants to help us. So now all we got to do is get him off on a mission.


I got my new Khmae clothes last Wednesday and they are soooo nice. They fit me sooo good. The shirts I have already aren't too much hotter, they are just super big, but they are fine, but the pants, the Khmae pants are soooo much cooler and like half the weight its insane Tailored they are like 8 or 9$ each. I'll attach a picture of me. It’s with just some random Khmae that I asked if he wanted to take a picture with me. Hahaha he was super shy and embarrassed because he thought his clothes were too dirty. It was super funny.

This last week we got a call out of nowhere from some random person. It was a 19 girl who got the pamphlet that we handed to her dad and she wants to learn. That’s saying a lot because phone calls here are suuper expensive, she spent like 1$ to talk to us. So we visited her house and her sister mom and dad all want to learn, and while we were teaching her like 20 people around her house, all her neighbors, came to talk to us. We got attacked with question, it went from wow you know Khmae really well, you speak so well, to wow you are so pretty, to look at my daughter she is pretty white do you want to take a Khmae wife, to will you teach me English, then we brought it full circle by turning it into a, no sorry we only come to the house to teach about Jesus, do you want to learn? It was crazy though they were all super nice and I have such a good feeling about that village back there. I feel like it’s just ready to explode. I'm hoping we will have a lot of success back there.

So last Thursday I went on an exchange with Elder Ann, the Khmae elder. That was possibly the hardest day of my entire life. And not in the way you would think either. I didn't get dehydrated or tired, in fact when we got home Elder Ann instantly laid on his bed and passed out, clothes on and all. Haha the entire day I was asking him if he was tired yet. But it was super hard because he is SO quiet. I literally had to talk to everybody and say everything! It was so amazing though, I felt so blessed because my ability to talk and understand was so great. If that wasn't gift of tongues I don't know what is.

So there are 2 investigators that I want to talk about today. Both came from contacting and they are new. First you already know a little bit I think, not sure I forget. Anyways, her name is ceentaa, she is 19 years old and called us after finding our phone number on a pamphlet we gave to her Father. She is super excited to learn, we only stopped by her house once, last Friday, asked if she wanted to learn, and she said yes, we did the intro to teaching where we kinda just got to know each other, set up a return appointment and left. She went to church that Sunday! Which is super rare for khmae's. And she walked! She absolutely loved it. She said the last Jesus church she went to all laughed at her for coming so far and were rude and unfriendly because she was new. She went to church and said everyone was suuuper nice to her, and somebody even drove her home on their moto. She is super excited to learn and so committed already.

The next is Chaandii. We contacted him one time, and found out he is Sokhnaa's cousin. He didn't have a phone number so we told him we'd ask Sokhnaa where is house was and we'd go find him one day. He didn't seem that interested. Well right after that the road flooded and the only way you could get to his house was by boat which is against the rules for us because its they super sketchy makeshift boats that I don't even understand why they float. So anyways after 2 weeks it all went away. and we went to talk to him. He told us he was super bored when he was talking with us. But he told us he couldn't stop thinking about it for days. And he started finding and noticing people who were doing the Jesus thing and saw how much better their lives were and he said he knows he has to join. So he asked us how to join and we told him he can always come but to be a member you have to learn and be baptized, so he is super excited and ready. it’s just such a testimony builder about how the lord really is out there preparing people for you. It's so nice to talk to somebody like him after talking to countless of hardened Buddhists who ask for medicine or money, we tell them know, and they tell us our church doesn't help anyone and isn't a real Jesus church.

So anyways, I love you so much family. I know this church is true. I know that this is the church of Jesus Christ, his only true church. I know it was restored and that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. I testify with all my heart that we have the restored gospel on the earth again, and once again we have the saving ordinances that allow us to return to our Father in Heaven. I love you all, and keep smiling.

Love, Elder Rucker

Elder Nicosa, Ryan's companion is burning
his pants to commenorate his year and a half
on a mission.