Ancestors and Family History Work

Hello my wonderful family. Where do i begin today. This week was a great week. To be honest the week was fairly normal. It came time for Thursday's weekly planning session, and the planning session ended with not much new. Nothing really changed from the week before, and i just felt a little bit frustrated, and i though why is nothing happening, i feel like we are staying busy and doing great work but nothing is really happening". Then literally that day we pick up 3 new investigators, and 2 new inactive families. Friday and Saturday were the same stories. All the change in the world happened. We had a total of 5 in-actives commit to going to church and 1 committed and went to the women's conference. When Sunday came none of the came, which is alright. We just started meeting them this week, you can't really be too disappointed they don't have the faith enough yet to go to church, but at least they had the faith enough this week to commit to start learning with us again.

Another ray of sunshine on the week was the amazing package i received from Mom. It was such a great package, so many good snacks, and it had everything that i asked for, the pictures, the medicine, it was great. The picture of holly is now taped above my desk upstairs :-) . The pictures of the family were the greatest. I'm especially happy you threw in pictures of Grandma and Grandpa. They have really helped with what we are working on this week. Elder Meyers and I have really found success in teaching about temples and family history work. These are a people that are very devout to remembering and honouring ancestors. The only problem is, they don't know how to do it. Many people by joining Jesus, you throw away your ancestors. As Elder Meyers and I have gone around teaching about temples, and the work there is to do for the dead, we have found countless numbers of members who have never even known that our church believes in saving the dead. We have found so many more interested in doing the work for the dead. Now whether or not they will do it that's a different story. But at least they are being made aware of the blessings they can receive. It's been great to show Grandma and Grandpa Rucker, and talk about the work we did for them, and Grandma and Grandpa Huffman, and the work we are going to do for them.

I know this church is true. I know the temple is the house of the Lord. "Men and Women grow stronger through temple service". I know as attend the temple regularly, we will be endowed with power from above. The Lord loves us, and he has a vicarious work for us to do. He needs us. I know Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of god, who has recieved all the keys of the priesthood. I know the priesthood keys were restored to Joseph Smith. This is the work of the Lord, this is his church on the earth, and this is the only way for mankind to receive salvation, and enduring happiness. 

Love always, Elder Rucker

A painting from a member who made it in 2 days.

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Another transfer in Ta Khmau

Me holding a random looking critter that's fried. I hope this doesn't disgust you too much and you will still love me, but that is a rat :-p. Don't worry, i've already sworn off to rat and dog for any future occurrence, just had to do it once.

Everything is going pretty great here in Ta Khmau. Had another sick week, this week it was Elder Meyers. Then i got sick again! I don't know what it is about Ta Khmau. I've barely gotten sick my whole mission but then I come here and i'm sick all the time. Luckily this one was a cold that came hard but lasted not even 24 hours. It was super nice.

Transfer calls were last night. The crazy thing I don't know if i even mentioned that last week because it snuck up so fast on me. Everything is absolutely the same. A very very small transfer this time around. So i will still be in Ta Khmau with Elder Meyers and the whole rest of the district is the same as well.

Rido came to church again yesterday! He came all 3 hours of church like he said he would. So far he has said he will do something and he has done it. This time he said next week he is going to bring his wife and kids with him next Sunday (they aren't members), which will be super exciting. I love that village out in Kah Ko. They all have so much faith. Probably the poorest people ever, but they spent money to go 11 kilometers to church. One man, who is in his fifties, rides to and from church every week. Take that dad :-) .

The things I've learned this week are enormous. So much so i can't share them. But i just want to share my testimony that I know this church is true. This week i've learned a lot about parenting ironically. I love my family so much. I'm so grateful to be in a family of all active members, who are sealed together. I'm grateful from this church, eternal families, and my parents. I love you all so much, i hope you have a good week.


Love, Elder Rucker

Successful Week and "Sacred Meat"

So this week was absolutely awesome. I just want you to know that things went great. Me and Elder Meyers are working well together and things are just going great. Wednesday Elder Khan and Elder Wright (the zone leaders) came down for exchanges. 1 went to 1st branch and Khan came with us to 2nd branch. It was super fun. Elder Khan is the Khmer elder who was in the house with me while i was in Tuoltompong. I was with him there for 6 months so it was fun to have him come. This was a former area of his too so he was able to show us to some members houses which was awesome. Then the great thing was Thursday morning, I had some people who were willing to eat "sacred meat" with me. That's what they call it, then in English they tell you "meat dog" but what they are trying to say is Dog Meat. Yes, i finally did it. I figured I had to do it at least once, and my entire mission I was told that TaKhmau was the best place to do it. Let me tell you what, and I'm going to be 100% honest here now. It was the best meat I have ever had in this country, by far. It was super good. I don't know how much I will be doing it in the future because it's kind of sad they have to kill little dogs to do it, but to be honest there's so many its probably good to control the population a little bit. Either way I'm mostly scared to eat it often because of my health, it's just kind of sketchy. 

On Friday I was able to go on an exchange with Elder Barney. I went into his area which was nice. It's kind of weird to be at that point in your mission where you, and i'm trying not to sound proudful here, know more that the other person. Just little lessons and skills that i've acquired through more time and experience. It was really nice to spend time with him to be able to teach him, and to be honest I was able to learn a lot from him as well. 

Our successes this week were through the roof. We felt so blessed and guided this week. Elder Meyers and are doing pretty good together, we just seem to have the same goal in mind for this area and what we want to see done. We are just working so hard to get the families activated, to have more families in the church and all the blessings that flow from that, as well as referrals from these part member and inactive members. That's where the real success and growth is going to happen.

Last week I talked about a man Rido. He said he was going to come, well, he did. It's so awesome to see him back to activation. He's started to get really close again with the members in his neighborhood. They are so supportive and happy to have him back which is great. And you can just see how penitent he is, and the weight of sin and guilt being lifted off his soul. You just see it in his countenance. He's changing. Another less active that came back this week was a grandma, who's name is boy. Yes as in boy and girl. It's funny. Anyways we were able to find her, commit her to come back, and she came back. 5+ other inactive were able to be found, and commited to either meeting again, or coming to church. We are seeing some great things. We were able to see it in our numbers for lessons.

My time in Ta Khmau has been 15, 10, 8, 14 lessons. This week were got 24. And the results can definately be seen in church attendance. We shot up from 68 to 115. We can definately hit our goal of 120. If we keep doing what we are doing I believe we can regularly be hitting 110+ near 120. Super amazing.

We also saw success with having all of our recent converts and investigators with a baptismal date at church too.


Overall there is nothing to special to talk about, other than just kind of boast about our success. But I am reminded of a scipture, and i paraphrase, I am only boasting in my God. I have really learned it doesn't matter what my abilities are. If the area is prepared, its prepared. The Lord is the one who works with these people and prepares them to recieve us. I feel so blessed that the Lord has given us these success. My only hope is this branch will keep progressing, and he will keep preparing this people to recieve the message of the Restoration. I know this church is true, and the Lord is truly out there working with these people, preparing them by the Holy Spirit. If we are obedient and diligent, we truly will see miracles happen.

Love, Elder Rucker