Baptism and another Transfer in Ta Khmao

Why hello family. How is everyone? For me things are going really well. Transfer calls just came in last night. Elder Barney is going to siem riep and elder Sem is staying. Elder Garlick is coming to be his new companion, which i'm super excited for because he is absolutely hilarious. As for me and Elder Meyers. Elder Meyers is leaving for Stoeung Mean Chey (thats where the book kind of takes place, he will be near trash mountain). I am staying in Ta Khmao as District Leader. Sister vom is leaving for Kampong Cham and Sister Chin will be training. As for my new companion, I don't know yet because I will be training again. President Moon told me I did a great job and said he felt really inspired to have me train again. So hey, who knows what will happen. I'm just glad to know that it won't nearly be as hard as last time, because i know the area and we already have investigators and less actives to go see. I'm very excited. Not surprised though, i had a feeling I was going to train again. I hope he is Khmer.

This week was very successful, we set new records for everything, from lessons taught, to investigators at church, to new investigators. We have been very blessed this week. One lady in particular stands out. We contacted her, and she gave me a fake name, but we got a return appointment. We show up and she's not there, but her son is there and he told us she just barely left. He gave us her real name and her phone number. We called her and she was really rude and said i'm busy right now leave me a lone basically. 2 days later she called us, and was super nice, and said sorry we weren't able to meet and asked when we could meet again. We met her, commited her to go to church. She went to church with her 2 kids. 30 minutes into Sacrament meeting she left (note i didn't even know she was there, she went and sat behind Elder Meyeres). I called her that night, turns out she had to take her kids home, but came back and loved it, and she asked us when we could meet again. That's just 1 of the many miracles we were able to see this week. I'm hoping with this new Elder we could get 4-6  more baptisms.

Kim got baptized! it was super great. And it is the first real baptism this place has had since the beginning of MARCH. I'm hoping this is the first of many. I'm so excited for him, he is so great. He is going to do so well.

Its a picture of me making the Rice cake thing. Its not even hard to do at all. Very fun. They were so awesome. They knew that i would come kind of late, so they made a bunch already and started cooking them, so when i showed up they had about 5 or 6 left to do so i could learn, and then we threw those in. So when we were done making them the other ones were done cooking so we could eat them. Super awesome.

That's a picture of all of us at the house in Kah Ko. The reason they are holding up a pink a green pig thing is because that's what i brought them. I was able to commit two of the girls to start saving money for their mission, if i would buy them a piggy bank (my idea). They are only like .50. The guy charged me $1 each, but i gave it to him anyways because i felt bad for him, he just sells random junk off of his bike all day everyday. So yeah it was a very fun day.

Well that's about it for me. I hope you all have a great week. Thanks for all the prayers, I can really feel. I love you all.

Elder Rucker 

Baptisms, Batman, and Baby Rats

Howdy. Everything in Ta Khmau for us is going great. The most fun thing about it is that we are starting to get investigators. We are now almost up to 10 solid investigators vs. about 4 at the beginning of the week. It's funny how when I went into 1st branch i was in the same situation. No recent converts no investigators. Then when i came here, the same thing. Now as i've been here its almost the same outcome as 1st branch. A little bit into the 2nd transfer all the investigators start flowing in. All of them have been referalls. Either from us working with in-actives or us working with members. We have definately gotten our Less Active program going and now are starting to go full throttle on investigators. This week we are going to start hitting the pavement contacting and finding more. The thing that we are really looking for is a family. That's the only thing we are missing. If we could just find 1 progressing family this area would go from good to awesome, so this week the will definitely be our focus.

The pictures are pretty interesting today. 1 is from the baptism we had this last Sunday. 2 kids out in Kah Ko. Kids of former inactives. I also went to Dream Land. Its the amusement park in cambodia. Its absolutely terrible. Their coolest rides are a small ferris wheel and the swinging viking ship ride. But it was fun to go. I didn't go to ride the rides, i actually went on an exchange to 5th branch.  But anyways we went to go visit a recent convert family who run a little restaurant stand thing there. It was so fun, they gave us ice cream, soda, weird potato things, and did i mention, i got to meet batman :-) . 

The picture of me holding the weird cup thing, well that's a funny story. As we were teaching Elder Khan saw a huge rat thing run up into the roofing of the stand. The rat was massive. That's where they keep their food and stuff so the guy climbed up there to get it out.

Just going to close up by telling you about 1 really prepared investigator. Kim. He is about 18 years old. This week he started learning with us. He is already on chapter 10 of the book of mormon. He is praying every day. He ended the baptismal service. Last Friday he literally asked us "yeah Elders i have a question, when can i do the baptism thing". He is so prepared. He is scheduled to be baptized November 4th.

I truly know that the Lord is out there preparing these people. This is the work of the Lord. The most important thing for us to do as members, is missionary work. There is nothing else more important for us to do, whether we are 8 or 80. "Therefore, all ye that have a desire to serve God, ye are called to the work". That means you mom and dad! I'm just kidding :-p.

Love always, Elder Rucker