Miracles

This week was overall a pretty good week. Things got a little crazy but it overall turned out pretty good. This was the very first week, during my whole time here in Battambang that I have not had a baptism. However, there has still yet to be a week where there are no baptisms. We will have one this Saturday which is pretty cool though.

So Monday was a fun p-day. We all went shopping, i finally got a suit made (currently underway) and we went to swensen's and all got earthquakes (the biggest thing you can get there, $10, and its 8 scoops of ice cream) it was crazy. Elder Nelson ate 2. The next morning he woke up with a 103 degree fever. Turns out he got an ameba. So he went instantly to the hospital while i went to the zone leader conference by myself. Then they sent me back on the bus back to battambang by myself. 7 hours. I was never going to do anything wrong, it's just that i had that thought. Holy crap, i'm by myself, i could literally do anything i want and nobody would ever know. Í'm glad i made it safe with no problems. I met some funny people though.

Then i served here with Elder Stanley and Hem until Friday (Elder Nelson came back). So frustrating not having a companion. You can't do anything. So i had to try and set up members to go with me to proselyte which was a little challenging  It was fun though but i'm definately grateful that Elder Nelson got better so fast and was able to come back.

So on Saturday we biked out to our super far area to meet with the members for the first time in a while because of the sickness. We get all the way out there and it turns out everyone was headed to the church to attend the celebration of the birthday of the Relief Society. So we got to ride the tractor back to the church. So a little explanation about the tractor. It's this tractor that a member owns really far away. Nobody can go to church out there (transportation) so there was a member found who knew how to drive that tractor (it has no brakes) so they started getting it to drive all the members to church. Now there are almost 40 people who ride that tractor to church now. I can't really tell the story that well over email, but it's just a total miracle that they can all make it to church. The driver was inactive. The tractor is from the family that just baptized, etc.

So another great week in Battambang. I cannot believe that tomorrow is Elder Nelson's last day of proselyting. After then, i will officially be the oldest missionary in the Phnom Penh Cambodia mission. President came down this last weekend to train the leadership up here and to do some interviews. It was nice of him to come.

This week was absolutely amazing. I felt like i participated in a miracle. Every area had baptisms of Sunday. There were 11 baptisms! It was such a miracle. I think the picture that I'm sending home is the coolest picture ever, especially since there was a handicapped person getting baptized too. 4 of the past 5 weeks we have had baptisms, it's absolutely crazy. However, now we are almost left with nothing so we are going to have to do some finding. The good thing is we have tons of recent converts to work with. I think if we do it right, we can get those recent converts to get their neighbors or family members involved with the lessons to get them to prepare for baptism. I have already made a list of a bunch of people i think could start learning. So i don't plan on contacting random areas or spending too much time trying to get people to learn. Rather we will work hard to get the recent converts to fulfill their responsibility as a missionary to share it with their relatives and members to keep the work going here. We have so much work to do here it's crazy.

 I'm having so much fun on my mission and I am so excited for the work i have to do. I love you all so much!

Elder Rucker