Cambodian New Year!

Elder Yu and I with a Banana Tree

Hey everyone! 

Cambodian New Year, The ANKOR WAT

I know the church is true! That is why I am serving my two-year mission. I know that God loves us no matter what we have decided and that He is always near us even when we think He is far away. I know that through prayer we can feel closer to Him and I invite you to try it out. 

One of our new investigators this week went to West Oakland for something and on the way back to go to school she took a few wrong turns and ended up in San Francisco! In her panic she decided to pray, and because of that prayer somehow she found her way back. That was only one day after our lesson with her - and how we can all pray. 

Life this past week was fun as we saw miracles and went to a Cambodian New Year. It is a few weeks early as next month a lot of people are way too busy - so we held it this past week. In this area we have been mostly visiting people who the missionaries taught anywhere from 5-10 years ago. A lot of the people aren't there when we try to visit them, but miracles happen as we tract and talk to everyone who is in our path. 

Oakland in the foreground, San Fran over the Bay. Where
the crains are is where we took the photos of the flag.

One of the miracles was a man who had formerly investigated the church a while ago. We were going to walk past his house for some reason, but then decided to knock. His name is William and he is from China. We were able to bear our testimony that God really does exist. We invited him to learn more but he was hesitant, so he made a deal with us that if we teach him English he will learn about the gospel. So the Chinese elders are now teaching him. We also received a referral this week of a Cambodian man who lives in San Francisco, but he wont be back for another week. So we are looking forward to going there since we don't go there often. It is super cool because this is the first referral in a lot of months! 

We had Zone conference this past week which was 8 hours long. It was fun and we got a lot of ideas how we can work more with the members. We were also blessed with a new investigator! Remember the person who we called last week who we invited to learn more about the gospel - well someone else, Savanna, was there who knew elder Yu and we were able to set up a discussion with her and one of our recent converts who is very close friends with her! So we are happy to be able to teach someone new! Bunthia, another investigator has been coming to church and it is really cool to be able to see all the changes he is making. I gave a talk on Sunday which was fun. I started it off with only one Cambodian word, as I only know greetings and a few other words. It was good to see the members with a nod of acceptance when I started with hello in Cambodian. 

What is Cambodian new year? It's exactly the same thing as the English new years. There were over 500 people who attended and it was a ton of fun! There were Cambodian dances and a lot of food! We were able to give out programs and have a little stand with a few things about the church on it. 

Today we went to the Oakland docks where we took a few pictures of us and the Cambodian flag.

Here are also photos of our apartment.

Have a good week.

Love Elder Kloosterboer