Hello Brothers and Sisters,
This week has been good with Sister Jex and I. I am feeling better and recovering pretty quickly from the accident, I owe it up to God's love and miracle. We went to the city to receive some medical treatment right after. I felt a little uncomfortable to see how modernized everything is. We ate at this pretty modern restaurant and I just had the urge to leave it, because I was just not used to the environment. Having been here for close to a year now and serving in the more rural areas have been making me feel so strange to the city, modern lifestyle. We were eating at this restaurant and the whole time, I kept having this feeling that I shouldn't be there, like I don't deserve this. Many of the people we teach couldn't even afford to buy rice. The whole time, I wanted to go back and eat food in the village with our members and investigators. It sounds corny, but really!
We received a baptism and confirmation last weekend. She is a wonderful recent convert, full of fire in following the Gospel. She is very committed and her actions show so. The moment leading up and during the baptism was spiritually uplifting. Her heart was so filled with the Spirit that she couldn't even find the words to voice out her testimonies verbally. However, I know without a doubt that he spirit testified through her heart. The members in the Sacrament room were filled with tears as they saw her coming back down and immediately collapsed and was just kneeling down on the floor, without being seated at first. My companion and I went to comfort her. She whispered to me "Sister I felt a love I have not felt in a while, I felt of my father's love for me" . It was the love that left her ever since her birth dad left her. The young woman has been looking for her father ever since she was a little girl. She had been separated from him. He had left her and she doesn't even know of his name. Her trials and experiences leading up to her conversion process and knowing of the Church has helped fuel her to seek the Love she has lost both from her birth dad and the LOVE that's from her Father in Heaven. The senior missionaries, members, and our branch president started crying as they gave her a welcome hug. At that moment, she knew that she does have a family who loves her. Before coming to know the church, she had told us of a vision she had as a young girl, of a man dressed in white, standing beside her. He had told her that one day later in her life, she will have the opportunity to join the true church of God. I am blessed to know of how one woman can have such an experience in her life, for such a time as this, to come closer to her Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ. In Romans 8, " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the daylong; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
For this week, our plan is to help one of the families we are teaching understand the importance of repentance and their sacred steps in coming closer to understanding how baptism is a covenant, continual offering of love between God and His children. I've never had to fight so hard for the salvation of the people we are teaching, especially for this family. I've never had to be so emotionally invested so that they can become a part of God's fold. I feel so much for the love the Savior has for them. I can feel the member's love and support for them! For them to hold on as tight as they can for a better world, for their future families, I can feel the shouts and cheers of God's spirit children, pleading for the family to keep going. The father and his family faced many trials. We went to see how they were doing, but received a note that they had to go and get help from one of their family members in order to receive enough food to eat.
Lately, I have been studying on God's Nature, the influence of light He can have in the lives of his children in Cambodia. Some of the challenges we have faced are in regards to the idea of change from one's comfort zones of traditions and the process of moving away from them. It is soooo uncomfortable for them. My companion and I would always have to remind ourselves to take it slow, change for someone may be slow and gradual according to their circumstances. I feel that the family we are teaching has such a strong desire to be baptized and we are all on their side, combating with them to overcome their challenges in preparing to enter into a covenant with Heavenly Father.
Miracles:
A HUGE Khmer tree fell 2 seconds a head of us, where we could have been seriously injured. But, we stopped right before. So things are good. God is good!
Love,
Sister Sok
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