Yohoho

Sok sabbay. This week was a continuation of the slowness that has plagued us for the last little while. I'm really not enjoying it very much. We have talked and talked about what we can do to find more investigators and they just aren't coming. I don't know what's wrong with our area right now, but it just hasn't been very productve for us. We have found a bunch of potentials but it is so hard to get back in contact with them so they end up just getting dropped because they never respond back to us. We currently have 1 investigator. That's Samuel Jackson. I am hoping so much that he will recognize the answers that he's receiving so that he will want to be baptized, but as of right now, he is just confused about which of the 2 churches he has gone to is true. He reads from the Book of Mormon, and he prays, but he is worried about what the people at his other church are going to think of him if he leaves them to get baptized, and I think that is holding him back from true conversion right now. We just have to help him understand that it doesnt't matter what other people think, as long as we are doing what God wants us to be doing. So unfortunately again this week there is not much to talk about.

There is a cool story that happened this week, but it was with one of those potentials that we haven't had much progress with. I'll tell you about her anyway. Tuesday, we were walking around street contacting people near our church building. We saw this girl walking down the street, so we caught up with her and walked with her. She had been having a really bad day, so we talked about that for a few minutes before she asked us why we were dressed up all fancy and why we were walking around when it was 96 degrees out. We told her who we are, and as we walked with her, we taught her the first lesson. She was walking to walmart to get a ride from one of her friends, so that's where we walked her to. When we got there, we gave her a Book of Mormon and she said that she'd read it. We also asked her to pray about it and she said that she really did want to find out if it was true or not. So that's where we left her. On Thursday, we called her to see if she'd been reading and praying. She said that she had been, and so far she liked it. We tried to set up a return appointment but she said she was too busy. So we asked if she'd like to go to church and she said she would if we could get her a ride. We ended up getting her a ride, and gave her the person's info and they started texting back and forth to set up the ride for her to church. Well, it turns out that 5 minutes before the ride got there, she texted them and said she couldn't go anymore, so she ended up not coming to church which was a big bummer. So it was a pretty cool story, and hopefully it will turn up well this week.

We also had a leadership training meeting this week. It was a pretty good meeting. One set of Elders that gave a training really stood out from all the other trainings that day though. I don't know if I've told you about Elder Dawe before, but I lived with him in Lynn for 2 transfers, and he is ridiculously awesome. We go home together, and he's from Pleasant Grove, so you'll get to meet him at the airport when we come home. He's probably going to be on BYU's football team and he said he'll get me tickets to the games. But anyway, him and his companion gave this training at our meeting. It was incredible. He started his training by bearing his testimony, and it really invited the Spirit. I can't really describe how cool it was, other than by saying that the Spirit in the room was comparible to that of the Spirit that's in the temple. It was awesome. I learned a lot from that training.

So that's about it for this week. There honestly isn't a lot happening so there isn't a lot to talk about. We are meeting this week with all the Cambodian Elders to talk about what our booth is going to look like for the Water Festival next month. I can't believe that's almost here already. I'm the only one out of the Cambodians that was here for last year's festival. Wow. So that'll be fun.

Well, I guess that's it. What did you think of my description of Lowell last week? Sounds pretty awesome, eh? (I have to say "eh" now cause one of my comp's is from Canada) Oh yeah, I guess I should let you know that even though we aren't having much success right now, I'm not discouraged. I haven't found anything so far on my mission that gets me discouraged. I'm really frustrated, just not discouraged. haha. Ok, well I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,
Elder Hammer


P.S. Thanks to Rob & Wendi and family for the package. Those rice krispies were great. :)