Water Fest!

Helllo. This week was great. In certain ways. There were some good things that happened this week, but the underlying problem of not having anyone to teach has not been solved yet. To start out, thanks for the package! That banana zucchini bread is awesome. The GPS works great. It's so nice to have one of those again. Thanks for the cds too. That Josh Wright one is awesome. I really like it. And the other one I had heard before from one of the Elders I lived with in Lynn and it is really good too. I know you just sent a package, but I was thinking the other day about some stuff. It is August 22nd today, which means Christmas is 4 months away. I don't want anything for Christmas (or my birthday for that matter) sent to me, cause it can wait until I get home. However, there is this cd on lds.org that is called Christmas collection by motab and I really want it. haha. So that is all I want, and it doesn't need to come from my family so if there's anyone that reads this and wants to get it for me, that's cool too. :) I could always use some of Grandma's jerky too...

Alrighty so we had zone conference this week. It was really good. They are always really good. This one was a lot different than they usually are, though. Instead of talking about things that we can do to improve and roleplaying and all that stuff that we always do, this one was all focused on the Atonement. It was great. There were no roleplays, but all of the Zone leaders, the APs and President and Sister Evans all talked about different parts of the Atonement. I enjoyed it a lot. It really strengthened my testimony and helped me understand the Atonement a little bit more.

Ok, so then we had the Water Festival. Wahoo! I still can't believe it happened already. That was a fast year. So friday, we started helping set stuff up - all the tents for the vendor booths and such. Until it started raining and windy-ing (?) then we had to take them all down. haha. There was some wicked cool lightning and thunder too. It lasted about 30 minutes and then it was gone. Weird. That's how it goes in Mass, though. Kinda like Utah. But then we set everything up and the festival got started. There were some traditional Lao, Thai, and Cambodian performances, and at the end of the Friday night thing, the monks gave a blessing. That was cool. I got a video of it. Don't know if I was supposed to, but whatever. haha. Then on Saturday, we got there and set up our booth. We had our tent with our big cambodian banner, the giant Bible and Book of Mormon, and we had tons of pamphlets and supplies to give out, plus these wicked cool pens that President made for us that say "families can be together forever - mormon.org" on them. I kept some. And we had typed up some questions of the soul that we put up on our booth as well. I'll attach a picture of it so you can see what I'm talking about since I still haven't sent home the pictures of last years festival. haha. So yeah, it looked really cool. We had a TV too, that was playing some of the stuff the church has about the work in Cambodia. It was sweet. We got to talk to lots of people about our church and overall, it went really well. We had a few interesting people come to our booth. One of them was this 15 year old Korean kid. This is how the conversation started:
kid: I'm a Christian
me: So are we
kid: But I believe in Jesus
me: So do we
kid: But I don't belong to a cult
me: Neither do we

Haha! I couldn't believe it. I thought it was really funny though. He talked to us for a good 20 minutes and we were trying to tell him what we believe but he was just denying everything we said and it was just really funny. We got some people that were actually interested though, so that is good. There were about 15 people between us and Lynn that wanted to know more so hopefully they will progress and get baptized! I got some cool souvenirs too. Some more cds, a dvd, a sweet cambodian flag belt, a painting, and a cambodian hammock. I'm pretty excited about all of it. And the funny thing is I was able to talk the price down on everything I bought, so I didn't even spend as much as I thought I would. Cool, eh? haha. but yeah, I enjoyed it a lot, it went really well, and we got to preach the gospel too! Some of the people that are in charge of the Festival asked me if I was coming back next year. I told them I wouldn't be there as a missionary, but maybe I can come visit. That would be sweet.

Ok, well I think that is about it for this week. I would tell you all about the members in our wards and the wonderful missionaries they are, but the white handbook says that we shouldn't say anything negative about the areas I serve in so I'll keep that to myself this time. haha. Well, I hope you have a wonderful week again. Hope to hear from you next week. Kurtis, you should tell me about your new coach. Maybe I'll stop sending you my emails... Love y'all!

Love,
Elder Hammer