HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Such a great missionary. Met him at the Mission Home

Okay so I don't have much time and I won't be very long, but I will try my best to sum up the week in a short email.

This week was AWESOME!!! I seriously love it so so much here. It is crazy, but at the same time, it is just life in the most real form. No regular day comforts, no drama, but just raw life. I love it. Sadly I don't have any crazy insane stories, but just some funny things that make life interesting here. I saw seven people crammed on a moto this week which is a new record! I saw two women breastfeeding and at least five naked children just dancing around haha (it makes it really hard to contact when there is a naked kid just jamming naked next to you). The rain caused the streets to flood so we put our shoes on the handlebars and just coasted through the water-filled streets. We were riding to this kinda ghetto neighborhood that lives along an old railroad and we rode over the railroad tracks on our bikes and my bike tire slipt out while I was turning so I did a tailslide on the rail of the train tracks and landed it. DOPE! but then my bike tire fell off because I didn't screw it on tight enough haha so that was funny. I got a virus on my camera and lost all my pictures, so awesome! Gotta love it baby.

I am getting much more used to the heat, but that being said  I still got heat rash all down my back haha. Also, I don't understand how I can prevent the sweat because literally, we ride in headwind on our bikes for thirty minutes, trying to bike as fast as we can, to get to the lesson on time and then we just start teaching right when we get there. How am I supposed to not sweat when I am biking like Alberto Contador in the Tour De France in the heat and then I go straight into teaching a lesson? Riddle me that! 

The work is really progressing here in Battambang and I feel so blessed to be a part of it. We have 8 investigators with baptismal dates, and I am hoping and praying that they all keep making their commitments and they can take a splash in the holy waters!! My two favorite people to teach are Om Sophal (That is how you would say it in English) and this guy named Dee. Om Sophal has a family who are all members and he finally accepted the invitation to learn with us. His wife HOOKS IT UP and gives us like 1,000,000 oranges haha and I just go to pound town on them, even though they aren't as good as America. The ceiling of their house is legit 5 feet tall haha so I banged my head a few times. Dee is a really strange guy, but he loves Jesus Christ and that is all that matters. We gave him a picture of Jesus Christ and the first thing he said was "I love this man!!!!" and then he kissed the picture and then he made his daughter (whose head he shaved by himself) kiss the picture too! I love seeing the work progress, and I just wish so badly that I knew more of the language so that I could better help them come to Christ. I want to help them, but I just can't express my thoughts, so I just do my best to bear my testimony. That is the hardest part. Being restricted from helping these people find this happiness in their lives. 

I don't know the language very well so my new goal is to smile at every single person I see and say hi to them. Sometimes the smile back, sometimes that laugh at me, sometimes they call me beautiful (because I am white), sometimes they say "I don't speak English", and sometimes they just give me a salty look, but at the end of the day the best thing we can do is try to spread the light of Christ and allow them to feel it in their lives. What better way than just being happy and friendly? I am so grateful for Christ and his example in my life. I am starting to understand who Jesus Christ really was better in my life. I want to really know in my heart who the savior of the world is. The one thing I learned in studying is that Christ really knew that he was THE Son of God. He let that knowledge affect every single action and every decision he made. We also know that we are children of a loving God. I invite you to think about what that means to you in your life? Do you take that knowledge for granted? People everywhere need to learn that knowledge and know what impact that has in their life. That is what I am doing my best to spread. The knowledge that we are all equal. It is so cool to tell that to Khmer because they think because we are white we are better than them. But we are all equal in God's eyes.

That's all from me!!! HAVE THE BEST HALLOWEEN EVER!! Sorry about the Titans, but just know that I bleed silver and green baby! I still have that Titan Pride. I am sad to hear about the Utes, but a Utah Man am I! Enjoy the little things in life. We went to the mission home and played basketball and ate American food and it was a real, real nice time. Okay sorry, I am rambling. I love you all and am so grateful for the support.

Yours Truly,

Elder Jacob Gochnour

here is were we teach

biking in the rain!

HERE are some questions that I asked Jake and his answers - 

• How are you doing - sleeping?  I fall asleep SO fast because I am so tired but then I don't sleep great through the night but it's okay. I don't get too tired until I get home at night and then I am just dead, but I wish I slept better at night. I think it is just because it isn't very comfortable. 

• What do you eat?  I eat pretty good food. We cook a lot. I eat top a ramen for dinner every night just the Cambodian kind and then i just eat rice and stir-fry for lunch everyday and for breakfast we go and get rice and pork. It is all pretty good but I get so hungry through the day. like so so hungry because I am trying to make my snacks last as long as possible

• Did you get a bike that works? My bike is good. I am still figuring it out and stuff but it works well. they didn't have the one I wanted in my size but it still works great and I am happy with it.

• How is the mission Home and your mission president and wife?  The mission home is actually super nice. I WISH I COULD LIVE THERE HAHA. I love both the mission president and his wife and they are really good examples to me. 

• Ok on the bathrooms??? The bathrooms aren't too bad I just mostly hold it till I get home and I just go to the bathroom at home

• Where do you email?   We email at these sketchy places and my camera card got a virus because I didn't lock my MEMORY CARD SO I LOST ALL MY DANG PICTURES AHHHHH UGHHH I AM SO MAD. But it is okay.

• What kind of house do you live in? I used to think that our house was super dirty but now I am starting to think it is nice.  It is just a traditional mission house and it is kinda dirty but it is really nice for Cambodia so I just need to be grateful. It is pretty big so often I feel lonely in it.