អរគុណច្រើនព្រះ

HELLO! 

First, I would like to start out by saying HAPPY THANKSGIVING week, everyone! I love you all and am so grateful for all of you. 

Now to what is really important (classic missionary line)..... this week was honestly one of the weirdest and most random weeks of my life. Not gonna lie, before this week I had a feeling that I knew what was going on and I knew how to be a good missionary and how to create success. Then this week happened and I don't even know what was happening half of the time, but it made for a lot of fun memories! The work is going really well. We had a WAY cool lesson with our investigator Ly and his son Yubin (where you been) and they should be getting baptized this week so yeah! I know that God is a God of tender mercies. In order to sum up this week here is a short list of some things that happened:

• We went to a wedding that started an hour and a half late.... how does that even happen? Welcome to Cambodia.  Then we went to their reception which was just a really loud concert with lots of people I didn't know. We left after five minutes

• Saw a dog chewing on a rat and then a chicken came and stole it from the dog and ran away & then we saw an army of red ants eat a worm alive. 

• I forgot that as a grown-up you have to pay electricity bills. We hadn't paid for three months so we just sat on the floor sweating with no electricity and watched the restoration video a few times in different languages until we resolved the problem and had them turn our power back on

• Went to go visit a member and of course asked the classic "is there anything we can do to help you guys?" Well, YES THERE WAS IN FACT,  he ended up just putting us to manual labor for 2 hours. Not to mention it was one in the afternoon and we were just in our proselyting clothes. Hot stuff! 

This is just the start of all of the CRAZY things that happened. Every day is an adventure in Cambodia! 

Anyway, I want to end with three short things that happened this week that built my testimony.

• I read in the Book of Mormon about Pahoran's response to Moroni's epistle and I really admire Pahoran so much. He doesn't care that he just got railed on for not doing anything wrong. He simply forgives, forgets and focuses on what is important. We can all do that better in our own lives. Please, everyone, go read that story. (Book Of Mormon -Alma 61)

• We picked up a new investigator who has had one of the hardest pasts I have ever heard. He lacks hope and purpose in this life and is lost. Because of that, we had some of the coolest lessons with him. One of my favorite things to ever happened on my mission was the first time we met with him. When I told him that "I know that God loves you Rit, that He knows your name and that He knows your situation. He is your Father and He loves you." The biggest smile, from ear to ear, flashed on his face. I felt so warm inside. I know that he felt the confirming witness of the Holy Ghost that God LIVES and LOVES him, and that gives him hope and a smile. That is what these two years are all about.

I don't have time for the last one so maybe sometime later!

Love you all! This week I am especially grateful for the love of our Father in Heaven, the ultimate sacrifice of our Savior and the precious gift of the Book of Mormon!

JOY IN THE JOURNEY!

Elder Gochnour

P.S. I am also grateful for the Utes and the Blue Devils! Go Duke, Jazz and may the Utes take the W in the Pac-12!

Priesthood Power

No need to start off with a cheesy one-liner, we will just cut to the good part:

Some interesting things happened this week, and we had some fun times! The missionary work is good and we are finding a lot of people that seem SO GOOD when we first meet them, but then they just stop answering their phone and kinda fizzle away... Things are good though! We have a dad and his son who are preparing to be baptized in probably two or three weeks, and other than that just trying to help our other investigators feel the spirit more abundantly in their life and find some new ballers!!

This week I had the chance to go on an exchange to Kien Svay with Elder Shurtz and it was a really fun experience! We tracked down a potential investigator, and there was a string of miracles that happened so that we could help this young man learn about the gospel and learn to pray to his Father in Heaven. We were searching for his house, then followed a member to this random neighborhood and asked around to try to find this guy, and just as we were about to turn back we found him! His mom had cool story about her conversion that I will just have to share with you will I get home. This is a gospel of miracles! 

At the beginning of the transfer, we set a goal to have 100 members attend church and we were gonna try to do whatever we could to strengthen this ward! Well, last week we ended up getting 99 there! Come on man! If only one more person brought a random nephew or something we could have done it! Looks like we just have to work a little bit harder these next couple of weeks. 

We also had a business meeting this week with a guy who owns a nonprofit organization that we thought had the interest to learn about the gospel, but instead, our discussion just turned into a meeting where he tried to instruct us on how we should be doing our missionary work. He had good intentions, 

but at the end of the day, he didn't realize that we are just two 19 year old, blonde kids from Utah that graduated high school last year trying to do our best. The Lord really does make weak servants into wonderful tools in his hands.

Other things:

• For some reason, we got put in charge of the primary program? Teaching primary kids how to sing in English when I can't even hit a note myself, may not be the smartest idea I have ever heard

• We attend some random red carpet event at a burger restaurant worse than McD's

• We went to a buffet for a youth activity! YUP!

Lots and lot of stories, but for now I will just leave it at that. The work is good and we love serving the Lord every single day! I had the chance to participate in 6 Priesthood blessings this week, which was pretty awesome. More than any time in my life have I realized the importance and power of the Priesthood. It truly is God's power and authority on the earth, and through faith in this special power, 

we can work miracles! Thank God for the Priesthood. Without this special power, we would lack the opportunity of Salvation. How great and merciful is our God.

Well, that is all I have for the week. I invite everyone to go read the talk, The Blueprint of Christ's Church by President Callister because you are about to get mind blown!

Love,

Elder Gochnour

ALSO, GO DUKE!!!!!!! RIP KENTUCKY! BLUE DEVIL NATION REPPING! 

And tough loss for the titans, but I am proud of the boys for leaving it all out on the field! TTTE!

     

YES!

Another GOOD week in the books!

I won't be very long, but we have been putting in the work in our area! We finally had the chance to spend the whole week in our area and we used every opportunity we could to proselyte the good word of the Lord! The effects really showed. We went from having 0 investigators at church (one came late) to having six there this week! I know that the Lord really does reward us for working hard. I think the best part of the week was getting in bed every night and just feeling exhausted, knowing that I (as they say) we left it all on the field! 

I love how the Lord works. We went contacting under the hot sun with very long walks, many times this week. We didn't find anyone interested. Disappointing you think? Yes, disappointing. But then, without fail almost every night someone would call with a random referral of someone who wants to learn. The Lord truly rewards our efforts. We have a guy named Lee and his son and niece doing well! Hopefully we can keep meeting and teaching them!

Funny stories that happened:

• We met this lady that REALLY wanted to become a member. We had to give her to the sisters, but when I asked her what her name was, her response was wherever she needed to sign she would sign. She volunteers to join hahaha. I guess you could say she was elect!

• We also went and got some cupcakes with witches and ghosts on them so yeah you can say we were getting festive!

• Someone stole the copper from the electrical wiring at the church so we had to teach English class with no air conditioning and even worse, no lights! Flash lights it was! At least it added to the Halloween spirit!

• Ate a lot of rice (oh wait that is every week lol)

I finished reading the church history book Saints this week and it was a really cool experience! I love learning about our heritage and that God makes imperfect human beings (like all of us) into his Saints. Yes, we all have imperfections, but more importantly, the Grace of God is sufficient, and He can make us a tool in His hand to bring about His work. 

I am especially grateful for the gift of the Book of Mormon. Everyone has questions. At the end of the day, none of us have a perfect knowledge and understanding of everything, except God. That is why He gave us the Book of Mormon. Sure some of our questions may not have the perfect explanation, but the Book of Mormon is true. I can testify of that without a doubt. The Book of Mormon is true. From cover to cover (including the index?) it is full of the word of God. And the word of God can change us. It can make us become better and fill us with hope. I know these things to be true with all my heart. I thank my Heavenly Father for the marvelous Book of Mormon.

GO GIVE IT A READ!

Later skaters,

Elder Gochnour