The first sign of oddity when we went to go meet with him, was that he texted us to tell us he would have to postpone for an hour before meeting with us. Wow, that's pretty abnormal that he actually let us know he wasn't going to be on time! Then, when we met Adam, he sat us down and explained that his brother, who was really big into reading the bible and was someone that he really looked up to, had passed away not long ago, and he was wanting to know what it was that drew him so close to God when their parents were Buddhist. We thought, "Ok, wow, that's cool that he decided to listen to us, and that he's so willing to learn."
Adam has little to no understanding about the bible except for what he got out of watching the Bible series on Netflix, and from reading the pamphlet the missionaries gave him before they referred him to us. Oh, that, and he speaks English really well, so he was going a hundred miles an hour! Everything we taught made sense to him, and although he would go off on slight tangents about what he learned from the bible series, he was making connections and taking the words out of our mouths. Near the end I thought "We need to put him on date" and in following the conversation tried to gear it towards the discussion of baptism, but he was going so fast it wasn't until we were out the door and mentally reeling that we realized we never got there. I honestly thought he was somehow a member pretending to be a golden investigator because it was too easy. He said he'd pray about the Book of Mormon that night and text us when he knows his schedule to meet with us again, so we're excited to see what comes of it - but wow!! Sister Walker and I looked at each other feeling like such greenies thinking "This guy's going to get baptized!" after our first meeting with him. That, and we've never taught in English like this before.
The rest of the week was slow, and Saturday was an hour-by-hour kind of day where all of the few appointments we had fell through and we were left to find on our own. But Sunday made up for that. We had Ros, a recent convert (slash recent-active member since we didn't find out he was already a member until weeks after his baptism) pick up our most recent convert Visal and oh!! It made my heart soar to see both of them chatting in the car together as they fellowshipped each other! This was the moment I'd been waiting for; to actually see a semblance of the future Cambodian branch where Cambodian members work together with fellow Cambodians! Then, to top it off, they sat next to each other in the chapel and read their Book of Mormons while waiting for the meeting to start. That was the cutest sight I've ever seen! (They're both in their 60's in case you wondered.)
Those were the highlights of the week, and we have some actual Cambodian member-with lessons lined up for next week, so we're making progress! (As an insightful side-note; most of our converts are men that are eligible for the Priesthood, which means, once we get enough coming we can actually start a branch! God's at the head of this work!)
I forgot to mention another big event that happened Sunday - we had a new investigator whom we've never talked with before except at his door step come to church!! He had a hard time finding the building, so right when the meeting started we had to go pick him up at a nearby Burger King, but he liked it and said he'd come next week! We'd gone by that morning to invite him we saw there was a birthday party going on and thought "Oh, he probably won't be coming today" - but in spite of it he said he'd come and he did! Afterwards he said he liked it and would come again next week. :)
Sister Dunster
The Trio!
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