Sister Zoe's Cambodacious Journey: Walking In a Winter Wonderland

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week was really really good. Nothing too new or exciting happened, just the usual missionary life, but that's what I LOVE. so I am a very happy camper right now.

Tola is progressing nicely. I'm not really sure how it happened, but we were blessed to meet her three times this week. She is praying and reading every night. We just need to get her coming to church regularly, every week. She misses occasionally... but she is scheduled to get baptized on December 18th and we couldn't be more excited!!! She is super excited too and asks about it all the time. I've really really grown to love her and her family. Going to their house really feels like going home. They just welcome us with open arms every time.

Our less active, which isn't really less active anymore, Srei Touch, the one I talked about last week, she is doing so good!!! She is just starting to understand everything. She’s been reading, praying, AND coming to church. Very rarely do the lessons we teach actually cause people to change, but she must have felt something from the Holy Ghost, because she is currently on fire. I love going to visit her because she has this light in her eyes now. Before she was kind of meeting us unwillingly.. We’d get there and she wouldn't be super happy, we'd share, and then by the time we left she would be so happy. (: But now she is just happy 24/7. I can't imagine how hard it is to be the only member in your family, without any support, but she has been overcoming that. She even came to stake conference on Sunday!!! I was so happy to see her there. She came up and told us how much she liked it and gave us the biggest hug. Also, this past week she told us that before she wasn't following the Word of Wisdom, she was drinking tea and coffee with her family, but on Sunday, last week, we had a lesson on the Holy Ghost and they said that if you aren't following the commandments the spirit couldn’t be with you. So she told us that she repented and is living it fully. That is what we like to hear. (:

Thursday we met with Bunleu, our pregnant investigator. She is doing well. We are just teaching her really really slowly, making sure she understands things. We just read with her in 1 Nephi and she understood it all. We aren't really in any rush with her because we have to wait to baptize her until she has her baby in February. But she is really surprising me. She even came to stake conference|!! Then we met a less active/recent convert... kind of a tough situation to explain over email, but they are so good and they fed us SO much food... they just wanted to thank us for our service to God and let us know that they love us. If any of you are worried about me out here in Cambodia, food wise, STOP!!! I am getting way too much food... haha and it's good food too. (: I am one happy sister right now. (:

STAKE CONFERENCE!!!! It kills me when we have stake conference because with 6 wards, we have less than the amount of members that we have in America for one sacrament meeting. But I learned SO much from conference. There was a theme of "do you believe?" It was definitely inspired. Cambodia is at the point that if the members here don't know for themselves that this church is true, then the church will not continue to progress... so the stake president was really stressing that. Also, his talk was SO GOOD!!! He just called them all to repentance for not reading the Book of Mormon every day. He started off by sharing his love and concern for them and then said "I promise you, as your stake president, set apart by a servant of the lord, that if you do not read the Book of Mormon ever day, then your life WILL NOT progress." So today I just want to echo what he said. I know it seems really harsh... but the Book of Mormon was written for us in these days. It can help us in every circumstance. so I challenge all of you to start reading every day, even if it's just for 5 minutes. It will change your life. If you think your life is good now, just imagine how amazing it will be with the Lords help and direction from reading the Book of Mormon. Just try it!!!

I love this gospel so much and I know that the Book of Mormon is true. Hey, if you guys didn't know, it's almost Christmas. Sister Benson reminds me every day "hey, Sister Loftus, only 3 more weeks til Christmas!!!" also, the subject for this email... it was a little chilly this past week. We are convinced Cambodia knows that it is snowing in America and it's giving us a little Christmas present. (:

Love,

Sister Loftus

Double D