Happy Mother's Day

Dear Family and Friends,

I'm sure you guys get so sick of my emails every week. They are always so boring.. I wish I had a super exciting story to tell you, but not much is happening here is SMC. We have investigators, but they can never meet us and our less actives are less actives that have been less active for years... so the work with them is super hard. It’s basically like they aren't members. We have to start from square one with them. We are still really trying to focus on using the Book of Mormon, because we know how much power there is in that little book, but they just don't seem to understand and have 1001 excuses why they can't read it: they don't have time, they don't know how to read, they don't understand it, they can read, but can't see... they are so stubborn. I don't know what else we can do to help them. We go every week and nothing is accomplished. This is a huge work in progress, but I believe that eventually as we keep going week after week, teaching by the spirit, they will begin to keep their commitments, read the scriptures, pray, and come to church, and little by little they will start to feel the Holy Ghost in their lives again and have the desire to follow the example of their savior Jesus Christ. 

So now that you guys have got the background for all of our less actives, let me give you a little more details about a few of them.

First we've got Srey Lyn. Man she is a spitfire. Super sassy... even just the way she walks. So the youth here just hang out at the church all the time, so she is there literally every night, but will never meet us. This week, she came up to us and said "sisters are you free right now?" and we said "yes, do you want to meet us?" she said yes, and then quickly said niyay leng which means just kidding and walked away from us laughing. You've got to love sassy teenage girls. It's so frustrating because I see so much potential in her. We met her earlier this week and she told us that she really wanted to start a serious reading of the Book of Mormon so she could learn more about the gospel. She had set 45 minutes aside every night to do it. Super good. But then she wouldn't meet with us and didn't come to church... so we weren't able to follow up on that one with her... 

Next we have Ming Phoan. She is a less active recent convert. She was semi active and then she got in a car (moto) accident and broke her collarbone and strained her ankle or something and couldn't walk for like two weeks. She used to go to the church every Saturday and clean it, but she couldn't walk, so that didn't happen... she was in really poor condition before, but we visited her this week and SHE CAN WALK AGAIN!!!  She was so much happier. It was so fun to see her smile. Only problem is that she isn't reading her scriptures. She says she prays everyday, but she doesn't read. They just don't understand that just praying isn't good enough.

Then we've got Ming Sary and Ming Rit who have been inactive for years... they always give us the perfect answers in lessons, makes it seems like they've got a lot of faith, but they don't do anything to act on that faith... 

I met 2 less active sisters last night, Phiap and Jani. They seemed really good at first, and then as the lesson went on... it was really hard to feel the spirit. They were just preaching some false doctrine and wouldn't really listen to what we were trying to tell them... their brother and his wife also joined the lesson. They used to be investigators but were dropped because they weren't progressing... I see why. We bore powerful testimony about the Book of Mormon and the power that is has and how much it can improve our lives. The brother asked us what he was supposed to do if he couldn't read. He said it kind of laughing looking at everyone else as if he had stumped us. I was really prompted to share my experience with learning how to read Khmer through the Book of Mormon. It was super powerful... I said that if an American that had never seen Khmer before could learn to read Khmer by reading the book a little bit every day for 4 months, then he could too. Left them pretty speechless. As we were leaving their house Sister Leng gave me a fist bump and said "good job, sister. Super powerful testimony." she thought it was pretty cool. haha I love her so much and wish you guys could all meet her. She is the best ever. 

Time for members. There’s only one member that I want to tell you guys about this week. Her name is Om Im and she is the funniest old lady ever. She pretends that she can't understand me and yells "thaa meec???" every time I talk but I know that she really can understand me. the cool thing about her is that she is currently preparing to go to the temple. Super super cool!!!! I'm super excited for her. She’s trying really hard to prepare herself spiritually and understand the truth. She asked us what the difference is between revelation and inspiration... I had no idea how to answer that... I always just kind of group them together and think of them as one, but if someone would like to enlighten me with an explanation. i would love that. (: 

Then we've got Srey Roat. She actually isn't in my ward, but she is one of the youth that is always at the church, so we see her a lot. She is the coolest girl ever, with the strongest testimony. She is getting her Patriarchal Blessing on the 8th!!!! Super exciting!!! This week we were able to help her prepare to get her patriarchal blessing. I could not be more excited for her. She can't wait to serve a mission and I know that she is going to be the best missionary ever!!!!  

Update on the lice situation because I know you guys are all dying to hear ... they are pretty much all gone. There are no more eggs and I’m only finding dead small ones, so I call that a success. Sister Leng said I got rid of them super fast. Hallelujah!!! (: 

Happy Mother's day to all you mothers out there. You make the world go round. But for reals, where would we be without you? Special shout out to my mother. you da best and I love you so much!!!

Love, 

Sister Loftus 

Double D 

No photo, just info- So yesterday we had an interesting experience with cockroaches... we have a little patio thing it the back of our house and there were 40 cockroaches out there... 40. All dead. Super interesting. We don't know where they came from... but Sister Leng made sure they were all dead and swept them all up. What would we do without our little Khmer??

  We took this young women with us to teach on Saturday. They call that doping.. if you haven't grown up doing it like a native, it's really hard and you feel like you are going to crash... and Sister Leng thought it was the coolest thing because she just got to sit on the back and read the Book of Mormon. hahaha when someone sits on the back of the bike like that. let me tell you..

  We teach a “preach my gospel” class and we were practicing teaching. I was the investigator with that little boy as my child. He’s 11, which means I had him when I was 9. Super cool. hahah I was laughing super hard at the situation and it made it all better when I was getting ready to leave the church after the class got over and he said "bye mom!!!" haha super cute. Sister Leng and Bong Bov were my missionaries and they killed it. (: haha