Dear Elder Slavens: Shout out to Trent Mendenhall

One thing I just noticed about Cambodia even though I have been here over a year and a half already is that they sell everything house to house. I am not kidding when I say the word "everything". They will pack up the shop onto a moto or cart and ride around each neighborhood and just yell what they are selling until someone comes out of their house to buy it. They have full on markets on wheels with dead chickens and vegetables driving through a neighborhood near you. They have belts and wallets. Some will have "fast food". But my personal favorite, the one that opened my eyes to how weird this is, is the guy who rides around and sells mattresses. Can you imagine the emergency situation that would cause you to need a mattress so fast, that you don't even have time to leave your house to get it! Then, luckily, you hear a moto pull into your neighborhood, screaming, " Mattresses! Mattresses for sale!"

This week we had 6 investigators get baptized. All friends or family of members. One is a family of 5, and the other is a man on his own. I will now tell you their stories:

Sina. She is like 25ish almost 30. She is SUPER POOR. Like I mean she can't pay for food for her kids. But her mom was baptized a couple months ago, and told her daughter about how it changed her life. So the daughter, Sina, started learning. She has 5 kids. One was 7 so he couldn't get baptized yet. Their names are Alexander, Ravi, Sam, Rosa, and Steven. Her husband lived in America for 20 years and gave all their kids American names. Names like that are super cool and uncommon here. Anyways, she was liking what we were teaching when we started teaching her 3 weeks ago, but wasn't so sure about it. Until she had some dreams.

She had one dream that she was in the church crying because she had no money for her kids, then a lady walked up to her, put her hand on her shoulder, and said, "if you want more money for your family, all you have to do is put some money in this box." So she paid tithing in her dream. Before she ever learned about it or knew what it was.

Then she had another dream that she was driving in a car with an old man. Then the car disappeared, and she was just walking in a forest with the old man. Then the man disappeared. She was afraid, until she looked around and noticed how beautiful the forest was. So I showed her a picture of the sacred grove, where Joseph Smith saw our Heavenly Father in real life, which she had never seen before (in picture form) and she said that was it. I just guessed.

Her and her kids got baptized.

Nevin is the other guy that got baptized. He is 35. He has been married for like 5 years, but never too happy about his relationship. That was, until he learned with the missionaries about our church. Then his relationship was REALLY bad hahahha. She really didn't like him learning (she is hard core Buddhist). It causes you to ask yourself why he continued to learn. I asked him once. He said, "I started learning, prayed to know if it was true, and then couldn't turn back after I knew. No matter what I went through in my life." So his wife kicked him out of the house and took all his money and his car. He now has nothing. But he is happy. Reminds me of Joseph Smith who could have made up this crazy story about seeing God and who could have written a book and slapped the name "Book of Mormon" on it and then sell it, even though it caused him to never have a peaceful moment in his life, and he was eventually murdered for it. But he stuck with his story because it wasn't a made up story or a book he wrote. He just endured everything because of what he knew in his heart.

Pretty cool.

Once in a life time experience to meet people like these.

See ya.