Investigators: Out with the Old, In with the New

Dear Family and friends,   
                This week was nuts! To put it in a *nut*shell (haha), Charles, who is one of our less actives, went to jail; Another one of our less actives also went to jail; A Cambodian religious war almost broke out in Sunday school; We dropped 5 investigators; Our investigator, Mony,  got baptized; And we found a new investigator who is committed to be baptized on Nov 4^th!!  Crazy right?  So I was thinking about just leaving it at that but I guess I better explain a little more, huh.

                First, we got a "message call" from Charles only telling us that he was in jail. We don't really know why and we don't know for how long, but we are praying for him.  Another one of our less active also went to jail.  He has been really struggling lately and I guess things escalated. He ended up stabbing two people and himself. Everyone survived but he's now going to have to serve some time in jail. We’re praying for him as well.  Then, yesterday, in Sunday school, the teacher said that God was Jehovah (I think she thinks that because she goes to like three other churches) Everyone said she was wrong but she was convinced she was right and things got crazy.  A religious war started.  I felt bad for Mony, our investigator, especially because it was her baptismal day and  everything but she took it just fine. She has such amazing faith! She just said she was glad her Buddhist husband wasn't there during class because she'd have had a difficult time explaining all that to him. Speaking of her husband, his name is Sochiet. He is awesome! Very supportive of Mony, but  he isn't so interested in the church. However, he joins in on a lot of our lessons with Mony and we think he could very well join someday himself. He did get to come to Mony’s  baptismal service which went very well. I hope he felt the spirit that was there.  Things just went so smooth. Mony seemed really happy, and I was glad there were such great talks given.  As far as Mony and the whole Sunday school mess, we were just saying if she could survive that, she'll be able to survive anything. She'll be an amazing member of the church! 

                Okay. Investigators. We did some serious weeding out this week. For our investigators that weren't progressing we basically gave them all the "do or die" lesson. Unfortunately, a lot of them died. Peter, Chon, Om Sokom, and Beta. It was really sad to see them choose to reject the message, especially because of the potential we could see in each one of them. But I'm at peace with our decisions because I know there are others out there that are ready right now. And who knows, maybe they'll call or we'll try  again in a while and they'll feel differently, and change their mind later on. But like I said, I know there are others that are ready right now, so we are going to focus on them.   We think we found one of them. His name is Ry. He's 37 and has a wife and five kids?  I think.  We just knocked on his door,  and he said we could come back later. So, we decided to try Saturday night, quick before going home.   Sure enough he had some time. He let us in and we taught what we thought was a "picture-perfect first lesson". At the end we committed him to be baptized on Nov 4th. He accepted. It was a miracle. We're going back to see him tonight, and I’m really excited.   I'm praying things will continue to work out with him and his family.

                Well that's it for this week. Sorry this letter is all over the place. I hope it made sense. We're in kind of a rush today.

Love you all!
Elder Hicken