Introducing Elder and Sister Curtis

Today we received our newest senior missionaries in the Cambodia Phnom Penh Mission. Jim and Erin Curtis from Sandy, Utah landed in Phnom Penh this morning. Their flight was a half hour late, then it takes time to clear customs and immigration. The senior couples in the city were all there to welcome them. What a great addition to our mission!

Elder and Sister Curtis have had three months of language tutoring, which will be a great benefit for their service as MLS missionaries. After greetings and a great lunch, President and Sister Christensen took them to Kampong Cham to settle into their new apartment and community. They are nervous and excited. They only have a few weeks, however, to be the newest seniors in the mission.

Before greeting our new missionaries we attended the monthly Area Presidency Devotional which took the place of the weekly service center devotional. We were blessed to hear Elder Wong of the Area Presidency. His message was inspiring. He referred to the parable of the ten virgins and compared their lamps to our cell phones in our day. Someone with a Samsung phone whose battery needs to be charged can't receive power from someone else with and iPhone. Each phone needs to be charged for itself. Likewise we cannot charge our spiritual battery by receiving from someone else's preparation.

Elder Wong also told of an object lesson he used in a recent Zone Conference with missionaries in Taiwan. With a discussion of doctrines the missionaries teach to investigators they filled a large jar with water, representing the principles they teach. Then he had the smallest sister and the tallest sister come to the front, along with the tallest elder. The smallest sister was to pour water from the jar into a very small cup on the elder's head while the tall sister held "Preach My Gospel" in front of him. As the sister apologized to the elder, Elder Wong asked if that is what they would do to an investigator as they tried to give everything they knew in a short teaching session. This talk gave us something to think about with how we teach others.