Sabbath - Pchum Ben

As with major holidays throughout the world, today's holiday had a severe impact in the number that showed up at church. As we arrived at the Steung Mean Chey building the guards were still trying to unlock the building. The bishop was out of town, and he is probably the one who usually opens the building, the counselor that is normally there early as well was later today. As the time to start arrived there were less than twenty there, and six of those were missionaries.

One pleasant surprise was the non-member from Nigeria, Augusta, showed up again today.and stayed for all three hours. He sat by us so that he could here the English translation by the Elders. He made very good comments and asked very good questions. The Office Elders, that attend the International Branch, went and taught him this week. We hope that he keeps coming and learning, he would be a great new member.

There were about 35, a little more than half of the normal attendance, at the Chaktomuk Ward, but 8 of those were missionaries. Elder & Sister Jones the Family History couple came to visit that ward today. We had another wonderful surprise as we were headed to Sunday School we saw Lotus, the young adult women from China that we took to the International Branch about a month ago. It was good to see her. She was awaiting to be taught by the missionaries about "the mormon" church, we had wondered if she was a member or not.

This weekend is General Conference back in Utah, and with the blessings of technology, we were able to watch part of the sessions already. We will view all of the sessions next Saturday and Sunday with the other members here in Cambodia. The talks that we have watched so far have been fantastic, so we are anxious to watch all of them.

We have enjoyed our holiday sabbath with members and new friends. The traffic was light to non-existant, which helped make it even more memorable.