LAST WEEK IN THE MTC WAHOOO

Hello Hello :)) 

This is the last week in the MTC and if you can't tell from my email title I AM SO EXCITED!!! I seriously can't wait, our teachers have showed us some pictures from Cambodia this week and it has gotten me so so excited. We skyped with a member in Cambodia last night and she had the CUTEST little baby with her. I seriously can't wait to meet these people I love them so much already.

Bonnie Oscarson came to the MTC last sunday and spoke to us. She is so powerful, and inspirational. I loved listening to her talk about how if we put our trust in the Lord things will always workout. There isn't anything that is too hard for the Lord and he will always help us throughout our lives. The Lord is our gardener and he always knows whats best for us and what we need so we have to trust Him and follow Him in faith even when it's hard. 

We got to host international missionaries this week which was super fun. I was hosting a sister from the Phillipines and when I told her that I was going to Cambodia she just looks at me and says "Oooh man you are going to be so sweaty all the time." So many things to look forward too :) 

Most exciting part of the week was getting our flight plans!!! We are so pumped. Nothing else new really happened. Cambodians use the word 'savage' a lot. In our lesson this week with Lookpu Can he said that Nephi was really savage it was super funny. He is also on his way to get baptized which makes us super excited! I finally have the first vision memorized in Khmer which I am super excited about, took me forever. It is so fulfilling to finally be able to say it. We also practiced getting numbers this week and so our teacher would read off a phone number and see if we wrote it down correctly. He was speaking so fast I got maybe the first three digits. Hopefully I can pick that up quickly when I get there because he says we get 15 or more numbers a day. 

I love 2 Nephi 4:34 where it says"O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever." I know that as we trust in the Lord we will be blessed and he will guide us to happiness. 

I love you all, have a good week!

Sister Stratford

NEW NAME TAGS

Hello Family,

ONLY TWO WEEKS left in the MTC, Sister Eastmond and I are very excited to get to Cambodia. My heart is already so full of love for these people I can't wait to meet them! We got our new name tags this week! They look so cool I will send pictures. We should be getting our flight plans sometime next week!! We got a lot of new missionaries this week which has been so fun!! The new sisters are so fun, Sister Eastmond and I have loved getting to know them better this past week. 

Chinda is an amazing investigator, she reads the Book of Mormon everyday and she went to church with us this week. In our follow up lesson after church we asked her to share her testimony with her family who doesn't support the church. She came back to meet with us and said that she wanted to join the church! WAHOO we have a baptismal date set for a few weeks. Even though she isn't a real investigator it has been so fun teaching her and seeing how she has progressed and how much the Book of Mormon has blessed her life. The Book of Mormon is so powerful, I found it so interesting that so many people talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon in general conference and quoted President Monson's talk from last conference. I know that the Book of Mormon is very important and that as we read it everyday we get so much power in our lives and we are directed to the things we should do. Read the Book of Mormon everyday and I promise it will bring you so many blessings!!!

Funny lesson of the week: Sister Eastmond and I were teaching Lookpu Can and she was testifying of the Book of Mormon and she accidently said the Book of Mormon is the temptation of Jesus Christ instead of how it testifies of Jesus Christ. It was sooo funny to me I was dying I couldn't stop laughing and the investigator was trying so hard to not laugh. A lot of the words sound the same with a slightly different pronunciation but at least we won't make the same mistakes as we did in the MTC. Those lessons where we mess up are so fun though, gotta learn somehow. 

I LOVE GENERAL CONFERENCE! It was a really cool experience to be able to watch in the MTC. I got a lot more out of it being so focused and coming with specific questions. My favorite talk was Bonnie Oscarson's talk about service. I thought it was so interesting that she said some of the greatest needs are those right in front of you. The Lord places people that need us the most, closest to us. I loved how a few other talks supported the fact that there are no coincidences in this life and that everything is by divine design. People are placed in your path for a reason and so always be looking out for others that you can serve and help because there are people placed in your path everyday that need your help. I loved the question she posed to pray for "Who needs me today?" I know that it is so important that we give our help to anyone who is trying to walk the road back to God like Elder Holland expressed. We are all in different spots on the way back to Christ but if we are all on the same path we need to reach out and help others as they too are striving to make it back to Christ. 

I have also really come to have a deepened understanding of praying with real intent. I know that when we pray to Heavenly Father generally, he will answer in a general way. But when we are praying for specific things, He will provide us with specific answers. I have been so amazed as I have been trying to be more specific in my prayers that I have received answers in a way that I hadn't previously recognized. Prayer is so important and Heavenly Father always wants to hear from us. He loves us so much and will do anything for us, we just need to come unto Him and ask. Prayer is such a blessing, I don't know how anyone lives without it. I can't wait to be able to help people develop their own relationships with God. 

LOVE LOVE YOU

Sister Stratford

THREE MORE WEEKS

Hello Hello,

We get 6 new sisters this week!!!! Sister Eastmond and I are really excited to actually have a purpose for being Sister Training Leaders and to have some people come live on our half of the floor. We are in the corner of the top floor and there is nobody else living on our side of the hall. Pretty quiet up there. We also get 16 new elders to that will be fun, they are all Thai and Vietnamese. So we are still the only Cambodian sisters in the MTC, but we get some new sisters in the branch! We can actually have relief society as a branch now. We have been combining with the Korean sisters because Sister Eastmond and I didn't really want to teach relief society every week to the wives of the counselors of the Branch presidency as fun as that would have been. 

The temperature this week has been sooo weird, and super cold. It is so funny to see everyone in huge coats and jackets and boots and then me with my Cambodian stuff in sandals and t shirts. Everyone gives me funny looks I love it. I am trying to live up the cold weather because I won't be having any of it for a long time. The snow looks so pretty on the mountains. I will miss the mountains. Kinda funny Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia and Phnom translates to mountain but they don't have mountains in Cambodia kinda weird. 

This week has been really good! I CAN READ SCRIPT!!! This is seriously the most exciting thing ever. I have been reading from the book of mormon in script all week it is sooooo fun! I got called on in class to read Moroni 10:5, I was slow but I can read AHH WAHOO. I have been working so hard on trying to memorize all the symbols so I am glad that it is finally coming together. It has been so frustrating. I need to expand my vocabulary quite a bit because while I can read, a lot of the time I don't know the meaning to words. They don't use spaces in their words so its really hard to tell when one word ends and another word starts when you don't have a broad vocabulary. It's so fun though I love it. Still have a lot to learn!

We had a devotional last Tuesday by Elder Cook, it was so amazing. He talked a lot about how this church is directed by God today and how important receiving personal revelation is. I have never heard an apostle before say that "I have seen the Lord's face." Wow. It was so powerful and such a huge testimony to me that Heavenly Father and Christ really do care about us so much and so individually and that the Prophet and Apostles really do speak the words of Christ. They are so close with the spirit and that is so amazing to me. God really does direct this church and want to help us in everything we do. His arms are always stretched out to help us. I also really loved when he said that receiving personal inspiration and revelation and the spirit testifying to us is much more powerful than a vision. Having the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost is the biggest blessing. I know that we can be guided throughout everything we do as we seek the help of the Holy Ghost. It is so important in everything we do, I am so thankful for that blessing!!! I know that there is so much power that comes out of personal righteousness. It is so important to always live worthy of the Spirit.

Exciting news this week, one of our investigators Chinda, came to church with us so that was exciting. She is so fun to teach. Neakru Sorensen is our teacher who is from Cambodia. She is my favorite human ever she is so funny. She spent a good half hour teaching us a lot of the slang words in Cambodian last night. Sooo fun she is seriously so cute. She told me that she would give me all her recipes when I get home from the mission. She said that the fruit over in Cambodia changes every 3 months and that it's so amazing. She doesn't like living in America because the fruit isn't good over here. I am so excited to get to Cambodia ahhh!!!!! 3 more weeks!!

One more cool translation in Cambodian repentence literally translates in english to change of heart. I think that is so cool because that's exactly what it means. I think a lot of times people think of repentence as a negative thing but one of the apostles I don't remember who said Repentance should be the most hopeful word in the gospel after faith. So true. 

Love love love you 

Sister Stratford

ON THE DOWNHILL

Hello Family

Officially on the downhill here at the MTC. We leave October 17 so less than a month!!! We are all really excited. The weeks just continue to go faster and faster. 

Cool experience with TRC this week, we were teaching about faith and how important it is and as I started testifying I just started crying and I felt the spirit so strong it was amazing, I didn't even know what I was saying but it was very powerful for me. The gift of tongues is real as we are diligent in our studies and do all we can to learn this language. The language is coming slowly but surely. We have been focusing a lot on learning script which is crazy hard but so much fun. There are 131 symbols that we have to memorize to be able to read well and I have about half of them memorized. We sing hymns in class everyday and try to read the cambodian words so hopefully by the end of the mtc we will be able to read faster and actually sing the hymn at a normal pace. 

Sister Eastmond and I taught relief society this week about the creation the fall and agency. We have really been focusing on asking good questions and trying to have more of a discussion than a lecture as we teach. So we had pondered all week about good questions we could ask and we ended up having a good discussion about these topics. It is so important that we are choosing to have eternal life by the decisions we make daily. I know that repentance everyday is so important to our happiness. Heavenly Father is always there with open arms wanting to help us and guide us. We need to continually choose to come unto Him and let the enabling power of the atonement into our lives. 

I watched a talk this week by Elder Bednar about recognizing the spirit. He mentioned how important it is to always strive to keep the commandments and honor our covenants and the Lord will bless our lives and will direct our paths. As we are doing all we can to be good people and to follow the commandments and keep our covenants every good thought that we have is from God. We don't need to sit around and wait for some crazy spiritual prompting to come. We just need to get to work and to always look outward and try to find ways to help other people. I know that the Lord directs our paths when we are being obedient and that as we strive to become as He is, he will place people in our paths that we can help or that will help us. In devotional this week my favorite quote was "When we reach out and succor others the Savior will feel as though we reached out and succored Him." I know that we have an infinitely patient Father in Heaven and he is always willing to help us. We need to do our best to help His children and to be willing to do all the things that he asks of us. He loves us and wants the best for us and everything he does for us is for our benefit. 

Have a good week!! I love you guys!

Love Sister Stratford

ALMOST HALF WAY

Family,

ALMOST HALF WAY THROUGH THE MTC!! I am so excited to be able to get to Cambodia holy cow. I still have a lot to learn but I can't wait. I am seriously so happy here I love the gospel so much. This week was amazing, one of my favorites thus far. 

Elder Oaks came last Tuesday night for devotional. One of our biggest challenges in life is to become as He is. We need to constantly be striving to become like Him and to develop Christlike Attributes. Christ should be the center of everything we do in life. I also loved when he talked about repentance being a daily thing and how we should be changing even our thoughts and our views to align with God's, I think that is so important especially as we are trying to become as He is. We need to give our all to the Lord and do the best we can to turn our lives over to Him and let him direct our paths. As we try to become more like Him we need to have real intent especially in our prayers. He expounded upon having real intent and that we need to have a commitment in mind when we have real intent, and need to follow up and commit to act upon the answers we receive. 

We got a new teacher this week, Lookru Nuburger. He talks crazy fast and it is so hard to understand him, he also speaks differently than our other two teachers but it's good practice so I am happy about that. We also got a new investigator this week, Can. He is my favorite investigator thus far because he is always so involved with the lesson and has so many questions. This is so great but also hard because he speaks so quickly we sometimes don't know what he is trying to ask us. 

Funny story about on of our lessons this week... we were teaching Can about prophets and priesthood and I was trying to explain to him what the Priesthood is. I accidently said that the Priesthood is the authority of Buddha in Christ's name instead of the authority to act in Christ's name. He all the sudden got so excited and I was so confused why he was so excited about the priesthood. I look over at Sister Eastmond and she is dying of laughter. It was hilarious, not our best lesson but it was a good laugh. So many of the words we learn sound exactly like other words so I will have to work on my pronunciation. 

On a more spiritual note, this sunday was so amazing! Sister Eastmond and I combined with the Korean branch for relief society, since we are the only two sisters in the branch. The lesson was about recognizing the spirit. I feel so blessed that the Lord trusts me enough to help assist in His work with the people of Cambodia. I love in the hymn Come unto Jesus where it says "Oh know you not that angels are near you." The Lord always has his arms open and he sends angels to help us and direct us in all that we do. Sometimes it is difficult to recognize the angels that surround us and sometimes its difficult to recognize all the blessings that the Lord gives to us, but we are always surrounded by God's love and he is always providing help for us even when we don't realize it. We can't go through this life alone, we need divine help and He always is willing to provide it.

I know that it is important for us to change not only our behavior but our nature to become more like Christ. The Lord doesn't expect immediate perfection from us, but he does expect immediate progress. Striving to become like Christ is a daily thing. I love Moroni 7:33 "And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me.' I think this is the coolest promise!! We need to trust that the Lord will guide us and go forth with faith! 

I love you! Have a good week :)

Love Sister Stratford

SISTER EASTMAN AND SISTER STRATFORD

COUSIN ELDER JAKE YOUNG

DAILY SCHEDULE

CANADA AND CAMBODIA TOGETHER FOR ELDER YOUNG AND SISTER STRATFORD

WEEK THREE

September 5, 2017

Hello Family, 

Week three here in the MTC. Sister Eastmond and I got called to be Sister Training Leaders this week, so we are excited about that! We are now the only sisters in the zone and we won't be getting more sisters for 3 or 4 weeks. All the Thai and Vietnamese districts left this week and I will miss them there are so many good people here I love making new friends! 

We started learning script this week, it is like a puzzle to try and read a sentence and they don't have any spaces between words, and so with my limited vocabulary its hard to figure out what different words are. BUT I read a whole verse in our script Book of Mormon, so I am way excited about that even though it took me 20 minutes to figure out a sentence, I have faith my reading will get better as I study harder this week. We started TRC this week, which was amazing I seriously love TRC. We get to teach members and so its a lot easier and it is so fun, my understanding of the language is coming along and I get so excited when I can understand what someone is asking me or sharing with me.

This week was our last week with Lookruu Garlick, he is headed to BYU for school and I will miss him. He was such a good teacher! My main takeaway from Him is to have Christ be the focus of everything we do in life. I know that as we do this, our lives will improve and we will become closer to Christ and we will want to do everything we can to become more like Him. 

This week I have had a deepened understanding of Christ's love for all of us and his willingness to help us through everything in life. He is always there with open arms and I know that he has a deep love and a desire for us to come unto Him and to be perfected in Him. I love Alma 36:3 especially where it says "I do know that whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day." I know that the Lord never gives up on us and I know that as we put all our trust in Him and as we go forth with faith we will be blessed. The Lord will always provide a way for us to do the things He asks us to do. He will direct our paths as we listen to promptings we receive and act on those. 

I also love D&C 84:88 " And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." I know that my Redeemer lives and that with the Lord all things are possible. 

I love you all!!

Love Sister Stratford

TWO WEEKS DOWN SEVEN TO GO

August 30, 2017

Hello Hello Family!

I made it through another week here at the MTC. There never seems to be enough time in the day to get everything done it's crazy! Time goes so quickly here. My district was in charge of hosting some of the last tours this week, it was fun to see quite a few familiar faces from home, although I missed out on seeing Grandma and Grandpa :( I am glad that the tours are over so we can play indoor volleyball now, our zone is crazy good at volleyball so its good fun!

Super exciting this week in our lessons with our first investigator! We asked Kuthy to get baptized and she said YES! We spent most of our time trying to memorize a baptismal invitation because we wanted to sound sincere when asking her, and we are trying not to read off of scripts anymore. It was a very powerful lesson being able to testify of Christ from the heart instead of off a script. The understanding is still coming, but we can pick out a few words here and there. 

There is a flu going around our zone, so almost all of us are sick but we are having a good time!  So turns out we don't get to teach Kuthy anymore because she is now another one of our teachers! She is the cutest little Cambodian lady, but she is very hard to understand. She speaks a lot faster than Lokkruu Garlick. 

Sunday always seems to be the longest day of the week, but the best. All of us sisters split up the time to teach relief society and I got to talk about faith. I love Doctrine and Covenants 11:17 "And then, behold, according to your desires, yea,even according to your faith shall it be done unto you." I think that is such a cool promise. 

Our whole sacrament theme was about charity and love which I think is the most important attribute to develop. I feel that once we develop charity everything else falls into place. As far as our investigators go, once we love them and care about them as Christ does we want to do all we can to help them, and so our studies are more diligent and our intentions are purely on helping them come to Christ. It's really a cool experience to be studying for investigators and trying so hard to be able to focus on their needs and to be able to see others how Christ see's them. 

Jesus Christ loves us individually and he knows the desires and intents of our hearts and he is always there for us and wants so badly for us to return to live with Him and Heavenly Father. I am working on developing Charity so that I might be able to be more loving towards others and see everyone how Christ see's them. I want my natural tendency to be to turn outward and help others instead of turning inward. Something that I have been thinking about teaching people is they don't care about how much you know until they know how much you care. I love this gospel and the happiness that it brings into our lives!!! I love being a missionary!

Love you!!

Sister Stratford