1 month

It's my monthaversary. Holy cow. What is life? Time flies when you're sweaty. And preaching the gospel.

Action shot: 

I'm beginning to understand cat-calls this week. I'll just say that Cambodian girls like 19 year old white guys....

I want to try to explain my favorite part of Cambodia so far. It's all my favorite. But Cambodian nights are unlike anything else. When the sun goes down the whole country cools off and instead of blistering heat and sweat in the sun it's cool and the humidity is inviting like a warm blanket. The factories turn down for the day and the traffic builds and slows down. The roads are slow and predictable which makes for the best speed traffic weaving for me and my companion. All of the lady factory workers walk 2-by-2, hand-in-hand with their best friend to the market to pick up food for the last meal of the day. We get to our appointment and teach a lesson to a golden investigator or a family who really wants to come to church but can't get off work. the spirit is super strong and everyone in the meeting has a renewed desire to live a Christ-like life. we come out of the lesson on a spiritual high and set out on the journey to get fried rice and head home. as we ride back through the city and turn onto the dirt road to home a dozen 2 year olds scream "HELLO!" at us with huge smiles on their faces. we wave and say hello back. we pass a member family playing cards on their porch and say hello as we ride by. our fried rice guy knows our order as we pull up and within 3 minutes we are home safe and sound to finish off the day with a few games of UNO.

Cambodia is the best. 

"Do not ride your bike at night, in heavy traffic, or in bad weather" - Missionary Handbook Pg. 47

I gave a blessing in Cambodian this week. It was super cool. The priesthood works the same in every language. I gave it to Om Ai. This is his house. 

If you are still with me after 3 months of emails and got this far into my email, please send me a picture of a classy black man holding a mug and making strong eye contact with the camera.

This week Elder Allred and I went on the exchange of the century. I've been here for 1 month and he's been here for 4. So that means we both have no idea what we're doing and can barely speak Cambodian at all. It was an adventure to say the least. We actually did some work too! we taught 5 lessons and neither one of us fell off our bikes. A miracle for sure. 

A little flooding :

Srei Niet is one of our awesome investigators. She is 17 and she has been learning with us for the past couple of months. She is so motivated and has already read to the middle of Helaman in the Book of Mormon. Which is insane for a Cambodian because most of them can't read and the Cambodian language uses so many words which makes it much longer than the English Book of Mormon. She has such a strong desire to learn but she hasn't been able to come to church for the past little while because her dad had to sell his moto and her bike because they are too poor. a couple of times she actually walked half an hour to church. We taught her about fasting last month and decided we would all fast together for her to have a way to get to church. It took a couple of weeks but a miracle did happen. The bishop had some extra money and found a way to buy her a used bike for cheap. so on Saturday we took it over to her and she was so stoked!! she came to church an hour early the next day even though it was raining. She's getting baptized in 2 weeks along with Om Ai and one other girl. We're having a lot of success!

It rained right before English class:

Buddha angel baby. 

I love my life.

Shpeel: The gospel of Christ is really simple. Faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Faith leads to action, including repentance. Baptism opens the gate for life on the straight and narrow and is a pre-req for the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost helps you and guides you for the rest of your life as you strive to endure to the end and repent daily. 

This church is built on Christ. Christ's gospel isn't something we learn once and then forget. It is the way we can become better every day. This church is organized for the purpose of facilitating the gospel and helping people live it more fully. 

I didn't understand this before. My life has been blessed so much in the past 3 months while I've been on this mission. And it is because I'm starting to understand and live the gospel of Christ. I'm still not very good at it and some days I lose track of what's important but through Jesus Christ I know that I can improve each day.

I love you all.

Love, Elder Osborne

176 lbs

My Life:       

Mood: silky/wet

Currently: sitting in an internet cafe in downtown Phnom Penh in a soaking wet twonk shirt (butt-flap included)

I'm not wet because of the rain. I'm wet because we have the best p-days ever and we all just played soccer together in a covered turf field for three hours. Just 20 missionaries doin their thing, yaknow? last week we had a meat party. i can't really explain it without a picture so here it is:  

I love Cambodia.

Khmae New Year was this week! there was nobody out. nobody: 

Usually this street is bumper to bumper. we didn't teach a lesson until Thursday. but the lessons we did teach were pretty cool! 

Because of Khmae New Year on Wednesday we got a day to clean our houses and to some at-home work. that finally gave us a chance to rid our bathroom of the birds' nest. it was a long and hard fight, but we won in the end. we might have to go for round 2 though because i think i heard them back this morning. Then we finished the day by watching Meet the Mormons with all of the elders and sisters in Phnom Penh! super fun times! i got to see the old group again. there were a couple missing because they're out in the jungle, but it was a good reunion anyway. 

Update on Om Ai: We taught him this week and when we went to his house he was actually wearing clothing!!!!!!!!!! normally he just has this loincloth towel thing that he ties around his waist. it's not very long.. i can't blame him tho because he does have some nice legs! anyway. our lesson went way good with him. he told us that when he was at the church last week he felt very good and that it was something that he should follow. cool stuff! he's also been reading and praying everyday which is awesome. I've got high hopes for Om Ai!

We "started" teaching a family last week. the mom is already a member but she has only one arm so it's always going to be a part member family even if they all get baptized. oh my gosh that was a terrible joke. she's awesome though, we've been teaching her kids for a while but her husband just started learning with us too. he didn't like us at first, but now he's learning and the lessons are going really well with the whole family. families are the best. the gospel blesses families.

The victorious river:

I took a spill on my bike this week. so that was fun! i was just riding and then i saw a stick on the road so i ran over it and one thing led to another and it got stuck in my wheel and i did an awesome nose stall. it was totally worth it because it looked super cool and i didn't really get hurt. also a guy who spoke English came to try to help so we contacted him up! super cool how life works.

i forgot to mention that everyone here wakes up super early and goes to bed super early. probably because electricity costs and they don't want to use the lights. idk. but that means that we wake up at 5:30 and go to bed at 9:30. 

The nice part of Stung Mean Chey: 

Everyone calls us frenchies: 

New best friend: 

The one and only Elder Allred: 

spiritual SHPEEL: I read the talk on the 4th missionary this week. its way good. go read it. in summary it explains that there are different ways we can go through a mission or life. We can be bad and not get blessings at all, we can follow the commandments begrudgingly and get some help from the Lord but still not really grow in this life, or we can turn our will over to the Lord and make his will our will. Our will is the only thing that Heavenly Father didn't create. and so really the only thing that we have to offer to him in this life is our will. 

my favorite quote from the talk is "You can't be happy if you don't want to do the things that lead to happiness, even if you do those very things."

ts super hard. i want to listen to Katy Perry and 2 Door Cinema Club sometimes. sometimes i sing them out loud. but i know the Lord will help me if i give my will to him and make my will his, which is for me to serve the people here with all my heart.

i love you all

love, elder osborne

** Note from Sam's mom -- we also read the weekly letters from Sam's companion and the following is an excerpt from his letter this week:

Elder Osborne is doing great! He's done great with the transition to being a missionary and 

everything. He's doing super well with the language! This week we've shared several lessons 

about Elder Oak's talk from conference regarding the different types of soil in the Parable of the 

Sower. It's a difficult lesson for a young missionary to help give, just because of the vocabulary 

that’s required to teach a parable about farming, gardening, and planting, but he was able to 

participate and taught very well. I was super impressed! 

LUXURY

If smiling would cause me to inhale a kilo of dirt then I don', but other than that, I am always smiling.

It's so easy to do and it makes me happy and the people I smile at happy. So why not? I think if everyone would smile just a little bit more the world would be even awesomer than it already is.

I love Cambodia. Have I told you that already? We'll just in case you haven't figured it out already I'll say it again. I LOVE CAMBODIA!!

This week was a fun one. It's hard to pick out things to tell you all because so much happens in a single week.

First off, its mango season. and that means we buy a kilo of mangoes pretty much every single day. For $1. I'm drowning in mangoes. They also help with the digestive problems inherent in every Cambodian missionary's life, so that's an added bonus. 

They also have this sugar cane juice stuff that they make right on the spot and it costs 25 cents for a whole bag of it. I was super excited at first to try it because Elder Neuberger was going off about how good it is. But then I actually tried it. And it tastes like nasty sugary toe jam sauce. My heart broke. 

Most mornings for breakfast we go across the street to a little old lady that has some pots set up outside her house with rice and meat and stuff and we order "rice pork". Its $1 and it is the most MSG filled deliciousness you could ever think of.  

One of our recent converts is a 17 year old kid named Vitchigaa.

He's a major homie. He is learning English and so every time we go over there we teach him something new. The other day I taught him what swag was. I'm trying to spread the word around this side of the world. If you are in Asia, please help me with this noble cause. Anyway, I asked him how his day was yesterday and he told me "same old". I died. My older brother (the person Elder Neuberger trained before) Elder Uhi apparently taught him that. The Americans in Cambodia can pretty much teach the Cambodians whatever they want and they have to accept it because nobody else speaks English. I taught my English class "swag" this week. btw, we teach an English class every week and it's super fun.

You know that feeling that you sometimes get when you're just chillin' in bed and you think ants are crawling all over you but there actually aren't any ants? yeah, well it's like that in Cambodia, but there are ants. so that's fun.

We named our mouse Vermin. He usually only comes out at night and then he runs away. We really need to buy rat traps.

We started teaching a new investigator last week. His name is Om Ai. He is about 60-65 years old and he doesn't have a job. We asked him what he used to do for work and he says he's never worked before. We taught him the first lesson and went back to teach the second lesson but he had forgotten it all. So we taught him the first lesson again. Sometimes I take for granted how lucky I am to have been born in a good country with good schooling. My life and Om Ai's life are so different. But it all works out in the end because the gospel can be understood by anyone who wants to understand it. Om Ai has a sincere heart and wants to learn and he came to conference on Sunday. I know he will be blessed to understand the gospel and find happiness in it.

Every morning during personal study we hear 4 or 5 of the loudest sneezes ever. Like a lightning bolt coming out of the nostrils of Zeus. I'm still not sure where they come from. It might be a crazy lady from across the street or it might be the ghosts in the haunted hallway of our house.

Every morning during companionship study we hear the birds that have nested in our bathroom have an all out brawl for 5 minutes straight. It's actually pretty funny when you think about it.

We had a ward party this week. They were playing Katy Perry and Turn Down for What. I almost died. I miss music. 

Cambodia is awesome. General conference was awesome. I don't even have anything to say about it. It's the super bowl for missionaries. Just go watch it.

SPIRITUAL SHPEEL: Elder Meyers, our zone leader, came on an exchange with us this week. He had served in this ward about 7 months ago. He kept asking about this one old lady, Ma, because she was one of the people he taught here. I didn't understand why he was talking about her so much because it had been a long time since he had been here and he has taught lots of other people since then. I didn't understand until they met again. You should have seen the way her eyes lit up when she saw him. It was like he was her long lost grandson or someone who had saved her from drowning. They didn't really say much. They just visited for a couple minutes. She didn't praise him in her words, I could see it all in her eyes. This missionary meant the world to her. He helped change her life. It was amazing.

I hope I can become a missionary like that. I want to help these amazing people change their lives for the better. I know that this gospel changes lives. It can change yours too if you let it.

I love you all!

Love, 

Elder Osborne

HOME

Holy freak its already Monday again. that week went by so fast. what is life.

I'm in Cambodia. this is all still so surreal but it all feels so good at the same time. i feel like I'm home again. it's probably because i think of China as home and this is exactly like China. (note to any future wife candidates: you have to be willing to live in Asia if you want a piece of this). but really i love it here. i love the people, i love the food, i love the traffic, i love the dust, i love the sun, i love the church. ahhh i just love it all.

Okay so on Monday a bunch of missionaries went out to an Indian place for some sweet curry and masala. it was all good until about 5 hours later when it hit Elder Berger's bowels. we were in a lesson and i think he had to leave like 7 times because of the spicy surprise cuisine. it was awesome. And thus our collective diarrhea count for one day hit an all time high of 14. it was a marvelous occasion.

Instead of deviled egg parties we now have UNO parties. it's a meager substitute but i guess it will suffice. every night before bed we gather around the most air conditioned room (if the power is on) and try to outdo each other in the epic card came battle of UNO. we have a running scoreboard and currently I'm sitting at second with 13 points. you get 3 pts for winning 2 for second and 1 for third. the loser gets nothing. and that's usually Elder Sok because he doesn't speak English. lol. love you elder Sok!

This week i met one of our investigators that lives about 25 minutes away. we biked all the way over there in the dead heat but even though i got a sunburn it was worth it all. he's suuuper cool. his name is Bong Sok and he is a fried chicken cart owner. everyday he gets a bunch of chicken and sauces them up and then goes out to the market and sells chicken from his little cart. he's super humble and is super receptive and nice to us when we go over there. it's really awesome to see that most people in this world are good and nice people. pretty much everyone we talk to is nice and friendly. I'm so thankful to be with the Cambodian people, and their fried chicken.

It rained. and it was epic. Like an action movie car (bike) chase in the rain. we were on our way to an appointment and it just started dumping on us. like huuuge rain drops, i thought it was hailing for a second but it was 90 degrees. the roads are hard enough to navigate in the day with no rain, but when the sun is going down and it's raining and firebolt (my bike) is on her last legs it becomes an action movie. it was probably the funnest/most life threatening thing I've done. we're never too far from death here in Cambodia. when we got to the appointment our recent converts Tol and Vin laughed at us because we were so soaked. it's alright though because they love us.

Tol and Vin:  

Vin is next to me and Tol is on the far side. they are 22 and 27. they were baptized about a month ago and Tol is the Young Men's president and Vin comes with us for most of our lessons. they are so awesome. it's crazy how they are such recent converts but they are so dedicated. they live in a 10' x 10' concrete house with 5+ people. and Tol has THE FATTEST baby in the world. she is like a monster but he and his wife are so small. it defies logic: 

Khmer New Year is coming up next week and so EVERYONE is leaving town. everyone we talk to is going to be gone. all the missionaries say that it will be a ghost town in the whole city. people are already starting to celebrate with these little balloon things that pop super loud. everyone comes up to us and pops them on our backs and it freaks the bajeebus out of me every time. i love it. 2 nights ago after we were leaving an appointment everyone in the alley was having a water fight... and we got caught in the crossfire. it was so awesome. in a matter of 5 seconds i had 10 water balloons thrown at me and a whole 5 gallon bucket dumped on my head. it was a nice way to cool off at the end of a hot day.

My bike. it's a tragic story really. she was so trustworthy. but it wasn't meant to be. today we are exchanging her. it's a miracle that I'm even alive actually. her back wheel is so bent and there are at least 7 broken spokes. it's a bittersweet day.

Moral of the story: Cambodia is awesome and I don't want to be anywhere else.

Spiritual thought: A TEMPLE IS COMING TO THAILAND!! Holy Moly this is so freaking cool. getting from Phnom Penh to Bangkok takes the same amount of time as it does just to get to Siem Riep or Batembong which means it will be so much easier for everyone in Cambodia to get to the temple! I'm so excited. i love the temple so much. my testimony of the temple has grown steadily for the past 2 years of going once a week and it's growing even more now that I'm unable to go for 2 years. i know the temple will bless all the lives of the people in southeast Asia. I'm so stoked for that.

I love you all

Love, Elder Osborne