Week 2 for the Nung Cambo!

Okay this is my generic email for the week. Our first investigator, PuHoong decided to get baptized, but then later decided to wait for his family. Hard work recieves awards, and when I start slacking a little in my language study, teaching investigators gets really hard! We still stink at teaching in Cambodian, but it's coming along. We learning HOW to read on Thurday, and now we are just practicing. It's a very slow proccess, because there are 104 letters, but it's slowly coming! We get to translate some of the book of mormon back to english every night, which is super fun. Our investigator also became our night time teacher. He coaches us with not only language but gospel principals. I met my mission president, president TEW with my compainion on Saturday. Me and my companion, as well as 10 others speaking spanish met him, and we were the only camobodian elders. There are only 4 Cambodian speaking elders in LB, and our first sunday we are supposed to translate English to Cambodian in sacrament meeting. I keep learning a lot about recognizing the spirit. We got to see the quorrom of the 12 at the Sunday devotional, and if you didn't see we were on T.V. twice! It was pretty cool, and we got there 3 hours early so we could sit super close. Some advice from apostles about leadership "Good Leaders take action because of Love." One of my teachers got engaged, and so we won't be seeing him around much! Yesterday at the Tuesday devotional we got to hear Janice Kapp Perry, who wrote a lot of primary songs speak. At one point her husband (who is very old) went up and kissed her. The missionaries went WILD. It was an amazing experience to hear about her inspiration of songs I've known my whole life. One of the Elders in my district from Long Beach, Elder Tran, is a recent convert so he has never hear the primary songs before and started bawling, along with a lot of other Elders and Sisters as well. The spirit was so strong when we sang Army of Heleman! New Laotion Elders came in, and they are wicked cool! Here we call the people in our Zone Pi's and Nung's. Pi means older and Nung means younger, so the Elders that have been here 7 weeks are our Pi-Thais, and we are the Nung- Cambos. The Pi Thais are leaving soon, which is sad but awesome that they finally get to leave! Anyway it was a good second week, and I'm ready to finish my 7 more here at the MTC.

https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/watch/the-work-of-salvation/2013/06?lang=eng

It is sort of like 'Where's Waldo', but if you look carefully, you can see Nick and his companion at the church's broadcast: The Work of Salvation

We all yelled (a lot of oh my gosh, it's Nick!)

It was SO exciting! Especially for his little brother Will.  Nick and his companion, Elder Tartar, look a bit drowsy, but it was like an early Christmas for us!

A Little Note Sent from Nicholas:

Honestly, I love it here. I can't think of any negatives. Everyone is extremely nice, especially my companion.  His name is Elder Tartar.  He's from Payson and played football.  Each day has been really exciting.  Parker Rasmussen and Drew Crump live in my same hallway.  My p-day is on Wednesday.  I'll email more then.  (remind Will to read his scriptures)
Love, Elder Liddell

A final look back as Nick was swooped off into the MTC.  What could Nick be thinking? Gulp, Yea, Yikes, Awesome.....

Nick runs into his friend and neighbor, Ellie Ott, in the MTC.  By the looks of it, things are going great!  I LOVE this photo!

Nick's First Letter!

I'm having a lot of fun, which leaves no time to miss anything (which is awesome)!  My companin is Elder Tartar, from Payson.  I also have Elder Wilson from Provo, and an Elder McBride from Sandy.  They went to BYU and knew each other before coming to the MTC.  WE have 6 beds in our teeny room, but luckily there are only 4 of us in the room.  Most everyone else is packed into their room with 6 elders.  I'll send you pictures when I can.  I have gotten used to the food for the most part.  They have some good things to eat.  I have seen a few people I know (Chris Andjewierden, Tucker Beener, Ellie Ott), and see Elder Rasmussen every day.  
My teachers are Lookru (teacher) Mickelson, Merrill, and Thomas.  They are awesome and are really helping us learn.  We teach a RM who speaks Cambodian every day and it goes bad every time.  We are still trying to string together sentences, so it's awkward, but we are able to get through the lessons okay.  The RM is named "PuHong", and he is really funny, but we have no idea really what he's saying.  Our teachers didn't speak a word of English until yesterday.  They spoke in mixed khmer (Ca-may) and English.  We learn a lot every day and it's a lot of memorizing, but the programs here are good.  We use a program called TALL where a lady says all of the Cambodian words and sounds really funny.  
I'm in building 14M, and learn my daily lessons in building 10M (two floors below Ellie Ott).  I'm tired, but we get 7 hours of sleep which is plenty, because we have a lot to do. 
They walk us to the stadium to listen to devotionals.  Every devotional has been exactly what I needed to hear and the spirit really help me to know what I need to learn.  
Anyways, I love everyone and wish everyone well.  PS.  Write via dearelder.com   That way I get daily mail.  I can only check emails once a week for a very short period of time!