Preparing for an Open House

The new meeting house in Kampong Thom is almost finished and will be dedicated on December 14th following an open house on December 13th. It has been an interesting experience to have been responsible to help the members in the Kampong Thom Branch plan for this open house. We started meeting with the Branch President, Nuth Yi, two months early thinking it would make it easier for them if they started early. But it hasn't really worked out that way. The branch president is a farmer and a very strong willed person. Everything is being done in the last two weeks which hopefully will work out ok. We always encourage the members to invite government officials to an open house to help them understand more about the Church and hopefully have a better relationship with them. It is also a time to invite the local people to come and see the building and hopefully learn about the Church too.  It is a great missionary opportunity.  The president has been extremely worried about inviting officials to come. President Moon finally got Samnang from the service center who is also part of the mission presidency, to talk to the Branch President and offer to help him with the inviting. This seemed to make a big difference to him. President Yi has some kind of different ideas about what he wants to do so we will just have to be flexible. The building is beautiful.  It is a very small building that is designed to be added on to as the need arises as the Church grows.  It had many very modern things included In the design that are very different from what the members, who mostly live in one room houses, are used to. We were there as they had a training session that they mostly talked to each other throughout. Hopefully they will learn quickly. They are pretty excited to have the new chapel.