Dear Family and Friends,
Happy fourth of July!!!! As you can probably guess I won't be doing anything to celebrate this holiday! This past week has yet again been a great one! Our baptisms were a great success! This week the weather was perfect! We had to move to a different place in the river but it was still soooo beautiful. Everytime we have a baptism I feel such a great feeling of joy! It really is such a different feeling. Seeing the investigators you love exercise faith, change and accept the gospel this amazing. On the other hand it's difficult to see the investigators you love tell you not to come back, or fall back into an old addiction. The four investigators that were baptized have all had to overcome their own trials and challenges on their path to becoming a member. One of our investigators who was baptized is named Allen. He has great faith. He is sixteen, has only completed 1st grade and doesn't know how to read. Inspite of these things he has strong faith and a strong testimony. His mom used is a member but was inactive when we first started teaching Allen. Allen's mom reads the Book of Mormon to Allen and now they are all active and closer as a family. They live really far away from the church and a couple of weeks they didn't have any transportation so they walked 3 hours each way to church. That is such a great example of faith. Before President Puzey left, I expressed a concern with how things are going to change when the new chapel is done because it will be more difficult for many members to go to church to do location. President Puzey said "Instill Faith in the members. If they have strong enough faith they will walk for days to go to church". This principle is true and I have seen in in Allen Anchetta and his family. When our faith is strong enough and we trust in the Lord, we can do all things!
Another one of our investigators who was baptized is Cesar Andojar. I think I wrote about him last week. Cesar is an awesome recent convert and is our only potential missionary in the Branch right now. He really wants to serve a mission and share his testimony and is already starting to become a missionary in our branch. With his help we are now teaching his sister Jennifer who is really progressing!
Family. Thank you for everything that you all do for me. Thank you for your emails. I love them! They make my week. Sorry that I don't respond to everyone's emails personally. I really don't have that much time. Thank you for your prayers. I feel them when I'm down or when things are hard. I want you to know that you are in my prayers everyday. I love you all soooo much! We are so blessed in everyway. Whenever things are hard, know that our trials are for our good. It is through our trials that we are able to learn, grow and become more like our savior.
As far as the pictures go. They are pretty self explanatory. Sorry that three of them are widescreen... I gave my camera to another missionary and he thought it would be cool to put it in widescreen... Oh well. The butterfly is real and alive!
And my patriotic thought for the day in honor of the fourth of July. Being here in the Philippines has made me realize how blessed we are in America. I love the Philippines and it really is my new home, but we are so blessed in America. America is a chosen land, and God's hand was in the creation of the nation of America. I'm thankful for our founding fathers and the good old USA. Enjoy the fireworks and BBQ and all that good stuff.
Mahal Kita. Sorry my email is short. I promise to try and make it longer next week. P.s. I'll meet president Martino on Wednesday. I'm really excited.
Love Elder Leishman
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