April 29, 2012

Dear Family, This past week has been another great week. We had a lot of unexpected things happen. Our zone interviews this past week went great. Elder Adao and I felt like our workshop went great and that it really helped the zone. At our interviews the Assistants gave a workshop on companionship unity. It was a great workshop and it gave Elder Adao and I new ideas to help us be more unified. Because of this workshop we changed the way we do companionship study to focus more on specific lesson plans for investigators. This change has made a large improvement in the work. We still end up adjusting a lot of our plans according to the needs of our investigators and to the spirit but we are teaching with even more unity and the spirit is stronger in the Lessons. We experienced this, last wednesday with one of our investigators named Crison. Crison is 21 years old and we met him through his cousin, who is one of our investigators. Crison is searching for the truth and is super smart. He has lot's a questions and is slowly gaining a testimony. We made a plan to teach him about the word of wisdom and we planned specifically for the questions we thought he might have and gave extra time to making the lesson plan fit him. When it came time to teach him he ended up asking a lot of the questions we had planned for and because of our planing we were able to answer in unity and the spirit magnified what we said. It was a wonderful lesson and it helped teach me the importance of unity. This past week there were some members who went to the temple and the Bade family was able to go and to baptisms for the dead. They even prepared 5 names which they took to the temple with them! It was wonderful to have our converts visit the temple and to hear about their experiences there! What a blessing temples are! For the past 2 weeks a few of the wards in San Jose stake started a little basketball league. About a quarter of the team for ward 1 is made up a less-active members who our bishop invited to come and play. Through this activity these less-active members have renewed friendships with active church members and yesterday we had one come to church. It has been such a blessing because this past week we found 3 part-member families just from Less-actives playing basketball! They are all awesome and some really have a testimony about the church. I'm excited to work with them this month and I pray that we can help their families come back. One of the crazy things that happened this past week happened to an Elder In our zone. We were at our house eating our lunch when one of the Elders in our zone burst through the Door and said his companion was in the trike outside. We ran out to the trike and the Elder's foot was covered in a bloody bandage and blood was dripping on the the floor of the Tricycle side car. Elder and Adao and I hopped in the trike and we headed off to the hospital. It turns out the Elder was drinking soda out of a glass bottle and it slipped while he was drinking it. When it hit the ground if broke right next to his foot and his heel got sliced open pretty good! I'll attach a picture so you can see it. Anyways long story short, he got it stitched up and is all good now. This past week has been awesome! I wish I could tell you about every lessons we taught and all of the wonderful people I work with everyday! The zone is full of awesome missionaries and is on fire right now! I love being a missionary! I just love it! I love the Gospel. Last week I read a talk about the Atonement by David A. Bednar in the Liahona and I recommend it to all of you. He talked about how the atonement isn't just power for bad people to become good people. It's also the way for good people to become better people and how we can use this power in our lives everyday. I am thankful for the atonement in my life and the role it plays in everything I do. We are hopeless without the atonement, but thankfully we all have hope. mahal ko kayo Love Elder Leishman ps. Elder Nelson of the Quorum of the 12 is going to visit our mission in May!