Transfers! A Farewell to Burgos! Oct. 19

Dear family and friends,

We just had transfer announcements this morning and .......... Tomorrow I will be transfering to Cabanatuan Zone in Cabanatuan 8 Ward! I will be a Zone Leader and my new companion will be Elder Burog. Elder Tating will be training a new missionary in Burgos. I have really mixed feelings about this transfer. I have loved my companionship with Elder Tating. I'm going to miss him but I know he's ready to train. I don't have to say it but I love Burgos! Burgos is my new home. I love all the people there so much. I was a speaker in sacrament meeting this past week and I teared up as thought about probablly speaking for the last time in Burgos. It will be sad to leave tomorrow but I'm also excited for a this new experience. I'm a little nervous to be a zone leader but I know it will all be good.

This past week has been a great one as usually and one of the Highlights of the week and of my mission was the Baptism of Adonis. We had it at 6:30 am (due to his work schedule) at the river and it was so beautiful. It was so peaceful and spirit was so strong. I baptized Adonis and it was a great moment I won't ever forget. Adonis is a father of 6 and is the last member of his family to become a member. It was so amazing to see the Benosa Family together. On sunday night we taught about temples and eternal families and now the Benosa family has a goal to be sealed as a family in the temple in a year. They are all so excited. Especially the children who have been waiting for years for their father to accept the Gospel. I just felt such a joy and excitement for them. Helping families return to their Heavenly Father; that is what missionary work is about!

This past week Fidel was also baptized. Fidel lives with his Grandmother who is a member. Fidel has been great and really loves church. I hope that he can help support this grandmother in the gospel. One of the things we focused on this past week as a mission was increasing out oym's or (open your mouth). Elder Tating and I reached a number of oym's that I have never been close to before on my mission. By doing so we have found a lot of potential investigators that will be contacted this week. This experience helped me realize that there have been finding opportunities that I have missed. I need to always be finding, even when my day is full of appointments. We don't know who the Lord has prepared so we need to do all we can to talk to everyone and not ever be afraid to open our mouths.

This past week I have also done a lot of reading in 3 Nephi and have loved it. I love the words of Christ in his ministry to the Nephites. I never realized how special 3 nephi was before. I especially love chapter 11. I love the way that Chirst came to the Nephites and how he invited them all to "thrust your handsinto my saide, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and feet". 3 Nephi is just great!

Well I havn't packed yet and We need to leave the house tomorrow at 6:00am so I need to end my email. I attatched from pictures from the baptisms. I hope you enjoy them.

Mahal ko kayo,

Love Elder Leishman

Another Lunes sa Burgos

Dear family and friends,


This past week has been great!!!! It is amazing to see the Lord's hand in his work. Yesterday President and Sister Puzey attended our branch for church. Our attendance was 93 which is way more than our average of 65. We also had 10 investigators attend sacrament meeting which is by far the most we've had. It was such a powerful fast and testimony meeting. The spirit was so strong as the members bore their testimonies about our savior Jesus Christ. It was also great to hear President and sister Puzey bear their testimonies. The first time they attended Burgos branch was a year and a half ago and the attendance was 15. The area got reopened to missionary work a year ago and the growth in the strength of the Branch has been great! Everyday I realize more and more how blessed I am to be a missionary and to be assigned in Burgos. This week we have a baptism for Hinckly, the investigator who is 14 and is the only non-member in his family. He has a strong testimony and is ready to be baptized. His dad will be the one performing the baptism which will be so great! I really excited for his baptism and pray that things will work out this week. We found a new investigator this week named Jackielynn. Jackielynn is 17 and she really wants to know the truth. She reads all of her reading assignments and more. She also takes notes and writes down questions she has when she reads. Her cousins are members and have already helped her stop drinking coffee. We also have one investigator named Pipito who is from Bisayas. He struggles with Tagalog but is studying it so he can better understand the gospel. Right now his baptismal goal date is June 25. This past week really was a very successful week and it was largely due to the help of the members. Now with the help of the members we are teaching twice as many lessons as we were in my first few weeks. The lessons are also better because more than half of them have been with a member present. I have seen so much better misisonary work is when members are involved. I now have a strong testimony of the importance of members in missionary work. Being members of this church we all have a responsibility to be missionaries. It isn't always easy but it's always worth it. Right now two our our recent converts are struggling. Nicko and Joshua Haro. These two brothers are awesome. The problem is their mom is discouraging them from going to church. School started again today and now with their studies their mother wants them to think about school. It's a hard situation. Their mother is a former investigator and we are trying to gain her trust and teach her again but she doesn't want to. They have good support from the members but their parents are the main problem. I pray that we can find a way to help Nicko and Joshua.


This past week I spent some time studying faith. Ether 12:6 really stood out to me, "for ye receive no witness until after the trail of your faith". Faith is our foundation, our first building block. However it can't be strengthened until it is used, tried and tested. We all have trials, obsticals and barriers which try our faith. As we follow god's commandments when it's the hardest, when we use our faith when the trials are the most difficult that's when testimonies are strengthen and we feel the blessings of the Lord in our life. For a lot of our investigators they have real trials of their faith. However I have seen that as they try their faith they gain their testimonies and see blessings in their lives.


The work in Burgos is great. The field is white. I'm so thankful to be a missionary. This upcoming week is transfers so I will be emailing on Wednesday not Monday. Elder Pioquinto is going to transfer for sure. Next week I'll get my followup trainer but I have no idea who he is, but I'm sure he'll be great.


Fight the Fight of Faith


Mahal Kita


Love Elder Leishman


ps. the pictures are from a CSP. The brother is our branch president President Valdez.

June Malapit Na!

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been another great week in Burgos! This past month our attendance at church has increased every week and our work is increasing. May has definately been great. I can't belive that in two days it will be June! Yesterday in church our Branch President gave us 20 minutes at the end of our fifth sunday meeting to review the Branch Mission Plan with the members. It was so great to be able to coordinate with all the members. Through our little meeting we were able to establish a plan for the retention of our new converts, assign members to visit less active families and have more effective fellow shipping. When I first got to Burgos there was little work with members. They rarely would accompany us to lessons, there was no home teaching, and there wasn't a really strong spirit for missionary work. It has been so great to see the more members get involved with the work and see how much more effective the work is when you have the trust and support of the members. Right now one of the most active member missionaries in Tatay Remigio. The change that has occured in him is so amazing! A couple months ago he hated the missionaries. He has felt the blessings of the gospel his life and has changed dramatically because so. Now he wants to share the blessings he feels with others. Now the Tanedos are visiting less active families, Tatay remigio helps others go to church, he lets us use his house to teach an investigator and shares his testimony and he just is astig!

Right now we have an investigator named Hinckley. He is 14 and is the only non member in his family. He isn't a member because his family has moved around a lot. He was been staying in Burgos for his summer vacation. He has come to church everyweek and I didn't even know he wasn't a member till his father came and visited the branch and told us so. We have been teaching him but he already has a great gospel background. It has been really great to teach him. Right now his baptism date is June 11, the week before he goes back to his house to go back to school. The timing has worked out great with him. I pray that things continue to work out. We are already starting to coordinate with the missionaries in the area of his house for when he returns to school.

This past week I started the Book of Mormon again and I really love the example of Nephi. No matter how hard the situation, how big the task, how pesimistic his family is, the attitude of Nephi is "I will go and do". When the first attempt to get the plates from Laban failed Nephi said "Let us go up again". Nephi had great trust in the Lord. We need to become like Nephi. We need to be exactly obedient. When things are hard, when things don't work out, when we feel inqadequate we need to "go and do the things that the Lord commands". When we don't succeed and we feel down we need to "Go up again". As we do so our trust in the Lord will grow. We will become great like Nephi and be able to do all things.

Well right now we are heading into Tag-ulan or rainy season. From what I hear Bountiful has been having it's own rainy season. It rains every day and usually when it rains it pours. However the rain is pretty warm. The plants are turning green and farmers are starting to flood their fields. It is so beautiful in my area right now! One of the things I love about the Philippines is the babershops. getting a hair cut is awesome. The babershops are little hole in the wall places and the tatay's that cut your hair know what their doing! They use the old school tools and methods and are good at it. When their done they even give you a little shoulder massage. The Philippines is an amazing place. I have new experiences everyday that I could only have here. The Philippines is really starting to feel like my home. I am so grateful to be able to serve the Lord here.

Well till next week!

Mahal Kita

Love Elder Leishman

Welcome to the Philippines!

We woke up this morning to our first email from Elder Joe in the Philippines!

Dear family and friends,
I finally made it to the Philippines! I am currently sitting in an internet cafe in Tarlac City. The Philippines are AWESOME!. I am Sooo excited to be here. So I'll try to tell you about my travels here and about a couple experiences I have had. So the flight from San Francisco to Manila was long and I slept almost the entire time. However I was able to give away two BOM to some Pilipino on our flight. From Hong Kong we flew to Manila. On that flight I was sitting next to an old nanay, who was very very kind. So we finally arrived to the Manila airport on Wednesday morning. The missionaries going to Angeles put our luggage in one van and all packed into another. We were picked up by some members from Angeles City. On our way to the mission home we stopped by Burger King which was number one! The roads in the Philippines are crazy!!! There really are no rules. Cars, trikes, people, cars, Jeepneys all share the road and it's pretty amazing how there isn't an accident every 2 seconds! We finally arrived at the mission home in the afternoon and we met President and Sister Puzey. They are amazing and so kind. we spent the night at mission home and went through some mission orientation. On Thursday at 12 our trainers came to the mission home to pick us up. My trainer is Elder Pioquinto from someplace in the Bacolod mission. He is awesome! I am very lucky to have him as my trainer. We then headed out to our area. Our area is called Burgos. As President Puzey says we are "out in the wilderness." Our area is a very humble place. I am out in the fields with the carribou(however you spell it). To get to our area we took a bus for an hour and a half, followed by a ride on a trike then we took a Jeep for 50 minutes to our apartment. Our area is very big. Our apartment is in the middle of our area and most of our investigators are a 50 minute walk in either direction. Most of the people in our area are very poor and humble. It's been very humbling to walk into their small houses made of bamboo or cement and see how empty they are and realize that you are looking at all their belongings. Many people here have hardly anything. However they are so friendly and so kind. The people here are amazing. Right now we are teaching about 5 lessons a day to investigators and a few recent converts. We stay pretty busy.
Going to church on Sunday was a powerful experience. It was powerful to see these humble people come to church in whatever way they good, in the nicest clothes they could(many in jeans and a polo) to worship the lord. We had 66 people at church which is above average in our branch. On of my favorite parts of church was feeling the spirit as we sang hymns. Many of the words were sang wrong and there were many pitches at times but the spirit was very powerful. Speaking of hymns I am now the branch pianist. If that isn't a scary thought I don't know what is. Oh yeah and I play on a keyboard which is pretty great. One of the most difficult things here with our investigators is getting them to come to church. It's not because they lack desire. It's because of distance and a lack of transportation. This has made me realize how blessed I have been to be in a place with church so accessible to me.
So the food so far in the Philippines has been masarap! My companion is a good cook and he is teaching me the ways of cooking Filipino food. The mangoes here are the best! Since my area is far away from the city we have to do most of our shopping on p-day. On p-day we come into Tarlac (which is the name of our zone) and we either to district development meeting or do a zone activity. Today we played basketball and some other game I don't know the name of. After that we made mango banana shakes at the zone leader's apartment. Our zone is currently the biggest in the mission with 24 or 22 missionaries. There is one sister from my batch in my zone so it was nice to see a familiar face today. After our activity we went to the SM. Yes we have an SM in our zone which is great! An SM is a huge mall with most things you could want in it. We ate at pizza hut which was great!
So far I have had some moments when I have felt very overwhelmed whether it is with the language, with being in a new place where nothing is familiar or just the fact that I am now really a missionary. However they don't last long and I have learned that I just need to focus on the work and stop thinking about myself. I am so blessed to be here in the Philippines. I am so thankful for this opportunity I have to serve the lord. I really do love it here – even the cold showers that sure wake you up in the morning!
Next week I'll send some pictures of my area, companion and apartment.
Love,
Elder Leishman