Diligence April 2

Dear Family and Friends,

It's crazy how fast time flies. Right now it's the last week of the transfer. We have transfers on Thursday so I'll let you know what happens next week. This past week has been an awesome week! We had 2 exchanges this past week which went really well. The hardest thing about exchanges is leaving your area. Even if it's for a day I can't help but think about what's going on in my area and how my investigators are. It's sometimes hard to let someone else teach the people you love so much.

This past week we were teaching an investigator and I made a very simple mistake in Tagalog, and the investigator got pretty offended at what I said. I didn't have any bad intentions in what I said but the investigator didn't see that. I felt really bad after the lesson, but that experience taught me a lot. Since then I have a new desire to master Tagalog. I can speak Tagalog pretty well but sometimes I make stupid mistakes and i am still working on my accent. I know that I need to keep studying dilligently to recieve the Lord's help through the gift of tongues. However don't be to worried about the investigator. We went back and taught him and everything was good. He is the part member father I talked about last week and he is making awesome progress! He is slowly recognizing learning to recognize the spirit and is excited for conference this upcoming week.

One of the things that I realized this past week was the need to focus on Preach my Gospel. Sometimes I get so focused on the scriptures that I forget about Preach My Gospel. Preach My Gospel is such an amazing book and I know that every page of it was inspired of God. It's our guide as missionaries and we need to study it. When I started to study it more in depth this past week I learned so much and was reminded of so many important principles of missionary work and of the doctrine in the missionary lessons. We are so blessed as missionaries to have preach my gospel.

This past week has been a great one! Sorry if this email is pretty boring. It was a really good week. The picture I sent is of a spider we caught in the house the other day... It's pretty good sized. As far as god stories go. Last week we were walking through the ricefields to one of our apointments and I had to jump to another dike where I we could walk and I when I landed I slipped and fell flat on my back. My pants but super muddy but it was so funny. I laughed really really hard. Gotta love it!

I love being a missionary! This is such a rewarding work. I am also excited for general conference! I have been preparing for weeks now and I cannot wait till this sunday. I figured out that a lot of what you get from general conference comes from your preparation so I ahve been trying to get really prepared.

mahal ko kayo!

Love Elder Leishman

Well...

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week has been a busy one! One of my highlights of the week was meeting President and Sister Martino! I attached a picture of Elder Martino and I. I honestly couldn't be more excited that President Martino is my mission president. He is awesome. He is humble, very spiritual, is good at Tagalog, has a great Texas accent, and I love his attitude about the work! He has already started to make some changes and I am excited about them all. This week I'll have my first interview with him and I'm really excited for it. Sister Martino is great too! Sister Martino has a said we need to be sparkling missionaries. Meaning that when we teach, we sparkle. When we teach we speak from our hearts with the spirit not just with our mouths. When we are sparkling missionaries we have the Light of Christ in our countenances. I hope that I can be a sparkling missionary! This past week I saw the hand of the Lord in the work in so many ways. I see miracles everyday. This past week I had a feeling to visit a member Sister Macapulay after one of our appointments fell through. We went to her house and it didn't take long to figure out that she has been having a lot of personal struggles. We were able to share a very spiritual message with her and when we were leaving she expressed her gratitude to us and told us that the Lord had sent us to her. Two days later we when to visit the Sister Macapulay again and we were able to teach her husband for the first time. We have been trying to teach him for months but this was the first time that he was wanted to listen. If we wouldn't have followed the promptings of the spirit to visit Sister Macapulay the first time we wouldn't have returned and been able to teach her husband. I know that the spirit prompted us and I am very grateful that we followed that prompting. Also right now we are teaching Johmer Diaz who was a former investigator. He is 19 and is really interested. He stop the lessons because he moved away for a couple months and the missionaries were transfered when he returned. This past week we taught a lesson to him , and everything we said was good but we didn't teach with the spirit and Johmer didn't understand our message. When we taught him again we asked questions, focused on his needs and the experience was completely different. I felt the spirit and I know he did too. This taught me how important the spirit is in teaching. Conversion won't take place without the spirit, no matter how beautiful or convincing your words are.

One thing that I have better learned on my misison is the importance of the family. Family is Central to God's plan for us. This past week I read Jacob chapters 2 and 3 in my personal study and It helped me understand the importance of finding and teaching Families. The Gospel blesses families is so many ways and in the world today there are so many forces in opposition to the family. Through the gospel people can find peace and happiness and strengthen their families. Our efforts in missionary work need to be centered on families.

Well the Work continues in Burgos. I attached a picture of a rather large spider in our appartment. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I love the Work and I LOVE the people here! I'm so grateful to me a missionary. I love you all.

Mahal Kita,

Love Elder Leishman