Jan 23 Another week in Cabanatuan

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week has been another good one in Cabanatuan. We keep seeing improvements in the work. One thing we're struggling with is keeping our investigators progressing. I can't even tell you how many times we these past 2 transfers that we've had an investigator who will starts to progress and comes to church and out of the blue gets a job and works all day, or moves to a different city. We are praying that things will work out with our investigators now so they can accept the gospel and become active members of the church. Vivian and Brian are still doing great and are working towards their baptism date in February.

Yesterday we had a great moment at church. We have been teaching a less-active tatay for a couple of months now. He has an active daughter but after a surgery a few years ago he hasn't attended church. Yesterday he came to church and was welcomed so greatly by all the members. They were so happy to see him and he was so happy to at church. One of tatay Pineda's good friends is the stake president. When our stake president saw Tatay Pineda he came and sat next to him for the 15 minutes of sacrament meeting. Helping rescue less-active members is amazing. It's a very important part of the work and often leads to part-member families and referrals.

This past week we had 3 lessons interrupted by drunk people. We'll be teaching a spiritual lesson and then out of nowhere our investigators next door neighbor will come in drunk as can be and the spirit leaves. Once the spirit leaves it's hard to bring the lesson back even after the drunk person leaves. You can imagine the things they say and they don't ever want to leave. As you can imagine this was a little bit of a challenge but all things worked out ok.

I love this work, and I love being a missionary. I love my savior and I love the Philippines.

mahal ko kayo

Love Elder Leishman

p.s. sorry this letter is short. Next week I'll get a better letter in with some good pictures!