Goodbye Cabanatuan, Hello San Jose! 2/27

Dear Friends and Family,

This past week was a very crazy week! This past week was transfers and as it turns about I got transfered. I am now in San Jose zone in Ward 1. I am still a zone leader and my new companion is Elder Adao from san Paublo Laguna When I opened the Transfer announcements from the assistants I felt that pang of saddness when I read that I would be transfered. Over the past 4 months I have really grown to love Cabanatuan. At first I didn't love it... I had a hard adjustment at the beggining but now I really love it. I have gain a real love for Cabanatuan, the members, the investigators and the area. It was also pretty sad to leave Elder Casilac. We really had a great companionship. On the other end of thigns coming here to San Jose has been great. I felt a sense of peace knowing that the Lord wants me here. Most of the zone is very rural. However in our area we have part of the San Jose city, which is pretty small,along with some bukid areas. It's a beautiful place. Right now we have some awesome missionaries in the zone and I am very excited for this transfer! We have a lot of work to do and we are excited to do it!

This past saturday we had a baptism. This is the first time I have coming into an area and had a baptisms that fast. Sister Bade was baptized by here husband who is a recent convert. It was such a powerful baptism! The spirit was so strong. Baptisms are so much better when a family member can do the baptism. It helps brings families together better. The Bade's were sad that the missionary I replaced left, but they warmly welcomed me. Our ward here is one of the best functioning wards I have seen in the Philippines which makes me really happy. It makes cordinating with the members much easier. In our area right now we have some strengths and weaknesses but we have a lot of places we can improve. I just know that it's going to be a great transfer! There are 4 missionaries in my new house and I am the only American. I love the Filipino Elders and we are getting along great. In my last two areas we had a nanay who washed our clothes. Here we don't, so I washed my clothes early this morning by hand and I gained a much bigger appreciation for all of the nanay's who do laundry!

This week I have loved my personal study. I have learned so much! I love how every time you read the scriptures you learn something new no matter how many times you have them. I read one of my favorite chapters of the Book of Mormon in Alma 5. I love how Alma talks about the need for a mighty changes of heart and if we have felt a change of heart, can we feel it now? This is such a great explaination of conversion and faith. To experience conversion we need to change. This change starts because of our faith, however once we have changed we need to continue to strive for greater conversion through exercising our faith and following the commandments. If we don't do this we will lose the change of heart we have experienced. It's so important that once we are converted we stay converted. Also once we are truly converted we change. We become "new creatures" through the atonement. What a joy the Gospel is. This was a great tool for me to help me in my quest for greater conversion and in helping my investigators and less-actives gain a mighty change of heart.

I love this Gospel. I love my Savior. This is the only true church on the face of the Earth.

mahal ko kayo

Love Elder Leishman

pictures. THe first picture is of my last day in Cabanatuan. That sign means I am a cabanatueno which means resident of cabanatuan like American for someone from America.

The second picture is of a family home evening we had with the caluza family on my last monday. The last picture is from the baptisms last saturday.

3 New Members in Cabanatuan 2/19

Dear Family and friends,

Wow! This past week has been awesome! We had our challenges but so many good things happened! One of the great things that happened was our baptism last Saturday. Vivian, Brian and Marcelino were baptized and confirmed. The baptism was great. The spirit is different at baptisms. It is just such a special thing to witness and to be a part of. Baptisms is such an important step in every one of our lives. I have talked about Marcelino in the past but as a reminder he is a part-member whose family has been less-active for years. Now the family is reactivated and are preparing to go to the temple in August or September to be sealed. It was wonderful to see how happy the Caluza family has become and to see them at Marcelino's baptism. Vivian and Brian are great as well. It has been a real joy to watch their conversion. They have come to know the truth of the Gospel through the spirit and especially through Ang Aklat ni Mormon. They love to read the Book of Mormon. it has brought peace to their lives and answered their questions. They are so excited about the church that they have given us many referrals. One of them is a family of 7 who want to come closer to God.

This past week when we went to one of our appointments at a part-member house we found out that they had a visitor. Their visitor was named Sam and is from England. His wife died a few years ago so he moved to the Philippines and became friends with the family we are teaching. We invited Sam to listen to the lesson and I taught in English for the first time in my entire mission. Sam is atheist and had a lot of questions. Filipinos love God and almost everyone has a firm belief in Jesus Christ so it was definatly an adjustment to teach an Atheist... in English. Even though Sam would accept any commitments or and didn't like any of the answers we gave to his questions, it was a powerful lesson. I felt the Spirit testify that what I said was true. The mother of the Family(who is less-active) also bore her testimony and it was powerful. It made me really sad that Sam wouldn't accept our teaching. I desired his salvation. He is such a nice man, but doesn't really have a firm purpose in life. I am thankful for the Gospel in my life and the foundation and peace it brings all of us.

I love this work! I love being here is Cabanatuan. The rescue program is the Philippines is revelation and is the best! I just love it. This week we have transfers and I'll let you knows what happens next week.

mahal ko kayo

Love Elder Leishman


Pictures: The first picture is of me and the tricycle of less-active member we have been teaching. He is now active with his wife and 7 children. Please read the Words on the tricyle... I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
The next two pictures are of our baptism this past week. One of Marcelino and his Family (minus a couple siblings who are working) and one group picture from the baptism.

Mission Tour with Elder Teh

Dear Family and friends,

This week has been an amazing one! One of the big highlights of this past week was our mission tour with Elder Teh. Elder Teh is the area president for the Philippines. The tour was on Wednesday morning but we set the chaple up with the Assistants of Tuesday night. Elder Pioquinto showed me the program and I saw that I would be conducting. I was a little nervous to be conducting a meeting with a general authority... On the morning of hte mission tour we had a leadership meeting with the zone leaders and district leaders. It was an amazing meeting. Elder Teh talked about John 10 and the Good Shepard. He compared all of us to good shepards and the need to know our sheep, gain our sheep trust and protect them from wolfs of the world. Every has their own wolves and it's a leader job to know those wolfs and protect their sheep. I was so inspired and uplifted from the leadership meeting. For our main meeting with everyone I was conducting. Not all of the program was announced so I sat next to Elder Teh who told me who out of the missionaries would be giving talks. It was really cool to watch him choose what missionaries would give talks. I think my conducting went ok. The mission tour was a spiritual feast to say the least. Sister Martino talked about looking up, no sideways, President Martino talked about the vision of our mission and President Teh talked about the "Puwede na current". Puwede na means good enough. This is current that many missionaries fall into where they kind of sit back and cruise through the mission, and stop striving everyday to improve. This talk was an answer to my prayers and taught me the importance of being happy of where we are but never being satisfied enough to stop seeking for improvement. Lately I have felt like I have become a little to comfortable with my calling and might have gone through the motions a little bit. This was a wonderful spiritually reminder to serve with my all my heart, might, mind and strength everyday. After our meeting Elder Teh interviewed 9 missionaries and I was one of them. It was a very powerful interview. I was surprised by the questions he asked but I left the interview with greater hope because of the greatness of the Gospel and our calling as a missionary. After the inverview President Martino informed me that President Teh would be checking our appartment. President Martino smiled and said "I hope your house is clean" with a wink. We usually keep our very clean and had tried to get it extremely clean because we knew there was a chance that Elder Teh would be checking some houses. However the night before the mission tour we had 14 Elders from distant zones sleeping at our house in order to make it to the conference on time. We left the house at 5:45 to get the church open and when we left our house it wasn't looking to pretty..... When President Martino told me our house would be checked I prayed that the Elders had cleaned up their mess that morning! Thankfully they did. The house looked great and it was good house check. One of the my favorite parts meeting the Teh's was hearing them talk about Dad and Grandpa Lolo. They only had the best things to say!

Besides the mission tour we had a very busy week with exchanges and with progress in our area. The work is really starting to flourish here in our area. We have seen the spirit touch the lives of many people this past week, especially with our investigators and less-active members. Seeing the Gospel change lives if such an amazing thing. This Saturday Marcelino, Vivian and Brian will be baptized. I am so excited for their baptisms. They are very ready to make these important covenants with the Lord. This past week we went to contact a less-active referral from the ward and we ended up teaching the family. The Father of their family and the 5 children aren't members but they excitedly welcomed us in and we had a wonderful lesson about eternal families. We taught them the restoration on Saturday and all of the family was touched by the spirit. This is an example of the miracles happening everyday. We are working on returning families to the fold and completing part-member families. This is such a great way to do the work.

This past week I was able to go on an exchange with Elder Tating in his area. It was such a joy to work with Elder Tating again. It was like being back with an old best friend. Elder Tating is an amazing misisonary and is great example to other missionaries. I learned a lot from that exchange. This week I have realized how blessed I have been to have some great companions on my mission. Elder Casilac being one of them. Missionary work really starts in the companionship.

This past week one of my favorite things I have learned from the scriptures came from Mosiah 2:41."I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God..." One of the things I have learned on my mission is that obedient missionaries are happy missionaries. It make me really sad to see disobedient missionaries. They don't know how blessed they could be if they would just be obedient. I know that Obedience is key to becoming a successful missionary. God wants to give us blessing and for us to be happy, but for us to receive happiness and blessings from the Lord we need to be obedient.

I feel so blessed everyday to be a missionary. I love this work sooo much! I love my Savior. I love the Philippines and the wonderful people here.

mahal ko kayo

Love Elder Leishman

Feb 5 Wow a Crazy Week!

Dear Friends and Family,

This past week flew by. It was a very busy and successful week.

This past week we had a zone leader/ District leader conference with President and Sister Martino. They talked about the importance of the temple in our purpose as missionary work. It was a wonderful reminder to be a what this is really about. It's not about baptism, or just coming back to church. It's about covenants, especially those we make in Temples. We are really trying to get individuals and more importantly families to the temple. Families can be together forever. I love my family and am thankful for them more every single day.

Speaking of Families, we have a less-active family that we have been working with for over 4 months now. We have slowly been coming back to church one by one and yesterday they finally attended church as a family! It filled me with joy as I saw them sitting i the church together as a family. The thing that really made the difference for them was us teaching about the importance of the temples and eternal families. Their youngest son (Marcelino) is an 11 year old part member who will be baptized this upcoming Feb. 18. Marcelino is awesome and is so excited to be baptized, he is even more excited about one day going to the temple with his family. Vivian and Brian will be baptized on February 18th as well. Yesterday while we were teaching them Vivian talked about all the changes and blesses that have happened in her life since she started to listen to us, keep the word of wisdom, read the Book of Mormon and attend church. She talked about how she feels peace, happiness and feels better about life. Because of the Holy Ghost and by the Gospel she knows that this is the true church. What a joy. The worth of every soul is great in the sight of God. God loves and knows all his children. I know this is true because of I have seen how personal God is with his children.

This past week we helped Elder Tating and his companion move houses and the assistants helped us because they have a pick up truck. One of the assistants is Elder Pioquinto. It was so fun to spend a couple hours with some of my old companions who I love so much. Moving the house was a task but we had a great time doing it. You wouldn't believe the way we packed that truck Dad would have even been impressed!

This week we have a mission tour with Elder Teh, the area president here in the Philippines. I am so excited for the spiritual feast it will be. One important thing I have learned is that everyday can be a spiritual feast as we study the scriptures, pray to our Father in Heaven and follow the promptings of the spirit. We don't have to have an apostle speaking in front of us to have great spiritual learning... our course I won't complain if I do have the opportunity to listen to an apostle.

I have attached two pictures. One is of the son of less-active member we have been working with. p.s. make sure you read the words on the Basketball he is holding! I couldn't stop laughing when I saw it! The other picture is of a csp we did with our district. We cleaned up the property around a new meeting house for a new group and had a good time with all the tools we had to do it.

I love this work! I love being missionary!

Fight the Good Fight of Faith