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

A lot of Exchanges March 25

Dear Family and Friends,

This past week has been an amazing week here in San Jose! We went on three exchanges with different areas and had our correlation meeting with the stake president and president Martino. You could say it was a little busy.

Our exchanges this past week were very needed and were helpful to all included. For a couple of weeks Elder Adao and I felt like we needed to go on exchanges with a couple of Elders in our district and we found out why. It turned out that they had stopped doing companionship study, planning and had lost excitement for the work. Because of these things all aspects of their work had been effected. On our exchanges we tried to teach by example and commited them to be obedient. Since our exchanges there have been big improvements in their work. They are happier, are working harder and are working better as a companionship. I know that this will have a huge effect on the success of their area.

This past week we have seen some great successes. Last week we started teaching Brother Rigor. He is the father of a member of our bishopic who is young returned missionary. His father hasn't been interested in the church for 10 years but after talking with him last week he opened up to us and we have been teaching him since. It turns out he is really searching for the truth. Last night we taught one of the most powerful lessons of my mission about the Book of Mormon. The spirit directed us as the missionary, Brother Rigor and Brother Faust. I taught the Book of Mormon in a way I had never taught it before. This was because of the spirit. Elder Adao said the same thing after the lesson. The best part of the lesson however has Brother Faust's testimony to his father. It was so powerful because of the love that was involved. He addressed his father as "daddy" (which is fairly common here) during his testimony and the you could just feel the love they have for each other. It was just an intense spiritual experience. Brother Rigor firmly commited to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know of it's truthfulness. He hasn't accepted a baptismal date yet but we are hoping for the first week of May.

Next week is transfers and I can hardly believe how fast this transfer is going. I am loving it here in san Jose! The zone is doing great and so are all of our investigators I am getting better at cooking and am now using a lot of coconut milk in cooking. It's pretty tasty to say the least. My love handles are still there as well. They just thrive off of the rice but that's life. I read alma 37 this morning and I have to say that it is one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon, especially if you put your name it!

I love you all. This is the true Church. This is God's work and I see his had in it everyday.
I sure love being a missionary!

mahal ko kayo

nagmamahal

Elder Leishman

No Brown out! March 19

Dear Family and Friends,


Today there is now brown-out! We had one all last friday instead! This past week has been another great one! We have had some great successes! This past week we have had more oym's (open your mouth) than I have ever experienced before in my mission. We are working hard and are starting to see some of the fruits of our labors. The greatest joy of being a missionary is seeing people change and become happy because of the Gospel like Alma talks about in Alma 29. This week I went on exchanges with the assistants which was great as usual. I learned so much from the assistants and have a lot of new ideas to help the Zone! We also had a zone conference about Faith. It's still amazing how much to understand about a principle like faith.


Last week I felt prompted to talk to man who was building a tindahan and it turns out he is a less-active member who was the old Ward mission leader before we went and worked in Saudi Arabia for 8 years. We taught Ricardo a quick lesson on the spot and while we taught I felt his love for the Gospel. He just got lost for a little while. When we came back to teach him a second time he had referrals and he even came with us to teach some of our investigators. He kind of got lost for a few years but the Gospel flame has been rekindled in him. I love the rescue program here in the Philippines and I love all of the Less-actives! They are so wonderful.


Things are still going great with the Bade Family that I have talked about in Previous emails. Their 17 year old daughter who used to want nothing to do with us or the Church, has had a mighty change of heart. One day over night everything changed. You could see it in her face. When we followed up her commitments she told us that she decided to pray about Jospeh Smith and she received an answer. She is now attending church and has made a few friends in the young womens. Brother and Sister's Bade's oldest son still isn't interested but It's so great to see them grown as a family in the Gospel!


This week I have better come to understand how the spirit works. Every day I seek the spirits guidance many times for many different reasons. I seek the guidance of the spirit to know what to say to the people we teach, to know what scriptures to use, who to talk to, to find answers to my personal questions and in other ways as well. I have learned that the Lord will guide me as I'm worthy and seek guidance for a righteous purpose. The answer will always come. But more important than recieving an answer is acting upon the revelation you receive. If you have a prompting and brush it aside, the Lord won't be as fast to answer you the next time. We need to show him we value the revelation he gives us by acting with courage on the promptings we receive. We need to have courage like Nephi did when he was led by the spirit into Jerusalem, not know before had what he should do. This past week there were a couple times where I brushed off little promptings for valid reasons, but because I did so it was harder to receive revelation afterwords. I am thankful for this lesson I learned, and the patience the Lord has with each of us as we strive to learn and grow.

The pictures are of a zone activity we had last week on P-day! We went to a waterful. One is a picture of the zone the other is a picture of Elder Adao and I. The third picture is of my new favorite tricycle! It's the tricycle of our bishop and everytime I see it I smile!


I really, really, really love being a missionary! I love the wonderful Philipino people. I love my Savior. I love you all too!


mahal ko kayo


Love Elder Leishman

Brown OUT!!! March 12

Dear Family and Friends,

I am going to apologize right now for a short email! There has been a brown out all day today! A brown out is when there is no electricity... This means that we weren't really able to get that much done this p-day including email. We got permission from President to go to another zone to email and the closest zone with email is cabanatuan so right now we are trying to get our reports finished quickly so we can get back to work. We have a 3 appointments tonight and we are going to be late to them. I hate being late. Today has been a very frustrating day but this past week was awesome! Elder Adao and I had a great week! We worked soooo hard and are starting to have some great success with our investigators, finding and with the less-actives we are working with! We are teaching well together and are loving the work. I love san Jose! It's awesome!

I wish I could type more. I'm sorry I really am. Got to love brown outs! I love this work. This is the true church!

mahal ko kayo

Love Elder Leishman