Zone Conference, CSP, and Baptisms, Oh My! June 11

Dear Family and Friends, This past week has been amazing!! It was a very busy productive week with lot's of events and lessons. This past week we had a zone conference, 2 exchanges, a service project with the ward, a baptism and the highest sacrament meeting attendance we have had in San Jose for a long time! It was an awesome week! The Vergel De Dios baptism was great! Brother Dexter baptized his two son's Jeremy and Ezekiel. Brother Vergel De Dios only got ordained last week so it was so cool that he could use his priesthood to bless his family. It has been such a joy to see this family come into activity and to re-embrace the Gospel in their lives. J.P. and Kiel's grandma came all the way from Manilla for the Baptism. She is a temple worker there and was overjoyed to see her son's family back in the church. She even bought all of them new sunday clothes that they wore for their confirmation yesterday. The spirit was so strong during the baptism. It was a special thing. One of my favorite parts of the baptism was when J.P (9 years old) enter the font and then look at his family and wave at them with a beaming face. It was a really cool experience. I love the Vergel De Dios Family! This past week we also were able to help two members in our ward with a service project. They are both teachers a little elementary school. On satruday morning we joined a bunch of members and help them clean out the school grounds and painted their tables and desks bright green! All the Elementary schools here are painted in bright neon colors. I love service. It was especially great to work hand in hand with the members. This past week we had two exchanges. One with a companionship in the zone and one with the assistants. The assistants came and surprised us with exchanges Saturday morning. They then attended the baptism with us, worked all day, slept at our house and attended our ward. It was great to work with the assistants again! I learned so much from that exchange. The assistant who worked in our area was Elder Leedom from McCall Idaho. He is an awesome missionary and he teaches by example. It was so fun to teach and find with him and Elder Revillo. When you do misisonary work right it's so much fun! Exchanges are always a great opportunity to learn and grow and I am thankful I get to take part in so many of them. Right now San Jose Zone is doing good. Almost every area is having great success in the work right now! We have set some high goals this month as a zone but the missionaries here are working hard and we are seeing some amazing miracles. In San Jose Zone we have the highest oym's (open your mouths) in the mission right now. We are talking to everyone and because of that are finding the people that God is preparing to receive the Gospel. In our area we have been struggling to find new investigators the past few weeks but this last week we found some awesome investigators and one of them even came to church the day after we taught him! I know that the Lord is preparing people for us. We don't always know who they are but if we open our mouths we will find them. I love being a missionary! Mahal ko kayo, Love Elder Leishman p.s. I started reading the Bible more in my personal study and It has been incredible. I am learning so much through using the Bible and Book of Mormon together. I recommend that!

Tag Ulan Na! June 4

Dear Family and Friends, This past week has been a good week! The Vergel De Dios family is doing awesome as usual! Yesterday Brother Vergel De Dios was ordained to the office of priest, because was only a deacon before. That means that he will be baptized his two son's this saturday! I am so excited for their baptisms. Ezekiel and J.P. and doing great and are very ready for their baptism. The passed their baptismal interview with flying colors. Our district leader was surprised about their understanding of Gospel. This saturday Kiel and J.P.'s grandma is probablly going to up for their baptism. She is a temple worker at the Manila Temple and know she is thrilled that her son and his family has finally come back into activity. This past week we made some good progress with Von who's wife is a member. Teaching him is really different because he knows so much about the church and church doctrine. He know's it better than a lot of members to tell you truth. We have really had to adjust our teaching to teach to his needs it's been a challenge but through revelation and the spirit we have had some great lessons. His main concern with Joining the church is with the word of wisdom but we are workign with him and i know that with his faith and the support of his wife he can overcome his word of wisdom addiction. Faith is so important in everything we do! This past week while studying Ether 12 I was better able to understand how humility, faith and love are connected. With out faith be can't have love for God and without Love and faith we can't be humble. But if we are humble God will show us our weaknesses Ether 12:27 and then we can rely on the Lord with faith and humility to grow and become strong. This week was also the start of Tag-ulan or rainy season. When It's tag-ulan you are lucky to get 1 day where is doesn't rain. Even if you have an umbrella you still get wet so I have tried to take advantage of rain to serve people by offering my umbrella to people who get caught without one. It's been a really good way to serve others in a simple way and take the opportunity to talk to them and introduce the Gospel. It's sometimes hard to find people to talk to when it's raining but it makes finding more a challenge. It's actually really fun and i've been loving it! Funny story of the week: This past week I was on exchanges with one of my housemates in his area and we were walking through a field where a Kalabaw (Caribao) was eating grass. The path we were going to was pretty close to the Kalabaw and I didn't think anything of it because the Kalabaw are usally friendly and are actually scared of people. When we walked past the Kalabaw it looked up at us and wasn't to happy and started after us. Elder Servancia and i took of running with the Kalabaw on our heels! I had never seen a kalabaw move so fast in my life. Thankfully it was tied up so nothing happened. His rope however was about 70 feet long so we still got a nice sprint in. After that we laughed a ton! It was really funny. It was a good moment. It's been a good week. We are working with so many amazing people and I feel so blessed to be assigned here. I know that this is the Lord's work. I love being a misisonary. I feel like we have been working so hard these past couple of weeks but I know that we can work harder. Hardwork, Obedience and Love are the keys to missionary work. mahal ko kayo Love Elder Leishman