A Good Week! July 22

Dear Family and Friends, This past week has been a wonderful (and very rainy) week! I know that last week I talked to you about how we have been really "punted" in our area lately and have had almost all our plans fall through. This week things were a little different. Elder Revillo and I taught 51 lessons which is more than I have ever taught in a week in my whole mission! They were quality lessons too. This past Tuesday our zone had interviews with President Martino and in my interview I told him a little bit about what has been happening in our area. He told me that times that those are humbling experiences and it's in those times that we learn to rely on the Lord. I took what president Martino said to heart and I did all I could to rely on the Lord. Our plans didn't work out perfectly but the Lord blessed us with many opportunities to teach. It was a very humbling week. I now understand more fully that this is the Lord's work. It's not my work it's his. We are simply instruments in his hands. It doesn't matter where we serve just how we serve. I now better understand what Ammon meant in Alma chapter 26 when he talks about the joy he felt in being an instrument in the Lord's hand and that as to his strength he was nothing but with the Strength of the Lord he could do all things. Humility is putting your trust in the Lord and then doing all you can to follow his will. There were a couple times with week when I know that we were the answers to peoples prayers. I don't know if there is a better feeling than knowing that the Lord has used you to bless someones life. This past week at our zone interviews Elder Revillo and I taught a workshop about teaching with your companionship in unity. At the beggining of our companionship Elder Revillo and I didn't teach in unity. We didn't have unity in many aspects of the work but we both worked hard and adjusted to be able to work , and teach in unity. When we did that our lives were blessed and we saw the difference in the way our investigators responded to our teaching. After many exchanges with our zone mates, fasting and praying we decided that this is what we needed to teach in our workshop. I feel like our workshop went really well and the members of the zone have already expressed how applying it has helped them teach better. In our workshop we talked about how companionship unity doesn't start when you leave the appartment but it starts when you wake up. That love, service, effective planning and companionship study are all necessary to teach with your companion in unity. To help our zone teach as a teach we had them do a role play where they had to teach and investigator but a missionary was limited to saying 3 sentences maximum before their companion had to speak. It was a really effective way to make companionship teach together and rely on each other to teach. Missionary work starts in the companionship and unity makes all the difference. Last week we taught the formly less-active Ramos family a lesson about the temple and about how families can be together forever. They all expressed their desire to have an eternal family but then explained that there father wasn't a member and didn't have any desire to join the Church. I had met the father briefly but he always met a big effort to hide or leave when we came over. We commited the family pray for their father to gain a desire to listen to us and to invite him to listen to the Gospel again. We went back to their house on Friday and i was shocked when tatay Ramos came and happily joined the lesson. He participated and had some great questions. I know that Heavenly Father answered the prayers of the that family. I am praying that he will accept the Gospel and that this Family can one day be sealed in the Temple. I love this work. I really really love being a missionary. Mahal ko kayo, Love Elder Leishman