October! 10/1

Dear family, friends, and loved ones, I'm excited to be writing you an email again today. This past week has been another good week. This past week we were able to do some exchanges again with the zone leaders in a few zones. I was able to work in Cabanatuan again and also in San Jose. However Elder Adao worked in our old area and i worked in the other ward. I really love doing exchanges. There are just so many good missionaries in our mission. While working in Cabanatuan I saw some of the investigators I found while I was there. One of them is named Arjay. I taught him my last night in cabanatuan and in that lesson he talked about the experience he had praying to know if Joseph Smith was a true prophet. That was the first time he stted to make progress in the Gospel. The next day I was transfered but since then he was baptized and has become very active in the church. He is preparing to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead for the second time. It was so wonderful to see him again and see the changes that have happened in his life since I taught him. It was a great experience. At that same exchange we taught Shirly who is a recent convert. She is struggling right now becuase her husband is not very supportive of her being an active member of hte church and discourages he from attend church and other activities. While she expressed these thoughts to us a story popped into my mind from the Book of Mormon about Nephi trying to get the plates and having Laman and Lemuel discourage Nephi from going back to get the plates even to the point of beating him with a rod until an angle came and spoke to Laman and Lemuel. We read these verses with her and then talked about how the Lord will help us in our times of need and that sometimes even the people we are close to and love will discourage us to do the right things. then went on and talked about how Nephi ended up being successful and didn't loose his love for his brothers. Sister shirle y was touched by this message and she really realated to Nephi. Through the Book of Mormon and the spirit she gained a new strength and sense of peace about the future and following the Lord's commandments. Right now we are getting ready for our zldlc meeting for the next to days. We are going introduce the topic for our zone training this month which is about hte Book of Mormon. I am so excited about this month! One of the things we are going to do these next couple months is give every missionary a copy of the Book of Mormon and we wil read it as a misison. We are going to mark every reference to the savior and the things he said. this is something I have wanted to for a long time and I am so excited to do this as a mission. The Book of Mormon is such a powerful instrument that the Lord uses to bless his children. This past week I have been spending a lot of time studying about how the Book of Mormon testifies of Jesus Christ. Once I started to focus on this it's amazing to see how he is in everypage! We havn't even started the Book of Mormon activity as a mission and my testimony of hte power of hte Book of Mormon has already increased. Without the Book of Mormon a person can't have a lasting conversion to the restored Gospel. I have seen the book touch life after life and am excited to focus on it this month. Things are going well right now. I feel so blessed to be a missoinary and to serve right now. I love this work with all my heart. mahal ko kayo Love elder Leishman

Transfers down! 9/24

Dear Friends and Family, This past week has been another awesome week. This past week was transfers and things went so much smother than last time! It really helps when there are no floods! We had 6 missionaries go home, and had 13 new missionaires come in. We also have 2 short term missionaries working in our mission right now. It's always different to be with missionaries for their last day in the Philippines. Because of all the new missionaries we had 4 areas re-open this transfer. Exciting stuff! Next transfer we have even more missionaries coming in which will allow us to open more areas! I'm excited about it! One of my favorite parts of transfers is being with the new missionaries. There is nothing like a missionary straight from they mtc. They are usually nervous but really excited and can't wait to share the Gospel. They just have this energy they bring which is wonderful! Elder Adao and I were able to do a little bit of Training with the new missionaries and their trainers at the mission home. We talked about some of the keys to success. Two of the points we really focused on were on obedience and being eagerly engaged in the work. Obedience is so crucial to the work! You just can't see the mircales you need to if you aren't obedient. We are really trying to help these new misisonaries start off on a good foot and striving for exact obedience. Right now one of the big projects that Elder Adao and I are working on is putting together a put to send to Thomas S. Monson as a Christmas present. As you know our mission and hte whole Philippines area is really focusing on rescuing less-active members of of the church. The rescue program is amazing and it is doing wonderful things for the Philippines. President and Sister Martino came up with the idea to have the missionaries in our mission write their own experiences about rescuing less-actives and putting together a book for to send to the Area Presidency and the Prophet. We have recieved tons of stories and are now putting them all together. It is such a joy to read all the stories and see all the pictures that everyone has! This book is a huge project but it's been so much fun to start laying out and putting together. I don't know if we could give a better Christmas Present to the Prophet than this Book. This past week I also met a couple people who stopped by the mission home. I finally met Andy Larsen and I also met Elder and Sister Bird. All wonderful people! It was nice to meet people I've heard about! Thank you again for the package you sent. I loved it and so did Elder Adao. I ended up pouching half of it to Elder Garcia who also really enjoyed it. This past week we went on an exchange with the zone leaders here in Angeles and on the exchange we were able to teach a young less-active couple about the plan of salvation. As the lesson was coming to a close I felt prompted to sing I am a Child of God with our this family. In the Philippines almost all places sing in English not Tagalog but I felt impressed to sing I am a child of God in Tagalog because it's in one of the pamphlets we use when we teach. When I said this the couple we were teaching said they knew the song but they had never heard it in Tagalog. When we sang it the spirit was powerful and the family was touched by the spirit. Because it was in Tagalog they understood it better and the words really seemed to sink into their hearts. It was a joy to see this happen. The hymns are such powerful tools in bearing testimony and inviting the spirit. They are so effective in teaching less-active members. This family that we taught went to church yesterday and we are starting to see them change as they accept the Gospel again into their lives. Sorry that my email is so short right now. Today was another really busy day and we are just finishing up here at the office. mahal ko kayo Love Elder Leishman

A New Companion! 9/17

Dear friends and family, This past week I got a new companion and drumroll please.................... It's........ Elder Adao!!! I am so excited to be companions with Elder Adao again! I have really loved being with Elder Garcia and I have learned so much from him. I miss him. At the same time It's been awesome to be back with Elder Adao. When President called us into his office and showed us the transfer board. The First place I looked was the assistants slots and I was please to see Elder Adao's name next to mine. We picked him up last Wednesday and he was a little nervous at first but is doing awesome! I love working with Elder Adao because we focus on the work and work in unity really well. This week has been another busy week and most of it has been spent in the office. One of my favorite parts of the week was attending a meeting with all the trainers and trainees who are about to finish up their 1st transfer. In all the missions the trainers and trainees go through whats called "The first 12 weeks". It's the program that we use to train new missionaires. We have this meeting with the Trainers and trainees to follow up on how they are doing with the 12 week course and progress in other areas. This was such a fun meeting to be at and it was so amazing to teach them. I felt like they did most of the teaching. New missionaires just have a fire inside of them to do work. They are so excited to learn and to teach and to just be a missionary. I hope that they can keep that up with them throughout their whole missions. I hope that I still have the fire that a new missionary has. This week Elder Adao and I had a cool experience when we were coming up with ideas for our mission training plan this upcoming month. Usually we come up with ideas and then we go and share them with President. President also comes up with ideas and they are almost always very similar or hte same as the assistants. I did my personal study and I didn't really feel like I had any inspiration. It was an ok study but I didn't have any strong feelings. Then we went into our companionship study and it was pretty much the same way. After about 30 minutes we decided to kneel and say another prayer. After that things started to come untill we realized that we need to have our mission training plan be about the Book of Mormon. This expereince taught me a lot. I realized that during my personal study and the first part of my companionship study I was focusing on what I wanted to do not what the Lord wanted. I realized that in order to recieve revelation we need to first seek to do God's will. I love revelation and I am so thankful for it in my life. I love what it says in D&C 8:2-3 about revelation. "I will tell you in your mind and in your hear by the holy ghost..." The Lord will give us the inspiriation in our feelings and thoughts as we seek to be obedient and serve others. Sometimes hte feelings are small but he really does guide us everyday. This week is transfers. It's a busy week but I love it! I know I always say this but I love this work! I love serving the Lord. Love Elder Leishman

Zone Conference! 9/10

Dear family and friends, Kamusta na kayo? This week has been a another busy week! We went on two exchanges, had three zone conferences and had lots of other things come up that we weren't expecting. Needless to say it has been an amazing week! One of the highlights from this past week was zone conference. We had 3 different zone conferences to cover the whole mission. It was really interesting to see that even though the workshops and hte messages were pretty much the same for the 3 zone conferences missionaries got different things out of each zone con. It was interesting to see that. I don't know if I told you about our workshop for this zone conference but our main topic for zone conference was about becoming a visionary man. President's Workshop was incredible. I didn't get sick of hearing it even after 3 times! I felt so spiritually enlightened after the three zone conferences. I am so excited to strive to become a more visionary man in my life and especially as a missionaries. The Lord will give us a vision of the things we need to do as we qualify through obedience. In our workshop we talked about visions and then we talked about how to obtain a vision and how to accomplish your vision. Some people wanted to replace the word of vision with goal which can happen but if it's a vision its and inspirited goal or objected received through revelation. We talked out the area goals here in the Philipppines about rescue the one and we talked a lot about nephi, when he was told by the Lord to build a ship. It was a really good workshop and we received a lot of good feedback about it. It's so important that we have a vision for our areas and people that we teach. Without it it's hard to really make things happen. This past week I worked with an Elder name Elder Gaddi. I learned a lot from him on our exchanges. He teaches doctrine simply, boldly and with love. We taught some awesome lessons. It was a good reminder to me that simplicity is power in teaching to investigators. I'm sorry that this email is so short. Today we had a lot of unexpected things come up, including our computer network failing 2 times due to brownouts. In the end we got everything fixed. and now we are just finishing up our reporting. I love a quote from President Hinckley that President Martino always says, "Today there are problems to fix and relationships to savor". How true is that. There are no end to problems. We should look at them with a positive attidue and find solutions for the things that come up. This week I have seen many little miracles in my life and in the lives of others. God's timing is always perfect. It's amazing how he orchestrates our lives to accomplish his work and purposes. This week my testimony has been strenghtned of hte Love our heavenly Father has for each and everyone of us. He knows everysingle one of us and knows what is best for us. He performs miracles in our life based on our faith (Ether 12) I am so thankful for this knowledge to know of the reality of miracles in our lives everyday. I want to share some of these experiences with you after my mission. Some of them are sacred to me so I hesitate to put them in an email like this. I love you all and I love being a missionary! This work is amazing. Tomorrow will be my 6 week mark in the office which means I've been here for a transfer already! It's amazing how fast time goes! I love this work with all my heart. mahal ko kayo Love Elder Leishman

ZLC and a trip to the Mayor 9/3

Dear Family, This past week has been another awesome week! We had another Zone leader's council meeting which was awesome. I always love ZLC's. It was different this time to give a workshop at ZLC. Before we started the afternoon section I was a little nervous about the workshop so I went into our appartment and I knelt and said a little prayer. As I prayed I just felt a great warm peace. I just felt really sure about everything. Our workshop ended up going really well and it was a very spiritual expereince. It's amazing how much you end up learning when you are in the Teacher's position rather than the Learning position. Everyone actually ends up learning and growing from each other. I better understand what it means in D&C 50 :22 "Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together." One of the Cool Experiences this past week was going to meet the Angeles City Mayor with President Martino and Preisdent Briones (the stake president here). We met with the mayor Eguardo Pamintohan and expressed our gratitude for all he is doing here in Angeles. We also presented him with a wooden Liahona. We talked about the Liahona and what it means to us. He was really interested and had some really good questions. We shared some verses with him from the Book of Mormon about the Liahona and how it's like a compass that God used to guide his people. We then talked about it's important that God guides us in all we do. It was a really spiritual short lesson. We went in with the approach of trying to follow the example of Ammon when he served king Lamoni. Last year the missionaries here in Angeles zone acutally did a service project for Mayor Pamintohan which was a good start. This week we are going back to give him a picture that we took with him. It just was a cool experience. This week is zone conference! Which means Elder Garcia and I will be traveling again. We will be giving a workshop at all of the zone conferences and I am really looking forward to it. Our workshop this week is about vision. We are talking about how we all need to have a vision for our zone and our area. Where there is no vision the people perish. We are then going to connect how we need to use time wisely to achieve our goals and visions. One thing we are also going to talk about is becoming a "visionary man" (1 Nephi 5:4). We are also going to use the story from 1 Nephi 17-18 about nephi being commanded to built a boat. It's going to be a good workshop. It was President Martino's idea for this to be the topic of our zone conference and this past week I have learned so much about revelation and about having a vision. It's been such a great week of study and a week of revelation. I know that this is what the Lord wants to teach these next few days and I couldn't be more excited. Right now things are going really well. Everyday is different and we are really busy. Our schedule is never the same so we have to adjust lots of things like personal study. One of the most important lessons that I have learned this past week is how important it is to study in the morning rather than in the afternoon or night. When you read in the morning it gives you spiritual power and gets you going on the right step. When I read in the morning even if it's super early in the morning I am more intune to the spirit throughout the day and am just happier. When I read at night it's just not the same. I hope we all take the time we need to everyday to feast in the Words of Christ because the words of Christ tell us everything we need to do. I love this work and I love being a part of it. mahal ko kayong lahat! Love Elder Leishman