Bagong Taon 1/6/13

Dear Friends and Family, This past week was an awesome week. New years was pretty uneventful in Portal. The entire mission had a curfew of 6:00 pm because it can be pretty dangerous and crazy in some areas. Portal was pretty quiet compared to Cabanatuan last year. To celebrate I cooked bicol express and made new years resolutions. I also did my laundry which was an eventful new years eve activity to say the least ( picture included). It wasn't half as loud as it was in Cabanatuan. The videoke was a lot louder than the firecrackers. After new year our week was a really good week. One of the big successes this week was our church attendance. Last week our attendance was 27 and yesterday it was 64. It more than doubled! We had some investigators and lots of less-actives attend. One of the less-active members who attended is the former branch president here who has been less-active for about 6 years. The missionaries have visited him many times but nothing has every happened. When we got into the area our branch president told us to visit him and he wasn't happy. He didn't want anything to do with us. But after stopping by him house a couple more times we finally caught him laying in hammock on his front porch holding his sleeping granddaughter. He didn't have any where to go so he let us teach him. We taught him about the atonement since it was Christmas time. After that we taught him basic gospel principles like family prayer, the Book of Mormon, prophets and we never mentioned attending church. We slowly started to see him change and warm up to us and as he started the live the simple principles we taught him he starter to get happier. Yesterday he attended church for the first time in 6 years with him wife. He was beaming as he walked into our meeting house. It was really special to see. Brother Vizon is a leader that our branch is in great need of. That was one of our miracles this past week. Right now we are currently teaching 5 young families. It's so awesome to teach families. On of them is the Likodo family. We met brother Likodo while walking down the street we stopped to talk to him and asked him how his new year was. He said that he got drunk with his buddies. I then asked him about his family and he told us about his wife and 2 young boys. I then I felt inspired to ask about how is drinking effects his family. He then started to talk about how his wife hates it and wants him to quit but he just can't seem to quit. We told him that we could help him quit drinking and bless the life of his family and he gave us his address. When we went to teach him he was surprised that we actually came and was excited to see us. His wife was in other room when we started the lesson and didn't want to join but as we started talking to teach she came in and joined the lesson. We usually don't mention the word of wisdom in the first lesson but it was what this family needed. It feels so good to teach people not lessons. One of the things we are working on as a mission right now is asking inspired questions in our teaching. I ask a lot of questions while I teach but I don't know how inspired they are. After training from our zone leaders this past week on inspired questions Elder Soberano and I set a goal to ask more inspired questions in our lessons. It was difficult at first was the effect in our teaching and finding has been awesome. I feel like I'm teaching more like the Savior would teach and we are finding out the real concerns of the people we are teaching. Talking isn't teaching. This past week I finished reading the Book of Mormon again and this time I around I highlighted every reference to the Savior and all of his words. It was amazing to see the pages be filled with color as I did this activity. This helped strengthen my testimony in Jesus Christ and his mission as our Savior and redeemer. One of my favorite things about this activity was seeing all the titles that Jesus Christ goes by. I made a list in my study journal of all of his titles and I was surprised at how many they were. The Book of Mormon really is Another Testament of Jesus Christ Every page testifies of him! I love this area. I love the members, less-actives and investigators here. I just love it. Everyday I feel my love grow. It's so hard to know that I won't have that much longer in the area... There is so much work to do here and I want to do it! I'm trying to make the best of everyday to give it my all and establish the church here in Portal. Elder Soberano and I have high goals and we are doing all we can to acheive them. Working with Elder Soberano is awesome. He's a good elder. Thanks for all of you who emailed him. Fight the good fight of faith Mahal ko kayo Elder Leishman. The first 2 pictures are from new years. The first is Elder Soberano and I before we ate, the second is me doing my laundry on new years eve. The last picture is me with the Atonio Family. They are members here in Portal.