April 5, 2010
Dear Family,
So about my week... A lot has happened so here it goes. We had Zone Conference over in Kaunas on Saturday and that was really good. President Dance likes to have them once a month instead of just around transfers so ours was on Saturday. It was nice to go see all of the missionaries in Lithuania. Everyone has been asking how conference is out here so I’ll tell you now that we (the missionaries) get to watch it this week in English. They recorded it for us and will send it to us so we will be able to watch like one session a day or something like that. We also get to watch it this coming Saturday and Sunday like normal sessions in Lithuanian with the rest of the branch so that will be interesting and.... and hard to stay awake in! ha! So yeah, I'm really excited to listen to conference. The rest of the week was good. It seems that my days just blur together because we follow the same schedule and though we talk to different people every day, it seems like one endless day. So sorry that I don't go into more detail. Some highlights were that we had a couple that we have been teaching commit to be baptized! It really shocked me! We found them the first week I got here but it was only our second lesson with them. So my we were teaching them about the plan of salvation and that families can be together forever and the wonderful plan of happiness that we have and know. It was such a good lesson and though I still can't really say much and I only really bore my testimony they were really touched by our message. We were telling them about the steps that we need to take so that we can have eternal life and return to live with our Heavenly Father. Things like repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the holy ghost and enduring to the end. They asked about baptism because they had been baptized as children in the Catholic Church. But we told them that they needed to be baptized in our church and with the proper authority. So we took the opportunity to ask them if they would be baptized and they said yes! This is so new and weird for me! They said that it might be a little premature but we set a goal for the first of May so please keep them in your prayers. Their names are Sergejus and Tanja. They are so nice and live in very humble settings but they are just great. I'm starting to feel that love for the people that everyone always talks about! So anyways that was very exciting for me and does not happen very often. I think on average there are about ten baptisms a month in the whole mission so that is not very many. So I have been very blessed to be a part of so much. We are also teaching a guy in his twenties that we found whose name is Pavel. He is really cool and I have felt the spirit so much in his lessons; Elder Cox and I found him my first week too. He has been reading the Book of Mormon a lot and he speaks English so I am able to participate a lot more. The other guy we are teaching is Vytis. He is this older guy that has a pretty rough life but he has so much goodness in him. He just doesn't make very much money so he is very poor and my companion said that he has never felt the spirit more strongly than in lessons with him. He is really stubborn and we are trying to find some ways to help him but yeah... Please keep all of them in your prayers. Other than that not much has happened this week. We usually play ultimate Frisbee or run in the mornings with the Russian elders that live just down the street from us. It's funny cause most people are really quiet and shy here so we are all being loud and just being Americans when we play and all these people are walking to work and they just look at us like we are crazy! Their probably like... Stupid Americans... haha it's fun. Some things about street contacting... We talk to all sorts of people here. Last night we talked to some gay guy that just wanted to bash with us and argue! I almost had to walk away cause he was making me so mad. He spoke English so I could understand well. But he was just saying all this stuff that it's impossible to know that Christ is real and that he was saying how being gay is cool and just all this crap and he had no base for his arguments! Frustrating... We also try to avoid all of the drunken people but it's hard to sometimes but they are really funny sometimes. Everyone was drunk yesterday (Easter) which was stupid. They think that a holiday about Christ is an excuse to get plastered! Haha they are messed up... Anyways I need to wrap this up. I hope you guys know how much I love you all. I love hearing about what is going on back home. I love you guys so much! Thank you all so much for the continued support. You guys are great! I hope I didn't miss anything... this is a long email!
Love, Elder Leishman
91 days down 639 days to go!!!
