September 15, 2010
Dear Family,
Well, what a long week it has been! Or it seems that way cause it's Wednesday now. I guess I'll just get strait into talking about my week, If I can remember it. Last week was pretty normal, and we really didn't have anything different happen. Last Tuesday we had English class and we teach the third level class so that's fun. All of our students speak English pretty well, so we just speak in English the whole time and practice speaking. It's nice to speak in your own language sometimes. So that was good. There are a lot more people that come to English class in Kaunas than the other cities. It's really nice. Wednesday, we just had a normal day. The only highlight is that we ate at McDonald's. :) America!!! Thursday we had a normal day of finding and we had English class again that night. Friday, we had a normal day, but a found a really cool guy named Sigitas, who we taught about the restoration. I need to call him again today to see if we can meet with him tomorrow. So that was good. Saturday, nothing really happened. Sunday, I was supposed to give a talk, but President and Sister Dance came to our branch and that spoke instead. So I'm off the hook for two more weeks. :) After church I had an interview with President Dance and that was way good. He did interviews with all of the missionaries. He actually told me that he was planning on me being in Kaunas for a while now, so that was really good to hear. He told me that it's just easier to move the younger missionaries around more but once they start to get older, he keeps them in the same place more. So it will be nice to sink my roots in here a little bit. I really like it here actually. The branch is great and the city is really pretty. I just feel good here. I like the, other cities a lot, but I bet this will end up being my favorite. Especially if I stay here for a while. I'm hoping that I'll be here at least through February. But we'll see! So on Sunday night, the elders from Klaipeda and Šiauliai came in so that we could have training Monday and Tuesday. The two elders from Šiauliai stayed with us. Monday we started training and it went for most of the day. It was really good. It was mostly about teaching with the spirit. The training is to help us be better missionaries. We got to watch a lot of clips from the new preach my gospel dvds and that was fun! There are so many good teaching clips on there and I learned a lot. President Dance is an excellent teacher too. I learned a lot about how I can improve as a teacher and as a person in general. The training was just really good and it was so nice to sit and be taught for two days and feel the spirit. On Monday Night, I went with Elder Hangst, He's from Germany, and we found a guy that night. He was a bit of an odd person, but the lesson went well. It blew him away that I had only been here for six months! It was pretty funny. So we did training again yesterday and then had English class last night and that was good too. We always have a spiritual thought at the end of the English lesson and we taught about families and how they can be together forever. I love teaching about that topic. We brought our pictures to show the class, of our families, and they really like to see them. It's kind of cool and hard at the same time cause I now have a lot more responsibility with teaching and with the language cause I'm the senior companion and have more experience. So I do a lot more of the teaching and speaking and I am finding that It is helping. It's still such a struggle, but it forces me to do my best. I'm grateful for the opportunities. So that was my week! Oh!! Something else! It was the World Basketball Championship Finals over the weekend and Lithuania played America in the Semi-finals... Let’s just say that it was CRAZY here!! Lithuanians are NUTS about Basketball! They had huge TV screens set up all over the city so we had to kind of avoid those spots when they played America cause we were afraid they would be like "Americans, Get em'!!" Haha, I had no Idea that the world championships were that big. In America we have the NBA and that's all we care about. America beat Lithuania by like thirty points and went on to win the championship, but Lithuania played again for third and the city was CRAZY on Sunday night when they won!!!!! WE had to go in early cause everyone was out celebrating and everyone was drunk and we even saw some guys with their pants off running around. So, it was pretty funny. Ok, anyways that was my week!
It sounds like the family is doing well and that you are being as crazy as ever! Oh... and I have felt the need to say this over the last week cause I found some news out about our branch president in the mtc. He was about 50 years old and he just passed away. All of us really looked up to him and thought that he was a great branch president. He had some heart problems and he had had heart surgery a few times but his body just couldn't take it anymore and he passed away. We were all really sad to hear about that. So... I just want to remind all of you to please take care of yourselves and exercise, eat healthy, and really do whatever it takes to stay healthy. I just want to remind you ALL to please take care of yourselves. So please just remember that ok? Anyways, I love you all so much and thank you for all of the love and support! You are all great! Remember that Heavenly Father loves us all so much! Ok, I'll write on Monday! Love you!!
Love, Elder Leishman
245 days down, 485 days to go! 1/3 of the way done!
