Dear Family,
Hey it was great to hear from you! I love reading your letters every week so much! It really lifts my spirits. This week was pretty good I guess. The weather has been really cold and it has been cloudy and rainy all week. You know that slow rain that they always have in Europe? Yeah, I don't think it has stopped raining. It is cool to be here and experience it cause it is so European, but it can make you a little depressed. :) But it has been good. I'm expecting it to snow pretty soon here, but who knows. The changing of the seasons here is a lot slower than in Utah. It is very gradual here. I just can't wait til its warm again. But I'm grateful for the cold because it makes me grateful for the warm. The changing of the seasons really are a blessing from God and I know that they bring me so much happiness. What would we do if it were always winter or always summer? I am grateful that we live in a place with a lot of changing seasons. Anyways, back to my week. There really isn't much to say about this week. It was pretty normal. We weren't really able to meet with Žydrunas this week. He is really falling I think. We have tried to call him every day and text him a few times, but he won’t answer us. I think that his alcohol problem has become more important to him than what God wants him to do. It is really hard to figure out what to do, but I hope that it all works out. We are trying to do everything that we can. I'll keep you updated. And thank you for the sending those things about addiction recovery too, dad. I want to share those with Žydrunas if we can start meeting with him again. I also know that Love is the key just like you said. That is the key with him. Dainus is doing really well too! Elder Cooke told me that they are still right on track and that made me happy. He is an awesome guy. I also wanted to tell an experience that we had on Saturday night. We were knocking on some doors out in one of our areas and behind this one door we heard the voice of one of our English class students. She was speaking English to the people behind the door and she has a very distinct voice. So we were like, "is that Kristina?!" So we knocked on the door and it was! She was just visiting some of her friends and was about to leave but her friends invited us in and she decided to stay and talk with us. We don't often see our English students, so that is why this is significant. Plus she knows all the things that we teach cause we always give spiritual thoughts at the end of class. So anyways, her friends invited us in and we sat down with them. They gave us some fruit tea like most Lithuanians do and we started to teach them. But it turns out that they were Jehovah's Witnesses. If you know anything about Jehovah's Witnesses, they are VERY stubborn about their beliefs! Their main belief is that Jehovah is God the Father and that Jesus Christ is someone totally different. They know their bibles very well and they love to bash with Mormons. Needless to say, we try to avoid them cause every member proselytes and stuff. So when I found out that they were Jehovah's Witnesses, I was like, "Dang it this is not good. The spirit is going to leave so fast and they are just going to want to argue with us and disprove our beliefs. It was a couple and the man was from France and the Woman was from Lithuania. They were newlyweds. So, I just prayed that everything would be ok and that we would know what to say and that they wouldn't want to argue. So, I told them that we didn't want to argue and that we would tell them about our beliefs and then they could tell us about theirs. This was all in English; otherwise I wouldn't have been able to say all of this. :) They spoke English like champs. So, long story short, we had a good conversation and we taught them about the restoration and just taught. Then when it was their turn they told us some of their beliefs but most of it was them instigating us about why we believe certain things. I was so grateful that I knew some things from the bible. And most importantly I am grateful that the Lord helped my companion and to stay calm and not argue with them because there were several times when I wanted to argue and tell them that they are wrong... But the Spirit really helped us. I know that we are all called to be representative is Christ and that if we are true Christians we will be peace makers and do whatever it takes to be Christ like. I am not saying that I am some sort of example! haha, I'm far from it, but I know that the Lord can soften our hearts and those of the people around us. I know that those people's hearts were softened and that mine was too. I could feel the spirit work through my companion and I and help us to simply testify that we know the doctrine of our church is true instead of trying to prove to them that it is true. ANYWAYS, that was a long story, but it was a really cool experience. Very intense cause they asked some really deep questions, but it was cool. Our English student didn't even say anything the whole time. Haha, it was funny. So that is it for this week. We had district conference yesterday too, where all of the members from Lithuania came to Kaunas. It's pretty much just stake conference. But that was good too. So, that was my week!
I hope you all have a wonderful week full of happiness!
Love, Elder Leishman
P.S. That is kind of Boring where the choir is going next year. But it should still be fun. And go Cougs! I'm way happy that they had such a good game! Keep it up! And that is sad what happened to the Utes... But oh well... :)
Oh and go Christmas Music! I wish I could listen to Christmas music on the radio... Haha
299 days down, 431 days to go!
