Monday, December 6, 2010

The Forty-Seventh Letter

December 6, 2010
Dear Family!

This week was pretty good for us. Elder Rich and I are getting along great and I really enjoy being with him. He loves Christmas just like I do, so it's been fun. This past week we went to the store and bought a little fake Christmas tree cause we didn't have any Christmas decorations in our apartment! We figured that we would just get a fake one so the Elders that are in our apartment next year will have one. Otherwise I would have gotten a live one for sure! That's the only way to go. I wish that I were going to be there this year to celebrate Christmas with you. But hopefully next year. Oh how I love the Holiday season and I love all of the traditions that we do. Thanks for inducing me as much as you can. Anyways, we got a tree this week and decorated it and I have to say that we did a good job picking the stuff out. We also bought some stockings and Santa hats. :) So our apartment looks a lot better and I got the SD card you sent last Monday so I have been listening to it every day. Thank you. The selection is great and I really loved the little activity that you guys did. It made me laugh SO hard! I think one of the first things that I do when I get back will be to watch all of those Christmas movies. You put all of my favorite quotes on there. I've been quoting those for the last month actually, so it made me laugh really hard that you sent them to me. So, thank you. And I also got the other package you sent with the extra present and ensign. Thank you for that as well. We now have one present under our tree. :) So back to my week... It was pretty busy for us. Well, me really. It has been stressful trying to figure out all of the things I have to do now and get them done. But it has worked out and I am grateful because I know this is going to help me grow and I am really grateful that I have the chance to just serve. Last week for district meeting I gave a two hour lesson on obedience and how we need to be obedient to have the spirit. We need to have the spirit to teach and we need to teach to fulfill our purpose as missionaries. I shared some of the things that you shared with me last week, Dad, about obeying and there is something that needs to be obeyed to receive blessings. I learned a lot myself and I think that it went well. The spirit was really strong and everyone seemed really pumped up afterward. I also related it to making covenants with the Lord if we need to start doing better because we all have that talk by President Schwitzer fresh on our minds. As well, I related obedience now to obedience after the mission and how if we can't be obedient on our missions, we won’t be able to be obedient after. If we are going to rationalize being lazy now, what makes us think that we won’t rationalize after the mission. I don't know, there was a it and I felt that It went ok. I was pretty nervous cause I wanted to share something that I thought would help the district. I still need to plan what I will share tomorrow, but I think that it will be on Love. For some reason all of these things about love have been coming up in the last few days, like in things that I have read and testimony meeting yesterday, as well as in your emails. So I think that is what it will be on. Other than that, I had a lot of meetings with the branch yesterday and that was good. Elder Rich and I are now going to be teaching Dainus, That guy that I taught with Elder Cooke a few weeks ago. Do you remember? He is just a really solid guy and he is so prepared. Elder Graham has been teaching him, but he lives in our area, so they turned him over to us. I hope that we will be able to do a good job and be able to teach him. I hope that he will get baptized soon. I want to ask him this week if he will be baptized on Christmas. What better gift could you give Christ than that? I'll let you know how things go. Other than that, it has been a pretty normal week for us. The month is pretty crazy for us though. Next week we will be in Vilnius for two days for Zone Conference and a little Christmas celebration. And the Branch asked us yesterday if we would be the dwarfs in Snow White for them cause they are going to act it all out for their Christmas party. So we have to practice for that plus that Christmas party in a few weeks. Then with Christmas and New Years, we can't proselyte in the evenings on those days cause everyone is drunk... And your description of how Justin Park's mission sounds is the same as it is here. There are tons of old people and they always get mad at us for knocking on their door past five and ask why we are out so late! And yea it starts getting dark around four here too. It never really looks like the sun is all the way up. It just kind of pops up over the horizon and then goes back down again. It's way weird. But yeah, It's the same as it is for Justin's mission. But it is probably worst here honestly. So many of the young people here are leaving to other countries because it is a better life elsewhere. It's way sad. But we work with what we have and I really love this country. It's just Lithuania. Anyways, This month is going to be crazy and then I will be at my year mark! That's way weird. So, that's my week. Sorry I just rambled. There is a lot going on and I'm staying really busy.

I hope you all have the most wonderful Christmas season! Remember Christ during this wonderful month and show him that you really care about him. Give him the best gift you can. Do everything that he has asked you to do and show everyone around you the True love of Christ. And most importantly you need to be good for Jesus. I love you all again and I hope you have a wonderful week!
Thank you for all of the Love!

Love, Elder Leishman

327 days down, 403 days to go!

Lane

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