February 9, 2011
Dear Family,
It seems like it has been a while since I have written to you. It is amazing how much one day can change the way things feel. Regardless, I am way happy to be writing. I look forward to it every week. This past week we had more things happen and I was grateful for that. We were able to find a few investigators. It felt good to finally find some people. Thank you for your prayers in our behalf. I know that they helped. I will tell a quick story of one of our new investigators! We had a meeting last Friday with a young guy that I contacted a week earlier and it went really well. His name is Ignas and he is 18. The lesson went perfectly and we talked a lot about the restoration and The Book of Mormon. At the beginning, we said an opening prayer and I said it. After the prayer I started to explain a little more about prayer but he stopped me and asked if he could say something... He told me that he was always trying to feel spiritual things and feel the spirit and he told me that he had felt something during the prayer. He couldn't explain it, but he said that it felt really good and that the place we were in (the teaching center) felt really good too. People don't say those sorts of things very often, so I got really excited and told him that it was the spirit that he was feeling and God's Love for him. The rest of the lesson went really well and we invited him to be baptized and he said that he would if he came to know that the Book of Mormon was true. Anyways, it was great and we will meet with him again this week. I just hope that he will continue to meet with us and strengthen his faith. Cool story though. We had Zone Conference yesterday too, and that was really good. The theme of the conference was faith and I felt like I personally really needed that. President Dance gave us the coolest insights about faith and I wanted to share a few of them right now. Faith is the power to work miracles. But we have to be obedient to have the endowment of faith. And that obedience I guess is a little different for missionaries than for those that aren't. Meaning that missionaries have more rules. But it is still the same principle. So, we need to have faith for the Lord to work miracles in our lives, but it has to be the Lord's will as well. We could have enough faith to move mountains, but if it isn't the Lord's will, it won't happen. It is the Lord's power that is doing the miracle, so it has to be his will for it to happen. We also need to have faith in true things, or good things. I really learned that faith is such a powerful thing and I want to learn to better use it in my life. We can have faith in Jesus Christ because He is perfect and has all power to bring to pass all things. I went up to President Dance afterward and had a few questions as to what we can have faith in. But I asked President Dance If you can have faith that someone will be healed if that isn't the will of the Lord. But he told me that even if something isn't the will of the Lord, we can still have faith in that thing because it is still good. But we have to have faith in God that whatever his will is, it is the best thing. So, we trust Him. My thoughts are everywhere because this whole faith thing still blows my mind, but I thought it was very interesting. Dad, I am trying my very hardest to develop strong faith. Anyways, I just thought it was cool all the things that I learned about faith and that miracles really can be wrought by faith. Goals will help us focus our faith and the Lord will bless us for that.
Anyways, it was good to see all of the missionaries yesterday. I really don't know where I will be going this next transfer. But I will be happy wherever the Lord wants me. Everything else is going well here. It has been a little warmer this week and that has been nice. I can't wait for spring. I have been being pretty diligent about working out and I appreciate your ideas for eating better and working out. The trick is just finding things that you can do inside. I have some dumbbells and that is really nice. There are a few apartments that have them here and mine is one of them. I wanted to thank you for your other thoughts on finding investigators and your encouragement. It is hard sometimes to keep your head up and keep going. I just want it all to come naturally and not be so hard, but hard things are good right? Missionary work just stresses me out cause it's really outside of my comfort zone. But whatever... It will all be ok. I need to go, but I hope that you all have a great week! Have faith and miracles will happen. Don't give up on your dreams and be happy cause life is great. We have so much to be happy about because of our family and the wonderful gospel. I love you all so much and I want you to know that. You all mean the world to me. Have a great week!
Love, Elder Leishman
390 days down, 340 days to go!
