April 4, 2011
Dear Family,
I really can't believe how fast the weeks go by. It probably helps when you are super busy. So, I will get right into telling about it. Transfers were this week and Elder Whicker and I are serving a second transfer together which I am really grateful for. We work really well together and He is a great example to me. We are becoming pretty good friends. Last Monday, all of the missionaries in Vilnius, 12, got together to play ultimate Frisbee and it was a lot of fun! I miss playing sports and running around. Man, we get so out of shape as missionaries though! I was so sore the next day... Even with all of the working out I have been doing. But we just never run! Anyways, that was a lot of fun. Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty normal days and then on Thursday we packed up our apartment all day so that we could move on Friday. I de-junked a lot of stuff that old missionaries had left and that felt good. Friday morning we had to be out of our apartment at 10:00 AM, So President Grenevicius helped us move everything to the church and then at 5:00 we could move into our new apartment. Let me tell you... It was a pain! That stuff was so heavy carrying it up five flights of stairs! I wish we could have just moved everything strait to the new apartment. But we got everything there and just unpacked everything the rest of the night. It is a pretty nice apartment and I really like it. I will have to send some pictures of our old apartment and the new one too. Saturday was a pretty crazy day. We had a lesson early in the morning with a guy that the Russian Elders were passing to us. He has a baptismal date too so that makes three for us now! What a miracle. He seems like a way cool guy. Then we had a special training meeting that we will do every Saturday for about another month. Then we taught English Class. I'm getting a little tired of teaching English... :) Then we met with two members that are sisters to talk about missionary work. It was really cool to hear their conversion story and to see their testimonies even though they are so young. One is 25 and the other is 18. They are great. Then after that we had a lesson with Vida, the woman that has a baptismal date. We had another member in on that lesson and it was great. We taught her about the Word of Wisdom and she already didn't drink or smoke! She accepted the whole thing and the spirit was really strong. I am so grateful for her. She is just doing so well and we love her. We had another lesson with her earlier in the week too. So, we were at the church all day on Saturday pretty much. Sunday was a crazy day too. The sisters had passed us an investigator that lives in our area earlier in the week and her name is Loreta. She has this little daughter and she is so cute. Loreta is so solid and we are really excited about her too. She came to relief society activity on Saturday and we had met with her twice more during the week. So, we were planning on Loreta, Vida, and Jurga (the other woman that has a baptismal date) coming to church on Sunday and they all did! We actually had a total of 8 investigators at church in our district. I have never seen that happen before my entire mission. And our district has 8 baptismal dates as well... I CAN"T TELL YOU HOW MUCH OF A MIRACLE THAT IS!!
Vilnius is blowing up! We are seriously all very shocked at all of the miracles that are happening at the hand of Heavenly Father. He knows what he is doing and I am just happy to be a part of this. Nothing that we have done has brought about these miracles. It is all God. These people are just falling into our hands. It's so cool to see and I wish that I could express how much of a miracle it is. You guys know how slow the work is here, but things are just going so well right now and I don't know why. I am very grateful. Dad, you mentioned how this mission is tailored just for me... I really believe that. The things that I have gone through and the way things have turned out were just for me. I feel that I am more of a slow paced, patient person and I think that that is the kind of person that is needed here. Or at least that is why I am here. I have learned so much being here and I will always be so proud that I served in Lithuania. It is a hard place to serve, but I have come to love this place. Anyways, we are hoping to invite Loreta to be baptized this week. Maybe there will be four baptismal dates in our companionship. That would be crazy.
We weren't able to watch General conference this week, but we will be getting the dvds this week so that we can watch it in English. And then we will watch it again in Lithuanian on Saturday and Sunday. It always happens the week after here. I am really excited to watch conference though. I have really come to appreciate conference as I have been a missionary. I really look forward to it. Oh, and we have Zone Conference tomorrow over in Kaunas, so this week will be another busy one. I'm sorry to hear that you guys got snowed on! It has been really warm yesterday and today actually. It's been nice. Anyways, that has been my week. It was pretty busy.
I know that this church is true and I am so grateful that I have the privilege of being a part of it. I hope that you all have a great week! Love ya!
Love, Elder Leishman
439 days down, 291 days to go!
