Elder Tanner Leishman Serving in the Washington DC South Mission: Week 2

Hello guys!! First of all, happy Father's Day on Sunday dad!! I wish I could be there to celebrate with you guys. I will be in 2 years that's for sure!

Holy cow the advice "get to Sunday" was easily the best advice that I got!! So right after my last email, my companion went home. It was so sad to see him go. He was like a brother to me and I know he's going to use the atonement to come back out into the field!! But for the first few days at the MTC everyday feels like a week. Like you'll finally get back to your residence at night and you'll think about the stuff you did in the morning and it feels like a week has passed. But at the same time it's been a week and a half and I feel like I just got here. It seems like the homesickness feelings always are the worst in the morning. I remember when I was younger and mom and dad would go on trips and I would always get a ton of anxiety at night but nothing in the morning. It's so weird how those things have changed. They usually subside after breakfast though. After breakfast we go to classes and literally sit in classes for the rest of the day!! But sometimes we get to go play basketball during our gym time and most of the elders here aren't that good lol!!! One of the elders in our district calls me Pau Gasol. It's so funny lol. My team has never lost. It's always nice to do something other than sit in a classroom though.

So let me tell you, Sunday's in the MTC are the best ever. It started out with us waking up early to head to a meeting with my branch president. He made me a zone leader!!! So me, elder hunt, and elder King are the trio zone leaders. It was nice to be asked to be a zone leader and it was cool to discuss the struggles and triumphs of our little branch. There are 2 sets of elders in our district. My trio-ship and elder hamblin and elder krambule. Other than that there are 2 sets of sisters in our district. Sister squires and sister Walton (she is from st. george) and sister Corey and sister frei!! We have an awesome district. So along with being asked to be zone leader I was asked to bless the sacrament in sacrament meeting on Sunday and the elders in our district did a musical number in front of the whole zone. Talk about breaking down barriers hahahaha. After sacrament we go and have some more leadership meetings with the branch president and his counselors. His counselors are brother monson and brother howden. After the meetings we had priesthood meeting and just another devotional meeting. After that we got to go on a walk to the temple and take a lot of pictures it made me so excited to get to go to the temple today. I got some quality pics. Sunday night was so awesome!! The speaker was President Heaton who is like in the MTC board of presidents or something like that. After his devotional we watched a video of the talk president Bednar gave to the MTC a couple years ago. He talked to us about how we need to be our best convert and we need to have more Christ-like attributes. It was probably the most life changing talk I've ever heard. Sunday's are the best!!

I'd have to say that the worst thing about the MTC is the food. Literally so bad for you and makes you feel so gross. There's kids in my room that have had whole things of pepto already. If I had to be here for 9 weeks I would be so fat. Luckily I'm not here long enough to gain too much weight.

On Monday night we got to teach our investigator in the TRC which is the teaching resource center. Our investigator is named theo and he is actually from Vegas. He wasn't to happy when I told him I went to Bishop Gorman lol! But the lesson we taught him was so awesome. I got to bear testimony about eternal families and I told him about grandma passing away a few years ago and how I know I will see her again and that she is watching over me during my mission. It was such a powerful lesson and I felt the spirit so strong!! It's crazy how much I've grown spiritually. I feel like I could go home right now and I would be a 10x stronger member than I was a week and a half ago. I can't wait to see what these two years has in store.

Well we leave the MTC on Wednesday morning at 2:30 am to get to the airport. Our flight from SLC is at 5:50am and we have a layover in Minneapolis. So we land in MN at 9:19 local time. Then our flight from MN to Washington DC is at 10:32am and we land in DC at 2:01pm. So if I can call when we get to Minneapolis I will try my best but I don't know if I'll have time to call and then catch my connecting flight. So we will see. There are 15 of us going to the DC South mission. 7 elders and 7 sisters. I'm actually pretty sad to leave the MTC. The MTC has been so hard but so fun at the same time. It's been hard just sitting and studying all day but it's fun to be with my awesome companions. It's going to be weird living in an apartment with only one other elder. I hope I get a good trainer that will get the work started for us and then I can continue it!

And thank you so much to all the people who have sent me snacks and letters. I'm so sorry I can't reply back to all of you, I just don't have enough time! I love all the support you guys give me though. It makes me feel so loved whenever I get a package or mail. I hands down get the most mail and packages out of everyone in our zone and I love it!! It seems like whenever I'm feeling sad or depressed I get a letter or package and it literally makes my day and pushes me through the tough times.

My companions are so awesome! I feel like we have such a strong bond and we can talk to each other about everything. After elder liddiard left I was able to kinda pick my next companion so I chose to be in a trio with elder hunt and elder king. Elder hunt is committed to play football at Michigan State when he gets home. He's 6'6 also!! Elder King went to lone peak and is a total stud. We are probably the tallest companionship in the whole MTC. We blend so well together and we really help each other out when one of us is struggling. It would be so awesome if we could be companions later on in our mission. That would be so cool!!

I remember before basketball games dad would send me some motivational quotes. So I just have a few quotes I want to share with you guys!!!

"It is not possible to over serve the master" - M. Russell Ballard

"We preach and teach in order to baptize the children of God so they can be saved in a higher kingdom rather than a lesser kingdom and be damned." -I can't remember

It's so weird not talking to everyone during the week but I love Pdays so much and I love emailing you all! It's so awesome! Thank you for the love and support. I love you guys!!

Love,

Elder Leishman