Week #10 - In the field

This week has been full of service! We did a lot of volunteer work
this week. It's so nice to do service. One, it gets you out of
proselyting clothes. Two, it just brings the spirit. As missionaries
we try to be as Christ like as possible and one way we do that is
through service. On Thursday we helped out a Spanish sister from the
Bella Vista Ward with her yard work. We were there for 4 hours!! Her
yard looked like it hadn't been taken care of in a long time but don't
worry we cleaned it all up. Thank goodness I had to mow the lawn while
we lived in Utah and was able to gain some gardening skills.

On Friday, we helped out at the local baptist church. We volunteer
there every Friday morning. They have a food pantry there and we help
them stock their shelves when they get shipments in. It's actually
pretty fun and we have made some good friends out of it. One of the
volunteers actually invited us over to her house for a BBQ on Saturday
night haha. It's was pretty crazy. 2 Mormon missionaries and a whole
bunch of active baptists eating dinner together. It was fun. We
answered a TON of questions which was really good. A lot of the
questions were centered around the Book of Mormon play hahaha. I'm
curious to see it because so many people ask us about it. All I've
heard is that it's blown way out of proportion. Who knows.

Then, Friday afternoon we helped a guy that we are pretty sure is a
hoarder. He got a huge tree cut down in his yard and we helped him
haul all the logs and branches off because he didn't want to pay the
tree trimmers to do it. But we actually didn't like throw the longs or
branches away. We stacked them all in his back yard, maybe he's
hoarding the tree also? Hahahaha who knows. He is a sure nice guy
though and we might be going back to help him this week.

Other than that, we had stake conference this weekend and it was
great. President and Sister Huntsman spoke at the Sunday morning
session and gave us some good council. A lot of the talks were
centered around change since we just got a new Ward in the stake and a
lot of the boundaries for switched around. So it was basically the
stake presidency consoling a lot of people in probably the most
effective manner; through Jesus Christ and service.

My mission has made me realize that there is a huge difference between
people on the west coast and people on the east coast. People on the
east coast and always super busy and running a million miles an hour
everywhere and never have any time to talk to you let alone say hi
back to you. People on the west coast are very relaxed and know how to
take time to just chill and still get things done. I wish everyone had
the west coast mentality. It's so much easier to talk to people that
way and it's easier to hold a conversation if someone isn't stressed
about where they need to be in 30 minutes or if talking to us will
make them late. Everyone just needs to take a chill pill hahahah. The
first part of my mission has also made me realize that the trunky
feeling never leaves. You will always have that pit in your stomach
that misses home but you just become so used to feeling like that,
that it becomes normal and you learn how to disguise it when it gets
really bad. One way I've learned to get through it is by reading.
Whether it's the Book of Mormon, the missionary reference library, or
just something in the gospel library. Anything that invites the spirit
is what helps me out.

If there is one thing I have learned over the past few weeks, it's
that I'm not on my mission for myself. Previously, my motivation on a
mission was for myself. To be that "Returned Missionary" that everyone
talks about and be put on that list of people that can say, "I served
a mission for 2 whole years." Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But
over the past little while, I've come to realize how selfish that is
for me to think like that. I'm not out here for myself. I'm out here
for everyone but myself. And that's been the hardest thing I've had to
over come these past couple days and I'm still trying to figure out
how I can change my mindset to not all about "me, me, me" but to "what
can I do to help the people around me." This is something that I feel
I won't need only on my mission. This is preparing me to have a wife
and kids. When I have kids it definitely cannot be about only me. I
have to put my priorities where they need to be. Our first priority
should always be, "how can I serve others today?" There is a quote by
C.S. Lewis that I want to finish off with (because I love quotes) it
says, "Don't shine so that others can see you, shine so that through
you, others can see HIM." I want to challenge all of you to do one
thing each day, that you wouldn't normally do to serve others. Find
something. It could be big or it could be small. But I promise as you
look for some way to serve some one, Heavenly Father will bless you!

Love,

Elder Leishman