Week #42 - Welcome to the grind

Happy Easter! This past week was awesome! We were able to teach some
sweet lessons this week and put some of our investigators on date for
baptism! We are teaching a family right now and we had a lesson with
them on Saturday night and put them all on date to be baptized on
April 30th! And then they all came to church yesterday! It was
awesome. I'm so excited to keep working with them. And the awesome
thing about them is that we actually tracted into them and they ended
up being super solid. The husband and wife don't speak a lot of
English, mostly Spanish. But the kids all speak English and it's
awesome. They all loved church and the ward loves them as well!

On Tuesday we went out to Warrenton for their district meeting to see
how the members of their district are doing. It was pretty sweet. It
was like a 45 minute drive out there into the countryside.  Then we
went over to our mission office to pick up supplies for the zone.
There was a lot of driving that day...🚙

On Tuesday and Thursday, we went back to that park and played
basketball with some of our potential investigators. It's been awesome
going and playing ball. Now I just need one of them to video tape it
and put it on Twitter or something haha. We need to find a way to
start teaching the guys we are playing with. We want to make sure we
are using the time effectively not just going for the basketball.
We've gotten pretty tight with a couple of the guys there so they just
text us when they are going to play and if we don't have anything set,
we will go play with them. It's pretty fun. More to come on the white,
Mormon boys ballin' in future weeks for sure!

On Friday, we had an exchange with the Assistants to the President. It
was awesome. Elder Jones and Elder Blanchard are still the APs. I
really like those guys. I love learning new things from them. I went
with elder Blanchard this time. He is from Rexburg, Idaho. He is a
stud. Just an awesome missionary. We were able to teaching some
awesome lessons down in fort belvoir (his area). We woke up on
Saturday morning on our exchange and went to a high school nearby and
ran some bleachers then played some football for our exercise. It was
such a fun time and I'm glad I got to go.

Yesterday, with it being Easter, I was able to take a lot of time and
focus on the savior and his infinite atonement. It's really through
Jesus Christ that salvation is possible. There is a quote from the new
Easter "Hallelujah" video that I really like and it says, talking
about Jesus Christ: "King of King, Lord of Lords, and Friend of
Friends." That's so true. That Jesus Christ has felt the pains of
everyone in the whole world but yet he knows your individual, personal
struggles. It's that such a blessing to know that there is someone
that has walked in your footsteps? Someone that has felt exactly what
you're feeling? I absolutely love that and I find so much comfort in
that. I pray that you guys will continue to find comfort in the open
arms of the savior and his sacrifice! Love you guys! Have a good week!

Elder Leishman

The Cherry Blossoms are out!

Week #41

This week was awesome! Elder Burleson and I are killing it down here
in Manassas. We are finding a bunch and teaching a bunch as well, you
could honestly say we were in like South America or something lol jk.
(No shade to the homie Zern down in Argentina haha) but for real it's
been awesome all the teaching and work we've been putting in. There is
no greater feeling than going to bed at night and putting your head on
your pillow and realizing that you gave it your all that day. It's
awesome. And I know I'm going to need one dang long nap when I get
home...haha.

On Wednesday, we had interviews with President Huntsman. It was so
nice to sit down and talk with him on a one on one level. We had a
great conversation. I'm so thankful for priesthood leaders. During the
rest of our zones interviews, elder Burleson and I had to do some
training for the companion that wasn't in with president. So basically
it went like this, one companionship would show up to interviews and
one of the missionaries would go in with president for their interview
than the other would come with elder Burleson, myself, and sister
huntsman. Then once the interview was over, we would just switch. We
were able to train the members of the zone on how they can help their
investigators keep commitments. It was awesome! Even if we trained on
the same subject 20 times in the span of 8 hours. Oh the joy! I really
enjoyed it!

We went on some exchanges with some members of our zone this week as
well. It's always fun to go on exchanges because you get to learn from
other missionaries and learn new tactics and what not. I really like
them. I went down to warrenton on one of our exchanges, and let me
tell you, warrenton is literally the country of our mission. There are
two wards down in warrenton and they cover about 1/3 of the whole
mission. It's crazy. But we had a good time trying to g the missionary
work up in their area! Then the other one we went on, I stayed in
Manassas and elder Burleson went to warrenton. It was pretty fun!

Yesterday at church, WE FINALLY HAD SOME INVESTIGATORS COME TO
CHURCH!!! We have been teaching sooooo much but none of our people
will keep their commitment and come to church. We actually had a
family come to church yesterday. It's our investigator named William
and his family. William is a super solid kid, I wish I had my head on
straight when I was his age. He's like 15 and he's just an all around
good kid. I was so grateful they came. And they loved it as well. Our
ward did an awesome job of fellow shipping them. The ward basically
just took them under their wings. Super sick!! They said they are
coming next week too!

This week, with it being around the corner from Easter, I studied the
atonement. And the one thing that's always stood out to me with the
atonement is that it's not only for our sins and transgressions. It's
for everything that is unfair or unjust in life. That's one thing that
mom told me before I left (shout out to momma leish❤️) and it has
stuck with me my whole mission and I share that with every
investigator we have or whoever we teach the atonement too. As we get
close to Easter I invite you guys to continue to remember our savior
Jesus Christ because honestly, he is the reason for the season.
Remember that through him, death has no sting and that our families
can be together forever! Have a good week! #StayBlessed 🙌🏼🏛🙏🏼

Much love,
Elder Leishman

Week #40 - "Yo, the Mormon's want to play!"

Another week has come and gone. It's crazy how fast time flies out
here. I feel like I've been out 2 days and have only 2 days left. It's
such a weird feeling. I wonder if time will feel the same when I go
home? Who knows haha. Well, on Monday last week we got to play
basketball for a while because elder Burleson likes to play basketball
as well. We got some good games in. There are a lot of good ballers in
our zone.

On Tuesday we had an exchange with some other missionaries in our
zone. The missionary I was with was elder foland. He is actually from
St. George. He only lived there for a short time like me. I feel like
we related to each other really well. We both have similar stories for
coming out on a mission. It was cool to hear his story. He actually
grew up in Frederick, Maryland which is like 45 mins from here and he
moved to STG like 2 years ago. His dad actually lives in our mission
which is pretty cool. But while I was with him, we were out driving by
some potentials and we came across a basketball court. We heard some
guys playing so we decided to walk over there. We watched them for a
couple minutes then we asked them if we could play with them. When we
asked if we could play, they started laughing. One of them yelled to
all his friends and said "hey man, the Mormon boys want to play next."
After he said that most of them were laughing. So we got playing and
we ended up kicking their butts. I had a couple dunks and everyone was
going nuts. They were all freaking out that we were killing them all.
Afterwards, we got some of the guys phone numbers and asked them if
they wanted to learn a message, a couple of them said they would. It
was pretty fun!

On Thursday we had MLC (mission leadership council) it's where all the
zone leaders and the assistants and some sister training leaders get
together with president and sister huntsman and we kind of discuss the
needs of the whole mission and president gives us training that we
then take back to our individual zones. It was really awesome. I love
learning from president and sister huntsman.

The rest of the week was mainly filled with teaching lessons to some
of our investigators and new investigators. We found 12 new
investigators this week which was awesome. We found a family this week
and taught them the restoration! They really loved it and committed to
come to church next week and be baptized. We put two of our
investigators on date this week one is Wilson and the other is
Gilbert. Gilbert is from Ghana and he has been here in the U.S. for 17
months. He had thoracic spine surgery. He's still recovering. But he's
a super solid guy. He was taught by missionaries in Ghana but never
got baptized and then he moved here and lost contact with the church.
We put him on date to be baptized in our first lesson with him. It was
sweet!

On Saturday, I was able to attend Clayton's baptism from the Wakefield area.
We also had a Mini MTC day for all the youth in the stake. The
full-time missionaries were asked to help teach all the youth how to
communicate with investigators and how to prepare for a lesson. It was
pretty cool helping all the kids out. They all appreciated it and we
got free lunch which is always a bonus haha!

This week I've been thinking a lot about humility. Probably because
it's something I definitely need to work on. And there is a part in
preach my gospel in the Christlike attributes section that says,
"humility is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of spiritual
strength." And that's so true. It takes so much more strength to put
your ego to the side and just be humble. I'm going to really try to
work hard on being humble because I know it can help me in all aspects
of my life especially missionary work. I hope you guys are doing well.
I love and miss you guys! Have a good week!

Peace and Blessin's
Elder Leishman

At Clayton's baptism from the Wakefield area

With Clayton

The cutest dog we found out tracting

A dog just chillin' at one of our appointments

The snow plow struggle is real.

Week #39 - Down to Manasty

Hola familia! What a crazy week this has been!! A lot has happened
since last Monday. On Monday night, I got a call from President
Huntsman and he asked me to serve as a Zone Leader. I was super
surprised when he called. I totally thought I was going to stay in
Wakefield for a couple more transfers. But it ended up being the exact
opposite. Elder Merrill stayed in Wakefield and I got transferred to
the Manassas 1st ward to serve as a ZL. My new companion is Elder
Burleson. He loves to ball which is good. He is going to go home and
try to play somewhere after his mission. He came out one transfer
after me. He is from A small city in Washington. I'm really excited to
be companions with him. I was super sad to leave the Wakefield ward. I
absolutely loved that place. It was such a good ward and I loved all
the members. I'm jealous elder Merrill will be there for 5 transfers.

On Wednesday I spent a lot of time driving around and visiting the
members and saying goodbye. Wednesday night we went to the church and
I taught the young men about missionary work. I wanted it to be my
last hoorah in the ward so I tried to make it count. Elder Simpson and
I (we were on exchanges) taught them the restoration very simply and
showed them how easy it is to share the message. We gave them all
restoration pamphlets and invited them to hand them out to their
friends.

On Thursday, we had the transfer meeting. I met up with Elder Burleson
and we got everything situated for our zone then we went to our zone
meeting. We played the hot seat game to get to know all the new
members of the zone, then elder Burleson and I taught them about
diligence. We tried to get our zone super excited about the work this
transfer and get them pretty motivated. Hopefully it worked out! That
night, we had a split with two of the ward members. It's where elder
Burleson went with one of them and I went with the other. I had no
idea what was going on or who anyone was or where anything was because
I had just gotten there that day. But it was good, the member helped
me out with learning the area.

On Friday, elder Burleson and I were super busy. In our area we teach
a ton of lessons so we are always driving around from lesson to lesson
which is fun. It's always nice coming to an area that has a lot of
work going on. I'm sad I left my last area with all that work but I'm
glad I'm picking it right back up!

This transfer, elder Burleson and I are going to have our zone focus
on Christlike attributes. As I've been studying them myself, I've
really come to realize how bad I need to work on them haha. I feel
like all of my companions have taught me patience in one way or
another, maybe that's the lord showing me how impatient I am. There is
a quote from preach my gospel that I would like to share. It's by
President Monson. It says, "Life is full of difficulties, some minor
and others of a more serious nature. There seems to be an unending
supply of challenges for one and all. Our problem is that we often
expect instantaneous solutions to such challenges, forgetting that
frequently the heavenly virtue of patience is required.” That really
speaks to me. I'm so glad I'm learning patience now because I know
that I will definitely need to use it later on in life. My invitation
this week is to be patient in some form or another. Whether it's with
a stranger, your kids, your spouse, your sibling, be patient with
them. Then let me know what happens! Have a great week! I love and
miss you!!

Elder Leishman