Elder Tanner Leishman Serving in the Washington DC South Mission: Week #58

I bet you're wondering why that is the title of my email this week.
Well it's because elder Holdaway and I have gone completely apostate
and took a week long trip to Hawaii (I'll send the pics)....haha jk.
It's only the lyrics to a reggae song. I wish I was there though with
how hot and humid it has been this past week. It's been miserable to
be outside. I've been sweaty for literally a week straight. Welcome to
the life 😪 but it really is the best. I've had a great week other
than the sweatiness. Elder Holdaway and I get along super well and we
have some awesome conversations about the gospel. Work wise, the week
was a little slower because we had a lot of meetings and switched pday
and transfers. So it's been a lot of logistics this week. It's been
good though.

Last Tuesday, we went to the zoo with a group of elders and had a lot
of fun. I'm not huge into walking around for hours on end looking at
animals but it was pretty cool and I had a good time being with all
the other elders. It's always nice to hang out with the homies around
the mission.

Then, Tuesday night, elder Holdaway and I found out that we were going
to be staying together for another transfer. I'm so pumped. We get to
stay in one of the best areas in the mission for another 6 weeks. It's
going to be awesome.

Thursday we had transfers and it was probably one of the saddest days
of my mission so far. A lot of missionaries that I looked up to a lot
were going home. A lot of the guys that have had a huge influence on
my mission are now at home. It was a sad day. We lost a lot of great
missionaries but that means there are great new missionaries that are
coming into the mission that need some good examples. It's motivation
for us to be those guys that the young bucks can look up too. Just
like we had awesome leaders, they need awesome leaders as well. But I
think the saddest part of the day was when my guy elder Merrill went
home. I don't know if you guys remember my companion from about 6
months ago but he went home this past week. It was super sad. I sure
do love that kid a lot. I'll send you the pictures I took with him
before he left. He's a stud. But, something cool from transfers. My
trainee, elder Hudson is training. Which means I am now a grandpa in
the mission. I'm pretty pumped about it. My grandsons name is elder
roper. Seems like a dope kid. He better be if he's in my posterity
hahaha.

On Saturday we had a pretty busy day. It started with correlation at
bishop dzarans house at 8am then we went and taught a couple lessons
before we left to go to a baptism in elder holdaways last area, the
tall cedars ward. It was an awesome service. Saturday evening we had
stake mission correlation. It's where we go and represent the zone in
front of all the bishops and ward mission leaders in the stake. We
talk about what we are doing as a zone and get things for the zone to
improve on. It's one of my favorite meetings to attend. This
particular meeting, president Dionne (centreville stake president)
asked us to share the story about how we found, taught, and baptized
the Bercian family. It was great. The spirit is always super strong.

Last night after church we were able to teach a couple lessons that
were just filled with the spirit. Not saying other lessons aren't full
of the spirit but I feel like somethings both the two lessons we
taught last night were different. Maybe it was the lord showing us his
hand in our lives or even just us noticing it more. Or it could be
Heavenly Father giving us a little hope after a slow week. Whatever it
was, it was nice. We taught our investigator named Kevin. The lessons
started off with him basically dropping us but then we talked him into
one more thing, we invited him to read and pray from the Book of
Mormon every night this week, 7 days. And if he doesn't think he has
an answer by the end of the week, we will stop visiting him. He
accepted. I'm going to be praying my heart out on behalf of him this
week. I have the faith that Heavenly Father will answer his prayers
and show him the truthfulness of the things we share. I just know he
will. He always seems to come in clutch when we need him.

I love you all. Have a great week!

- Elder Tanner Leishman