Tuesday, May 26, 2015

First Transfer Down

Wow, I can´t believe I´ve been in the mission field already for a transfer, it´s crazy! Half way done with my training already too, it´s crazy. Luckily though, we didn´t change areas or companions, six more weeks with Hermana Dansie! We decided yesterday that this transfer is going to be pure spanish, it´s going to be good. 

I had to give a talk yesterday in church, it actually wasn´t bad. My goal was for the people to be able to understand me, and they did, so I´m pretty stoked. We ate with a family yesterday too and they were saying that my spanish is actually pretty good, but I need to talk more because once Hermana Dansie leaves I´ll have to talk to everyone. Haha it´s good though. 

We had some cool lessons at the end of the week, it was a neat experience. We have one investigator that wants to be baptized but there´s always some excuse for why he doesn´t come to church. I honestly don´t understand it because he loves the scriptures and the gospel principles book and everything, but he doesn´t come to church. So when we taught him we focused on keeping the sabbath day holy. We were really trying to focus on not putting off schoolwork for Sunday, because that´s usually why he doesn´t come. At the end he said that he would try but he had something for school during the time that church is.  After the prayer too he looked kind of upset, and he said it´s so true what we were saying. That he knows he´s putting God second in his life and it´s not fair, he should be putting him first. I was super stoked after this and really thought this time he would try to come to church... nope. But we´ll just keep on encouraging him. 

We had a lesson right after that with a menos activos, and we tried to just help him with his doubts. At the end of the lesson he asked us when church was, out of nowhere. We were pretty excited for him too and thought that maybe he would come to church too, but he didn´t, but just to see the change that he had a little bit of a desire to come again gives us hope too. 

Pretty much though, going to church is so important!!! We have our personal study to learn everyday from the scriptures, but we have the opportunity to go to church and learn more in depth about the gospel and have the opportunity to ask questions to so many people and understand mroe. Why are we missing out on this opportunity! And most importantly, we have the opportunity to take the sacrament and be clean. We receive so many blessings by going to church, so why is it so hard some weeks to take the time to go? That´s what I´ll leave with you to think about this week. :)

I love you all, 
Hermana Leavitt

What a Week

This week was super weird, it felt long... I would say the beginning of the week was great though, the end just seemed to drag on, but it´s all good. It´s started raining, usually only an hour at like 5 or 6 in the afternoon, but it feels so nice now. 

At the beginning of the week it was way cool. On Tuesday/Wednesday we had intercambios, where you change companionships for 24 hours. When we got the call, they said that I was going to stay in our area and Hermana Dansie was going to the other. I was kind of freaking out because that would mean I´d have to lead the way when the other hermana came, and it´s only my first time doing intercambios. But it went well, the other hermana knew a few of the people because she served in this area a year ago, but I learned that I actually have the area down pretty well. It was cool to serve with someone else for a little bit and learn some different things, but Hermana Dansie´s pretty cool and I was pretty happy to have her back. We learned though that we just need to be more bold with the people, so that´s what we´re going to work on. 

One cool thing was that we had a lesson with one of our investigators, Maria de los Angeles. She´s had doubts about the church and didn´t know if it was true. She said that she´s felt that the church she goes to is where she needs to be. When we had intercambios, Hermana Hickman decided we were going to teach lesson 1 again because she just seemed confused. At the end of the lesson, we asked Maria to pray right there to know if the church was true. During the prayer she just started crying as soon as she asked, the spirit was so strong. After, she said that she knows it´s true. It was a way cool experience. 

Wednesday was great too, we had interviews with the president. It was cool to get to talk to him for a little bit. He gave me some ideas on how we can help the members more. Mostly to teach about 1. Family History 2. Family Home Evening and 3. The Book of Mormon. He said that a lot of these things families don´t do, but it´s so important. 

Thursday was my month mark in the field, and Hermana Dansie hit her year mark! She´s actually pretty sad about it though because that means only 6 months left. I hope that I can be in that attitude when I hit my year mark... sorry mom and dad :) 

But yeah, the next couple days were kind of hard. All the kids were out for school thursday and friday so we couln´t find anybody. Pretty much just lots of walking, but we had a few lessons, so it´s good. 

This week I´ve really learned a lot from the Book of Mormon, and just realized how important it is in our lives. Today I read from Ether 12, and half the chapter is about faith and what we can achieve by having faith.  I encourage you to study the Book of Mormon today with a question in mind, and I know that you can receive inspiration for your question. One thing that I´ve noticed too is that when I really study the Book of Mormon, I don´t want to put it down. But before I got here, sometimes it was a struggle just to read for 5 minutes. So study it! It´s great!

Overall though it´s been a really good week, and it´s helped us to know what we can improve on. 

For the funny part of the week I guess, we´re really grateful for Pinterest before we came... haha We only have a microwave, but we´ve been able to make cake and brownies because of Pinterest, so you could say we´re pretty happy. 

Love you all
Hermana Leavitt

Monday, May 11, 2015

Another Week In

This week has been just as normal as any other really. We just work a lot and try to find as many people as we can. It was a struggle for me though. I have had a cold and even though it´s not much it really slows you down in everything, but it´s getting better! 

Pretty much one thing we´re learning is how important it is to be involved in missionary work as a member. Before, I always thought it was kind of the missionary´s job to do everything, but I´m really learning that we have to depend on the members for a lot. One of the most important things is to fellowship, I´m really learning the importance of this too. That´s one of the biggest reasons that people go inactive I think, so don´t be afraid to smile and have a conversation with someone, they could end up as your bestfriend! :)

Being a missionary is great and I´m really grateful for this experience. You really learn a lot every day on how you can improve yourself. Never stop trying to be better!

I love you all

Hermana Leavitt

Monday, May 4, 2015

May 4th, 2 Months out but, whose counting

Wow, today is two months, how crazy is that! This week honestly flew by so fast, it´s crazy. Things are still going good, and continuing to get better. It´s really crazy to look back at the end of the week and see what you´ve really accomplished. This week we were kind of getting discouraged and feeling like some days we weren´t getting much done, but then last night we looked at all of our numbers for the week and they are either consistent or progressing overall. We´re way stoked to see this and want to continue to progress. 

Sorry, there wasn´t a whole lot that happened this week. A lot of our investigators that are progressing have been out of town, so we´ve mostly been teaching new lessons. I think that the hardest thing is that we teach a lesson or two and you can tell the spirit is there and that they feel something, but when we return they don´t want to continue. But if you´re not ready, you´re not ready. 

This week we´re trying to focus on our less active members. There are a lot here that we´re trying to find. On Wednesday we had meeting with President George and one thing that he said is when we focus on our less active members, not only are we reactivating these members, but usually they are part member families so with time we have the opportunity to teach their families too. We´re crossing our fingers and just hoping all goes well. 

One cool thing was that last week we had received a reference but we couldn´t find the home. Then the other night we were trying to teach a lesson and everyone we had planned for wasn´t home. We felt we should try one investigator that we haven´t seen for a while hoping that he would be home. Well, he still wasn´t. It was late and we had to go back to the apartment, and hermana Dansie started talking to a woman and her two kids that were walking by. We got her name and her address, and it´s the same woman that the people had given us a reference for before! How Cool!

Well all I can really give advice for is don´t be afraid to talk about the gospel. We never know when someone may have a question and sometimes a conversation will be exactly what they need. Always follow the spirit, and try to recognize how the spirit talks to you. 

I love you guys, have a great week!

Pic 1 Happy Birthday this week Daxton! Thanks for taking care of my dog for me little man :)