Monday, May 29, 2017

Kind of a crazy week for us!

We were able to finish up all of our exchanges this past week so it's been good to finally be serving back with Elder Green haha. We went on a mission Temple trip again this past week which is always a great time! Our district leader challenged everyone to take a name of one of our ancestors to the temple so I found one and was able to do the work for them! It was a cool experience to take someone like that. It made going to the temple that much greater. I saw a lot of old mission friends as well. It's fun being in the Temple with your friends.

So, the Rogers ward gave a Marshallese family the calling of doing a family home evening group with the rest of the Islanders. They do it on Saturday nights since that's usually their day off. They invited us over to help out for the first one and we showed up and found out that it was actually a girls birthday. They quickly transformed the Family Home Evening into a birthday party/Spiritual thought haha. Everyone there was so grateful to have us there. We had a couple of people translating for us. They asked us to stand and speak to them part way through so we taught them all in simple English and invited them all to church. It was really neat. We got a couple of new investigators out of it and a lot of respect from the Islanders. The Marshallese know how to throw good Birthday parties!

Everything has been going swell here. Loving the work that I'm apart of and Rogers is a good place to be. We are preparing for transfers coming up next week so it's going to be next Wednesday when I email again. Love ya!

Love,
Elder Leavitt

Some of the Marshallese fan club

Friends at the temple

When you go to pick up your investigator for church...

Monday, May 22, 2017

I can't begin to describe to you how much I love serving in the Marshall Islands right now haha. I don't even feel like I'm in Arkansas anymore. Take away running water and Walmart and I would be in the islands. We were able to get a lot done this week! We've been working hard on learning phrases in Marshallese and we can almost have decent conversations with most of the islanders. The kids that speak both have been practicing with us. We have had to adjust a lot of our teaching to help those we come across understand our message. You have to use different words and sometimes speak a little in their language to get the message across so it has been interesting. It's a new kind of teaching I've never experienced before! The other night, we had dinner with one of our recent converts from the islands and it was probably the best dinner I've ever had. We made all the island food with her to start off and then, after we prayed, we ate a ton of food while she played the ukulele and sang island songs to us. It was incredible!

The Lord truly blessed us this week. We had a huge focus on finding new people to teach and setting baptismal dates and we saw a lot of miracles in both those areas. We met with the white couple we are teaching again this week. We read the book of mormon with them and things are going super solid with them. We actually found another white couple that we are teaching and a ton more Marshallese haha. It's funny cause a lot of the people coming from the islands were actually baptized members over there but when they get over here, they don't know where the church is or how to get there so they just hang out until we find them haha. We've been transferring over a lot of records from the islands lately and we have more people wanting to come to church.

The Lord has been teaching me so much lately. I'm just trying to soak it all in and learn from all the experiences I'm having. I am grateful for this work. It's seriously so cool to be a part of. Love ya all!

Love,
Elder Leavitt

Pictures from Sister Loveland

Elder Leavitt keeping a noticeably appropriate distance ;)

Monday, May 15, 2017

Pretty stellar week for us!

We were able to squeeze in a couple more exchanges this past week which is always a good time haha. I got to be with a couple of missionaries I've known from previous mission experiences. I was able to learn a lot from all of them! Having all of them here has helped us a lot in the whole finding new people to teach department so we actually have tons of new potential in the area!

We teach tons of islanders but we actually got a new white couple we are teaching! They were a referral from a Bishop in Utah and they are amazing. It was one of the warmest welcomes I've ever had into a new investigators home that I've never met. They live right off the lake and their house is beautiful! They are both retired so for fun, he like makes fancy knifes and she paints and they travel around and sell their stuff. It's a pretty good life that they got going on but it's just missing the gospel! We had a great lesson with both of them and they both know quite a bit about the church. Before we left, he asked for a priesthood blessing because he has been really sick. The wife felt the spirit super strong during the blessing so after she asked for one as well! Really powerful experience. Glad I got to be a part of it.

It was great to get to talk to the family yesterday! I've realized over and over again on my mission how blessed I have been to be placed in the family that I have. I'm always bragging on the family and telling people all that I've learned from my parents. I'm beyond grateful for the mom that I have! She's one of the best :) Love her. I hope everyone had a great week and pray everyone has a blessed one this week!

Love,
Elder Leavitt

Some of the awesome island kids

Our last call home. 9 weeks and counting!

Monday, May 8, 2017

What a week it has been for us!

We started doing exchanges with the zone leaders this past week and it's kept us pretty busy having them coming in to our area for a day. We had two sets come in this past week so I was able to spend a day with both Elder Buhler and Elder Guana. They are both studs so we had a lot of fun together! We have this huge apartment complex that we call the Marshal Islands because it's just chalked full of Marshallese people and they all know the missionaries from when they lived out in the islands. We are teaching a couple of people over in that area so we are there quite a bit. All the little Marshallese kids treat us like celebrates whenever we go over there. I have acquired the nickname of "Elder Banana" to the little kids. It started off because they know Elder Green and they started calling me Elder Yellow because of the blond hair. That somehow morphed into yellow like a banana so they start shouting it every time we show up. Haha it's hilarious!

Carl was able to be baptized this past Saturday and it was such a great service. One of the priests that he is good friends named Dusty baptized him. Almost all the young men in the ward showed up to it. The young men in this ward are amazing! They are a close group of boys so Carl feels really welcomed in the quorum. We are excited for Carl! I know he is going to do so much in the church.

The Rogers ward has been a really cool place to be. I'm still working on all the different languages we have here and trying to keep a bit of sign language that I learned before. I'm thankful for the time I have to serve. It's been such a blessing to be apart of the Lord's work!

Love,
Elder Leavitt

Carl's Baptism

The squad at the baptism

This is Elder Udy

Monday, May 1, 2017

It seems that the new transfer is set to be pretty solid. I've been paired up with Elder Green for the past couple of days. He comes from the Mormon head quarters of Salt Lake City and he's been out one less transfer than me. We've seen each other a couple of times while serving so it's been a great start. We've already started teaching really well together so I'm excited to see where this transfer goes! On transfer day we spent most of the day just driving around getting everyone to where they need to be but we have been settling in now.

Something super cool about the Rogers 1st ward: It actually has a huge population of Islanders. Most of the people that we are teaching right now are from the islands. We have a kid that should be getting baptized soon and he's from the Marshal Islands. His name is Carl and he is really cool. He's been taught everything and if things work out, he should be getting baptized this week! We are also teaching people from the Islands of Pohnpei and Pingelap which are super tiny. The Island of Pingelap only has like 200 people on it and a lot of them are here in Rogers. We try to pick up little sayings from everyone in our conversations. We are learning some Marshallese, Pingelapesse, and Pohnpein just so they will feel comfortable around us. It's been really fun haha.

I've been running around trying to learn everyone we are teaching and get ready for exchanges and others things but it's been great staying super busy. I'm loving Rogers! My new address is 3004 S. 28th pl. apt 3 Rogers, AR 72712 don't be afraid to send stuff.

Love,
Elder Leavitt

Having fun with sister Soderquist's camera at a our weekly lunch appointment.