Monday, March 14, 2016

Well, another week gone in the mission field. This past Thursday, we got to go to a meeting with one of the head guys in Salt Lake. His name is Brother Hemmingway and he is something like the head of missionary proselyting in the Mission Department so this guy knows a lot about missionary work. He talked to us for a really long time and pretty much changed everyone's view on missionary work... It was incredible. We all took real close notes and it has been an eye opener for me. It has shown me that I have a lot to work on but now I have some ideas on how to improve and that makes me excited for the future.

This past Saturday, there was a baptism for a little Marshallese girl named Bina. I got to interview her and she was really enthusiastic about getting baptized. Her dad was going to do it but unexpectedly said that he didn't want to anymore. So Friday night she called me up and asked if I would baptize her in Marshallese. I got the opportunity to baptize Bina Riklon a member of the church and I didn't even mess up my Marshallese! If that isn't a miracle I don't know what is!

I'm so very thankful for the Power of the Priesthood. I have seen miracles come about from the faith and authority of worthy Priesthood holders. I'm so blessed to have grown up in a household where it was present and to have a father willing to live worthy to bless his family. Having this restored authority on the earth has blessed countless lives and will continue to bless my life and the lives of those who are willing to have faith in the divine origin it comes from. Thank you all for the amazing letters and emails you have sent this week. I hope you all have a blessed week!

Love, Elder Leavitt

Bina's baptism! I was on splits with Elder Hanson

Monday, March 7, 2016

Hey there!

So nothing too eventful to report on this past week. We've still been hooving it (deer pun intended) since our car is still being worked on. We found Elder Rooto a bike so we've been able to bike around a bit to some appointments. It's been really fun introducing him to normal American stuff. Like the other day, I made him a Root Beer float and it blew his mind! While we were biking we saw a baseball game going on and he had no idea what that was so I got to explain the whole game to him. It's just crazy that little normal things that we are used to are completely foreign to him. He comes from such a different culture so it has made things a lot more interesting.

I had a pretty cool experience the other day. We were listening to Elder Henry B. Eyring's talk and it was the one about when his dad prayed at each intersection to find out which way to go to find a church. So we thought," If it worked for him, it will look for us to find people to talk to." So we started biking and every intersection we stopped and said a little prayer to know where to go. We went all through these really sketchy streets and we were on bikes at night but we still felt like we should. Anyway, we were biking and some guy saw us and pointed and said," Aye Mormons!" so we stopped and talked to him. Turns out he was seriously investigating the church but then moved and wasn't able to get in contact with the missionaries. He really wanted to continue his learning. He didn't live in our area but we got all his info and gave it to the other elders.

Blessings come when we show that we have faith enough to act. I'm thankful for the opportunity each day that I have to show my faith. Thank you all for the continues support. I hope you all have a great week!

Love, Elder Leavitt

 

 

 

 

Monday, February 29, 2016

Where dat at doe?

 

I got my new companion this past week. Elder Rooto is from a small island called Tarawa which is over by Fiji somewhere. He is such a cool guy. He is still learning English so I have to help him with some words every now and then but he can speak really well for just barely learning it. He's really funny and enthusiastic about the work so it's going to be a good transfer. So the Subject of the email has two significant purposes. First off, "Where in the world is Tarawa" is the conversation of almost every dinner we have gone to and I'm still not sure exactly where it is. Secondly, we totally got hit by a doe last week. We were driving along this really busy street in Fayetteville when this deer jumped out of the woods and hit the front of our car! It was seriously the craziest thing ever. We tried to track it down but I think it got away. While our car is getting fixed, we are hitching rides as best we can.

We've been able to see a lot of progression in a lot of our newer investigators. We are hoping to set some baptismal dates in the next week. There is a man named Billy that we have been teaching for awhile now and last night we had a pretty serious talk about baptism with him. He wasn't really into it before but he is actually leaning towards it now. He has grown to love the church and the members here have done such a great job at loving him and getting to know him whenever he comes to church. We told him to ponder and pray about it this next week so we will see how things go with that.

Other than our suicidal deer incident, things have been great here. The ward has been getting really involved with the work lately and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that they get to drive us around. This is probably a blessing in disguise. I love the work I'm a part of and the service I get to do each and everyday. Everyone have a safe and blessed week. Watch out while driving :)

Love, Elder Leavitt

 

Our whole zone on transfer day

An Asian party we went to in Clarksville. You can tell how fun that was! Haha!

 

Monday, February 22, 2016

Yep, we got our transfer calls this past Saturday and I'm staying another transfer in Fayetteville. That makes 6 months here and I can't complain about that at all. I seriously love this area and there is still so much going on so I'm excited to stay here for a little bit longer. Sadly, Elder Greenwood is moving on. He is going to Salem, Missouri which is in the middle of nowhere but he is going to kill it there. My new comps name is Elder Rooto (Row-Tow) and the rumor is that he is from Fiji and is learning English as a second language. He has been out for about 4 months now. I'm really pumped for this next transfer.

This past week was petty incredible. Our whole zone had those high goals set and we got to witness some pretty remarkable miracles. I wish I could just type them out for you. I don't know how to even begin typing it into words so just remind me the next time you see me to tell you about it. Basically, God blessed our efforts beyond measure. We got to have Elder Christofferson come and speak to us on Saturday and we got to walk through and shake his hand which was a really cool experience. He spoke a lot about miracles in the latter days and about faith and all this other stuff that I wrote down and then he opened it up for questions. It's funny to see that the Apostles are human too because he was joking around with everyone and had to think about questions for awhile sometimes.

I'm looking forward to these next 6 weeks and I'm excited to see the progress in Fayetteville. I love you all and hope you all have an amazing week!

Love, Elder Leavitt

We had a fun Marshallese party

They gave us new backpacks. We look like its our first day of third grade :)

Pday swag at one of our favorite places

Dinner with the stake Presidents family

Monday, February 15, 2016

First off, I would like to send my love and best regards to the May family. My heart aches along side everyone back home for the passing of Brent May. Give their family as much love for me as you can please.

This week we are preparing for an Apostle to come to Tulsa, Oklahoma and speak to the whole mission on Saturday. It's going to be D. Todd Christofferson and we are all pretty excited for that. We have been asked to prepare spiritually and to come pondering on some questions we have. That's going to be a really uplifting experience. We are pretty excited for this next week because the whole zone has set some pretty high goals. We have been fasting and praying that the whole zone will be able to accomplish them. It's going to take effort on everyone's part but I feel like we are going to be witnessing some miracles this week.

This past week has been pretty normal. We are getting transfer calls this week and I'm hoping to stay in Fayetteville. There is still so much to do! But as the old song goes, " I'll go where you want me to go." Love you guys and I hope everyone has a great week. I'll be keeping the May family and the whole Valley in mind and prayer this week. I hope you all might recognize the Lord's hand in all things this week.

Love, Elder Leavitt

We went on a great hike on pday

How can we compete with that??!

Taco night

Monday, February 8, 2016

It's been a pretty insane week. So the Marshallese couple that I was suppose to baptize on Saturday, the wife had a stroke a couple days before the baptism. They don't have a phone so they didn't tell anyone so we thought they had just fled the country or something because they really didn't want to get baptized but all is well after we finally found them. We are going to wait until she is feeling better and then we will get them baptized. We had interviews with President Loveland this past Friday which was really great because he is just an awesome potato farmer from Idaho that knows what's up. It was good to get to visit with him and talk about the area I'm in and what's been going well and what needs to be worked on. 

Also, I love Old folks homes. We go visit one every Sunday afternoon to play dominoes with some of the ladies and we are practically celebrities there now. I've been teaching this older lady named Tina how to do a secret hand shake for the past 3 weeks and she forgets it every time. That's okay because every time I try to give her a fist bump she just stares at me and then laughs and says," Wow, you sure are a good looking. Lord have mercy!" Hahah! if you ever need a self esteem booster, go to an old folks home.

This past week, we couldn't get any appointments one day so we decided to go tracting at this apartment complex. We felt like it would be a good place to knock some doors. We only knocked 4 doors and out of those 4 doors we got 3 return appointments that we saw on Saturday, gave away 2 Books of mormon and two pass along cards. Now we have 3 new investigators that we can go teach! We have been praying for some new people to teach because our area hasn't seen any new investigators in a long time. That was a huge blessing for us and it all came out of tracting which is amazing. It's really cool to see the Lord's hand in our work. It's always there, we just got to have our eyes open enough to see it.

Everything else was just business as usual. We got to see a lot of good come into our area and we are hoping to keep the momentum going. I love you all and thank you so much for the emails this week. I hope you all have an amazing week.

Love, Elder Leavitt

Monday, February 1, 2016

This past week has been pretty interesting! Our whole zone has been doing really well. Our Mission President has challenged us to set goals within our individual districts to help us improve the work in our area. We have set some pretty good district goals that are going to help us out a lot. We have a goal set to hit the Standard of Excellence as a whole zone on the fifth week of this transfer. The Standard of Excellence is a mission wide goal for member present lessons and referrals and other things like that which are set to help us strive for something each week. We are preparing to achieve it here in a couple weeks. We are setting goals now that will make it easier for us!

We have a branch in our Stake for the Marshallese people because there are quite a few people that move here from the Marshal Islands for some reason. A few days ago I was asked to give a baptismal interview to a couple that the Marshallese sisters have been teaching. Oh, and they don't speak a lick of English so we had to have a translator come in a tell me what they were saying the whole time. Even though I couldn't understand a single word that they were saying, the Spirit was still so strong when I asked them to bear there testimonies. It's crazy how the Spirit knows all languages and it will testify of truth always and even if you don't understand them verbally, you can understand them spiritually every time. Well, after the interviews the sisters were talking to them about who they want to baptize them and they both asked if I would baptized them. So now I have to learn the baptismal prayer in Marshallese for this upcoming Saturday! I've been working on it but I still sound super white when I say it so I'll continue to work on that.

Kommol Tata (Thank you in Marshallese) for all the love and support in my behalf. I am thankful for all of you back home and for all the work that you do behind the scenes of missionary work. I hope you all have an inspired week. My sister is going home this week. Say Hello to Erin for me!

Love, Elder Leavitt

The south is full of their symbols of devotion to Jesus Christ.
We all can rejoice in His resurrection!