Monday, June 27, 2016

I'm just going to get right in to it since we had a ton happen this week! First off let me tell you about Dhinal (D-in-all) So we go this referral a couple days ago for someone named Dhinal in our area so we went out searching for their address. We went to this apartment complex and knocked on the door and this little kid answered the door. We asked him if Dhinal was home and the little boy was like," Oh that's me! You must be the Mormons!" You could say that we were pretty surprised. He is 11 years old and he said that him and his mom have been looking at all different kinds of religions. He said that he was on the computer one day and an ad for a Book Of Mormon came up and he just knew he wanted one and he wanted to come to church. We talked to him more about it and we invited him and his mom to church but he said that they were going to be out of town for a couple days so they wouldn't be able to come this week but when they come back he definitely wants to come. It's amazing how innocent the spirit of little children are and how open they are to the direction that God is trying to move them in.

On Sunday, the Riverside ward had a missionary homecoming. His name is Steven Slater and he served in Argentina and just got back this past week. We talked to him a bit after church and he said that he had a non member best friend that he wanted to invite to take the lessons. Later in the day he texted us and asked if we could go to the church and teach his friend that night! We were excited to meet him and we taught him the Restoration right there and the spirit was amazing. We asked Steven to bear his testimony and it was amazing to see how his mission has changed his life and how much he wanted his friend to have the same joy that he has. He committed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and it was an incredible lesson.

Bearing your sincere testimony is one of the most powerful influences you can have on someone. The spirit will always testify of the truth of what you are saying to them. As we stand up as representatives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and show others how important our beliefs are to us, we can have a powerful affect on those that around us. Love you all and hope all is well!

Love,

Elder Leavitt

Monday, June 20, 2016

Last Tuesday was our Temple trip to the Oklahoma City temple and it was a trip that I will never forget. It was so relieving to be in the temple and I received so many answers that I've been seeking for a long time now. The Spirit that you can feel there and all that you can learn while in the temple is just amazing and I'm truly thankful for that opportunity.

In the Riverside ward, we were able to receive a couple new investigators from the Bishop's son! Nick Warner texted us one night and told us that he invited over two of his friends to talk with us after he gave them both a copy of The Book of Mormon. We went over there and taught them the Restoration and it was a really powerful lesson. The Spirit was there the strongest after we asked Nick to bear his testimony. He told them how happy the Gospel made him and he just wanted that same happiness for them too. They both committed to read and pray about what we taught and we set up to go and teach them again this week.

We also received three solid new referrals. One of them was an investigator in a different area that had a baptismal date but she had to move to Tulsa unexpectedly so now we are meeting up with her this week and setting a new date for her. The other two both said that they want to come to church and see what it's like so we got everything set up for them to come next week.

A lot of work going on in the wards that we've been given to watch over. It was awesome to be able to reflect yesterday on the impact my dad has had on my life. I aspire to be just like him in so many aspects. The countless lessons he has taught me and the example he has been for me in my life are too great for me to ever pay him back for. Hope you all had a great Father's day. Hope everyone has a great week!

Love,

Elder Leavitt

Oklahoma City Temple with Elder Udy

This plus 90% humidity is no bueno!

We saw this at an elementary school so of course we had to take a picture on it

Monday, June 13, 2016

It's been a pretty interesting couple of days. We had our Zone conference on Friday so we were able to receive some amazing instructions from President and Sister Loveland. This past Saturday and Sunday was our Stake Conference so the Lovelands have been staying here for the whole weekend. After the adult session on Saturday night, President Loveland walked up to all of us and was like," So are we going to get Ice cream or what?" So we went and President bought us all ice cream and talked with us for the rest of the night!

Sunday morning we got our new investigator, Cliff, to come to church with us and he doesn't really enjoy showing a whole lot of emotion so it's kind of hard to read him. He likes what we are teaching and he tells us but I'm not use to having someone telling me how much they love it with no expression I guess. 

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but tomorrow our zone and a couple other ones are going to the Oklahoma City temple to do work there all day! We are all super excited to go since it has been such a long time.

Since President and Sister Loveland are going with us tomorrow, they have been spending the day with all of us. President Loveland showed up to Rugby this morning all geared up and ready to go! It was one of the greatest things I have ever seen! He can move for a guy his age!

I'm extremely excited to be in the House of The Lord tomorrow. I know that it is a place where we can feel the spirit in abundance. If it has been a while since you've been, I encourage you to go. The Spirit there will strengthen your testimony and bear witness to you that you are in a Holy Place. I love you all so much and love hearing how y'all are doing.

Love,

Elder Leavitt

Our rugby game with Pres Loveland

3 Zone Conference

Monday, June 6, 2016

It's been another powerful week in the New Haven and Riverside wards. We've been able to get a ton of work done lately and we've been teaching a whole lot of lessons. This morning, we went and played a huge game of Rugby as a zone and it was so cool. I've never played before but we have a couple Elders who have and they taught us how. It was a lot of fun and we are planning on it again next week.

This past Wednesday night after we were done planning, we got a call from some of the Assistants informing us that they wanted to come and hang out with us all day Thursday. We agreed to let them come work with us and it actually wasn't as bad as you would think it would be! Haha no I'm just kidding they are awesome but what was really cool is that that night, we had all the young men and Elders quorum and High priest meet at the church and we all split up with members and went and saw Less active and part member families that our bishop wanted us to see so we had a successful day with their help.

Yesterday was just crazy. So we have a recent convert that just moved into our ward boundaries. She is 9 years old and she is the only one in her family that is baptized. We've been trying to get her mom to take her to church for a long time with no success so we just decided to go up and get her before church. Her parents didn't want to come but they said that she could come with us so we took her to church and she loved it! After church, we went back to her apartment to drop her off. Oh, and did I mention that this is one of the sketchiest neighborhoods in our area? Yeah, it gets mentioned on the news a lot from what we've heard and not in a good way. We walk her up to the door and it's locked... She knocks on the door for awhile and nobody comes... We take her over to her cousin's house and same situation. So now we are stuck in this ghetto apartment complex with someone's child, and we had our other church starting soon. We had no idea what to do. After some prayer on everyone's part, Elder Udy and I went back to the door of her house and just started pounding on it. After a couple of tries, this guy opens the door and just stares at us. It looked like he just woke up and I don't think he spoke English but we got her back into her house and we went to our other ward... late but it was alright.

Sometimes we don't take full advantage of how much God cares about the situation we are in. I know that we wouldn't have tried to go and slam on her door if we hadn't of prayed for help first. He is just waiting for us to ask for his help. We can't be too prideful to think that we can do everything on our own. Once we put our trust and troubles into His hands, we need to go to work acting on the promptings that we receive.

I love you all so much and I hope all is well with everyone. Keep on being a light to those around you. Have a blessed week!

Love,

Elder Leavitt

The city

Some of the elders on a service day #awkwardfamilyphoto :)

Monday, May 30, 2016

I really don't know where to begin with this past week! So much has happened in our areas and it has been keeping us real busy. First off, an investigator from a different ward just recently moved into our boundaries and this guy is awesome. His name is Larry and he knows the church is true without a doubt, is almost done reading The Book of Mormon a SECOND time, and wants to be baptized so bad! The only thing keeping him from being baptized right now is that he smokes. The previous Elders got him down to only smoking one cigarette a day which is close but not quite there yet. He wants to be baptized at the beginning of August and we are hoping to motivate him to do it sooner. He came to our ward yesterday for the first time and the members loved him. We are really excited to get to teach Larry!

We have been receiving a ton of referrals lately from the ward and over the media. This past week, we got three referrals from the media. One of them was named Jamie and we called her up and scheduled an appointment with her. We got a member to go with us over to see her. She has been going through some really hard times lately and she just wants to find happiness through God. We weren't planning on it, but we both felt prompted to teach her the Restoration, so we did. She had some questions that we answered and she committed to read The Book of Mormon and pray about it. She told us before we left that she felt at peace while we were teaching and that she hadn't felt that way before. We helped her recognize that it was the spirit and promised that she would get the same feelings from reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. We hope to see her again sometime soon!

So remember that guy that was walking his dog that we talked to last week? We weren't able to visit him this week but he texted us the other day and told us how eager he was for us to come over and teach us about our religion. He said that he is hoping to come to our church this next week. I don't think I've ever street contacted someone that is as interested as this man is. We are planning on seeing him this week and we pray that all goes well with him.

So much more has happened this week but I better save those experiences for a different time. We have continuously seen the Hand of God in our work and he has been blessing us beyond belief. God truly is aware of those that are ready for this gospel and he will always send his worthy and willing servants to them. Thank you all for the emails and letters. I hope you all have a great memorial weekend and enjoy the beginning of summer!!

Love,
Elder Leavitt

We went down a back ally to locate a less active and found this. Hood ballers! 

Monday, May 23, 2016

So we got the call this past Saturday and it looks like I'm going to be spending another transfer in the New Haven and Riverside wards. Elder Udy is staying too and we are really excited about that. We get along and teach amazingly together so we are pretty stoked for another six weeks of doing this together. There are a couple of people in the zone that we are losing that we are pretty sad about but we will hopefully see them sometime later.

So this past week we were really busy with all this stuff so we kind of just forgot to get gas in the car one night. The next morning, as we were literally on our way to the gas station down the street from where we live, we kinda just ran out of gas... We had to have some other Elders close by come and help us out. BUT we took it as a teaching opportunity and tried to talk to the people in the store whose parking lot we had to coast into haha. We handed out some cards to them so maybe something will come out of it! After getting gas in our car we went on our way to try to see a referral.

As we were walking to the referrals apartment, we said Hey to a guy walking his dog and he called us over to talk with him. Turns out that he was a media referral awhile back and the missionaries saw him once and then he never saw them again. After talking for awhile, he agreed to let us come back and teach him some more! He said he couldn't go to our church this past Sunday but he was more than happy to agree to come this upcoming Sunday so we will see what will happen!

It's funny how we don't always know how the Lord is working things out. We have a tendency to see how everything is affecting us now without seeing what the Lord is preparing for us in the future. He is in control of everything and it's pretty comforting to know that he will not abandon us. Love you all so much and I hope you all have a blessed week!

Love,
Elder Leavitt

Comp photo with Elder Udy

Baptism of Morgan Freeman! Not really but very close!

Tulsa, OK

Some Elders turned 20 so we got root beer floats

Monday, May 16, 2016

Another successful week in the Arkansas Bentonville Mission! Yesterday, Elder Udy and I hit our 

10 month mark! A super cool less active girl in our area found out about it and made us blue

 velvet cupcakes to celebrate. We went over there last night for a lesson and afterwards we had 

ourselves some dang good cupcakes. It's seriously crazy to think that it's been that long but there

 is still so much to do!

This past week we scheduled our usual appointment with our recent convert Kamal. He's the one

 from Syria that doesn't know a ton of English but he's got to be the nicest guy I've ever met. He's

 a Taxi driver so he doesn't make a whole lot but this week when we went over there, he had

 made us lunch. It was a Syrian food called Kshk (kishk) with this kind of Syrian bread and it was

 seriously amazing. It's like this chowder kind of thing that you put on the bread. I'll just have to 

send a picture of it. I can honestly say that when I got called to this mission, I didn't think I would 

be eating Kshk with a Syrian Convert.

In other news, this Saturday is when we will get the transfer calls. I'm hoping that we both end

 up staying cause I've loved it here with Elder Udy but he's already been here 4 1/2 months so I 

guess we will just have to see what happens. I hope all is well wherever you are. Thanks for everything!

Love, Elder Leavitt

A funny sign we saw in a rough part of town

Kshk!

Blue velvet cupcakes! Yumm!!