In Heaven on Eleven!

 Hello hello!! 

How was everyone's week?! This week I celebrated my eleven month mark out serving a mission--and most of the time, it feels like Heaven!!  My companion and I both agree that our week felt super long but WOW it was a good one! We found some new friends, taught lots of good lessons, and our friend Natalie chose a date to be baptized!!! We have teamed up with some Elders to "co-teach" this family because they were teaching the parents but the teenage girls wanted Sisters to teach them... and it's been awesome! The girls have really opened up to us and we've been working with them so they can get baptized with the rest of their family in October! So far Natalie is on board, so we're hoping her younger sister Melany will hop on too:) 

This week I want to share a cool story about our friend named Daniel. Ever since Hermana Crane (my previous comp) and I got to San Clemente, a few months ago, this man named "Carlos" had been on our list of people who the missionaries had previously been teaching. For MONTHS we'd been trying to get a hold of him and literally right as we were about to stop trying... he picked up a video call. That week we taught him, and like 5 other people who live with him!!! One of those five people is now our friend Daniel. 

Daniel is 23 years old and is living here by himself, randomly, with Carlos and his family because they're all from the same town in Mexico. Since week one, Daniel is the only one who would consistently come to church (zoom church)... and not just like listen to church while doing other things but like sit down and WATCH church. He's awesome!! We had kinda lost contact with him for a few weeks... and then when he finally did respond to us again, he told us that his mom has been sick in Mexico and so he sent us her number so we could call her. The day after that conversation, on our way to another teaching appointment, Daniel called us. For the next TWO HOURS Daniel told us how he feels this burning inside him every time he talks to us... when he listens to church... when he goes to read the Book of Mormon... and he doesn't know what it is?  He told us how he doesn't understand why two american girls like us would bother learning Spanish and then dedicate our time to talk to people about God. He doesn't understand why we were so willing to call his mom right away and why he feels to trust us and talk about his beliefs when he's usually really shy?  All he does understand, he says, is that, he's feeling something different. AHH!!! Every second of this conversation, it was just so amazing to listen to someone explain how they are feeling the Spirit and, in his own words, "being motivated to do something because of it." I mean, at the end of our conversation, we started to say a prayer and he even interrupted us and was like, "wait I promised I would say the prayer this time... could I say it?".... "Ummmm Yeah You can say it!????"  Wow, Daniel is very sincere in his desire to learn more about God's will for him so we're so excited about this!! Updates coming soon:))))

I was going to write about something else, but I think I just want to leave Daniel's story with my testimony. This message that Jesus Christ has restored His full gospel to the earth is true... it just is. I get to talk to people every single day about how God really is our loving Heavenly Father, and then I get to experience God's love firsthand, in my own life, so strongly. God blesses His servants to do what they need to do, to be where they need to be, and to say what they need to say. 

I shouldn't be able to understand or speak the amount of Spanish that I do, but I do-- with God's help. Two twenty year old girls shouldn't be able to wake up at 6:30am everyday, study for 4 hours and then go out and talk to strangers like we do, but we do-- with God's help. I would not have been able to come back out on my mission and still be moving forward like I am, but I am-- with God's help. 

My point is, God is alive and guiding us in our paths. He's giving us the strength to move forward and He shows us how to do it. So how do we do it? By having Faith in Christ, repenting daily, keeping the promises we make at baptism, listening to the Holy Ghost, and repeating these things as we endure to the end. I'm going to get off my soapbox now :))) but I truly am so happy to be where I am doing the things that I do--WITH GOD"S HELP. There is no other work so rewarding. 

Love you!! 

Hermana Leonard 

The beauty of God's creations!

No eating food in the church right now,
so we temporarily relocated the microwave... haha...