December 2 2013 Thanksgiving

I plan on taking more pictures but I keep forgetting...I will try and take at least 3 photos a week and send them home, sometimes I take them a forget to send them so please keep me accountable.

As I have been out on my mission I have become more sensitive to feeling the Spirit in my life and the prompting I receive. This week I really had a strong witness of homes that have the Spirit in it and those that don't. We went to a home for dinner and it was all unkempt and language that was spoken there wasn't that appropriate. Both my companion and I could feel an absence of the Spirit. Right afterwards we went to another home to say a prayer with a family and there was a big difference. The house was just as unorganized as the first and the same number of family members, almost same everything but the feeling we both had. After the prayer was done we all felt complete and good. On the way to the car, my companion and I looked at each other and knew the difference of the 2 experiences. The first was with little Spirit in the home, the second with a large presence of the Spirit. It was a testimony to me of how important it is to have a home that is kept clean and holy where the Spirit can reside. It seems like a much better way to live and keep a family together.

On Thanksgiving is was a day of appointments only so we went to a families home at 2 for a dinner. Ate too much as normal. Then we took a good long nap and waited for the other 2 missionaries that we live with. We wanted to go play some basketball but they didn't show. So we left to find a church building to shoot around in but all of them were being used, all 3 of them in our area. We were quite sad because we both felt all cooped up and with out anything to do since we couldn't go out and work. Eventually we got together with some other missionaries and threw the football around in a parking lot and ran patterns until the church building that we were next to was not being use. Each church building usually has a basketball court inside so once it was open we played some ball but other than that it was pretty mellow. I hope everyone else had a good Thanksgiving and got to be with family.

I had to throw this talk in here because it is really good and I think everyone needs to read it or watch it. I will attach the URL to this. Please everyone watch it. It talks about accepting the will of the Lord and talks about a young couple who was recently married and the husband gets cancer 3 weeks after being married and how they made it through a difficult time.

http://www.mormonchannel.org/ces-devotionals?v=2202981967001

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Love Elder Leonhardt!