March 31 2014 pictures

 

March 31 2014 "Always Striving For Perfection"

I think I forgot to tell you all about an interesting story that
happened about 3 weeks go. It was at the Fifields home. The Fifields
have 4 daughters...and that's it. They wish they could have gotten at
least one boy but I guess God had other plans for him. Anyways they
had us over for dinner on a Sunday night and this was right after they
saw the movie "Son of God" at the theater. The entire
conversation during dinner was about Jesus Christ and the stories
about him in the Bible. Now we aren't allowed to watch movies while on
the mission so I couldn't tell you much on what I thought of the movie.
From what I heard, sounds like it followed the King James Version of the Bible.
They have one daughter that especially loves missionaries named Jada.
She is 8 and is the hippest, coolest, most missionary focused 8 year
old I know. She asked me specifically a question that has been in my
mind constantly, talking about the movie she asked "Will this help my
testimony?" It kind of caught me off guard. I thought for a second and
decided that I couldn't answer that for her, she would need to pray to
see if it has. We talked about what Moroni talks about in the Book of
Mormon when he mentions everything that inviteth and enticith us to do
good and the learn of Christ is of God, so we must see if watching the
movie has done that. She mentioned that she is thinking more about
Christ and wants to learn more about him so maybe it did, I'm not to
say.

Lately we have been trying to use this cool way of getting to know

your neighbors called the "Cookie Drop." It is a fun and easy way for
people to get to know their neighbors because not many people here in
Arizona reach out to those near them like they do in the Mid-West.
Take a plate of cookie to your neighbors and get to know them!

We had a zone meeting this past Friday and it was the first one that

Elder Mullenix and I did together and it was great! It all went
smoothish...but in the end we all learned a lot and had a good time.
The preparation was the difficult part. I have turned into a person
that learns best from mistakes and capitalizes on them while on the
other hand Elder Mullenix is a missionary that doesn't want to learn
that way but be as prepared as possible. It stressed us all out. We
had to learn how to distress ourselves to plan by the Spirit.

Talked with Sister Schroeder the other day about how she is doing with
everything and with reading the scriptures. She has just recently been
coming back to church and 3 of her kids have just gotten baptized. The
3rd one got baptized on Saturday and she had a question for us about
feeling the Spirit. She said that the day before the baptism she was
having these bad feelings and wasn't sure where they were coming from
and how to make it through what ever feelings she was having. She
thought of 2 things that it could be; one of the kids wasn't living
the gospel anymore or Satan trying to stop her from doing something
good. We talked about it and figured that she needed to talk to the
bishop about what to do.

A lovely lady at church named Leca Catsakis talked about a great story

about the Book of Mormon and the truth it has. She is from Greece and
translated the Book of Mormon from English to Greek. She talked about
the man that was asked to translate the Book of Mormon from English to
Arabic who was from Egypt and wasn't a member of the church. The man
said one day that he could no longer leave the church because of this
scripture that he came across while translating, Mosiah 18:4. I had
always overlooked this scripture but it talks about a place called
Mormon. Named because it was infected by wild beasts. In the ancient
Egyptian dictionary Mormon means wild beasts and Joseph Smith would
never have known that. I don't have an ancient Egyptian dictionary
near me, most people don't, but check it out and let me know what you
find!

Had the chance to go to the Schwartz home the other night and say a

prayer with them. If you don't remember William Joseph Schwartz it's
okay, he is pretty famous in the music field. He mentioned that he
could keep in mind the siblings relationships because some of them are
kind of getting after each other and not being the nicest to each
other. That is a me specialty. I have a lot of background in that...I
mean never... I couldn't help but think that we all are normal in
the struggles that we have whether you are poor or not we all have
struggles and the family ones are normally the toughest but the
sweetest when overcome. That's why the gospel is so important, to
always be there when we are in need and want to be striving for
perfection.

Love Elder Leonhardt

Alexa Flores's Baptism picture

                                                       Alexa Flores's Baptism

March 24th, 2014 "I Love Baptisms"

March 24 2014

This week we had received some messages from our Mission President

about the new Mission President we are getting soon and what he is
like so we can pray for him and the preparations he is going through.
The more we hear about him the more we hear about the departure of
President Taylor and how much we all are going to miss him. Then what
comes in my mind are the missionaries that leave with him and that is
my trainer Elder Wardle and Elder O'Neal who lives here. Then I think
about me because I leave shortly after that. It's going to sound weird but
2 years is way to short. I better step it up and use this time wisely!

Alexa Flores got baptized this Saturday and the baptism went great!
She had a lot of friends from the surrounding area come and support
her and even participate in the service. There were a couple songs I
have never heard before such as "How Can I Be" I don't know who plays
it but it is done with a Ukulele. Many of her family members came to
support her and it was great to see all of them come and talk with her so positively.
I love baptisms!

There is a man that we go teaching with every so often. His name is
President Jeff Page. He is in the Stake Presidency. He has had us over
to his office in Midwestern University where he is a co-founder of the college.
We are teaching a colleague of his. He recently told us of a lady that he has
known and worked with for many years. She went to the former
university that he was dean over in California. Her name is Tonya
Thoms and her husband is Rick. He told us he wanted us to go over to
help her move stuff because her husband is fighting terminal brain
cancer and can't do much. We got in contact with her and went over
with the other missionaries we live with to rearrange her garage and
all of the husbands construction equipment. It was really great to be
able to help her out in such of a need. I love doing service! We were
just told yesterday that her husband passed away and it came a lot
quicker than usual. We stopped by again to offer help. She said she
doesn't know much about God and religion so we hope that the gospel
will help her out. She reminds me a lot of Analiesa.

We had another lesson with John Tassone and this time he wanted to
talk about some of the controversies in Christianity that he was
reading in a book. A number of them I have never thought about and was
kind of thrown back wondering why that was such a large controversy. I
can't remember them but we answered the ones we were able to talk
about. He is a really smart guy and likes the conversation. We hope
that we can involve the rest of his family. With the new temples going
up he asks a lot of questions about temples and the importance and
significance of them which I love to talk about.

Now is picking season for citrus fruit. We have been helping out
all over the place and tons of people are giving us fruit too. The
problem with all the fruit is that we keep drinking so much citrus
that 2 of us missionaries got sores in our mouths. We have had to
cut back on them. Fresh fruit is so so so good! I love it!

We were out driving from visit to visit and through a small prompting
had a spiritual experience. We were in a certain area and were trying
to see the people when we came to a point of where to go next.
I couldn't think of anyone that we really needed to see at the
time other than Sister Farvid. When we knocked on their door her husband
answered and invited us in. He doesn't like us missionaries. She was
standing in the room thanking us for coming because her throat was
hurting and she wasn't sure who to call to give a blessing. We gave her
a blessing. Afterwards I was wondering why we had that spiritual
prompting, if you could think of it as one. As small as it was it was weird
to how amazing it ended up being. Why do you think The Lord sends us
such small spiritual promptings that can lead to such amazing experiences?

Have a wonderful week.

Elder Leonhardt

Picture of Elder Leonhardt and Elder O'Neal

                                                    Elder Leonhardt and Elder O'Neal

March 17th 2014 "New Companion....Elder Mullenix"

March 17^th, 2014

This week was transfers and I got a new companion, someone I didn't

know anything about before. His name is Elder Blake Mullenix and he is
originally from St. Helens, Oregon and was called to the Farmington
New Mexico Mission. During his stay there the boundaries of the
mission were being changed and some of the missionaries were going to
be cut off and added to our mission. He was one of them. He has a
lot of stories from on the reservation. They have had to do things such as
chase horses out of their front yard each morning, chop wood and other
very interesting things. Elder O'Neal didn't move far, actually just down
the hall so I still get to live with him.

Since I wasn't transferred I am starting to get lots of comments from

everyone that I am just going to move in here. And we drive a mini van
so we always get the weird comments from people because they are
expecting someone else to hop out of the van when we pull up. They
call us the soccer mom missionaries. It's really nice thought to be
able to talk with them and know they on a more personal level and know
more of their needs. Even with all of the joking from people I can
still see the love from them. There are definitely a lot of people
here that I could call friends and can see myself keeping
communications with them down the road.

We are teaching Alexa Flouris right now and her family for the past

few weeks and she is ready for baptism. We talked to her about her
nerves and the things she is concerned about and wants to learn. Since
the last lesson we had she is really excited about Saturday with all
of the family and friends that are coming. She describes the feelings she
has is such a cool way as a spiritual connection with God. When we
teach her she looks back to see if her spiritual connection is getting
stronger or not and then asks why. She is awesome!

On Sunday we were asked to come into the young men's room and teach

them about preparing for a mission and learning to live up to the
standards that we do. As a missionary we have a lot of rules to
protect us and keep us focused. It's kind of like taking the 10
commandments and living them to the max. It's sometimes frustrating
but after living them you can see all of the blessing that come from
them. A number of them were not sure if they were going to go on a
mission like I am on so we talked about what benefits they think they
would get or like to get out of it and what they would be willing to
sacrifice for it. It is a large commitment and you feel like it is
setting you behind in many ways but it really isn't. It actually makes
you so much more aware of things to help you out with everything else
for the rest of our life's. We then talked about girls and some of the
things we need to do to stay away from unchaste situations. It was a
really good conversation.

The conversation with the young men was easy to do not because I
esteem myself to be perfect but for the reason that I have been
focusing on virtue lately. Another missionary I was near brought up
the topic and was trying to learn more about it and I thought is was
cool because I couldn't really define what virtue is. Ever since I
have had that focus I have seen so many more ways in my life that that
I could become more virtuous in, and I feel great! I feel so much more
confident with things and sure on actions. It has been fueled by the
thought of repentance. Not in the aspect of myself becoming clean but
when we repent we obtain a new view on things and fresh perspective. I
had applied that to others I know and people I see. Rather than
thinking about the negative or sin that one may commit I am trying to
truly see just the good. It's not a one and done kind of thing but
rather a process. Since I have had that focus as well I have been so
much more happy. Try it out!

Love Elder Leonhardt

Pictures: Hungry Elders

                                        We made dinner! Ribs, Veggies, Potatoes, Yay!

Picture with Charollet

Pictures

 

March 3 2014 "Neighborhood Watch"

We got to do some service this week! We don't have many opportunities

to do service in the area that I work in because of the professions
most people have up here. We have asked some people and they just
laugh and say they don't have to worry about it. Their 4 landscaping
crews, 7 maids, 9 butlers and partridge in a pear tree will take care
of it. Just kidding but they all are well off and have people doing the
work. So this past week we talked to a younger single mom who lives in
the boundaries, if we could do some service for her. Her brother lives
in the ward and said he was over doing some work the week before and
said he should ask her. She said she had a ceiling fan to put in that
she hasn't gotten to in months. I have never worked with a ceiling fan
besides the one that was right above my head on the bunk bed back at
home, which normally I messed around with, but we accepted the
challenge. It took some time to figure it out. Please don't make fun
of me, but we finally figured some of it out. By the time we had to
leave we had the new one up and just had to attach the blades and
lights. She said she would finish it. It felt so good to actually work
on a project and do a little bit of manual labor.

We had a lesson with Brother Forbis on Monday night and talked about

the last part of the Plan of Salvation. Everything went great and we
answered all of his questions without him asking. He told us at
the end that each time a question would come to his mind there would
be a pause and then someone would speak up and answer that question he
had. We invited him to be baptized again and this time he said he
wasn't sure yet because he is a computer programmer and thinks of
things from fact to fact. He struggles with the thought of faith and
how it works. We weren't sure how to answer a question like that until
the member that came with us talked to him saying that he was a
computer programmer too and how he sees faith in the work. Such as
when he is about to release a program for something, when he knows it
is good enough to release, where is that bar that says it's good
enough. He has to act on faith at that time and decide if it is good
enough and release it.

Starting this week we are getting more money each month so

that we are able to eat more healthy. Our mission president and his
wife are really emphasizing getting healthy with food and exercise and
a lot of missionaries are taking it serious. There are a lot of
missionaries that are setting goals of how much they want to loss and
cutting a lot of foods out of their diet to be healthier. My companion
and I are buying tons of vegetables and fruit and eggs. I am feeling
great now and continue to feel better as we eat healthier and
healthier.

Elder Wardle and I went to the Mesa Temple this past Saturday with

Charlotte Ford. It was not the smoothest of trips I have had to the Temple.
There were 2 marathons on the way and we got stuck on one side for almost
an hour because the runners were blocking the street. The tension in the car was rising.
And to add to the tension,I had forgotten my recommend that would permit me
to enter the Temple. Fortunately they were able to find me in the system.
Thank you computers. Afterwards we went to the visitors center and learned a little
more about the Mesa Temple and saw thee exhibits of Christ and
paintings. It was really beautiful! We started to head back right when
it started to rain. All of the way home there already were tons of accidents.

While working in another missionaries area on bike, we do it every so

often, we just left someone's house from a dinner appointment and
talked to a man on the street when a cop car pulled up behind us. It
was really funny because she said there was a call in about a
disturbance in the neighborhood from some people in black pants and
white shirts. She laughed and said she would explain it to those that
called. It was funny because we were inside for an hour at an
appointment and the moment we get outside and say one thing to someone
everyone throws up red flags of warning. I'm actually impressed with
how fast the calls were made and they showed up.

All in all it was a fantastic week because it rained and we enjoyed

our time in it. I miss the rain/precipitation! Enjoy it, at least for
me. Thanks and I love you all!

Love Elder Caleb Leonhardt

March 11 "8mm Wrench to the Rescue"

This past Sunday taught Steve Forbis again and this time was much

different in kind of lesson format than normal. We thought it would be
great to bring the Bishop with us to talk about how repentance and
faith work in his life as well as working with others too that have
struggles with faith as well. When we got in the house and were talking
with him we didn't feel like it was right or just wasn't comfortable
talking about that subject. We asked him questions about the lessons
in Sunday school and he said they were good but nothing he really
wanted to review. So we really relied on the Spirit to give us the
direction on what to teach. We always go into a lesson with a lesson
plan of what to teach but we always listen to the Spirit if we need to
change what needs to be taught and go from that. They are always the
best lessons because it's based on what they need. We then were
impressed to talk about the Book of Mormon more in depth to help him
understand because he has never really read through any scripture
before. It was awesome!

Elder O'Neal and I went to the Mesa temple this morning. The day started

out with a miracle. We were planning on going at 6:30 am so we had
to leave here at 5:15 am to get there in time. We had an alarm set and
everything but when it came for time to wake up, it didn't go off. We
had someone waiting for us to take us down. My companion and I both
woke up at 4:58 am at the same time. It was cool because it was like God
woke us both up to look at the clock at the same time to let us know
that we needed to get going.

We are teaching this awesome 12 yr old lady who wants to get baptized

more than anything in the world and wants to learn the gospel. Her
mother is returning to church and the husband isn't a member. As we have
been meeting with them he has been sitting in for the
lessons. His name is mike. Alexa the daughter, is preparing to be
baptized on March 22. The last time we went over to talk with the
family Mike was really involved with the lesson and at the end Alexa
said he was thinking about being baptized too.

On an exchange in another area we were focusing on talking with people

and serving others so during the day we tried looking for more
opportunities to do so. We went hiking with our bikes to talk with
more people. When we came around a corner on the bikes we saw this
awesome 302 Boss Mustang in gold. The hood was up and this guy was
looking at it like it was going to explode. We went over to see if we
could help and he said he just figured it out but needed an 8mm
wrench. We thought that was weird but thought we would check out bike
tools to see if we had one. We did! It was awesome and he thanked us
for it.

One of the missionaries that we lived with left yesterday morning to

go home because it was the end of his mission and it is weird to see
someone head off because it makes me think of the end of my mission as
right around the corner. He was a funny missionary too.

Lately we have been trying to teach the members down here the

missionary lessons and this past week we met with the Suwyn's family
for FHE. (Family Home Evening) They have 3 boys who look a lot like my
brother Aaron. They have a little girl that's about 2. She is so funny! I love
seeing others have a family night each week were they can learn as a family
and enjoy an evening with them.

We had dinner with a family who's husband is a FBI detective for bank

robbers and other criminal activity of that sort. He talks a lot of
expectations and obedience. We had dinner with him about 5 months ago
and we talked about what they look for in a missionary to trust them
and they couldn't really answer with anything other than, you just
know. Woods is the family name. He brought that conversation up again
and said to us, I'm still not sure what it is but elders...you have
it. It was very satisfying to know that they trust us and that other
members do as well.

There were a few other things that happened this week but for the sake

of time I am going to have to close this email. I hope all of you are
doing great and enjoying life! I love you all and hope nothing but
sunshine!

Love Elder Caleb Leonhardt

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