Dear parents of the Arizona Phoenix Mission missionaries -
As we conclude our three-year assignment in the Arizona Phoenix Mission, we acknowledge our honor and joy in working closely with your missionary — watching the sacrifices and service as well as the personal growth and successes. We've been blessed to work with nearly 650 missionaries from all over the world who have come to the APM, arriving with excitement, fears, anxieties, apprehensions and uncertainties and then leaving with greater faith, understanding, commitment and testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ.
We have stressed learning, teaching and applying the doctrine of Christ, which is the foundation of "The Missionary Purpose" — ask your missionary upon returning home to diagram the central aspect of the Atonement and how it leads to faith, repentance, baptism/ordinances, the ongoing gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.
We've also emphasized obedience to principles - your missionary has heard repeatedly statements such as "We want obedience for you, not from you" and "You are as happy as you are obedient." We've underscored true successes of a missionary (see pages 10-11 of "Preach My Gospel") — not simply baptisms, statistics, leadership responsibilities or area assignments. No, "the mission is not a corporate ladder," and "it doesn't matter where you serve, but how you serve."
We are excited President and Sister Griffin will lead the Arizona Phoenix Mission to greater heights, helping to hasten the work of salvation in this choice area and at a time when the Phoenix Arizona Temple is nearing completion and dedication. Your missionary will love serving with the Griffins - we are certain of this.
We've recently taught the APM missionarys about "substance" and "style" - first, how substance are the principles, policies and directives that don't change (the gospel, the scriptures, "Preach My Gospel," the handbooks, the daily schedule, the meetings, the organization). And second, how "style" is a unique way of carrying forth the substance, based on the traits, characteristics, abilities and personalities of different individuals.
An example: Substance is a mission president interviewing missionaries once a quarter. Style is where the missionary is interviewed and for how long. The Taylors' style was to bring the zone together for a 4-hour training meeting and have President Taylor pull missionaries out during the meeting for interviews; other mission presidents drive from meetinghouse to meetinghouse to meet with smaller groups of missionaries.
We will continue to provide our APM 2011-2014 blog — azphxmission.blogspot.com — for the next 2-3 years. Newer posts may just be visits from returned missionaries, reunions and the like. But we'll keep the posts and the photo galleries available for returned missionaries and current missionaries and their families to download text or photos from Sister Taylor's postings over the past three years.
Sister Griffin has expressed an interest in providing a blog - please be understanding of the demands on a new mission president and wife. Our first year, we had our son Braden here as our photographer. A mission blog, while welcomed by a missionary's family, is not a "substance" thing but a "style" thing. Please be patient with that and other mission matters as the Griffins begin their transition. We remember what that first month (first year!) was like. Do not expect or ask them about a blog.
A critical reminder for parents and family — the Arizona Phoenix Mission is an online proselyting mission, one of fewer than 30 such missions in the world. With iPads equipped with digital planners and area books, our missionaries use emails, texts, Facebook posts and messages and Skype video conferencing in their proselyting efforts. PROSELYTING is the key word - the Arizona Phoenix Mission isn't simply an online mission, with missionaries communicating frequently and over the various mediums with family and friends.
Missionaries communicate with family/friends only through their myldsmail.net account on P-days — if your missionary is struggling to be obedient to this directive, you can be encouraging and supportive. Also, family and friends should not use Facebook, Skype, texts, calls or off-cycle emails to communicate any information to their missionary - including deaths in the family or other emergencies. You can work with the mission office staff (623-334-3823) or the mission president, whose cell number is on the office answering machine for evening and weekend needs. There's no reason to inappropriately use Facebook, emails, calls or texts — please help your missionary be obedient.
We look forward to staying in touch with your missionary in the coming years. We tell them that we are their cheerleaders for life.
With our love, appreciation and admiration for both you and your missionary,
President and Sister Taylor
Friday, June 27, 2014
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
June 23, 2014 "New Mission President"
June 24, 2014
So I am not sure what I am going to do
for a bike because I don't want to spend a lot of money for a bike
that I am only going to use for 4 more months so I am going to see if
I can find someone to bum a bike off of for a little while.
Hey everyone! I hope you all are
enjoying the summer as much as I am!! In our apartment complex they
just remodeled the office and now they are serving lemonade and
cucumber water. One of the ladies gave a pretty good sales pitch for
it. So all summer long I should be able to get so cool refreshing
liquids.
This is the last week we are with
President and Sister Taylor and next week Thursday President and
Sister Griffin will be here. We got our last email from the Taylor's
and were able to hear of their love that they shared with us
continually. One of the last principles he taught us was preparing
the path for others to take their place. He is working really hard to
get everyone prepared for whatever changes may occur and rules
changing and policy. It makes me reflect on the area that I have had to
leave and someone else was coming in to take my place. It is hard
sometimes to try and not be that missionary who people get to
attached to because it makes it hard for the next missionaries that
come in.
Thursday after dinner we had some
appointments that took about 20 mins to bike to so right after dinner
we had to get biking quick to get there on time. Elder Murdock and I
were having a great gospel conversation when we came around a
corner on a dirt path and there was a BMX jump. My companion said
hold on and started biking faster towards the jump. He went up ^ and
came down and crashed. He was covered with dirt. He ended up hurting
his arm but no hospital.
So things are still going well over
here. Hope it's going well over there!
Love Elder Leonhardt
Monday, June 16, 2014
June 16, 2014 "Solutions for the rough patches in life"
Well I finally get a little break in
the work to write home to you all! I love it here, but don't worry I
love you all as well! This week I had an interesting learning that is
more for the future but it is
an exciting one that I can't wait to
apply. Scripture study and prayer with the spouse. You may say wow
that's pretty cool to learn or you may say that I am weird and ask
what the heck are you learning down there in Arizona. Yes I know that I am
only 20 and that this kind of thinking is way out in the future but I
learned it from an older couple we went to visit this week. The
husband was Ron and the wife is Linda. Ron just found out a day
earlier that he has cancer again and got pretty devastated about it.
It lead to an argument with him and his wife and now he expresses
that he thinks they are going to separate. It was really sad to hear about and I don't
know all that was going on but the spirit taught me that yes there
are rough patches in all relationships and some can't really be
prevented but they can be overcome. Daily scripture study and prayer
with a spouse helps unify and strengthen each side of the
relationship and helps each other express thoughts and concerns in a
loving manner where the goal is to come closer to God. In that
atmosphere I feel ALL can be accomplished. But that is why I have to
wait because I don't know much about that kind of relationship so I
will put it in the back out my mind to bring up in the future.
We helped this family called the
Hamblin's move out of their home and put their stuff in the neighbors
garage as they were being evicted. They were given 3 hours to get all
of their stuff out and clean the place. With those demands they became
angry and soon cops pulled up and this big commotion started. I feel
it first started with the family wanting to live outside of their
means which brought debt. That lead to trying to cover up mistakes in
the easy form which would seem all nice and daisy like at the
beginning but late would bite you in the butt. I thought of it in a
different way. When we live the commandments that God instructs us in
it helps us learn and be prepared for future endeavors as well and we
have his promised blessings too. When we don't keep the commandments
we often try to cover the problems with self-doubt, justifying, pride
or other types of avenues. But it doesn't take care of the issue.
When justice comes and debt is demanded everything starts coming
down. As it may seem hard at times, keeping the commandments helps
prevents troubles down the road.
This is probably a weird email to you
all but here is another life lesson I had learned this week. There is
a family of recently baptized members of the church that are from
Deli India. They have a son that
is 2 yrs old and has autism. In India
their child would be looked down upon and thought of as explained to
me "below livestock and unfit for society." Here in America
we feel otherwise for the most part. Their son is awesome, happy,
loud, loving, and wanting to be on the go. It helped me understand
that though there may be an imperfection in the child and he may not
be completely there, he is at least their son and here in earth for a
specific and special purpose. He is young and has so much more in
front of him and not to limit an individual right at the beginning.
On Saturday one of the missionaries
that I live with got sick and needed to stay home for part of the day
so my companion and their companion went out and I stayed at home
while Elder Barrus slept. So I got to catch up with journal writing
and cleaning of the house. It was great.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Father's
Day yesterday! Thanks Dad for all that you do and the love you show
towards me. You are a magnificent example to me and I love you!
Love Elder Leonhardt
Backsides of Elder Wainwright, Elder Lower, Elder James
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
June 9 2014 "New Area....not the best welcoming committee"
June 9 2014
Hey so I have a little bit of a
predicament and I'll explain it more later but in short I got a lot
of my bike stolen and either need to pay $200 for the parts, a member
down here is able to help find the
cheapest, or just borrow a bike till
the end. The thing I am debating is if I should pay or not because I
would like to use a bike when I am at school.
Haha well I just got into a new area,
new to me, and I have been having way to many exciting things happen.
This will be a fun email to write.
I got into the new area on Wednesday
and on Friday and Saturday there were 2 baptisms in the area, yeah
that's how hard I work. Just kidding that was the joke at church. One
of the leaders that we work with a lot wanted to meet with us after
one of the baptisms to get to know me and bring me up to date on
things. He is going through the Air Force for his dental and with his
military studies he was relating a lot of things to June 6th 1944
which I believe was D-Day. Those that were baptized were James
Mondella and Noah Karch. James is a 50's year old man and has been
meeting with the past missionaries for awhile and Noah is a 17 year
old who started meeting with missionaries soon after
he saw the change in his mom and sister
from joining the Gospel.
Ok so since we have been here in the
area we have been pretty busy but that's nothing new to me because
the past 20 months have been busy. Thursday night we were having to
go out to make some visits with a member and so he drove and we
locked our bikes up with a U-lock out behind the building so it
wasn't right next to the street. We were planning to go back to the
building the next morning so we decided we could leave them there and
they should be safe since the other missionaries had done it before.
The next day when we were in the building there were some youth that
come up to us and asked if we got our bikes stolen. That raises a
bunch of red flags for me. We said no but went with him to go see if
the bikes stolen were ours, praying it wasn't. Yup they were ours.
They didn't get all of the bike just the wheels, bike seats, and
lights, then took our helmets and hide them but we found them later.
So all that was left was the frame. To add salt to the wound there
was another set of missionaries that left their bikes there over night and the
same thing happened to them that night and one of the missionaries
just got out here Wednesday. After we had a laugh about it we tried
to make calls so we could borrow a bike till these were fixed. When we
went to take the frames, no longer bikes, to someone's house that
would fix them up for us we found out that the thieves had messed
with the U-locks and we couldn't get one of them off. We had to use a
grinder to cut through it. Boy was this week fun!
It's nice to be in a new area but it's
weird having only been in the last area for 6 weeks. This area is
unlike most of the areas I have been in because it seems like there
is a lot to do that hasn't been
done for quite some time. I am excited
because that kind of gives me the green light to work as hard as
possible and not have to worry whether someone had already done that.
I have been thinking a lot and
reflecting on all that I have accomplished and done and who I have
become and I continue to see a lot more than what I was looking for.
I have a companion that is newer to the mission field and has expressed
a couple times that he doesn't know much. When I hear these things
the constant thought that goes through my mind is, yes you do you
know a lot more than you think. I myself have thought that “I can't
really do something” or “I don't know the right answer” but
have learned 2 things about that. One: If you think long enough and
pray about it you can figure it out. Two: If you don't know that is
ok. We are spirit children of the master problem fixer and most wise
individual ever, God, and he has a lot of trust in us and believes we
can overcome obstacles. We don't need to know everything but we
should try to do our best. After doing all you can do it is important
to look back on the trail you have gone down and see the memories and
monuments you have built and remember all the positives you have
done.
Love Elder Caleb Leonhardt
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
June 2, 2014 More Pictures
June 2, 2014 More Pictures
June 2, 2014 "Moving? We'll Help."_"Talk Away Negative Thoughts"
June
3 2014
Hello
Family and Friends!
I
see Cactus of green, rocks of brown, and people too, its a big town,
and I think to myself What a wonderful world!
When
I often get down on a current situation or struggle I may be in I
soon find myself looking for not what is bad or wrong or frustrating
but switching that thinking to what is great, what is right, and what
makes me happy. We call it talking back to negative thoughts and it
helps a ton, not so much the actual talking to yourself because
that's weird....but its the switch of the mind from thoughts that
bring your spirit down to thoughts that are uplifting. We had a
situation where we were walking to a home of someone we didn't know
and on the way, there were some people making gestures and comments
that they have no time for the Lord. At first it hurt to see and hear
someone express that. We tried quickly to switch our thoughts to what
could be going well in their life, how could we help improve that or
help them sustain it? What can I do in the next 3 seconds to put a
smile on their face and help switch their focus? As we switched our
reaction we felt the negativity leave.
Last
night we were walking through a complex. We are in apartment
complexes a lot, going to see some people. We ran into this family
that was unloading their truck and moving in. We offered help and
they
responded
in a surprised way, "You serious? For real?" They were
shocked that someone had finally come to help as they had been doing
all the moving themselves all that day. Of course, they lived on the
3rd floor. As we helped them they expressed how much they appreciated
the help because they were getting very tired carrying everything.
One of the guys looked like he was a baller so I went over to talk to
him and see if he played anywhere. He said in high school he did a
little but not anymore because he is a recovering addict and is
trying to get his life in order. I asked what has helped him out in
making the change and he talked about his family. Being around them
and seeing them brings a refreshing feeling and renewal. We talked
about families and their importance and we think he would love to get
involved in Family History. The father of the family expressed that
he knew some people up in Utah as my companion is from there. They
talked about who they might know and mentioned a Bryan Russell. My
companion said he knew and is good friends with Bryan Russell. They
both talked about the famous Michael Jordan push off play for awhile.
It was a fun time and they want us to come back and talk about Jesus
Christ.
I
am getting transferred to a new area. Not sure where and I don't
really mind where I go but this I will say, it would be nice to go
north and get out of the heat. I am excited for change because it
brings many chances to change and to grow so I am looking forward to
what kind of personality my companion will have and how we will get a
long. Someone here once said you can get a good look at how well you
will get a long with your wife by how well you got along with all of
your companions.
Love Elder Leonhardt
Monday, June 2, 2014
May 26, 2014 "Thank you Vets!"
Since today is one of my favorite holidays I wanted to talk about why
those who serve this country are so important to me. First off I want
to thank my Grandpa Harold Laube, Bob Purkapile, Bob Fortier, the
Lemm's, those from school that I know, and the many more that I know
and respect for their devoted service. I haven't gotten the
opportunity to ask many military personnel the question of, "Why did
you serve?" Not that the answer whether it is a good reason or not is
important but to see why they were willing to sacrifice time, their
focus, and put their lives on the line for people they didn't know.
But I am guessing the responses would be short. I know this day of
respect is pointed more towards veterans but I want to include a few
other groups of people that I feel should be added in. Those would
include our Police Officers and Firefighters. In their line of
profession they resist opposers to our country from with in and bring
order so we all can live life with peace. They are like our bodies
immune system, fighting from within. Thank you all for the service you
provide and examples you set, whether your name is mentioned or not.
those who serve this country are so important to me. First off I want
to thank my Grandpa Harold Laube, Bob Purkapile, Bob Fortier, the
Lemm's, those from school that I know, and the many more that I know
and respect for their devoted service. I haven't gotten the
opportunity to ask many military personnel the question of, "Why did
you serve?" Not that the answer whether it is a good reason or not is
important but to see why they were willing to sacrifice time, their
focus, and put their lives on the line for people they didn't know.
But I am guessing the responses would be short. I know this day of
respect is pointed more towards veterans but I want to include a few
other groups of people that I feel should be added in. Those would
include our Police Officers and Firefighters. In their line of
profession they resist opposers to our country from with in and bring
order so we all can live life with peace. They are like our bodies
immune system, fighting from within. Thank you all for the service you
provide and examples you set, whether your name is mentioned or not.
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