July 15, 2014 "Moments That Matter Most"

July 15, 2014,

Hey everyone I found out that I will be having a new missionary join me in this area for the last part of my mission! Usually with the previous mission president the calls were done Saturday. This time

he did them on Sunday. So in between I was feeling very weird wondering if I was going to be training or not. The previous mission president said he would like for me to but then said he didn't really have any influence on it. I am excited to see who it might be and what things I am going to learn from him. Maybe he will be a foreigner! I have never had a foreigner as a companion.

The other day we were eating at a family's home. First of all their last name is awesome, O'Sick. Second it was weird as most of the people sitting around the dinner table were below the age of 16. I

never noticed but it made me think back to the days when I had devices such as cell phones. If I was very distracted by them back then,I am sorry. While we were there, there was very little conversation as most of them were playing games on their smart phones. One had a friend over and they barely spoke to each other because they were playing games. Then we wanted to show the Mormon message video called "Moments That Matter Most" and only one actually paid attention. The feelings of an uplifting message soon turned to a message of correction because they knew they were wasting their time but couldn't let go. That was an eye opener.

Went by the Coon's home and wanted to share a message with them. Towards the end the husband started to cry and we excused the kids and conversed with him. He expressed the feelings he had as he has been pulled at 2 ends by two different bosses. It's not really a situation that anyone could do anything other than the bosses to realize what they were doing. We offered him a blessing and left. It's moments like that when we get the opportunity to help someone that is in some actual need, though we couldn't do much it still felt good to be able to do something.

Alright so I bet a few of you out there are wondering about the pictures that I sent home about the 4th of July and the Vampire thing in the pictures. Now I would like to explain that. The missionaries
that we live with were out working and saw it on someone's front porch and said they should go knock on the door and offer to say a prayer with them. The guy inside was very wired and let them in, declined saying a prayer with them but then offered them food and alcohol because he was an alcohol distributer. H offered a bunch of other things and then the vampire because he had 20 other ones just like it. They didn't really know what to say at first but then accepted to take the vampire and not the other offers. It is now gone though. I will send pictures about that soon enough.

So has anyone had Crème Brûlée before? If not, you have got to try it. It is amazing! There is a member of the church here that went to culinary school and had us over for dinner one evening. She asked us what kind of dessert we wanted. Having heard the name before in some movie I suggested it. She made it. It was fabulous! I want to learn how to make it!

Well that was my week and I hope yours has been just as great, if not I promise you that I can get better as you look for opportunities to serve someone else.

Love Elder Leonhardt