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!