Dear Family and Friends,
This last week has been great and things are slowly starting to pick up again. With the one baptismal date that we have set right now with Ron, this last week we taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and about the Word of Wisdom. When we taught the commandment about keeping the Word of Wisdom, Ron had smoked like 4-5 cigarettes in the 45 minutes that we were having that lesson. We asked him if he would keep the Work of Wisdom several times throughout the lesson, bearing testimony and promising blessings each time. It didn't really seem to sink in but I think that he just kept thinking and trying to enjoy his last cigarette. When we asked him what he would do about it so that he could keep it, he got his pack of cigarettes and crunched it up and threw it out into the road in the rain and along with his lighter. He told us that the last he had quite smoking for 6 months he had stopped cold turkey so we thought that he would be good and that we would keep him in our prayers and be there for him if that temptation came up at all.
We meet with him the next day and right before we got there, one of his friends offered him a cigarette. So when we got there he was smoking it. So we talked about the importance of keeping this commandment that doesn't come from us or from the church, but that it comes from God. We talked about the blessings, both temporal and spiritual that would come from keeping it, and let him know that he has to quite before he can be baptized. The members who brought him to church yesterday told us that they had him stop at the store on the way to church where he then proceeded to take out the cigarettes that still had a little left out of the ash trays. So we will have to keep working with him on that this week. Other than that, he has really gained a lot of faith and testimony as we have been meeting with him and he is really excited for his baptism.
On Wednesday, we had a Zone Conference in Odessa. There President Cusick really hit up on being obedient to all of the rules. I guess quite a few missionaries have been sent home lately and it's really hard and sad to hear that. He also had a training about the importance of using the pamphlets when finding and teaching. We have been using them a lot for teaching but we can use them more for finding. So this week, everyone we talked to we used the one of the pamphlets and it's tons more effective then before. We have quite a few more potentials than we've had in quite some time now.
The last three days of January we were supposed to have the car, but we didn't have any miles left on it since it was the end of the month with the trips to Brandon and Odessa, so we ended up biking those three days. These three days were the coldest and wettest days that I have so far. I can stand being wet, and I can stand the cold, but combining the two isn't to fun. We were drenched from riding through the rain. But this week it's now back up in the 80's F.
Nothing else too exciting has happened this week. Oh, President Cusick told us that we should be getting the tablets in the next 2-3 weeks. So that is something to look forward to. Another thing that I just thought about that I forget to mention last week. I finally got to see Elder Ethan Grant at Brandon and Odessa. He is now in my zone in the Clearwater area, so I will get to see him a little bit more often now.
Love You Bunches,
Elder Leavitt
Business
-I will watch for the glasses to come and I will let you know next week if I get them. Thank you so much and I am sorry that I haven't been able to go and get measurements yet.
-I don't need any of those papers that I sent in the box. But don't throw anything out that I do send home. I will go through them later. And I am glad that Lexie and Lainee liked the Nerf guns. They were leftover from some previous missionaries and we had to de-clutter everything and throw it all away. I thought that they might have fun with them
-There is now snow at all here in St. Petersburg. Not anything close. It sometimes looks like it is because of the very light rain and fog in the mornings. I do like the electric blanket and I wish that I could use it more at night, but one of the other Elders really likes to crank up the heater so I am don't even use the covers because of how hot that it is.
-Thanks for talking to Natalie, I haven't received anything from her yet but hopefully soon.
-Thanks for taking care of the hunting tags and everything else too.
-I wanted to tell you, last week, Lindsay sent me an email telling me that Dixie Ray (She was in my Jr. Prom group in my Jr. year, where we had pictures at the wildlife museum) just got her mission call. She got called to the Tampa, Florida mission and is leaving in April. So I might get to see her soon.
-You don't have to but I really do like getting pictures of all the activities I did back at home. ex: family trips, cross country and track, dances, lake trips, etc. Thanks.
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