Dear Family and Friends!
This week has had plenty ups and downs from getting transfer emails, hitting twenty lessons, a lot of walking and using the bus, and another stolen bike.
For preparation day last week, we went and played soccer and football on the campus, and we had quite a good sized group of missionaries. It was a lot of fun, but we were all sore for the next few days afterwards. It wasn't much fun riding a bike or walking around. I also found out today that my bishop in St. Petersburg is now the Stake President. I am really excited for him and he is going to do such a fantastic job.
District meeting on Tuesday was really good. We had training on the spiritual gifts and talents that we each have. That is something that I have been studying about as I have been reading through my Patriarchal blessing. It's something that I want to work on, is just developing each skill that the Lord has given to me and using it to its fullest. I just loved teaching Caitlyn! Today we discussed the Word of Wisdom, and she sees the blessings from living it, as she hasn't had any problems with any of it. She has also been watching some of the General Conference talks with her friends, and she has awesome questions for us whenever we meet. We then walked Elder White's bike down to the bike shop to get it fixed. We have down a lot of walking and taking the bus this week. With both modes of transportation, it seems to take forever to go anywhere. We then went with a member to contact a few Church Headquarter referrals that wanted Bibles, and we gave out Book of Mormon's with each Bible we handed out.
We did quite a bit of street contacting on Wednesday because most of our appointments we had scheduled canceled on us. We did hand out a lot of Book of Mormons. We weren't really able to get any contact info though. In the evening, we did meet this one guy named Christopher that had a bunch of great questions for us. We probably talked with him for about 45 minutes. He is going to a different church right now, but he loved the things that we had to share with him. We ended up giving him a church tour on Friday. He is a really cool guy, and we are meeting with him again tonight to teach the Restoration. We also had another lesson with Caitlyn about tithing and fast offerings. The three members that were there all shared experiences of how they have been blessed from giving their tithing, or from receiving from the fast offerings.
Weekly planning on Thursday went much smoother and quicker than it normally does, and I was extremely grateful for that. Thursday wasn't the most exciting day, but we did have another awesome lesson about temples and family history with Caitlyn. She is doing so well right now. In the evening, we went and contacted a few more Bible referrals with a member. One guy was a Messianic Jew that taught us all about the Hebrew language. Some of the things he said were way off, but I think it would be cool to learn some of the Hebrew language more. We then went to the church and gave one of our investigators a blessing. It was really great, and we had a recent convert who joined in with us and shared his strong testimony that he has recently gained. I wish that all members have the same desire to share the gospel as much as these new members do. I just love seeing them express how much that it really means to them. We said bye to Elder and Sister Judd. They were the CES Institute teachers here and they are such great people. They are traveling home and said that they would try to stop by and say hi to my family. When you see them, tell them that I love them and miss them already!
We picked up Elder White's bike from the shop on Thursday, but Friday morning as we headed out the door, we found that it had a flat. So we ended up having to take the bus today, and we were late getting to our appointment. We are starting to figure out the bus system here in Tampa. We had some really great lessons with two recent converts. Sharelene and Brother Kelly. They are both such great people. Sharelene told us of how her friends want to meet with us because of the change that they see in her. So next week we will be meeting with them for the first time, and I am excited to see how it goes. We then came back home to have our studies since we didn't do it in the morning, and we also went to a BBQ in our complex and talked to a bunch of people there. It's been a long time since I have had grilled burgers, and it was really good.
On Saturday we headed downtown to the heart of Ybor city to visit with a few potentials that live down there. It was pretty sketchy, and I'm glad that we weren't there during the night. We did talk with two really cool teenagers, Cody and Wesley for about 45 minutes, then we toke the bus back to the church and with them and continued talking for another hour. We covered quite a few different topics with them, and they seem sincerely interested in learning more. They thought the way that we backed up what we said with Scripture was really cool, because other people that they haven't talked to have been able to do that for them. So we received our transfer emails Saturday night and Elder White and I are staying with each other for another transfer. I'm excited for that because there is some really great work just around the corner here.
Sunday was just a great day at church. We had four investigators that came today. It was really cool being about to meet Sharelene's husband for the first time, and he is such a nice guy. I think it was his first time coming to church too, but he seemed to really enjoy it, and he told me that he is planning on coming back every week. Today his daughter was blessed, so we were able to take part in that. It was really neat. After church was over, we had apartment inspections, and then we had a really great dinner and lesson with the William's family as we talked about all of the commandments and reviewing it with them. We came back to the church and found out that my bike lock had been cut and someone stole my back. I'm not too happy about that all. It's the second bike that I have had stolen from church property in the last three months. I am going to use a bike of a missionary that went home early until they send it home to him, and I am going to find a cheap bike to use for the last little bit. We did end the week on a good note by hitting our goal for the number of lessons that we wanted which was twenty. The last three weeks we have hit 17 lessons, so we wanted to push ourselves even more. I was actually surprised because we didn't see as many recent converts or less actives as we normally see each week.
Love, Elder Leavitt
