sarah…

I LOVE MY BROTHERS! That story about Aaron and Caleb and the milk jug…I totally busted up laughing and shared it with my comp…I can totally see it happening…and I’m glad you all kept the easter basket tradition! I can’t remember the last time I was home and got to look for my easter basket! : ( Maybe my comp and I will have to do that…

My birthday was wonderful! Definitely the hottest birthday I’ll ever have! I actually kept forgetting it was my birthday because it was just another day of missionary work. (Who ever thought I could forget my birthday …it’s the day i live for!) but one of the members here had us over for dinner and even bought me a cake! And I made mango float…so delicious! : ) And someone gave us boiled peanuts! Yum! And my comp made me omlets for breakfast…I love that girl! 24 feels really old.

It just keeps getting hotter and hotter here…I think I might die!

The picture with the writing….people (mainly the males here…haven’t seen it happen with the females…) are always peeing on walls here, so you often see writing on walls saying to not pee here, but this one is way funny…basically it says “hopefully the Lord takes the person that pees here”…meaning hopefully you die if you pee here!

There’s a family here that i LOVE! The Angala family…there are 18 of them that live in one house. The Mom is active, but the Dad isn’t so much….but I love him, he’s always joking with us (he came to church on sunday!). And they have like 6 kids and some of them still live there with their spouses and kids and two of the in-laws just got baptized the week before I came and are AWESOME!. I want my house to be like theirs! They are so happy and everyone just helps each other and they love the missionaries! And one of the grandsons is 11and has this AMAZING testimony! I wish you could meet him! Captain Moroni is his hero. : ) and he wants to be a missionary…I wish we could have him work with us! We’re going to have a family home evening with them this week..so i’ll take some pictures and show you. : )
here are some awesome easter videos to watch….

http://lds.org/pages/his-sacred-name-an-easter-declaration?lang=eng
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpFhS0dAduc

I LOVE YOU!
Sister Leonhardt

Family…I LOVE YOU and am so grateful that you’re mine for ETERNITY! : )
IT’S MY BIRTHDAY WEEK! : )

We some really hard news this week….After an awesome, spirit-filled baptism last weekend, we found out that Tessie (who has baptized) fell off the back of a tricie and hit her head really badly. Apparently there wasn’t any blood or anything, but she had a really bad bump on the back of her head, so Joel (her 32 year old son, who was also baptized) said they had better take her to the hospital since she was starting to act funny. Thankfully one of the members here works in the ER, so she saw them and said they needed to go to San Fernando hospital (1.5 hours south of us and outside of our mission boundaries) because it was worse than they thought. She paid for the ambulance and everything and texted all of the church leaders in our ward here! They were there for 2 days, and Tessie was in a coma, but on Thursday (April 7) she finally passed away. : ( It was a HUGE SHOCK! Even though I’ve already seen her laying in her casket, it still doesn’t seem real. She and Joel were going to go on the temple trip this week and do baptisms for the dead. I had a good cry and then felt so much peace about it. I’m just glad that she was baptized already! Joel is having a really hard time though and getting a lot of grief from his family since they are Mormon now (meaning Tessie can’t be buried in the Catholic cemetery or have her ceremony in the Catholic church) I just see it as a blessing for Joel to start his own life now and hopefully it’s a good missionary opportunity. Joel and his mom did everything together. I love the revelation in the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 9 and Alma 40) about Heavenly Father’s Plan for us.

Well…it’s transfer day again….and I’m being transferred. I’ve been expecting it and feeling it and as I think about all the people that I’ve met here….my heart is really heavy and sad to leave this area…..but I’m not going far! I’m being transferred to the next area over! Haha! 15 minutes away! With the American sister that I went on exchanges with this transfer. : ) I’m so stoked! I love Sister Whitley and I love the Santa Lucia area! It’ll be weird though to be so close to this area though!

Also, I got a really sweet letter from another missionary this week. We all know that I’ve ALWAYS had acne…and well, my face HATES the Phillipines…so I got a letter this week from a fellow anonymous missionary (I can’t tell if it was an elder that uses fluffier words or a sister with manly hand-writing…), but they gave me some tips of things they’ve tried and even sent the last of this medication they found here that they have been using. It kind of made me laugh and was kind of embarrassing that it’s that bad that other missionaries are even concerned for me (but mainly because they know how annoying and embarrassing it is to have people comment on it EVERYTHING…Filipinos are really blunt about everything…)…I was grateful for the thought though. But the Head and Shoulders trick as been helping! : )

Another cultural insight…I’m learning more about Filipino dating and marriage…the old tradition is that you marry the person you start dating (so, it means, if you plan on holding hands with a boy…you had better be planning on getting married to him…seriously!) and most people still carry that tradition…and since there is no divorce and most people get married REALLY young here and usually they live in the same house their whole life…it’s no wonder why there are so many unhappy marriages : ( But there ARE still happily married people here…. I’m so grateful for the freedom of choice that Heavenly Father gave us! : )

Anyways.. I GOTTA PACK! : )

LOVE YOU!

Sister Leonhardt

I love April! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM next week….and then it’s MY BIRTHDAY! and then JARED! : ) And it’s general conference month….and a year since I graduated college and since I was endowed.

I came across this talk by President Uchtdorf this morning..”The Love of God”…I want to share a few bits from it…

“If ye love me, keep my commandments.” ¹ This is the essence of what it means to be a true disciple: those who receive Christ Jesus walk with Him. ²

But this may present a problem for some because there are so many “shoulds” and “should nots” that merely keeping track of them can be a challenge. Sometimes, well-meaning amplifications of divine principles—many coming from uninspired sources—complicate matters further, diluting the purity of divine truth with man-made addenda. One person’s good idea—something that may work for him or her—takes root and becomes an expectation. And gradually, eternal principles can get lost within the labyrinth of “good ideas.”

This was one of the Savior’s criticisms of the religious “experts” of His day, whom He chastised for attending to the hundreds of minor details of the law while neglecting the weightier matters. ³

So how do we stay aligned with these weightier matters? Is there a constant compass that can help us prioritize our lives, thoughts, and actions?

Once again the Savior revealed the way. When asked to name the greatest commandment, He did not hesitate. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” He said. “This is the first and great commandment.” 4 ….Because love is the great commandment, it ought to be at the center of all and everything we do in our own family, in our Church callings, and in our livelihood. Love is the healing balm that repairs rifts in personal and family relationships. It is the bond that unites families, communities, and nations. Love is the power that initiates friendship, tolerance, civility, and respect. It is the source that overcomes divisiveness and hate. Love is the fire that warms our lives with unparalleled joy and divine hope. Love should be our walk and our talk…..We are created in the image of our heavenly parents; we are God’s spirit children. Therefore, we have a vast capacity for love—it is part of our spiritual heritage.

God does not look on the outward appearance. ⁸ I believe that He doesn’t care one bit if we live in a castle or a cottage, if we are handsome or homely, if we are famous or forgotten. Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God’s love encompasses us completely.

He loves us because He is filled with an infinite measure of holy, pure, and indescribable love. We are important to God not because of our résumé but because we are His children. He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken. God’s love is so great that He loves even the proud, the selfish, the arrogant, and the wicked.

What this means is that, regardless of our current state, there is hope for us. No matter our distress, no matter our sorrow, no matter our mistakes, our infinitely compassionate Heavenly Father desires that we draw near to Him so that He can draw near to us. ⁹

The divine love of God turns ordinary acts into extraordinary service. Divine love is the motive that transports simple words into sacred scripture. Divine love is the factor that transforms reluctant compliance with God’s commandments into blessed dedication and consecration.

We had a baptism on Saturday (a mother and her son)…it was a little frustrating getting everyone to follow through on their assignments…but it all worked out and it was AMAZING! They have such strong testimonies – they talked about how they were able to find the answers to questions they couldn’t find elsewhere and didn’t know they had! And Joel talked about his experience in almost dying from all of his drinking…he quit a few years ago…but he testified that he knows the Word of Wisdom is inspired. They LOVE the scriptures! I hope we can keep finding more like them : )

I love you all!
Hope you all enjoyed General Conference…I have to wait til NEXT WEEKEND to see it…boo…i can’t wait! : )

Sister Leonhardt