Week 30 New Mission President

Wow! A crazy start to this transfer!! 

I'm so grateful to still be serving here in the Columbia area! It's an amazing place, with amazing members and amazing people to meet! My new companion's name is Elder Cornejo. He is from California and was actually just baptized into the church last year!! So he is a recent convert, excited to serve and share the Gospel! He has been out for about 4 months now, so I'm the Senior Companion and it is definitely a different experience!

I'm the second one in on the far right.

Transfer Meeting this past week was definitely a spiritual experience. With the final testimonies of President and Sister Richards, everybody was crying by the end. They have been such an amazing blessing to this mission, they are such amazing leaders and they honestly love every single person around them. I'm so incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to serve around them! The Christiansen's will arrive tonight and I will get the opportunity to meet them on Thursday! 

We had an amazing miracle with a family named the Soriano family. We had tried multiple times with no answer, but the other night when we tried Hermano Soriano answered! Within a few minutes, he told us that he has been waiting for his son to be baptized! The whole family is less active and the son is about 9 now. We asked if July 25th would work and he said yes! So we are going to be seeing his son Victor tonight to start the lessons, we are so excited!!! After so many times passing by and knocking, we finally got the answer!

A few minutes after that we ran into a guy who immediately broke down and started explaining what was going on in his life. He had been through a LOT. It was hard to hear. But we started talking and explaining and he looked at us and said "Wow. That's exactly what I need in my life." It was so absolutely amazing! 

Last night we had the opportunity to go to Annapolis for a Testimony Meeting. It was such a beautiful city and such a beautiful experience! I'm so grateful for the beauty of this mission! Everything is so incredibly amazing here!!!

Yesterday was a bit of a sad day for me. We went over to the Villatoro's house, a family where the husband is less active but the wife and daughters are active. When we got there, Hermano Villatoro told us that he just got back from the doctors and that he has a serious tumor in his brain and they don't know what to do. It was heartbreaking and the whole entire family was in tears. He is having another evaluation today and we will see what happens. As we left the house, I turned to his wife and asked her if there was anything we can do. She was in tears and so were the daughters. She said to please pray for him and I promised we would come give him a blessing also. Please remember him in your prayers. He means a lot to me and is such an great example to me. Thank you all so much for the amazing prayers and the support that you give me!

- Elder Leavitt