Sister Kathleen Leausa: Sunday, March 27, 2016

Magandang umaga po so inyong lahat!

This week has been such a great week :) i don't have much time, so i have to make this email somewhat "short." last week, Tuesday, we had zone conference. as usual, president revillo started with his opening remarks. this time, his topic was about being/becoming a consecrated missionary. he referred to a talk given by tad r. callister; one of my favorite "missionary talks." throughout the rest of last week, i thought a lot about what i needed to do to become a better, more consecrated missionary. i was a little confused on what it really means to be "consecrated." this is what i came up with and wrote in my study journal :)

March 25, 2016
Being a consecrated missionary is hard. BECOMING a consecrated missionary is hard! when i think of being a consecrated missionary, i think of perfection; that being consecrated means you're hitting the standard of excellency every week, you're getting baptisms every week, everything goes the way you want it to, and the way it needs too; CONSECRATED. but, then, i sit back and think, not even Christ's ministry was "that" perfect. not everyone believed what he said, not everyone was baptized when he invited them to be. which makes me question again, what does it mean to be a consecrated missionary?

For me, it means becoming more and more of the person heavenly father intended me to be, each and every day. it means letting go of the things i love and miss at home, to fall in love with the things, here, on my mission. giving up time and people, that matter most to me, to take care of and tend to those who heavenly father finds important right now.

Becoming a consecrated missionary means CHANGING. nothing changes over night. things take time to change. just like conversion and consecration. the lord knows we cant stop "cold-turkey" and just become consecrated. he knows its going to take time. and I'm convinced that's why nothing ever goes the way we want it to in life, especially, here in the mission field. elder holland, a member of the quorm of the 12 apostles, once stated that we need to be willing to pay a taken of the price that christ paid in order to be able to taste of salvation. when investigators don't accept baptism dates, when they don't keep the commitments we place with them, when our bodies are tired from being out in the sun all day...we start to become consecrated missionaries,we start to "pay a token of the price that christ paid." we start to realize that maybe its US that the lord is trying to "save;" maybe its us hes refining.
as we learn to accept the will of god, we become consecrated. as we learn to trust god and know that he is at the head of this work, we become consecrated.

"Nothing in this world is constant except for CHANGE."

I pray that you all have a great week and find something you can do to become a more consecrated missionary :) i love you all sooooo much!

Sis. Leausa

"It was Easter Sunday, right, so of course, I brought home traditions to our house. We had to search for our Easter baskets."

"And we made a big Easter breakfast just like we do at home.
We made cinnamon pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon and drank chocolate milk."

"Here in the PHI we celebrate Holy Week. And it is a pretty big thing. Everything is closed. During Holy Week people act out the crucifixion of Christ. It's pretty crazy. They literally whip themselves. Like, people will volunteer to be whipped like Christ was AND THEN, people actually crucify themselves. Like literally hang themselves on the cross. There was a parade of floats on Friday night too.