May 14, 2012 Email

Dear Mom and Dad,

Well, I don't have too much to say.  I called you yesterday, do you remember?  Forgive me if my letter is short.

Want to hear an interesting finding story?  We don't have too many investigators right now, so we decided to go out into our more rural secondary areas last week.  We spent Saturday in a village called Puxin, we were following Zhongxing Road for about half an hour, when the road just disappeared.  The road literally turned into a rice paddy.  I was looking around, fields and banana trees as far as I could see, and only a few houses that belong to the farmers.  So we decided to tract the houses there.  The first door we knocked on, an old man came to the door, gave us a big smile, and said "come in!"  He was really interested to learn about our message, and commited to begin reading the Book of Mormon and meeting with us.  He said he would consider being baptized in June.  It was a big miracle for me, because when we thought that we were lost and had no idea what we were doing, the Lord had placed a prepared soul for us to meet.

Its cool that there are so many Leathams up at the U!  What a righteous tradition.  :)  Speaking of the U, I might need you to look into my registration for me.  I have a leave of absence for 2 years, but my leave may actually be longer than I have a leave for.  I talked to them when I applied for my leave of absence, I just need someone to call or go up to the campus and confirm that I can start during the Spring 2013 semester.  Can you please help me with that?  I'll also need some help with signing up for classes.  How should we go about that?  Is there a way to mail or email the class options to me?  I would probably be taking classes for Chinese, Education (Introduction to Teaching), and Air Force ROTC (Aeronautics Exploration or something like that.)  I don't know, let me know next week what you figure out.  Sorry for keeping you so busy.  :)  So two things: 1. Enrollment 2. Schedule.  Xie xie.

Well, I love you both!  I love being a missionary!  Its really stressful, and there are numerous challenges everyday.  But this work is so fulfilling.  Seeing the Lord change me and change the people around me is a wonderful blessing.  Its worth it.  Have a good week.

-Elder Travis Leatham