I'm halfway done

This week was fairly uneventful. Some fun things, Elder Butler and I decided to try skateboarding at a skate park in the area as a way of contacting the kids there. It was pretty fun, I'm no good at skate boarding but we were able to talk to some cool people and I even met a kid from Swansboro, NC. With our roommates we made a roping dummy to practice roping on it pretty quickly evolved into the apartment pet cow, his name is Frankie.

 On Tuesday I had the chance to go on an exchange with Elder Boggess. It was great to be able to spend a whole day with him and to actually go out and be missionaries after having been friends at home. We were able to talk about old times and memories and then since he had been in the area before he was able to give me some ideas of people we could start trying to visit again. We were able to have a good lesson with Raul that night, he pulled out a lot more principles from the Book of Mormon and was able to understand it more than usual. Elder Boggess is a great example of listening to the investigators and to the Spirit to be able to discern their needs. Later that night during our exchange evaluation we were able to talk about not only the day but our past year on the mission and our time and growth since leaving high school, I'm very thankful that Heavenly Father saw fit to send somebody from home out here along-side me to support me and help me feel little bits of home way out here on the other side of the country in a pretty different culture.
On Wednesday night we went by one of the home of one of the Priest's in the ward who is preparing to go to college or on a mission with Bishop Flora. He had Elder Butler and Ben go on a walk so that Elder Butler could share his story of coming on a mission and how it has changed him and try and figure out how we can better help Ben, while Bishop and I talked with his mom. It was interesting to see that after being at school for a year and then being on my mission for a year how I have a totally new perspective on life and what really matters and because of that I was able to give advice on how she could best help Ben based on my past experiences.
It was crazy to hit my year mark on Friday and realize that I'm halfway done. This last year has been amazing and I have grown so much and I wouldn't trade this time for anything in the world.
Basically the rest of the week was taken up in trying to visit less-actives and in finding new investigators. I know that there must be people who are prepared to accept the gospel somewhere in this area and I have faith that it will happen, I just hope it begins to happen sooner than later. This ward gets a bad rap sometimes but they really do care about missionaries and missionary work, it just moves a little slower over here in Laguna Hills.

It is super sad to have President Orgill leave this week. He is an amazing man and shows more love than anybody I have ever met in my life. If Christ and Heavenly Father are supposed to be even more loving than him, I definitely want to do what it takes to be in their presence for eternity. Even though its sad I look forward to learning from President Clark when he gets hear and seeing how he leads this mission through inspiration.

Hopefully y'all can find chances to be the Lord's hands where you are and help those around you come closer to Christ, there is nothing more rewarding.

Love

Elder Cheever

The work goes on even with outrageous heat

This week has been really good.

My new companion is Elder Butler, if I didn't mention that last week. He is super fun to be around and enjoys doing crazy things so him and I get along. He goes home half way through next transfer so he is ready to go super hard for his last 9 weeks which is super good for me and for this area. If y'all didn't see on the news or anything like that California is getting hit hard by a huge heat wave this weekend and today. Yesterday it was above 100 until it got dark and even then it was in the mid 90's and today is supposed to be the same. Getting a car at transfer meeting is much more than a tender mercy now. But the work goes on even with outrageous heat.

On Tuesday after transfers we were able to meet with Raul and read from the Book of Mormon with him and he was able to pick out more principals than he has in the past. We made a couple of attempts to visit Carolina but both times she ended up being busy but we did have the chance to suggest a talk for her to listen to and to find out that she has been reading the Book of Mormon which is good.
While trying to visit a less-active young man we ended up teaching a group of 7th graders some of the restoration and giving them all copies of the Book of Mormon. It was super cool to see how they listened as we spoke and that when we asked them how they felt as we taught that they all recognized that they felt calm and that they learned and how readily they accepted it when we pointed out that that was the Spirit testifying to them.

We have had some time to do some tracting throughout the week as well and had some pretty fun experiences while doing it. We met some really nice people who have had a lot of positive experiences with members of the church in the past so they were at least willing to be kind and give us water and chat for a little even if they weren't interested in learning more. One family even let us go explore their huge back yard and play with their baby goats and they walked with us along the horse trail to feed some of the neighbors horses. I think I would rather have a fainting goat as a pet over a dog.

Church on Sunday was super good. The focus on fathers and the way that the speakers related our earthly fathers to our Heavenly Father was truly amazing and made me very grateful for my father at home and my Father in Heaven.
I'm excited for this coming transfer. Having to lead out an area that I'm not as familiar with as I would like to be is kind of stressful I know that there are good things on the way and that by listening to the guidance of the Holy Ghost, Elder Butler and I will be able to be the Lord's hands in this area and that we will be able to see miracles happen.

Love

Elder Cheever

Go out and be missionaries

This week went about like this whole transfer has, when we get to the end of it, it feels like it went by super quick but then looking back it feels super long.

We had a pretty good lesson with Carolina on Wednesday and brought a member with us which helped out a ton because they were able to talk and relate in a way that we wouldn't have been able to. We were able to get a better grasp on her ideas of things like prophets and priesthood authority which should help us get a better direction, it just makes our job a little bit harder. She told us that she wasn't sure about joining the church to go along with baptism because she doesn't just want to go into something without knowing much about it so we were able to explain that we don't expect her to do it without knowing its true and she agreed to read the Book of Mormon and to pray about what we teach, we will see how she has done with that on Wednesday when we go back.

 We also met with Raul and we were able to talk a lot about prophets with him and we went through the scriptures showing prophetic calls and explaining the need for prophets. He has been going along with the system that we set up for reading and he has been reading the Book of Mormon and getting principles from the stories which is super awesome.

Basically the rest of the week was consumed with helping the Laguna Hills High School set up for their party for the seniors. Its been fun and they really appreciate our help and have gotten a good view of the missionaries as nice people who want to help.

Thank you for all the prayers sent my way, they make a difference. Go out and be missionaries in whatever way you can!

Love

Elder Cheever

 

Madsen and Sam Bogges in High School

 Madsen and Sam at the start of their missions

 

Madsen and Sam half-way through their missions

 

 

We get credit for trying

We had a pretty good week here in Laguna Hills. As soon as June started California decided that now it is full blown summer so we went from nice, cool 70's and 80's to low to mid 90's every day. It wasn't much fun to bike around in but its the only way for us to do our work so we toughed it out and did what is required of us. I'll send a picture of my tan lines on my arm from my ring and watch so you can see the difference a short 5 weeks of biking can make.

This week our zone made a big push to get 70 contacts for the week because President Orgill has been asking that we make a greater effort to talk to more people and even though it took until the end of the week we ended up seeing a couple miracles from the effort. The craziest thing is that even though we took a lot of time to get the contacts in we didn't quite hit 70 but we still were able to see a pretty cool miracle. Just like Elder Holland said at conference "the great thing about the gospel is we get credit for trying, even if we don't always succeed." We did a lot of tracting since there aren't very many people out on the streets during the day and there aren't very many parks in the area and since we don't really have that many people to teach right now as it is we have been meaning to do a lot more finding. Throughout the week we had a few people tell us that we could come back another time and then on Saturday we had a lot of time so we just started tracting in an area that we don't go to as much because there are a lot of Hispanics and neither of us really speak Spanish. When we got to the very back of a section of homes we were pretty hot and worn out and we knocked on a door and immediately when the woman opened her door she told us to come in which was pretty crazy because that never happens. We went in and started talking with her and her two sons and told them who we are and what we do and she said something about how we needed to say a prayer with them and that when she saw us something about us just "spoke to her soul" so we said an opening prayer and then she told us that she used to meet with Elders and that they would read scriptures and talk about stuff and that when she was doing that previously she was preparing to be baptized. At this point we were pretty excited because much like people not letting us in, they also never are preparing to be baptized. So we set up a return appointment to start teaching the lessons and a baptismal date for July 2nd.
In addition to that we found a way to get Raul to agree to read the Book of Mormon daily and which is another small miracle. Each month he reads five psalms and one proverb each day so on his calendar with the chapters marked out we also had him write down one chapter of the Book of Mormon, starting at 1 Nephi 14, for each day and we told him that we would read all the same things and text him something we learned from each section of reading and he agreed to do the same. Hopefully that as he reads it will help him feel the Spirit more and help him progress further.

This place is awesome and being a missionary here is amazing and a true blessing. I love each day, even the hot ones where we bike 24 miles and nobody really lets us in, and I know that there isn't really anything more important that I could be doing with my life right now. The people here are good and I need to be with them!

Love

Elder Cheever