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