Monday and Tuesday were pretty regular days. Tuesday was filled with a couple of big service projects so we spent most of the day on that.
On Wednesday I had my departing interviews with President and Sister Clark. It was kind of funny to talk about dating and marriage knowing that I still have a month left to do missionary work but I did get some good advice from President Clark. Later in the day we visited with a less active man named David who we have been working with recently. He has some medical issues that keep him from getting out much so we are some of his only friends. He has expressed a desire to be able to go to the temple this year and he has shared some of the concerns that he needs to overcome before he can reach that point so we have been trying to help him with that. It was Elder Tree's birthday so we had an awesome dinner with one of our favorite families in the ward.
We were able to have dinner with May Outhwaite on Thursday with some members of the ward and she told us that she has just been super busy lately and that's why she has been MIA but she said she is almost done with Alma now which is so cool! After dinner we went to watch Peter's soccer game which was a ton of fun. Then we went to visit Sherman and Iria, a couple we have been trying to work with. Sherman is a less active member from San Diego and Iria is his nonmember girlfriend. Sherman's brother got back from his mission not too long ago so they went to see his homecoming talk which led Iria to be a lot more curious about the church and she said she would be willing to listen to the lessons and learn more about it and Sherman was super supportive of that. Iria and her son Diego were there on Thursday night so we were able to teach them the restoration lesson. They really loved it and were both super excited to read the Book of Mormon and to pray about it. Our goal for this week is to set a baptism date with them and to get them to church so hopefully it works out.
On Friday we had a good Plan of Salvation lesson with a less active man we are working with named Don. He recently was ordained to be a priest after being a deacon for 50 years of inactivity so now we are working on getting him to be ready for the Melchizedek priesthood as well.
Saturday was a super awesome day. In the morning I got to go for a baptism in the South Coast ward for a man named Jazz Montgomery. Over a year ago when I was in the ward for the first time I included this in my email home "we tried to stop by one of the people who said we could come by and before we left to do that I had prayed that we would have the opportunity to meet with our intended person or that, if we didn't get that chance, we would be able to find somebody we could teach and begin helping in their life. Unfortunately the lady we were trying to visit wasn't home but as we were leaving the neighborhood we were able to stop and talk to a man named Jazz and share the Restoration lesson with him. When we invited him to church he said he would definitely check it out because he has been praying to find a church in the area that speaks English and that has the whole truth so he doesn't get led away. It was so cool to see that in this one contact Heavenly Father answered both of our prayers and was able to start helping Jazz find the truth that he is looking for." We never were able to work with him more but that doesn't mean that Heavenly Father wasn't working with him. About a month ago the elders in the ward contacted him again and began teaching him. The man who gave the talk on baptism spoke of his mission 40 years ago in Taiwan and how you work as hard as you can as a missionary and then the Lord throws you a bone. He told a story of a man they we referred to who gave up everything to be able to be baptized and how he would never forget that miracle that happened there. Without knowing my part of Jazz's story he talked about sometimes you plant a seed and it takes time to take root but that none of us would ever forget the miracle that was taking place that day in Santa Ana as Jazz got baptized. In my patriarchal blessing it mentions that as I share my testimony it will reach the hearts of people, some of whom will wait until a later time and will then accept the gospel and be led into the waters of baptism and onto the path back to our Heavenly Father. It was so amazing to see a promise given me by Father fulfilled in such a marvelous and literal way and it was amazing to see Jazz enter into that covenant path. That night we had an awesome ward adult conference in which we heard from Brad Wilcox, a well known Mormon author and teacher at BYU. He gave an amazing speech on grace and what it is and what it does for us. After he spoke we were helping to take down and Pedro Castillo spoke to Bishop Baker and told him that they had decided on a date. Bishop told us afterward so that was all the talk in our ward correlation and ward council meetings on Sunday and then a member of the bishopric announced it during Sacrament meeting. The family has decided to be baptized on June 10th. We are all so excited for them to make that step in coming closer to Christ. I'm a little bummed that I wont be there in person to see it happen but yesterday during testimony meeting Peter and Pedro both got up and bore their testimonies and as they did so I felt a lot of peace about all of it. Its amazing to see a whole family accept this gospel and to see the change it has made for them and for them to recognize that change as well. I love it here and I can't wait for the other miracles that are in store as I work hard in the next month!
Love
Elder Cheever
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