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