Seeing the fruits of my work in California is great

We actually ended up having a pretty good week over here in Laguna Hills. Things went a little better than they have and I felt like we had more work to do that was actually beneficial to the area. A lot of days it feels like the stuff we do just doesn't make a difference even though in some small way it does. I'm just trying to keep focused on moving forward and having the faith that as we keep being obedient and working hard, we will see miracles.

On Tuesday we had a lesson with Raul. It was okay but I could tell that we hadn't prepared well enough for it so we weren't able to explain the principles from the Plan of Salvation that we wanted to in quite the way that we had hoped.

On Wednesday we spent most of the day in Leisure World, the senior community in our area, trying to visit less active members that we didn't know anything about. We managed to find one of them but they weren't available to meet right then. Even finding them was a nice change to knocking on silent doors though. We had finished trying to visit the first few that we hoped to and we had a little bit of time left before we wanted to go and visit one of the less active members that we have already been working with so I wanted to find one more person to try and when I looked at the ward the first name that I noticed was one of the couples there in in Leisure world so we went to go find their apartment and see if they were home. When we parked the car I saw a storage unit that had boxes and other stuff outside of it so I got out of the car and asked the man by it if they were loading it or unloading it and then offered to help them out (not that that really mattered which they were doing, I would have offered to help either way). At first the man tried to say no because we were in our white shirts and ties but I wore him down to let us help because I convinced him that I didn't really care if my clothes got messed up. Him and another man were helping the resident move stuff from the storage unit so that he could prepare to move to Cedar City and then one of the guys helping, his name was Bob, told us all about his sister who is a member, its funny how many people have connections to the church in some way. They were super appreciative of our help and to show it Bob has offered to take us to dinner so hopefully we can turn this into a teaching opportunity whether for ourselves or another set of missionaries.

On Thursday we had a big zone conference where we found out the new counselors in the mission presidency. It was weird to look up on the stand and see a whole new group of leaders. At night we went to the Bahai devotional that I used to go to last year, it was funny to see how different it was to Elder Hohmann, I think I probably looked as confused as he did last year when I first went to it. I shared part of Nephi's psalm in 2 Nephi chapter 4. It was neat to see that it went along with the kind of prayers they were sharing but that as I read I could feel a difference in the Spirit that was there. The Book of Mormon really is a powerful book.

On Friday we attended our ward's talent show. We got roped into doing a skit which actually ended up being a lot of fun. I think the best thing though is it gave them all a chance to see that missionaries are fun and normal and it built a lot of trust for us so hopefully we will see some miracles happen from that.

On Saturday we picked up a couple of new investigators. We spend a lot of time in the poorer neighborhoods in our area and I have talked with a lot of the kids there and a couple of weeks ago the spanish elders gave us a referral for one of them who is actually interested in learning more. We have tried to meet with him a couple of times before but he was always busy until Saturday when we saw him and asked when he wanted to meet up and he told us to meet him and his friends at the park that evening. This was the second time that I have had the chance to teach the Restoration to a new investigator since I have been in the area and it was Elder Hohmann's first time teaching it to somebody who hasn't already heard it before so it was a pretty big deal to him. The lesson went well and both Kyle and Jacob said that they would be willing to be baptized when they come to know its true. Our hope now is that as we continue meeting with them that we can also meet with their families as well so that they can experience the blessings that the gospel has in store for our families.

Last night I got to hang out with Cam and the elders in the YSA ward. He is doing super good and  while we were there one of is best friends, who isn't a member, was with us and him and the missionaries invited the friend to their family home evening tonight. Seeing somebody I taught who got baptized truly living the gospel and sharing it with his friends was pretty amazing and made the whole week worth it. Seeing the fruits of my work here over the last year here in California is great. 

That's about it for this week, I hope everything goes well for y'all and you find opportunities to come closer to Jesus Christ

Love

Elder Cheever