Doing a lot of service

We had a relatively uneventful week. I had a constant headache from Tuesday until Sunday so that kind of took my happiness out of everything but its gone now which is good.

Being able to go to the temple on Tuesday was a huge blessing, as always and I got some needed direction and spiritual support. 

On Wednesday we had our district meeting, it went pretty well. Its strange trying to adjust to a new district and also have my co district leader be new to the district as well. After district meeting President requested that my companions and I go to Irvine to have interviews with him. It was pretty interesting to hear the questions he had for me and then to hear the things that he talked about with my companions as they shared how their meetings with him went. We weren't in trouble or anything he just had questions about stuff in our apartment that he deemed as distractions and he wanted to know what kind of environment it was as we studied and prepared. After our dinner we met with Bishop Flora and he went over a lot of basic tips and advice for how we can be more presentable and better missionaries. It was a lot of help for me and it gave me the chance to talk with him individually and get some guidance as how to help my companions.

On Thursday we ended up doing a lot of service. We helped an elderly lady in the ward unpack and move around some stuff in her home and then at night we got the chance to volunteer at the stake blood drive which was pretty cool. We also had dinner with Sister Noss, the less active woman who we gave a blessing and ate with about a month ago. Once again she had nonmember friends there and we had another chance to talk with them about our mission and what we do and then we got Sister Noss to commit to invite them and her friend Maria from last time to come to the monthly music devotional and temple walk so that was super awesome.

On Saturday we ended up being able to meet up with the young man named Kyle who we have taught a little bit and follow up with his reading of the Book of Mormon and it turns out that he is in Alma 37 which is impressive for a 12 year old kid. We ended up reading Alma 32 with him and talking about faith and how important it is to plant the seed of faith and to continually water it and be nourishing so that it can grow and bring us the fruit that you want it to. 

On Sunday during Sacrament meeting I had a really awesome realization. The deacons accidentally skipped over our row when they were passing the bread for the sacrament around so we didn't get the chance to take it until after the meeting was over. I hadn't realized that we got skipped until they were all lining up again because I had been praying as they passed it. While we waited for the water to come around I felt a little empty and I realized how much taking the Sacrament has come to mean to me since I have come to understand its importance throughout my mission. The whole rest of the meeting I felt off until I was able to take the bread. It truly showed me the value of that ordinance and the meaning it should have in each of our lives. I don't remember what general authority said it but there is a quote that goes along the lines of "If we truly understood the importance of the Sacrament there would be not mountain too high or ocean too deep to prevent us from being in church to partake of it" (this is a very rough paraphrase, so don't try to quote me on it.)

That's about it from over here. We continue to work hard and have fun as we try to find people to teach. Our new motto is its fun to find from 6 to 9, but really only from 6 to 7 because that's when it gets dark and people don't like when we knock on their doors after dark. Oh well, even the angry ones are good and we need to be with them.

Love

Elder Cheever