Castillo family came to church

Things are good in our area. Tuesday ended up being a whole day of service. In the morning we helped at the Modjeska Garden house, a neat little historic site deep in the canyon, and then we helped some of the elders in our zone with a move for a little bit and then we went to help at an interfaith food pantry in Rancho. It was pretty fun to get home exhausted from doing a different kind of work all day but to feel good from having helped others all day long.  On Wednesday we had our zone training meeting. For the first hour and a half of the meeting nobody in our zone was focused and they were being loud and disruptive while missionaries gave training's so the Spirit wasn't there in abundance as it should have been. Fortunately they calmed down and behaved when the former stake president came to talk with us and when President Clark arrived as well On Thursday we got to go to the temple which was a huge blessing. It is always nice to go there and to learn, to feel the Spirit, and to be at peace and away from my usual worries for a couple of hours. I was on exchanges with Elder Wothe that day. He went to BYU as well before his mission and he is a lot like me so we had a lot of fun all day long comparing stories of various adventures that we had. After the temple we ended up helping with a move with the Lake Forest elders. We got it done pretty quickly and had a great time.  All of the Castillo family came to church this week and loved it. Kayla, the 17 year old daughter, went to Mormal (Mormon Prom) with one of the young men in the ward and had a great time with kids who have good values and who were good examples to her. We are hoping with this added progress that they can get baptized by the end of April. The Outhwaite family is doing good as well. We were able to meet with them together one night and then we had an individual lesson with May that started out as the Gospel of Jesus Christ but transitioned into eternal marriage and the blessings from that. It was actually super cool that the conversation went there because the things that we talked about ended up being the evidence and support to beliefs that May has had her entire life. They are going to be out of town for the next couple of weeks which is a bummer but we have some awesome members in our ward who have become close with them so they should hopefully still be in contact with the church while they are gone.

Yesterday morning I finished reading the Book of Mormon again, for the 13th or 14th time. As sad as it gets towards the end of the book the Spirit is so powerful as Moroni teaches and bares his testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ. Each time I read of the fall of his people and his description of his life I can feel the emotion that he puts into his writing and it constantly confirms the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon to me. I'm so grateful that in addition to the Bible we have the Book of Mormon as another witness that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and the Savior and Redeemer of this world. I have found so much strength, comfort, and peace from the words contained within it. I'm so grateful for all those men from thousands of years ago who took time to instruct us and to record their testimonies and I'm grateful that Joseph Smith had the faith to pray and ask what path he should follow in his life that led to the restoration of priesthood authority, of Christ's church on the earth, and in the translation of the Book of Mormon. I hope that each of you can take a chance each day this week to read from the Book of Mormon and to feel the power that it has!

Love

Elder Cheever