Craziness to the week but mostly good things

We had some craziness to the week but mostly good things. The Outhwaites are back in town so we were able to have a good visit with them. We shared the Prince of Peace video and talked about Christ and how He can bring us peace. They have had a few changes in their work schedules and in other aspects of their life that has been pretty crazy for them so the video came at a good time to help them know how they can maintain peace while dealing with the changes of life. We were also able to visit with the Castillo family as well. We brought President Brennan, the former stake president, with us and we watched the talk by Elder Joaquin Costa entitled "To the Friends and Investigators of the Church." In the talk he outlines four things that investigators need to do and then he boldly invites them to be baptized. The four things he suggests are take the missionaries seriously, go to church, read and pray about the Book of Mormon, and to repent. Pedro told us that they have done all of that except for reading the Book of Mormon so now they will focus on that so that they can be ready to be baptized. We have high hopes that it can happen by May 13th so that Elder Mann and Elder Tree can still be here when it happens. We got a referral for somebody in Coto de Caza, which is the largest gated community in the country if not the world, and when we went by they told us they weren't interested. On our way back to the car we were talking about the principle in Preach My Gospel that suggests knocking on doors around the place you just visited a referral to see if maybe somebody else near there was the reason that you were directed to where you were. Unfortunately since Coto is gated we can't just knock on doors so we just drove past the houses that we wished we could visit. Then the next morning we got a text from the elders in a ward in the Mission Viejo stake giving us a referral for a lady who lives in Coto that is the sister of their investigator. When we went to visit her we discovered that she lived in one of the houses that we had wanted to knock on the previous day while visiting the other referral. It was amazing to see that Heavenly Father will provide a way for us to visit those who are ready even if they are in a heavily fortified gated community.

Since Elder Mann and Elder Tree go home soon and I go home not too long after them we have all been thinking about the future and home a little bit more than usual and its a little scary to think about the future. I'm so grateful that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and has a plan for my life and I'm glad that I can rely on Christ to help me feel at peace and to carry me through. The other night at dinner we were sharing the prince of peace video just after my younger brother did my class registering so I was pretty stressed about that and while the video was playing I had an overwhelming feeling of peace hit me and I felt that even though I'm scared right now and that I have no idea how things are going to go that it will all be alright in the end. I'm so glad that Jesus really does live and that He does fill that role as the Prince of Peace and that I can ask for that help whenever I need it. I'm grateful to be here in Rancho now and to work with these great people, they are good and I need to be with them.

Love

Elder Cheever