Elder and Sister Prater in Newport Beach, California Mission

 This week in our district meeting, our district leader, Elder Barfuss, was talking about enduring to the end.   He called it enjoying to the end.  Pres. Nelson has taught us that the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.  So we can enjoy to the end if our focus is on our Savior and we are letting God prevail in our lives.   During our last Stake Conference, our Stake President, Pres. McMasters,  taught us that Joy comes from focusing first on Jesus, Others and than ourselves.  A very good recipe for learning how to enjoy to the end.  Some ways that we were able to enjoy this week including playing pickle ball with three other senior missionary couples, including a new couple from St. George, Utah, the Spencers.  It was a blast.  Elder and Sister King, Elder and Sister Spencer, Elder and Sister Fowers, myself and Elder Prater We love our young missionaries.  We enjoy our weekly meeting with them and inspecting

 This week was a little bit of everything.  We played, we went to meetings, taught, inspected apartments, met our newest senior missionary couple in the mission, did some service, attended a friend's funeral and visited with family and friends.  This week's highlights- The weather has still been warm this week so we acted like it was still summer.  We took a P-day on Monday and went to SeaWorld in San Diego.   We had our regular meetings and teaching appointments this week and we also inspected apartments.  Of course we can never go empty handed so I made some special Halloween cup of dirt treats.  Sister Reece and Sister Johnson Since we have a shiniest apartment contest going on this month, we have had some amazingly clean apartments.  The competition is fierce.  We are still enjoying our days of pickleball.  We did go up to Camarillo again to attend the funeral of our friend, Vince Hopkins.  It is always sad to lose yet another person that we love. While at the funeral we we

Hard to believe that despite the fact that we extended our mission by four months we are still at the halfway mark.  Time really flies by! We had so many great experiences this week.  One of my favorite was attending and helping with a single adult Family History activity on Saturday.  The activity started out with some really good speakers and then everyone divided up into classes or you could get some one on one help in the Family Search Center.  Elder Prater was able to work in the center helping a sister get onto her account in FamilySearch.  I taught a class on how to add memories to FamilySearch using your phone.  We both had good experiences and it is always joyful to see someone get excited about family history when they learn a new skill.  After this activity we were able to attend a baptism for a young single adult in the same building. A very  satisfying way to spend our Saturday.  One visit that particularly stands out to me from this week was to a member of our ward, who f

 This week we had our last Zone Conference with our friends, Elder and Sister Scott, and Elder and Sister Weidmann.  Both couples are finishing up their missions this month and heading home.  As you know from previous blogs, Elder and Sister Scott are our housing and car missionaries.  Each zone conference they come up with a new skit or costume to entertain us as they teach about cleaning and car safety.  Their last training was the best of all.  They were cheering for the Newport Beach, California Mission and the missionaries were loving it!  They had a standing ovation at the end. They brought the house down.  The Weidmanns have been such a help in the mission office during their time here.   Both couples will be dearly missed.  Elder and Sister Scott, Sister and Elder Weidmann  One last picture with all the senoir couples before our friends go home Elder and Sister Kearsley, us, Elder and Sister Scott, Elder and Sister Hughes, Elder and Sister King, Elder and Sister Weidmann, Elder

 There is a scripture in D&C 89:20 which states- Therefore, in the  ordinances  thereof, the power of  godliness  is manifest. To me this means that when we participate in the ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ and make sacred covenants with our Heavenly Father he will show his power in our lives.  Namely the power of the atonement of his son, Jesus Christ.  As stated in Alma 7:11-12, Christ's atonement covers pains, afflictions, and temptations of every kind and he loosed the bands of death both temporally and spiritually.   Because of the covenants that I have made and kept, I have seen the power of godliness manifested in my life and the lives of my loved ones in the past week as we came together to temporarily say good-bye to my brother, Glenn.  We celebrated Glenn's life in several ways- by getting together as siblings whenever possible during the weekend, with a graveside service with family and friends on Friday and the dedication of his grave with his siblings