We did have interviews with President this week. We were last so it was fairly quick. We talked about the "Transition Plan" we have for the mission. The AP's and President Mullen had come up with specific goals we can work on to improve in the Transition Plan, so we were asked to pick one and our Zone leaders are going to be calling us to follow up. They'll be doing that a couple times a week for the rest of the transfer. I liked this process because it made the interview a little more personal rather than just instructional. The more interactions with President Mullen that you have, I think the more you get to know him as a real person, so this time he seemed pretty friendly. I do hope I'll serve in Riverside some day though so I can see him more often and take him out on team-ups as well.
We do have P-Day activities in Moreno Valley, it's just taken a while to get the ball rolling. Today we are going to be doing a couple of things. We're having a cook-out, along with a soda-pong tournament and ultimate Frisbee. I don't know if Frisbee will happen though because the winds are blowing down the canyon pretty hard, maybe they'll die down soon. We'll see. Moreno Valley is more spread out than Corona, from one end of the zone to the other is more like 10 miles instead of 5. That means that our meetings and service opportunities take a lot more miles so that's a new logistical issue to deal with.
The best thing that happened this week was probably the baptism. I didn't tell you about it because I wasn't really involved in the process and also we didn't know if it was going to happen until last Monday. My companion and I are both sort of inexperienced still, so organizing a baptism and getting all the interviews and things set up for it were a little last minute. It was for a kid named Cyrus. His grandparents are members, but his parents aren't, so when he turned 8 his grandparents asked us to start teaching him. I was only there to teach the last lesson, but he seems like a really good kid. The best part though was how many family members came to the baptism. The relief society room was packed with all his family that showed up early and then the members of the ward started showing up too. It was really amazing. Afterward we went to their house and were able to meet a lot of the family members and get some home-cooked food. About half of the family there were non-members which was the amazing part, and I think it will lead to a lot of missionary opportunities for the family. We are hoping Cyrus' parents will start taking the lessons down in Perris, and a couple of his cousins that live with his grandparents in our ward might be interested as well. Elder Truman performed the baptism, I played the piano and taught the Restoration lesson while they were changing. Overall it was a really nice service.
As for the rest of the week, we had exchanges on Wednesday. I went with Elder Simpson in his area. He has only been out for 8 weeks. His area covers half of the Laselle Ward as well as the Samoan Ward. Elder Simpson is a really cool guy with sort of an interesting story. He has a strong testimony and a really good knowledge of the scriptures. Before he came out, he was working at a Deseret Industries warehouse for 4 or 5 months, and he said he'd just listen to the Book of Mormon audio over and over so he's heard it like a dozen times.
See you soon,
Elder Cornaby
"Get on your knees and pray then get on your feet and work." - Gordon B. Hinckley