Hello once again, audience! How is everything back home? Windy? From the pictures of that 5 wheeler...I'd say windy is an understatement haha. That wind sounds super crazy. It's amazing the power it has. I feel bad for the Riley's! Hope everything gets better for them! It really is a miracle that the trailer didn't plow into our deck and house. Those are missionary blessings, right? ;) Gotta spice things up somehow, right? Too bad it came at the cost of a 5 wheel trailer though, that's so sad. :( I hope everything else is going well for all of you! :) Yuba has been kind of windy, but not 80 mph haha. It's windy enough that it's a major pain to bike in though. Especially when it's going against you. It rained pretty good for the first few days this week too, so we biked in the rain and that was fun/cold. I had to buy some fenders for my bike, so another 45 dollars spent toward my bike...but that's okay. Thank you for buying and mailing the bike for me. That wasn't just a new clamp or set of fenders. Thank you so much. My week was overall great! I am enjoying California, but it's not as warm as you think it is. ;) It is warmer than it is over there, but it's still kind of chilly. Especially at night when we're riding our bikes around the area. A little more on Yuba City, the total population is around 60,000 I think, but it's pretty spread out. It's a lot like Ogden. Most of the houses are single story, kind of small. But with most of the members here I've seen that even though they have smaller houses, they have pretty nice interiors. It's kinda cool. I don't think a day has passed that I have not heard sirens of one kind or another. There are always fire truck sirens going off. It's crazy. I hear sirens at least once a day. The Yuba City area is also the world capital for rice production/exports. Surprised me a lot! I would think China or Thailand or Vietnam or somewhere over in eastern Asia. But nope. Yuba City. It's great haha. Yuba City also has the Sutter Buttes: the smallest mountain range in the world in both height and length! I thought that was awesome and hilarious. I guess I'll just go through the week day by day! This week wasn't as exciting as last week, we didn't get as much done as we did last week, unfortunately. :/ But it was still a good week. Monday, P-Day, was pretty boring because most missionaries were cleaning their apartments for apartment checks that were going to be held on Thursday so not very many people showed up to play basketball. And we didn't really do much afterward so...yeah. But it's all good. Tuesday was probably even less eventful because, even with my planner right here in front of me, I don't remember anything that happened. Other than reading the Book of Mormon and Bible with a recent convert named Maria Gandara, we weren't able to find much to do. Dinner was dropped off at our door so we didn't even have a family to visit for dinner. We also may or may not have helped out with the dinner for Young Women's in Excellence. I don't know if it was for sure Tuesday, but it was sometime this week. :) Wednesday I also don't remember much of. Man I really need to bring my journal to help me email haha...but I did find some cool scriptures: D&C 49:27 which says, "Behold, I will go before you and be your rearward; and I will be in your midst, and you shall not be confounded." I thought that was helpful, especially as a missionary. Many of you have probably known that scripture for a while haha I'm just barely finding it. :) Oops. Oh well haha. Thursday was Zone Conference. Elder Stanley G. Ellis of the First Quorum of the Seventy was here and it was awesome! He was a great speaker and I got some great notes! Which I left in the apartment so I can't remember enough to share...sorry! :) Also on Thursday, we had dinner with the Allred's. They are grandparents to Max and Brock Strassi. Any baseball fans out there? Max and Brock are playing pro baseball with the Houston Astros and the Phillies! And they were over for dinner that same night! It was so cool! My companion and I found out beforehand when we called to make sure our dinner appointment would work fine and so we went and bought baseballs for them to sign...yeah I know it's probably not the most missionary like thing to do...but it was still sweet. Our dinner thought was on Faith and they seemed kind of interested. They've had friends who have served missions. At one point, one of them told my companion and I that he really respects us and what we do. For the time we serve away from our family to be (for the most part) turned away for trying to share the gospel and what makes us happy. That was really cool. I was able to play the piano for the Allreds and the Strassis and the baseball players said I was amazing. Haha. That was super sweet. Thursday was the bomb. Friday was great, especially dinner. We had dinner with the Reiersen family and the Rider's (a recently converted older couple) came over for dinner as well. I LOVE THE RIDERS. Sister Rider gave my companion and I some really nice scripture markers. I tried to pay her back but she wouldn't take it. Haha, typical grandparents. ;) Anyway, the dinner thought was on Faith again that night and it was even better Friday night than it was Thursday. It was amazing because the Rider's shared their experiences with faith before being baptized and whatnot. It was incredible. The Spirit was so strong. SO strong. Incredible. Right after that we went and played volleyball with the Spanish speaking elders and some of their members. It was great. Saturday we did service and gave a lesson to a man named Anthony Rosul. He was supposedly in our area, but upon further inspection he is right outside of our boundaries and is in the Sisters' area. But before we found that out, he basically invited himself to church! It was amazing. He didn't end up showing up, but it was still pretty cool. We're going to give him to the Sisters so that he can go to the right ward. But the situation with him is awesome. I don't have much time to go into detail, but it was really cool how it all happened. Sunday was good, not a ton to report on though. Church was awesome and I read about the Urim and Thummim and was really intrigued to learn about them. I've been on this big Bible Dictionary binge lately. It's freaking amazing. I love the Bible Dictionary. So much information and it is incredible. So before I close, I have some closing remarks! In the Topical Guide under the heading "Objectives," 2 Nephi 2:25 (Adam fell that men might be; and men are that they might have joy) was there and I put it together that one of man's biggest objectives is to have joy! That was awesome. And one more scripture, 2 Nephi 1:15 talks about being encircled eternally in the arms of love. That hit me pretty good on Sunday in Sacrament meeting. It was super cool and I felt the Spirit so strongly as I had just finished reading/singing (in my head) hymn 112, Savior Redeemer of My Soul and found this scripture. I know that we are ALL ETERNALLY circled in the His arms of love. My neck is in perfect working order again! It's amazing how it healed so quickly. I pray for thanks every day. I'm being careful with it, and so far it's been great. No problems. Elder Hazleton (my companion) is great. I just asked him if he knew Spencer Jones and he was like, "What about him?" haha and I told him that he's Colby's friend and he was like, "Dude that's my cousin!" haha it was great. He's a cool guy. I notice you like a lot of my stuff on my facebook page haha. Try to share some of the things so that the word can be spread even farther! :) That's one of the biggest things about online proselyting: they want us to share and like and comment on gospel related stuff so that more people can see it. So yeah, share some stuff if you want. :) It'll help me fulfill my purpose too. ;) Thanksgiving sounds fun. We're having a meal at a member's house. He is the Ward Mission Leader here in Hillcrest. Brother Dan Martinez. He is incredible. He is a retired gang member who has converted to the gospel. He's so awesome. I know that this church is true and I know that we are all eternally in the tender care of our loving Father in Heaven. There is never a time when we are not loved by Him. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever and therefore always loves us. Isn't that phenomenal? I love you Mom! Let the whole (cousins too!) family know that I love them and are SO grateful for their support! Love you all, Elder Cevering II

November 18, 2013 Email

Hello once again! This week was GREAT. Oh my goodness it was good. We set our goals during weekly planning last Thursday/Friday and we nailed almost all of them. We DOUBLED our goals for "lessons taught to Recent Converts and Less-Active Members" (these will be referred to as LARC's from this point forward). Our goal was 4, we got 8. Our numbers here in Yuba City are sort of low, the area isn't too active in missionary work right now. But we've pulled out some good numbers the last two weeks, so someone back home must be praying for us! Either that, or it's because my Mom just turned in my tithing. ;) So thank you very much for your prayers. They are very much appreciated. :) We met just about every other goal, minus one or two. But that is okay because we did really well overall. Speaking of numbers, at Zone Meeting this week, our Zone Leaders (referred to as ZL's from this point forward) had information from Mission Leadership Conference with President. President had a meeting with 29 other West Coast, North American Mission Presidents and Elder Ballard gave them all quite the charge: The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve have felt it is appropriate to charge those 30 missions to DOUBLE their convert baptisms per month. Let that sink in. Double our convert baptisms per month. Right now, California Roseville Mission is getting 7 per month, on average. So the double is obviously 14. And then, the next bit of information was that if our baptisms will double, so will EVERYTHING ELSE. Boom. That means that our entire mission will go from: 115 new investigators each month, to 230. 236 Investigators w/ Member Present Lessons to 553. And so on with the rest of our numbers. Man. This is crazy stuff. But my look on it is if the Lord charges us to do it, He will provide a way for it to be done. So it's going to be insane, but somehow we're going to do it. It's gonna take a lot of work and a lot of faith. One more quick mention about numbers: The California Roseville Mission is apparently the highest teaching mission in the nation. Oh snap. :D Haha I love it here. Anyway, also mentioned in Zone Meeting was that we are to try to avoid using analogies when we teach. I don't know if that comes from the Brethren or not (What I understood of it was that it did), but I am not too sure about it. I know I am going to try to just teach the simple doctrine and testify because that it was brings the Spirit most powerfully, but it is going to be hard to avoid using analogies - especially when that is such a huge way to help people to understand. Hazleton and I talked with the Zone Leaders about it and kind of talked about how I felt that they came across as not using analogies ever at all anymore. What we all (the entire zone) ended up agreeing on (after this debate between Hazleton, myself, and the ZL's) was that based on the promptings of the Spirit, you should share analogies. But ONLY when you feel prompted to. Which I feel is good, but I have this feeling that I'm going to be prompted to use analogies a lot. Yeah. Haha. So. In other big news, in soccer on Thursday I was running up the court, turned around the look at the ball in the air, and something in my neck just started to hurt like crazy. There wasn't any snap or click, my neck just started to hurt. It was weird. I kept playing for just a little bit, but I couldn't turn my head very far in any direction or else it started to hurt really bad from just at the base of my skull on the back right of my neck, down to right above where it levels out to the shoulder. It was not good. I sat out the rest of the time and asked for a priesthood blessing after studies. Needless to say, I was still very stiff and it still hurt very badly. But yesterday it was basically completely healed. I can look in any direction I want to with no pain! Wahoo! Haha. It was a big deal because it impeded a lot on our work for those 2-3 days. But everything is totally fine now, I am in no pain. The Church is true and there is major power in Priesthood blessings. Title story! So we left the church after practicing the piano for a little bit, and we decided to "get lost" in our area in order to become more comfortable with the area. We've done this a few times and will continue to. So anyway, we took this road and at the end of the road there was this convenience/liquor store across the road. When we went to turn left at this store, there was a lady yelling at us from the front of the store. We couldn't understand her and we thought she was just yelling at us to go home because we're Mormon. As we crossed the street, we heard her asking for one of our pamphlets. So, of course we gave her a pamphlet! This lady, Darla, was smoking a cigar sitting in a wheelchair with BOTH of her legs in casts. And boy was she something. She had apparently broken both of her heels jumping off of a 7 foot tall, barbed-wire topped fence trying to run away from a demon. All of these details kept coming in from the multiple times she retold the story. She was apparently sent from God to let His children know that He loves them. She had some songs for little kids (all of which she wrote), she sang a couple for us and one was actually kind of good. Anyway, she was super high and she was talking about how she saw demons and was being chased by them and stuff. My time is about to run out, so I'm cutting it short here. Sorry! We had an investigator meeting. Her name is Dianna and she has accepted Christ as her Savior, but isn't of the LDS church so when we met with her to teach her the gospel she kind of related it to a Bible study type of thing. We said yeah and we hope that we can get our message to her in these Bible/Book of Mormon study classes. We're going to try to meet with another investigator named Ricardo. I'll talk more about him next week, but he's an interesting story as well. I love you all, I love this gospel SO much. I have seen miracles and they are amazing. Small and simple things are incredible when added up together. Again, I love you all. I thank you with all of my heart for your love and support. I pray for you every day and I hope the best for each and every one of you! God loves you, and most important of all, He always will. Never forget that. Love you! Love, Elder Cevering II

Email November 11, 2013

Hello Everyone! This week has been pretty good, we're getting referrals and hopefully from those referrals we'll be able to get more investigators! We tried to contact one of the referrals, but she wasn't home. We left a pass-along card in her door and put our cell number on it and later that day, she contacted us through text and said she wanted to meet with us, so we have an appointment this coming Wednesday. Hopefully she'll be interested and want to keep taking the lessons! Everything has been really slow since we got here because we have no investigators. Another thing that's bothering me is that it gets dark at 5:30-6 pm. We're not supposed to be in until 9 pm, but they don't want us knocking doors and contacting after dark, so we have NOTHING to do except go to our dinner appointments and visit members. So basically we go back home a little early after dinner and visiting other members. We generally get home around 8-8:30 pm, which is good, but sometimes we get home right after dinner and have nothing to do all night. So we sit around for a few hours. And that is not good. It's not good because we don't have any investigators. Since there are no investigators, we have nothing to study and no needs to try to meet. Since we don't have anything to study and no needs to meet, we have almost nothing to do that is related to missionary work besides studying. I'm not saying studying is bad by any means, but since we have no one to study for, it becomes personal study. Which we do every morning already. So (and I'm working on getting better at this) I get bored after studying for more than an hour. So I started writing letters and whatnot. So yeah, I need to get more focused. I'm not very homesick, but it's needless to say that I'm glad we have referrals to contact. :) But one really cool experience I had was going on splits with the Spanish speaking missionaries. Woo. It was great, actually! I kinda wish I had learned a language because I love speaking what little I can of Spanish. But I know I'm here for a reason speaking English for a reason and that's all I need. :) Anyway, so I went on splits with the Spanish missionary and we went to a lesson with a lady named Tammy. She speaks both Spanish and English so the lesson was in English, thank goodness! It was great, she is a golden investigator. We taught about the Restoration and tried to help her overcome any issues she might be having. She has some problems with grudges. She has what she calls a "soap opera life," which is understandable because she's been through some REALLY rough stuff. We shared Ether 12:27 (weak things become strong unto us) and it seemed like she got some pretty good vibes from that. We also talked about how Christ helps us become strong and overcome our weaknesses and she seemed to grab onto that. It was great to see her faith and hope and she is such a good investigator! The Spirit was felt really strongly and she is amazing. It was fantastic. Also on splits, we had FHE with the Pendrosa's and I LOVE that family. They are hilarious and awesome. The kids all speak English and Spanish and the parents speak Spanish with a little bit of English. They were so cool haha I love them. I wish they were in my teaching pool! They are members not investigators, and they were awesome. One of the investigators we have picked up is kind of hard. Her name is Jasmine and she's solid, but her family is the issue. Her older sister, Maria, is a member but the rest of the family is all having trouble with Jasmine. We've only met with Jasmine once and it was on exchanges, so I haven't even met her! But we're doing what we can to meet with her again because she wants to take the lessons, but her Mom and Brother are holding her back. It's really sad! On Saturday we went up to Redding because one of Hazleton's former investigators up in that area was getting baptized and she wanted him to perform the baptism. So we went, and it was great! I saw Sister Kimura who was in my zone at the MTC! It was awesome because I've been missing my MTC zone like crazy. We got to talk a little bit and she was going to see Sister Jackson, who was also is my MTC zone, later that day at another baptism. I told Sister Kimura to tell Sister Jackson hello for me, so that's always fun. Everything is going pretty well. Slow...but well! With the referrals coming up and the investigator(s) we are trying to work with, hopefully things will pick up! As for time markers: This Wednesday I will have been out for 1 month entirely, with only 23 months left. ;) Since I will have been out for 1 month, I will have been out for 4 weeks which means there are only 100 weeks left. ;) And since there are 7 days in a week, and there are only 100 weeks left, I have about 700 days left! ;) HAHAHA. I'm not counting down, I just know those numbers haha. Promise. :) Glad to hear you went to and liked West Side Story! I got to see the (unfinished) stage before I left, but what I saw was awesome. I wish so bad I could have been there for one night! But it's okay. :) I love the work and I love the people. I love the gospel and I'm working more towards a deeper personal testimony and conversion to it so that my teaching will be more powerful. I love all of you and hope and pray for the best for all of you as well! God speed! Love, Elder Cevering #2

Email November 4, 2013

Hello! How are you? Good? Good! :) First email from California, woohoo! I bet you're all dying to know where I am at! ;) No, probably just my Mom and Dad haha. Love you Mom and Dad :) I am in Yuba City, California serving in the Hillcrest ward. This ward and stake is so great! My companion and I have had dinner with members every night. Literally. Our dinner calendar for November is only missing five nights and apparently there is a calling for someone to get our dinner calendar filled. So. Basically, I will be having dinner at a member's house every night. It's great. I've gained 10 pounds since entering the MTC. :) Good thing I'm on a bike! The missionaries are awesome and I have another great district. 4 Sisters, and 6 Elders. Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday some of the missionaries and ward/stake members play soccer in the Stake Center gym at 6:00 in the morning. I hate getting up that early, but it is so worth it! First week has been good so far. President is such an amazing guy, and I'm sad that he's actually not going to be my mission president for my whole mission. He and his wife are amazing people, super caring and just awesome. I saw about Kellee's mission call to Detroit, Michigan (Kellee is Jacob's cousin) when we were going through my Facebook profile, that's super awesome! She's going to do amazing and I bet she'll love it there! That is a scary place, but I know that she'll be protected for sure! That's awesome for Audrey Chugg too, hopefully the tornadoes aren't a huge hazard down there. She'll do great, I didn't even know she was going to serve a mission. Haha about Michael and Me being gone, Dad actually mentioned how there are two Cevering's on the church program instead of just one. Either way, it's super cool. I wish I could see it for myself because, to be honest, I don't think it's hit me yet that I am actually a missionary. I always held missionaries in such a high standard that they know so much about the gospel and teach everything so perfectly. Not that I don't hold them to a high standard any more, I still do for sure! ESPECIALLY knowing how much they do. But it's weird because I feel so...unprepared I guess? I know that's normal, so it'll come eventually haha. I'm just going to keep working and I'll get there someday. :) It'll hit me when I have to take the badge off for the last time. Speaking of which, there was a really cool scripture shared at District Meeting! D&C 75:2-5. It talks about "those who have given their names" to serve the Lord. THAT'S ME. I currently don't have a first name anymore and I'm serving the Lord! It was really cool for me, it applies so differently now and I loved it. Yes, I do have a missionary Facebook page to be used ONLY for missionary purposes. I will not be able to contact any of my friends or family about basically anything, sorry. :( I'm trying to figure out my camera and pictures so I can get a profile picture. How do you know who my companion is already?! What the heck! I haven't even mentioned him haha. His name is Elder Calvin Hazleton and he is from Monticello, Utah. He's cool, lenient...haha. Yes I am on my bike, and my first day here we rode 7 miles haha. And we had an issue with the front wheel's brake so we took it to the shop and I accidentally got my finger stuck between the disc and the brake so I got a really nice looking cut in my finger :) that was fun. No biggie though. I might be able to get a picture to you haha. Speaking of bike problems, I accidentally broke the clamp that holds the seat steady when we were putting it together, so the whole first day I was riding with a rotating seat. Blech. But we got it fixed that night so no biggie! The first week has been insane! All of the days blend together, I have no idea what has happened what day and I forgot my planner at the apartment so I'll just name off a bunch of things that happened. Saying goodbye to my MTC Zone was really hard and I actually miss them all a ton. Haha, it's sad. Not distracting, but I just feel like there is something missing haha. Before I forget, here is the subject line story: So Elder Hazleton's last companion had Seliac's (Did I spell it right? Allergic to gluten? Something like that haha) and so when the dinner calendar person asked me if I had any allergies, I don't know why but for some reason I was thinking about Justin and his allergies to peanuts so, without thinking, I blurted out "Peanuts." Followed by an awkward silence in which my companion, the ward mission leader, his wife, and the calendar person just stared at me. I was legitimately confused as to why they were looking at me so weird. And then I realized what I had said. So, with what pieces of my shattered pride I could pick up off of the cold, hard, carpeted ground, I said, "Oh wait, no. I'm not allergic to peanuts." And everyone breathed a sigh of relief. It was embarrassing! Especially because the ward mission leader is such a funny guy, he was joking around with me and so was my companion haha. It was great though. I'm the one doing the stupid stuff, not my companion haha. Well, I need to get going. I'm sorry that I didn't really have a lot to say about my week. I'll have more to say next week I'm sure. But for some concluding information, basically all of the investigators in my area were just baptized before I got here so we have no one new. No one. Not one. So we get to go contact some referrals and find new investigators. We might have a family that the Elders before me helped move in down the street. We helped them move their friend out and hoping to build a friendship and sit down with them and start giving them lessons. The father seems slightly interested in the missionary thing, but he's not big into religion either so we'll see. I'll have more to report on next week. I know this church is true. I have seen it bless my life this last week and I know that it will continue to do so as I continue to work hard and do the Lord's work. Again, I know this Church is true. I love it and there is no place I would rather be than out here serving the Lord. Again, D&C 75:2-5. Gave my name to serve the Lord. I love you guys so much! I hope everything is going well for all of you out on the home front, I'm praying for you! I love you guys! Love, Elder Cevering the Second.

Phone Call from President Weston

We received a phone call from President Weston letting us know that Elder Cevering has arrived safely and had his interview with President Weston. He has been assigned to serve in Yuba City which is 50 miles north of Roseville. His companion is Elder Hazleton. It was WONDERFUL to get a call from his mission president! He sounds like a wonderful man. Can't wait for Monday to hear how Jacob's first week was in the mission field!

First Email from the Mission Field - October 29, 2013

Hi Mom & Dad, I made it to Roseville safe and sound! I survived the MTC and the one hour flight from Salt Lake to Sacramento. It is great here! Of what I've seen so far, it looks a lot like the valley, minus the mountains. Still waiting to see those mountains. I'm sure I will soon. President Weston is SO great. He will be my mission president for my whole mission, if I understand correctly. He and his wife are super cool and I can't wait to serve under their direction. Also if I understand correctly, my P-Days will be on Mondays. So I have to wait one more whole week until I can email again...ugh. But it's okay, because that just means more time to serve the people and the Lord! We are allowed to proselyte via social media. I am pretty sure that means that I will be able to proselyte via facebook, but I'll let you know later on. I'm sure there will be more to tell you later on, but for now I think this is all I have time to say. I don't know my trainer yet, I just barely got out of an interview with President Weston and he is going to assign trainers. We are in the mission office right now and will be getting our trainers tomorrow afternoon...? Sometime tomorrow haha. I can't wait to get started! I love the Church, I know it is true. I love you and miss all of you, but there is no place I would rather be than right here in Roseville, California the best mission on the planet! Love, Elder Cevering #2 (Jacob signs his name this way because his older brother Michael is serving as a missionary in Puerto Rico - so Michael is Elder Cevering #1 and Jacob is Elder Cevering #2....what a funny boy!!! I love it!)