Email December 30, 2013

Hello to all! How was everyone's Christmas?! I hope it was as AMAZING as mine was. It was truly fantastic to be able to see my family at such an incredible time of the year. I loved talking to them and i had a great time hearing about all kinds of things from home and telling them about my mission as well. I think they liked listening to me too, haha. I want you all to know that I love my family so very much and want to especially thank them for their love and support, as well as express my thanks to all of you for your love and support as well. Thank you all so, so much. :) it really means a lot! Title story! Thanks to my grandparents, we got snow in Yuba City! Woo! It was this little package of "instant snow" which you mix with water and it puffs up and makes this fluffy, cool white stuff! It was so cool! And since it was 65 degrees in Yuba City, it was the closest to a white Christmas we could possibly get. And it was fantastic. I miss the snow at christmas time. It doesn't feel right without it haha. And apparently I look, sound, and kind of act like an actor named Michael Sarah...? If someone would look that up and confirm that for me I would much appreciate it. :) So I heard at zone meeting/conference a couple weeks ago that there are 90,000 missionaries!? Is that true!? Ah! Haha if so, that's so crazy. We will be at 100,000 before we know it. Well, me and my companion are still having trouble getting along, and it's getting harder and harder... It's kind of a conflict of opinions. And one thing before I go too deep, he is really prideful about his opinion, basically it's his way or the highway. Christmas week was pretty slow, unfortunately. With all of the traditions families have and all of the family that travels to visit, it's hard to get people to want to visit and hear a message about the true Spirit of Christmas. But We did have a really good lesson this week though. It was on Christmas Day with a less active member, Don Perry. We visit him once a week and read from the Book of Mormon with him and share a message every time. So this week we decided we would shake things up and read from the Bible, Luke chapter 2 - the nativity story. So we were reading through the story that we all read at Christmas time, but this time I wanted to see and feel something new about it besides the feeling of boredom and anticipation before opening presents, right? So we were reading and when I read verses 11-12 which say, "11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." I was thinking about how Christ is the Son of the Almighty God and how He created all things in this virtually infinite sized universe and how He gave the ultimate, infinite sacrifice - the most incredible gift to each and every one of us, but how incredibly humble His birth was. How humbly He lived His life as opposed to one of the most awe-inspiring powerful beings there is. Thinking about this while reading the true story which tells the true meaning of Christmas brought such an incredible feeling of the Spirit and it testified to me of the infinite love of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. It was phenomenal. Ah. This church is true. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us all more than we can comprehend. I know that for a fact. I love you all and I hope everything is just fantastic over on that side of the map! Love, Elder Cevering II