Email April 28, 2014

Greetings from sunny California! How are you all doing?! I hope everything is going swimmingly. Especially since it's almost time to start going swimming! So this week was pretty slow, only a few things to report on and only one of them is big. So I'll end on that one because it's the most Spirit-filled one and that's always the best to end on. So to report: We had another lesson with Rick this week. We had a member there who used to be Lutheran, just like Rick is Lutheran (he doesn't practice anymore, pretty much believes everything we believe haha). He bore a strong testimony and put forth good challenges, but Rick still isn't sure about being baptized yet. I worry that sometime with the heavy push he's going to ask us to back off, he's done that with past missionaries. Not sure why, but he has asked them to stop coming by once I think. So I don't want that to happen. But he's still kicking the idea of being baptized around, coming closer and closer. His wife is even encouraging him to stay with the Mormons haha. She's awesome too. If he converts, I have a feeling she might too. She doesn't sit in on the lessons, but she might take them if she isn't already a member. So keep Rick in your prayers! He's coming so close to receiving such joy and happiness! Jim again said he would come to church and again did not come to church. We had a lesson with him this week where he started asking us questions and stuff. Which was way different because he usually just talks and has stories to tell all of the time and we never have lessons. But this time we mostly did. :D It was great. Pray for him that things will stop popping up for him so that he can come to church! We went out to visit an inactive man. He lives kind of out in the boondocks, pretty far away from the rest of the main area in a kind of forest-like area. So we bike out there and he's got all kinds of stuff hanging on his house, things just laying out and around his property, and we see this limo on the property. Cool, whatever. Probably doesn't run but whatever. So we knock on his door, he answers smoking some weed and says he'll be right out in a second after he realizes who we are. Shuts the door, we walk back out to a different part of his property and he comes out without the weed and with sunglasses on. He's got long, medium blonde hair down to his shoulders, about my height, really nice guy. We get talking and we cover tons of topics, he switched the subject a lot. We finally asked him about his limo and he tells us he just bought it and either has or is getting his license to be a driver! He shows us the inside while he's telling us all of this and he says that if we ever want a ride in a limo to just call him up because he'd love to. Limo ride on my mission? I might have to hit that up. But, probably not with him as the driver. Hahaha! Really nice guy, but wasn't as coherent as he could have been you know? Haha. But the offer still stands, we go out every once in a while to visit and he says the offer is still up. Another thing I've heard since coming to Redding is the Lomarians. People up around here believe that the Lomarians live inside Mt. Shasta which, by the way, is a dormant volcano for those who didn't know. And whenever the peak of the mountain is covered by a cloud, the people who believe in the Lomarians say that aliens are delivering supplies to them in the mountain!! Hahaha, oh the crazy things people think and believe! I have no idea where this lore came from, but I found it awesome and hilarious. :D Good stories. Well here is the good stuff: We had a lesson with a new investigator and her inactive husband on Monday night, the Francis family. This particular couple has had the missionaries teach them a few times over the years so I kind of went in with not as good of an attitude as I should have the first time we met. But I wasn't completely lacking faith! I still hoped that Elder Solomon and I would be the ones to be able to help them join and come back to the church, that somehow one of our personalities would mesh with theirs and something would be different this time. Well, we go through the second lesson which is on the Plan of Salvation. She had some questions like what we believe about Heaven and Hell or what happens to the people who never joined the church, because she has had both of her parents pass away who weren't part of the church and she wanted to know what was going to happen to them according to our beliefs and knowledge. I assume she also wanted to know for the rest of her family, like her kids (they're all married and/or moved out) and whatnot. So when we described that we believe that the people who didn't or never had the opportunity to accept it in this life will have the chance to in the next life, I feel like something connected for her. The member we had there talked about previous wives and children who have passed on and bore powerful testimony that he knows he will see them all again someday. The Spirit was so strong! And I felt prompted to share my testimony of the Plan of Salvation and forever families, especially having a little sister from the Marshall Islands. I bore my testimony that I knew that because of temple ordinances, my little sister who I love so much, will be part of my family for time and for all eternity. That even though we aren't related biologically, that it just wouldn't be the Cevering family without her. We wouldn't and couldn't be complete without her. That I love her so much and if God wouldn't let our family stay together forever then it wouldn't be fair, or understanding, or loving. But I testified that I knew we will be brother and sister forever, and that I love her so, so, so much and that that love will be able to continue everlastingly. And I testified that it can be that way with her, her husband, and her family. That they can have the same feelings of love forever too! The Spirit was so strong at the end of that lesson, it was incredible. She was in tears and I felt like he was hiding/fighting tears as well. Brother Francis closed the lesson with a prayer, Brother Francis! Who hasn't gone to church in possibly years said he felt earlier that day that he should say the prayer in the lesson. The point was also brought up that Brother Francis could baptize Sister Francis if things worked out correctly. They both were really touched by that. They both have said that something is different time, that the presentation or something is different. Well, guys, that's the Spirit!!! It must be time! Please keep them in your prayers! She quickly soft committed to baptism when we asked her if she would, and we'll be setting a date with her hopefully this week. The Spirit was incredible, and it testified not only to the Francis family. It testified to me (through my own words!) that I knew the Plan of Salvation is real and true. That me and Mikayla and our whole family can be together forever! That the incredible love we all feel one toward another, although it's harder to see at some times, can and will last forever!!! I LOVE THAT. I love the Plan of Salvation. I am so thankful for the opportunity I am so blessed with to have you as my family and I am so blessed to be able to be part of this family FOREVER! I love you!!! :) Love, Elder Jacob Cevering

Email April 23, 2014

Hello All! Well, this week was Easter! Woo! I don't know about you guys, but I had an incredible Easter and I hope you guys did too! I'll close with my testimony so I can save the good stuff for last. But let it suffice, for now, that I had a great Easter weekend and season! Not a lot happened this week partially because I think some allergies hit me hard and I was out of commission for a couple of days so I don't have a ton to report on. The biggest thing, which is actually pretty big, is that Rick is getting so much closer to baptism! He came to church yesterday and is getting a new job and will be able to come to church every Sunday! He is getting so close. Please keep him in your prayers! He's an awesome guy and he already believes everything we believe, his only hold back is a living prophet, which he is slowly coming to understand and realize that we need! And also last Monday night we taught a less active husband and his nonmember wife, the Francis family, the Restoration. They've had it multiple times from multiple sets of missionaries, but they both said that something was different this time. That the testimonies seemed more...real, I guess is how they described it. It's amazing how The Lord works! Please keep them in your prayers! With Jim, we had a lesson and for the second week in a row he said he'd come to church. And for the second week in a row, he hasn't come to church. Darn it! We're going to try to see him tomorrow. A few weeks ago we also kind of picked up a new investigator who wants to learn about the Church and our beliefs. Very first talk we had he asked about our basic beliefs so we gave him a 13 Articles of Faith pass along card and a Book of Mormon. He wanted to come to church this week but said he might be busy. So when he didn't show up, we figured he was busy. We'll try to see him this week. Well, there was more to report on than I thought...so I guess I will share my testimony and close for the week. I don't know if you guys know that the church made a video this Easter season about Jesus Christ and how what he did affects us. It's called, "Because of Him." The first time I watched it I never wanted it to end. If you haven't watched it yet, do what you can to watch it! It is incredible! I watched that a lot this Easter weekend and I also watched the last week of the Savior's life in the Bible videos that the church has been putting out. It helps me so much to be able to visualize what the situations might have been like and really helped being the scriptures to life that much more. Another thing that I did in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John was mark the chapter headings of the things Christ did from Palm Sunday to His resurrection with the days he did them. And then I planned to read them, all four accounts on the same day of the week they occurred. I did start, but I only read the four accounts of what He did Thursday - His anointing, the last supper, His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, His betrayal by Judas, and other things based on which book you read. It was all amazing! My testimony has been helped so much by all of this! The Spirit has touched my heart in a way I can't explain. I just know, can't explain how or why except by saying by the Spirit. I know Jesus Christ lived, suffered, and died for us. I know that He was resurrected that all His and His Father's mighty work might be finished. And that because of Him, we can do all things. I love you guys! I am so grateful for the gospel in my life and for Christ's gift to me which is freely given to everyone! Thank you for all of the support it means so much! Have the best week! And don't forget to always remember what Easter really means! Love, Elder Jacob Cevering

Email April 14, 2014

Hello! First off...OOPS! I guess the email didn't send last week. Last week changed my life and now...you guys won't get the whole story. It's a shame. Well I'm just kidding about last week being life changing. It was good, and conference was INCREDIBLE, but unfortunately it wasn't quite life changing. I'll add as much as I remember, but I'm sorry that I won't be able to remember everything...anyway, I'll talk a little about conference and my favorite parts and I hope you guys re-watch or read your favorite talks, we can't pick everything up the first time we hear it so going back over it is very effective! Since entering the MTC, I have gained 25 pounds!!! Crazy! Haha, wow crazy things happen out here. Everyone says all I've gained is muscle. May be true because my jeans are getting super tight around my thighs and my slacks are too! But 25 pounds of only muscle on my legs? That means that I would have had to gain 12.5 pounds of muscle in each leg. Maybe, I don't know about it though. All I know is my legs are getting pretty big, haha. And so is my appetite. Next on the agenda is an apology for not sending pictures home often. Since we all have iPads, there's no reason to go use a computer so we never use them. And since I seem to be the only one who wants to send pictures home...yeah. Everyone here is way more interested in playing sports and stuff than emailing home. Not that I don't want to play sports with them, but I enjoy emailing home and want to hear what's going on and let home know what's up over here too. I pictured missionaries being a little more understanding, haha. I also pictured more missionaries liking their leaders, but that doesn't seem to be popular out here either. There is definitely a division between missionaries who like the leaders and those who don't. The ones who don't are kind of frustrating. Understandable that sometimes the leaders don't understand our perspectives of what we really need and seem to expect more from us than we are sometimes capable of, but that doesn't mean that we mock and make fun of them when they're doing the best they can to be obedient and be the best missionaries they can be. This has started to bother me with my companion and district. Elder Solomon is my companion and district leader, but he doesn't really give President the respect he deserves when he talks about him and also our zone leaders. It bothers me because he and the other elders in our district mock the zone leaders and assistants for trying to be as obedient as possible and be like President, who is an incredible man. I bite my tongue a lot. But I don't know if I should or not. I feel like it would keep peace better and then I would be able to make sure I don't get made fun of for standing up for them, but if I don't stand up for what is right then I'm obviously not doing the right thing either...I'll be thinking about it and praying about it. I'm kinda frustrated with my district, haha. Elder Solomon is pretty quiet when it is just me and him but when we are with members we joke with them. I feel like he talks more with them than me and when I am doing something at their house that he doesn't like he voices it more than when I do something good. I don't know, we do get along well he is just kind off starting to get on my nerves. He just seems to only voice the negative. Eh. I don't know. He's a good guy, but some frustrations are coming up. Just gotta work through them. The Lord is helping me learn patience, because I didn't learn it before my mission, haha. Elder Solomon is also really different when it's just us and when we are with other missionaries. When we're with other missionaries he's rougher, talks more, gets almost mean at times, he's sarcastic and yeah. Things are coming up, but I just have to deal with it. I'll get through it and learn something or some things that will help me out a lot. Well one good thing about this last week that we didn't really do much is that now I don't have to write to much more in this weekly email. One really funny story that happened two weeks ago: So Elder Solomon, Rose, Volle (sounds like volley without the y), and I went to Denny's for lunch and while we're waiting for our food some teenagers from a booth a couple away from ours get up to leave. They're all huddled up, talking quietly, and laughing and then they start to walk out. The last girl from that group picks up her orange juice and DUMPS it all over a girl sitting on a different table directly behind Rose and Volle then starts going off on her about everything that this girl has apparently done to her. Then the dad of the girl who got the juice dumped on her and is now being yelled at grabs his orange juice and throws it on the girl yelling at his daughter! It splashed all over the place, I only got just a tiny bit on my shoes but Elder Rose got it all over his suit pants and shirt. The girl walks out and this other innocent bystander starts yelling at the dad, "Nice! Dude you were righteous, if she had done that to my daughter, I would have floored her!" and stuff all like that. It was definitely an interesting/scary/funny situation. Welcome to Denny's, haha. So General Conference was incredible. My favorite testimony by far was Elder Holland's testimony of the reality of priesthood keys. How incredible!!! If you don't remember what he said, he said that he is more sure that the priesthood keys and ordinances are real than he was sure he was standing in front of the entire body of the church! WHAAAAAT?!?!??! Yeah, it was so cool. I loved conference. One thing that I have learned just a little bit about is being prepared for conference. I wrote down a list of questions and actively took notes and suddenly we were adjourning for 6 months. It wasn't fair, haha. I can't wait for next conference! This has been my favorite ever so far, and I bet the next one will be even better! So last week we almost picked up a new investigator. Our bishop gave us a referral who wanted to be baptized so we went and visited him. It was a grandma and grandpa who are members who want their grandson to be baptized. When we got there, we talked to the boy a little about what we do and talked a little about the gospel real quick. We set up a return appointment, talked to his grandparents about how soon we could have him baptized and left. Then the next day between conferences she called us saying she doesn't want him to be baptized yet...it's so sad! But that's okay, it happens... Rick came to conference last week and church this week!!! WOOOOO! It was awesome. He is so close to being baptized, he just isn't sure yet...unfortunately. But it's okay because he is so willing to meet with us and do what we invite him to do. He's so close, it's crazy. And now that Solomon and I are staying together for another transfer we will have plenty of time to work with him! That's good. :) Oh yeah, transfers are in and Solomon and I are staying together for another transfer. It'll be all good. :) Well...I think that's about everything. But I want to close up with a spiritual thought, of course. :) There is a big thing going around for Easter this season put out by the church. Its a video called, Because of Him. I bet you can find it on mormon.org, lds.org, youtube, and a lot of other sites with videos. FIND IT. WATCH IT. Because think about it, because of Him you will live again. Because of Him, you can overcome any trial. Because of Him, you can be forgiven of your sins and be relieved of guilt, shame, embarrassment. Because of Him, you can do anything. I encourage you to watch the video, it is very well made and brings to light many things we can do because of Him. And also, share on your facebook or twitter or whatever a statement that starts, "Because of Him..." and ends with whatever you want to add that has personal meaning to you! Your message will touch the heart of someone out there, trust me! Your posts are seen by way more people than you think. You might touch a life, who knows? I love you all, I apologize whole-heartedly for not having an email sent last week but I hope the length of this one makes up for it! I LOVE YOU!!!! :) Love, Elder Jacob Cevering :) P.S. Happy Easter week everyone! Remember the Savior and what He did to allow you to do what you can do!

Email March 31, 2014

Heyyy! How's it going, guys? Things over here are great. Pretty stormy, but good. Title story about the storms in a little, but I want to get some quick moments and comments in before that. So Elder Solomon crushed his right foot's big toe the transfer before I got here and it killed the toenail so the toenail is now falling off. But anyone who has had a fingernail or toenail fall off knows that it doesn't happen quickly. So he has this big, nasty bruised big toenail slowly falling off of his toe but it's just to ready to come completely off yet. It's close, but still too much connected. So we were looking at it the other day and talking about when we think it'll come off when he turns to me and says (and I don't mean this to be sacreligious at all!), "It's like the Second Coming: we know it's coming, we just don't know when." It was sooo funny. Had to be there. Elder Solomon is quiet, but he is hilarious. Another funny thing that I realized soon after I got here is that the man who is the Executive Ward Clerk (I think that's the right calling...) looks SO much like Mr. Murtaugh from Cheaper by the Dozen 2. It's awesome! He is a cool guy, really nice. I don't know if he's competitive or not though. If I stay through the summer and see him play any sports I guess I'll find out if I found Mr. Murtaugh's doppelgänger. So we were at dinner the other night with a recent convert lady and reactivated less active man who are married and we had asked them how they met. They talked about the rough pasts that they had and somehow the point came out that Redding is something like the meth capital of the United States, possibly really high ranking in the world as well. Possibly highest ranking in the world, if I remember correctly. Which reminded me that I had heard Redding has a really high (and growing!) rate of petty theft/bike theft. Woot! Don't worry, everyone! I'm being as careful as possible!!! Things don't seem to be as bad as I hear so hopefully the people here don't prove me wrong. But I do have to say that I do feel a little more comfortable here than in Yuba City, considering Elder Perkins and I had been hearing this loud popping/short cracking sound from the easternmost part of the city and when we asked some of the members what it was they told us it was probably shootings. I didn't want to believe it but one of the people we asked was the son of a police officer who takes those things pretty seriously. But don't worry! The area that sounded like the gunshots were coming from wasn't in Hillcrest boundaries! It was close, but it wasn't Hillcrest, haha. :) love you, Mom. I'm safe, don't worry! :) Well, now to the good stuff. To tell the title story! This week's weather has been very opposite of last week's. Last week it was hot, dry, and hot. It was only 80 degrees but we were sweating soooo much. Disgusting, I know. Don't judge me. It's hot. :) anyway, so this week it has been really wet, rainy, wet, cold, cloudy, wet, kinda warm, then stormy, wet, lightning and thunder, and wet. Oh, and did I say wet? Because it was wet. Wet is a weird word. Why does it mean watery/soggy? I don't know. Anyway! It was wet and stormy all week. So we're biking through a sprinkling rain to a less active's house and when we're biking down the hill to the house and pull in the driveway, the rain gets really intense so we think, ah perfect timing! Well. The people were just headed out. Aw, nuts. The rain, in the last 5 seconds since knocking on the door, got two or three times worse than it was when we locked up our bikes. This should be fun. We ran back to our bikes and started biking up the hill and, I swear there was not a spot on the road that wasn't splashing, that's how crazy the rain was! So we get to the top of the hill and the rain just keeps getting worse and worse and worse and suddenly FLASH and CRACK!!!! Lightning and thunder just miles away. It was craaaaazy. The storm was beating upon us. So We are biking to dinner at Carl's Jr. And the closer we get the more intense the rain gets and we see and hear more lightning and thunder. It takes about ten minutes to bike there from the house we tried to visit and so the rain got reeeeeaaaaaallllllllly heavy, huge drops EVERYWHERE. Then about 2 minutes away from Carl's Jr., I start feeling a stinging on my hands, arms, thighs, neck. HAIL. Woo. Trust me when I say all the hail and mighty storm was literally beating upon us. It. Was. Insane. We got inside and tried to take pictures but they didn't turn out very well. But, the whole thing was crazy. Totally worth it. I honestly poured water out of my shoes and wrung out my gloves. Too much fun, go missions! So the spiritual highlight and my testimony growing experience of the week: we had dinner with my ward mission leader on Saturday night. He is having some problems with his stomach and intestines, digestion and stuff. He asked if we could give him a blessing. Sure, we'd love to! We were on exchanges that night so he asked me to give the blessing, the visiting elder the anointing. Well, the anointing happens and it's good. And then when I start the blessing, wow. I don't even know to to explain it. Words just kinda...came out of my mouth. Amazing words of peace and comfort just came from nowhere. I know I didn't say or think of them, they were way too eloquently worded. The blessing ended and his wife was in tears and they all said what an incredible blessing I gave. I immediately said that it wasn't from me. There was no way. It was too...phenomenal. I know Heavenly Father lives and speaks through blessings. I was so lucky to be able to be a mouthpiece for Him. The church is true, the gospel is incredible, the Spirit is absolutely incredible. Heavenly Father loves His children and I know that for a fact. Love you guys, things have been awesome! Love, Elder Cevering #2