Email October 27, 2014

Hello Family! Well I can say that this week was definitely a TON better than last week. Instead of having two investigators drop us, we have a couple potential investigators. Unfortunately they're only potentials at the moment, but that's okay! One is a family of a mother and son (as far as we know, but there is possibly more in the family) and we taught the son a bunch of things from all of the lessons then invited him to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. This is how it happened: we had a lesson with Brad which was cut short because he needed to go somewhere. So we went to pick up our dinner money from the members who needed to cancel on us and when we got there Bobby was there. Bobby is the son of the mom. We talked with him and he used to attend a non-denominational Christian church. We just got to know him and went from there. He lost his father when he was a young boy (he's 14 now) so we taught him about the Plan of Salvation. Then hopefully to his mom. Unfortunately we weren't able to teach them both, only the son, but they're neighbors to the member so it's always possible! The other potential came when Elder Raab and I were helping the 1st councilor move his mother-in-law out of the elderly home and into his home. It was raining pretty hard and we were moving a couch across the parking lot to the truck and this lady was waiting for us to get out of the way so she could get in. She said, "Moving day, huh?" And we said, "Yep that's the one!" And she said it was her turn next week and so we offered our help and she took it! She tells us she will be in the barber shop in the home so we gave her our number and she is going to be calling us today to give us the details. We're super pumped because these potentials just came out of nowhere. It was sweet. Hopefully they'll be able to pan out! Other than those things, not a ton happened this last week. We do have a pretty huge event happening this coming week, though. It's called a Zone Blitz. What happens is ALL the missionaries in the zone, so 10 companionships in our zone, and potentially the APs and Mission Presidency come up and work in a single area for one day. So that's taking place in the Grass Valley area. :D I hate to have to say that we need the help...but it's going to be SO helpful. I am excited to have it because there are so many less active members we need to contact and with this all happening we will be able to contact them all in one day. Woo! I'm super pumped for the work we'll get. Unfortunately I'll most likely only be here for two more weeks afterward because transfers are November 11th. But that's okay, I'm excited for the work here. I love this place. :) Well, that's basically it. We've spent a lot of time planning for the Zone Blitz because it's a HUGE event. We are grouping all of the less actives and former investigators together in the areas, dividing areas, prioritizing who to see and where to go, etc., etc. It's been a lot of work but we have some great ideas and great potential. I'm super excited! So yeah. It has been a good week. I'm looking forward to everything that's going to come our way. It's going to be a LOT of work even still until Thursday for the blitz, but it's needed and going to be just dandy. :) I love you guys! I hope you have a fantastic week. :) Love, Elder Cevering P.S. (Come Friday...) Happy Halloween!!! :D Have a blast for me, we're going to be in at 6pm that night! Hahaha

Email October 20, 2014

Hello Family, This was a rough week. :/ Two of our investigators dropped us. The two with the best potential, basically gone. Fernando, the one who had been able to avoid drinking since we gave him the blessing, fell back into it and wants us to give him some space. And Dan, the one we talked with last week and barely kept investigating, said he's not sure again. So yeah. We basically lost two of the best investigators we have. Jennifer still wants to have the church tour before I leave and is still okay to listening to our message, but she's still really preoccupied with a lot of stuff in her own life and that's really tough. But she has a lot of potential which is good. She just needs to realize it and we need to help her realize it. Brad is still coming along. Slowly, but he's doing it. But one ray of hope investigator-wise was Tyler, an investigator who we haven't ever been able to meet with since I got here, but we finally made contact and set up an appointment for Wednesday so that'll be sweet if it works out! Most of our less actives either cancelled on us or forgot we had a lesson so that wasn't very cool. We were only able to get into two less actives' homes this week. Not cool. So yeah, this week was a pretty big bummer. Even though I hit my year mark, it was kind of a bummer week. The two best parts of the week were when we had dinner at the Dooley's home and in the middle of a conversation Brother Dooley randomly said that Elder Raab and I both had an individual part in his baptism/conversion. That was so nice to hear this week! And the other was at the end of Ward Council yesterday when the 1st councilor in the bishopric came up to me after the meeting and told me that I am the "most happy jolly, willy nilly missionary he has ever met!" I told him thanks and that if I get transferred in November that I'm really going to miss it here in Grass Valley. Then he and the 2nd councilor both told me that they are going to miss me too, if I get transferred. Those made me feel really good as well. It was much appreciated after a hard week. Yeah, we saw Meet the Mormons, but no, we can't take investigators to go see it. We only got to see it at the stake center so that we can refer members and investigators to go see it too. They didn't stream it, they had a disk. I've seen the Facebook posts, it's amazing to hear how well it's being spread and seen! And so that's about it for this week. Not a very good week. :/ But that's okay, there's always next week and you can't win them all! Hope you guys all have a great week!!! Talk to you later! I love you! Love, Elder Cevering

Email October 13, 2014

Hey, hey, hey!!! Hope everyone has had an amazing week! I know I had a pretty great week. One big reason is because I got to see Meet the Mormons!!! WOW is it a good show! Good-golly-goodness. If you haven't already, GO SEE IT! It is pretty amazing. We were able to watch it at the stake center in Auburn as an entire missionary zone. It was pretty awesome. Go see it! As for the rest of the week, not a ton really happened. We and the four other elders in our district have started working on a big fireside for next month that is aimed at getting the members in our wards to get more comfortable with doing missionary work with family and friends and any other situation they want. However, I will most likely not be here for it seeing as transfer calls happen early November and the fireside will be late November. I've been in Grass Valley for almost 4 1/2 months already, just like Yuba City and Redding were both 4 1/2 months haha. I'm most likely heading out because I've been here a while and I'm finishing training Elder Raab this transfer and trainers usually get sent somewhere after their second transfer with their greenie. So yeah, I'm expecting to leave. Sad :( but it'll be good. We recommitted Jennifer to taking a church tour and to taking the lessons! I'm especially excited because she wants to do the church tour before I leave! :D So hopefully we'll be able to get a couple lessons in before I leave too. She has amazing potential! Sounds familiar, right before I leave an area hahaha. But I'm excited for it. She could use it so much. Fernando was out of town allllll weeeeeeeeeeek...so nothing to report there. :/ Hopefully he still hasn't drank since a few weeks ago. He really wants to go to church with us and wants to start working the church's Addiction Recovery Program too, so he also has some great potential and has made great progress already. He could go places! Dan Robinson is an investigator from the former investigators list who we stopped by and he said he wanted to start taking the lessons again. But when we stopped by this week for our appointment he said right out of the gate that he doesn't want to take the lessons anymore because he has the feeling that he's just not going to want to do it again. So instead of trying, he wants to stop before he ever can progress. But! We talked with him about it and actually ended up clearing up a TON of concerns he had about joining the church. Either he misunderstood the missionaries the first few times around or they didn't teach him quite right, but he didn't think the church allowed and therefore was scared God would be angry with us if we read anything but the scriptures or watched movies or listened to not church music. So we cleared that up easy and he said he felt a lot better about things now. That was a really cool experience because just that morning we had been watching The District, basically training video segments that the church uses to help missionaries learn from other missionaries' experiences. It was the one where two missionaries worked through struggles with an investigator they had and we were both like, man I wish we could be like them! And then BAM we were! Super cool. I love it. Well, other than that I guess I only have one piece of business left to take care of: I hit my year mark on Thursday the 16th!!! Only 52 weeks left!!! Goodness it goes by fast. I wish I could serve another one at this age. It feels like I just left a month or two ago. It can't be half over yet! And another crazy thought, either one year from today or tomorrow I will be landing in the Salt Lake Airport!!! Ahhhhh! Insane!!! I don't want to think about it yet though, I still have another 365 days to do the Lord's work! I've seen incredible things happen so far and I can't wait for another year to see miracles work in my life and in the lives of others. The mission is incredible, and it's already half over. :( But I can't wait to get home and see you guys again either. Ah. Mixed emotions. I know where I'm supposed to be, though. And I know I'm doing what the Lord wants me to do. And I love doing it. :) Love you guys! Have a great week! Love, Elder Cevering

Photos from Grass Valley, the Sacramento Temple, and of the smoke in Grass Valley from the Northern California Wildfire near his area

Email October 6, 2014

Hello. :) I hope you guys all had a fantastic week! And especially weekend!!! GOODNESS isn't conference amazing?! I just love hearing from God's chosen prophets and apostles and leaders. They are so inspiring and uplifting and edifying. And I'm using really bad grammar. But that's okay. :) I think my personal favorite was the talk given by Jorge Klemingbot, or however you spell it. He talked about gaining spiritual confidence and boy did he give some great tools to building it! There were so many amazing one-liners that I loved and he talked so fast that I could hardly write a whole thought/quote/sentence down before needing to start the next one. But it was great. I can't wait to go back and re-read a lot of those talks. They're just...amazing. So as for the rest of the week: We picked up a new investigator from the former investigator list! :D He was working with missionaries in the past before but for some reason they dropped him...we're not sure why. He is a little slow, but I don't think he has any mental handicaps. But we started right into everything and he was totally up to us coming back over and doing the discussions with him. He asked us a few questions about the church's history, the history of the Book of Mormon, and the discussions. He has a few other setbacks having to deal with family and depression, but we know that he can work through them and we're excited for him. He accepted a soft baptismal commitment (to be baptized) but we haven't set a specific date with him yet. We have prayed about it and have a day in mind, but we haven't asked him about it yet. But we're excited to keep working with him! We kept working with Fernando. I think I told the story about how we dumped out all his beer, had him pray with us for strength to fight off the temptation to drink, and gave him a blessing a few weeks ago. We finally were able to see him again this week. *Drum roll* He hasn't drunk since we gave him the blessing!!! This man who couldn't put a handful of days of sobriety together has been free of it for over two weeks!!! If there isn't power in priesthood blessings, I don't know what power is! The power of God is real. I know it. He accepted a soft baptismal invitation and has great promise to make it there. During weekly planning we prayerfully set a date for him as well and just have to invite him to work toward it. We are looking forward to working with both of them! :D Some of our other investigators have been progressing, but very slowly so not much to report. We are still working with Jennifer, but slower. She is going through a really rough time and has been working through it so we haven't been able to contact her, but that's okay because we will be able to soon. Brother Fisk called us during conference and was struggling really bad. Really bad. So we immediately went over and saw him. He was drunk again which was super sad because he had been clean for a month. But he apparently got in a fight with his mom and she left and his sister called the cops on him because apparently the fight was pretty bad. So he was struggling really bad. But we were able to talk to him and I think we were able to knock some sense into him, even though he was pretty drunk. It was actually kinda cool to see him take optimism from our words. I don't know if that made sense, but it was cool. And he was doing better the next day we stopped by. We are stopping by daily now to check up haha. Well, that's about it for this week. Everything is going great!!! :) I love you guys and challenge you all to take your favorite conference talk and apply the principles of it in your life. I know that if you do, you will be happier, more peaceful, and find more comfort in life even in the trials. I know it. Love you guys and wish you the best week ever! Love, Elder Cevering :)

Email September 29, 2014

Top o' the Afternoon! Not a ton to report on...sorry. :/ Nothing very exciting, other than the mission is just as crazy as always! I don't think that one will every change. Ups and downs and lefts and rights. And that's just because of the town's layout: hilly and curvy streets galore. Then there's the members, less active members, investigators, happy(ily) nonmembers. But it's all good. :) Just part of the experience! And it's easily one of the best experiences ever. We did have another lesson with Fernando and that went really well. And the next day on exchanges Elder Raab and Elder Vanleeuwen stopped by and talked with him for 20 minutes and he said he would come to church this week! And then we didn't see him for a few days straight because he was never home and we couldn't contact him. So we tried texting him and reminding him about church, calling him, and showing up on his doorstep in the rain. Nothing. We hoped he was just at the church already and he wasn't. So that was heartbreaking. Hopefully he's still going strong on not drinking. We have been working with a Less Active named Rick. The night Elder House and I showed up on his doorstep was a pivotal night for him and he said that because we were there, he is wanting to turn his life around. :D We have been meeting with him for a while and he has said he would come to church for a long time, but this time on Saturday night we stopped by and invited him again and he promised he would come. He even set his clothes out, tied his tie - everything. He was completely ready for church. Well, the block starts and he's not there either. Needless to say, it was one of the harder Sundays of my mission because we basically had two promises that they would come to church, both of who need it REALLY badly, and neither held up to their word. It makes me so sad. :( Elder Raab and Elder Vanleeuwen were on exchanges and were finally able to get David and Nicky to have a gospel conversation! They don't understand why priesthood authority is necessary and so Elder Raab and Vanleeuwen told them why. David and Nicky apparently said it was one of the most informative times they have had with the missionaries. Which is great. :D They also committed David and Nicky to pray about why the authority is necessary and they accepted the invitation so we're going to follow up with it next time we see them. We have also seen a few little perks here and there start popping up in Less Active work. Would you believe me if I told you Elder Raab and I worked on a list of Less Active members and we found out there are over 350 Less Active and Inactive members within the ward?!?! Crazy!!! No wonder our average attendance is around 65 people! So we are working hard to change that. Hard. And it's starting to pay off. No huge successes, but a few people have been okay with us stopping by again in the future. Which I'm excited for! :D And that's about it. Unfortunately this week built up to some good prospects but ended with broken promises. Not cool. But, again, that's mission life! It's okay, it happens. We're just looking forward with faith. Make sure you all do the same! I promise you that you will see blessings of peace and comfort. :) Have a fantastic week! Love you! Elder Cevering

Steve Dooley & Nick Sparks Baptism Photos

Email September 22, 2014

Greetings from smoky Grass Valley! Hope you guys had a great week last week, Disneyland looked and sounded like a blast! Jealous haha. But that's okay, it really wasn't distracting. I didn't even think about it unless I saw something about it on Facebook and even then it wasn't too distracting. It was actually kinda fun to think about what I was doing up here at the same time you guys were down there. For example, a few days ago I saw a post posted, that said 1 hour ago, of a picture of Michael on Splash Mountain and I thought about what I was doing at the same time he would have been on the ride and I would have been in a lesson or out street contacting or something. It was kinda fun haha. So yeah as you can tell from the title, this week has been really great! :D And pretty interesting. We had some really good experiences with some of our investigators, though, and that was the best. Even though we didn't see a few of our investigators, the things that did happen were awesome. Title story happened at an investigators house. So here goes: We went to Fernando's apartment, hoping he wasn't drunk because when he's drunk he doesn't talk to us. Plus he says he doesn't like drinking and so we're trying to help him quit. And come closer to Christ. It's pretty great because they go hand in hand. Anyway, he answered the door and said he just started drinking so we were afraid he was going to send us away. But he didn't! So we keep talking and we ask him if he has prayed for help, he said he does everyday. We asked if he had received a blessing, he said it wouldn't work and turned it down. So we kept talking and we end up asking him if he would be okay with us coming inside with him and dumping the rest of the 6 pack of beer down the sink. He said yes!!! So in we go! We get into the living room, he grabs the Bud Light and hands it to us as we walk into the kitchen. Elder Raab grabs one and hands the other to Fernando and they crack them open and dump them down the drain! When those were gone, Raab grabbed another and handed another to me and we pop the caps off and dump those ones as well. We finished them up and there was no more beer in the house. We kept talking and moved into the living room and asked him if he wanted to pray for help and immediately he said yes. We had him say the prayer and it was very spiritual as he got emotional in asking our Father in Heaven for help to fight off the addiction. The Spirit was SO strong as he closed the prayer. He was in tears and Raab and I were almost crying as well. I felt like I should ask him if he wanted a blessing for help, even though he turned it down earlier. I asked and he said yes! So we gave him a blessing to help him fight off the temptation. Afterward, the Spirit was still so strong and we had a great talk. We are basically making daily contact with him again to keep him accountable and help him quit drinking. It has been a great change, a change we hope he continues to strive for. He says he's so unhappy with his life right now. His mom just passed away a few weeks ago, his children don't like him because he drinks so much, his work is struggling, just so many things working against him right now. He needs the gospel so much and we're helping him realize that learning about it will help him so much. It is fantastic. And even the other day when we went back to visit him, he said he had a temptation to drink but when he really thought about it, there was a voice inside him saying "No" to getting some beer. So yeah, there's that awesome story! I love the gospel! It helps people out no matter what their circumstances! Incredible. So we were over at the Dooley's this week having dinner and as we were asking them if they needed anything for the confirmation this last Sunday (they weren't confirmed the previous Sunday because Sister Dooley didn't feel very well and couldn't make it to church and wanted to see them get confirmed) and they said that they pretty much had it covered. So we asked them who they wanted to do the two confirmations and Brother Dooley asked me to do both of them! Goodness, it was so unexpected! And such an honor. Definitely a huge highlight of the week. I love the Dooleys!!! They are awesome. In some other news, there is a huge fire a little south southeast of Grass Valley - far enough away that we aren't in any danger and don't worry because no one in the mission has been evacuated! - and the smoke from the fire has been blown up this direction and it is THICK. We heard from some members that Grass Valley was in the Red Zone for air quality (which is apparently really bad) on Saturday and that Sunday it was in the Purple Zone (which is even worse than Red). So yeah, it is HEAVY smoke. On Saturday as we headed out to work, we saw that our car had tons of little white specks all over it. I was like, "Raab. Is that ash?" And we looked at it for a little longer. "Yep, I think it is!" We're pretty sure our car had ash specks on it from that fire. Crazy. Well, that's basically all I have this week. Some of our investigators weren't available all week and that slowed us down, but we did achieve something and get higher than some of our lesson goals for the week which was surprising, but awesome! Oh, some missionaries in our district asked Elder Raab and I to teach the Restoration lesson at their baptism while the convert and baptizers were changing. It went so well. The family of the daughter who was baptized is basically completely adopted. The parents adopted two kids out of very hard situations and have two mentally handicapped children as well. I didn't really know this until after our presentation of the lesson, though, which is so cool because I felt prompted to bear testimony of the incredible blessing we have to be sealed to our families for eternity, because I don't think I could be happy if my little sister Mikayla was not my little sister. And because of the priesthood authority that we have to "bind on earth and bind in heaven" as the scripture says, I will always have the honor to be her brother and I am so grateful that she can always be my sister. I love you, Mikayla! :) I love my mission. It is teaching me things I honestly don't think I could have learned without being out here. I am so grateful for the Spirit I have been so blessed to feel so many times this week. I know that this church is true. I have felt it confirmed to me time and time again through the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. I cannot deny it. I love you guys! I hope you have a spectacular week! Love, Elder Jacob Cevering