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