Email December 29, 2014

Hello Family! It sounds like you guys had a good Christmas. I know that I did!!! Goodness it was incredible seeing you guys, I love you guys so much! Honestly it was the best Christmas gift I got this year. I mean, I was super happy to get everything I did, but nothing can top seeing and talking with my family that I haven't seen for months! To report on the week, nothing much happened. Again, all of our investigators were out of town. :( And nobody wanted to sit down and watch a simple 3 minute video about Christmas. No one. Even people who identify as Christian didn't even want to watch a video about Jesus Christ! I don't get it. That's something that is really starting to really bother me. Christians don't want to learn more about Christ? And especially at the season when every Christian denomination is focusing on Him? We as missionaries tell people our goal is to strengthen and build their faith in Jesus Christ and ask them if they want to meet with us. The usual response, "Well we're already Christian." PERFECT! So you already HAVE faith in Christ, all we want to do is to help you make it stronger. The usual response, "No, we're okay." ...what?! I don't know about you guys back home, but I have never met someone who has too much faith. So yeah, that's getting really annoying. So like I said, none of our investigators were home this week. Plus Elder Dixon wasn't feeling well for a couple of days. Plus it was Christmas and no one wanted to hear our simple and quick and beautiful message. It was just a really tough week. The only lessons we had this week were with some less actives who are starting to come back to church. But that is super awesome! I am extremely grateful that we have less active members to go visit and who are progressing. I guess I just overlook that I am doing important work there. They really are just as important as investigators. I am excited to start working with the new investigators who said we could come back after the holidays. I am just hoping and praying my heart out that they will hold true to their word and actually meet with us. And that they will be ready and prepared. And that the Spirit will be able to confirm to their heart the truth of the things that we discuss. I really want and need another solid investigator. It is getting hard. I really love it out here and I have never been involved in something better. I have never learned more in my life. I can't believe I'm in the single digits of number of months left and I don't want it to ever end. But it is so hard out here. But you just need to keep on truckin'. Never give up, never surrender. A war was never won by giving up. I think that is one thing the Lord is trying to teach me out here. To trust Him. To love Him. To believe in His promises. To have faith. To endure to the end. But for that I am super grateful. I am grateful for the Lord's plan. I don't know what it is yet, but I know that I am going to be prepared for whatever is in my future. Thanks be to God! Well, I'm looking forward to the coming weeks for the potential investigators we can pick up. Again, I am hoping and praying that they will be ready. I also look forward to New Year's eve and the new year, 2015, in which I will be seeing my family in person again!!! I hope you all have a fantastic and safe new year celebration!!! I love you guys, have an incredible week! Love, Elder Cevering

Email December 23, 2014

Hi Mom! I AM SO EXCITED TO SEE YOU GUYS ON CHRISTMAS DAY!!! AHHHHHHH. It's safe to say that I just can't wait to see all of you amazing people. :) Sorry to skip over so much, but I am super short on time. I did get my Christmas package, thank you so much! Thanks for the words of encouragement, they mean a lot. I'm glad to hear that a 14 month wall isn't uncommon. Unfortunately I have been trying to work through this for a while before my 14 month mark, but I just decided I needed to say something haha. Sorry it has kind of been belated. I'll do better in the future. I'm hanging in there, I'm in this for the long haul! I'm not going to take the easy way out haha. I love you Mom! I can't wait to see you guys in under 3 days!!! Love, Elder Cevering

Email December 15, 2014

Hello family! How are you guys doing? I hope you are all doing great because you deserve it. And because it's the Christmas season so there is no reason to be sad. Unless Rudolph's nose burns out. Then there is something to be sad about. That nose went down in history, you know. It would be a shame if it went out. Anyway! ONE MORE WEEK UNTIL CHRISTMAS! Wow I'm pumped. I cannot wait to see you guys!!! It's going to be so great. So great. Well not much has happened here the last week. Just a lot of trying to find new less actives and investigators to teach. We had little success on our own, but we did receive a pretty promising referral so I'm excited to start working with that family. We had dinner with a potential named Chuck Kilmer and we talked a little about the Atonement and explained to him what it is. After the meal we showed the church's new He is the a Gift video and asked him if he wanted to hear some of the discussions about Jesus Christ that we as missionaries teach and he said yes! After the holidays, but he said yes! Another exciting opportunity. Another situation with good potential is a less active/part member couple, maybe family. We called them because on some of the records we have it said they are open to talking and are friendly so we figured why not. Gave them a call to try to set up a time and they also said after the holidays, but that's alright. Better late than never. We spent a whole day out in the "You Bet" sub-area of the a Grass Valley ward. It's the place where one of the elders in the apartment would call "Bufu, Egypt" of the ward boundaries. Meaning it is way out in the middle of nowhere. It was super beautiful! I'll send the pictures I have next week. It was truly amazing. You Bet apparently used to be an old mining town that was really successful until their mining techniques were said to be harming the nearby reservoir so they had to stop mining. And suddenly no more town. Seriously though, apparently there are no buildings left out there. We only saw one or two and that was it. But it was super cool. I know I love this ward but that just bumped it up a little more. I'm definitely planning on visiting the Grass Valley area when I get off of my mission. I can't really think of anything else other than it was our ward a Christmas party this last Saturday. That was fun, even though we had to leave a half hour early to go down to the stake center in Auburn for another Christmas thing that three other missionaries and I sang at. There's a video of one of the songs we sang on Facebook (speaking of which, it has gotten over 900 views in 2 days!). So that's cool. I had a good time that day. I have been struggling a little bit recently. I feel like I have hit a wall, speaking in terms of my work and abilities and desires. And some of them I even feel like I may have taken a backstep on which, in my opinion, is not okay. So then, knowing I can do better, I get frustrated with myself that I'm not doing the best I can all of the time, even though I know that's extremely hard to do, and it just hinders me even more. I think I know what I need to do to combat this so I'm going to try it, but please keep me in your prayers. I could definitely use them. I'm also getting really sick and tired of having little to no progress with our investigators and less actives, not being able to find new ones who want to work with us, and not having anyone progress towards and to baptism. I know more baptisms don't mean a missionary is more successful, but it wouldn't hurt to get some so I can feel a little more successful so lower morale and discouragement don't settle in and make themselves comfy. I could use your prayers in that regard as well. I'm trying not to be jealous and I'm trying not to count numbers and compare and I'm trying not to get discouraged and I'm trying not to feel like I'm wasting my time and the Lord's time and I'm trying not to feel like I'm unsuccessful, but bottom line is that it's hard to do that for so long and I'm slowly starting to feel those things. But I know I shouldn't be, which sends me back into that stupid cycle. It's just annoying and frustrating. So if I could get your prayers with that I would be so appreciative. Truly, I would be incredibly grateful. I love you guys and I thank you for your unending support. Go, fight, and win this week! Remember the Lord is always by your side even though His help is more easily and readily noticed when we are struggling. Faith precedes the miracle. Faith without works is dead. Faith can work miracles of all sorts and sizes. I know this to be true. And I'm hoping this testimony will just continue to grow stronger as I pass through this current trial. I am confident it will. Love you guys, have a fantastic week! Love, Elder Cevering

Email December 8, 2014

Hello Family! Hope you have all had an enjoyable beginning of December. I know that I have! Things are just going well: Elder Dixon and I get along super well, the ward members are great, the work is getting more focused. It's just going well. When I say the work is getting more focused, I mean that our investigators are starting to understand why we come over. Not that we haven't been trying to help them understand, but that this week things just somehow worked out great and things were understood. Probably because we have been talking with them about things, but we haven't been completely focused on the standard 5 lessons. We have been helping them understand the Book of Mormon, prayer, faith, Joseph Smith and prophets, priesthood authority, etc., but we haven't had a good focus on the regular lessons for a little bit. So it is good to be back instead of having less set lessons. Megan and Heather were sick this week and couldn't meet. Almost came to church, but they had errands that kept them too busy. :( Brad...Brad. We still haven't dropped him because in the process of dropping him we helped him understand that he has been trying to teach us instead of us trying to teach him. Given sometimes we have let him for the sake of hearing some interesting things, but there was some real progress made which was great. He understands that there will be things he doesn't agree with or believe but to pray about them and find it out for himself so that he can know for himself what's true. Hopefully we'll be able to help that work out! Marian Salcedo is still going to be our investigator!!! I talked to President Marston about it and he said that it is best to help them feel comfortable before doing anything like transitioning. So especially since her friend is in the ward we are going to keep teaching her in this ward until she is comfortable enough to go to the ward she lives in. I'm super excited to keep working with her because she has such a great desire to know the truth. We are planning on setting a baptismal date with her for January and hoping that she'll accept it. Upon further review, the ward boundary lines confirm that Shane and Destarta Brown are WITHIN the Grass Valley ward!!! WOOOOT! We had a great lesson with them about the Plan of Salvation. She had some great questions too. We are just going to start from the beginning and go through all of the lessons. I'm excited to work with them. She even said that she wants to be baptized, she just doesn't know what church she wants to be baptized in. The Jehovah's Witnesses have been meeting with her for a while so she is feeling that's where she will most likely go, but she also wants to learn more about the "Mormon Church" and the Rastafarii (Not quite sure what it is...) before she makes a decision. So yeah we are getting pretty focused on the main lessons which is going to be great. Teaching about the other things is very important, but the main lessons are the main lessons for a reason and I have felt that a lot this week. On Thursday, I went with a few other missionaries in our district to an MLC meeting. I know all the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders were there, there were a lot of District Leaders there, and then a lot of other regular elders and sisters like me haha. It was a GREAT meeting! We had Brother Hemingway, the Director of Proselyting, and Brother Davis, the Director of Technology, there and it was just great. Brother Hemingway is an incredible teacher. We were all joking around beforehand that when he visited the mission that he was going to baptize tons of people. Basically he did. Okay maybe not literally, but he is an incredible teacher and missionary. He taught us a new way to teach the Restoration with the pamphlets, it is fantastic. I learned so much about planning and teaching and it was sooooo sweet! They talked about the numbers our mission is getting and how we get raise some of the numbers, so that's one half of the title. The ideas and ways we are going to do it are great. And then one night Elder Dixon and I got home later than the other elders in our apartment did and right as we turned on the lights it turned into a massive nerf dart war!!! It was so funny. Elder Dixon and I were fighting in our proselyting clothes and they were in their pajamas. To give the layout of our apartment, you walk into the main living space which is divided in half by a hallway and down the hallway are the study rooms and bathrooms and so we were basically leaning out doorways shooting down the hallway at each other. It was pretty awesome. I loved it. So there's the other half of the title haha. There were some other funny things that happened, but I don't remember what they were. :( But know that there were some pretty sweet things that your life could be better if you knew, but you don't know them. To close, I have a suggestion: Go read the story of Ammon protecting King Limhi's flocks by cutting off Lamanites' arms, but insert these ideas: Ammon = Christ King's other servants = Prophets, Apostles, Disciples, Missionaries Flocks = Heavenly Father's Children Waters of Sebus = the Living Water/Gospel of Jesus Christ/Eternal Life Bad Lamanites = Sin, Temptation, Evil, etc. And that should be it. Go through and read the story with these inserts and it takes on a whole new meaning. It did for me as I had this epiphany during my personal study recently. I love how the Spirit teaches us and enlightens us in ways we could never think of ourselves. I love the Spirit and I love this gospel. I know it is real and true!!! I love you guys, have an incredible week! Love, Elder Cevering

Email December 1, 2014

Hello Family and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! I know it's after the fact, but I realized I didn't say it last week so I'm saying it is week. So, yeah. Happy Thanksgiving. :) I hope it went well! We had a great Thanksgiving! Sister Dooley is a super good cook! And yes I did get the package, the cookies were fantastic!!! I was so happy to see them! They taste great! Thank you so much. :) Well, this week was good. The lesson we had with Megan and Heather fell through so we went to Gary and Katie Irwin and had a lesson with them. It was a good lesson, they are starting to understand priesthood authority. However, we still aren't sure if they are accountable or not so that makes it difficult. We even had a member there and he wasn't sure either. He feels that Gary could be accountable but that Katie isn't, which is definitely something that we have been feeling more lately as well. After we talked about the priesthood authority and how it was lost then restored through Joseph Smith, they set a baptismal date in May. It's really far out for a couple reasons, they aren't sure about it yet and honestly neither are we. But we're going to work with them and get them to that point unless otherwise directed. Brad was interesting as always. We started into the drop talk with him and he said he wanted to be baptized, but not in our church. So, you can guess that we're definitely dropping him very soon. Like, next week should be our last lesson with him. If it's not...I don't know what I'm going to do haha. Probably scream. Just a little snippet from this lesson: Brad's books tell him that peoples' souls come from heaven or hell, not that they all come from heaven and go to heaven or hell like the common belief. So when those souls that came from heaven or hell die, they go back to where they came from. But later on he was talking about if someone kills another person the murderer goes to hell and the victim goes to heaven. So to play devil's advocate I said, "But what if the victim came from hell and the murderer from heaven? What happens then?" A puzzled look came on his face and he paused in thought for a few seconds. Then he said, "Well I believe God can do anything he wants." Not that I disagree because I do believe God can do anything He wants. But based on Brad's books, that would go against God's own doctrine which would prove God to be a liar which would prove that God isn't really God. I don't get it. So yeah, that's where we are at with Brad. Consider him dropped There was a lesson we had with a less active lady answering her questions about the beginnings of the Bible. I really like the history of the Bible, actually. It's really cool. I don't know a ton about it, but what I do I find very interesting. I'm grateful for the people who worked so hard to give us the Bible we have today. So many people put their lives on the line and most, if not all, lost their lives over it. Incredible sacrifices. Thanksgiving was really awesome! We cleaned the church building in the morning and in the afternoon we made visits and then had dinner with one of the best families in the Grass Valley ward, and debatably the mission, the Dooley's!!! I feel really bad though because we didn't know we needed to be home early and so we had to leave their house before dessert. :( I was really sad, but the time we did have there was awesome. Great food, great company, hilarious conversation. It was just fantastic. I'm so grateful that I have had the opportunity to be with the Dooley's both for dinner and in the ward. They are so awesome. I love them so much!!! So that's kind of it, I guess. I'm trying to think if there is anything else I need to say, but I can't remember anything. I love it out here, it is amazing. Elder Dixon and I are getting along super well and we are doing great work. He is a great missionary and it is a privilege and honor to be training him. I love the gospel, I know it is true, I know that God lives, and I know that He and His Son Jesus Christ love us more than we can imagine. My testimony of Joseph Smith has been grown as well and I love it. I know he saw what he said he saw, Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, in that sacred grove that early spring. I know the church is true. I love you guys! Have an incredible week! Love, Elder Cevering