Email February 23, 2015

Heya Family! This was a really good week. We were able to meet with a lot of less active members and a few investigators, which had some good progress. We had one tell us that she and her less active husband committed with each other that they would read from the Book of Mormon and pray to know the truth each night. That was really good to hear! She is really close to baptism, she just needs to do what she committed to do and then she will be able to find the answer. Another investigator called her member friend one of my first nights here and told her that she wants to be baptized before the end of the month. WHAAAAAT. I have always dreamed of that happening to me! So we met with her this week and she still wants to be baptized. She also said she has a lot she needs to work through, but she is working on them. Which is great! She didn't come to church yesterday which means she won't be able to be baptized this month, but she could very well make it in March. That would be so awesome!!! She is a really nice lady who could really use the gospel so I am very excited for her. There's an investigator who had a baptismal date, but dropped it a week or two before her baptism because I guess people didn't think she was ready. She's super nice too, but I think the consensus was that she might have been wanting to join the church for help with money and whatnot. I don't know if that's the case, but I really hope it's not. She is a funny lady, but she has been sick with pneumonia for the last two weeks so we haven't been able to meet with her. She still wants to come to church, but she couldn't because she has been so sick. We are hoping to get her back on date, but it's hard when you can't meet! Haha. I have only met her once since I've been here, and that has been two and a half weeks. She has been that sick for that long. And that once was to give her a blessing for being sick. Hopefully she gets better soon. Last we heard I think she was getting better, so that's good. Other than that, nothing too exciting happened this last week in missionary work. I went on my first exchange with an AP, we actually did a tripanionship exchange where one AP came with us and the other went with some other zone leaders. It was a super good day! We talked with so many people and got a couple potential investigators! So that is one thing that is good here in Roseville, for some reason street contacting is a lot easier. It has been really fun to do here, and we have gotten quite a few potentials through it. To the title story! We were at dinner and somehow the Exodus movie came to be the discussed subject. Supposedly it's a lot like Noah that came out about a year or so ago? Anyway, the members were telling us that Christian Bale is playing Moses. Do you know who else Christian Bale plays? If you guessed Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, you guessed wrong. He played Batman. So we all started to joke about how Moses was going to sound like Batman because he is being played by the former actor for Batman. We were saying things in the Batman voice like, "Pharaoh! Let people go!" And "Aaron! Quick! To the BatChariot!" And "Aaron, give me the BatStaff!" And a lot of others haha. It was absolutely fantastic. Plus, the husband had an absolutely majestic beard. It was magical. So yeah, it was super awesome. There also might have been mention of BatShark Repellant. Needless to say, it was a good night. :) Sorry, I know how not funny inside jokes and had-to-be-there jokes are to hide who aren't inside or weren't there. Sorry. So that was last week's updates! As for this week: We had a referral from a member. She is incredibly solid! She is ready for the gospel! She can use it so much. She has been through so much crap, it's insane. Like, I would describe what she has been and is going through as, like the saying goes, "hell or high water." She has been and is going through so much. I can't tell you guys what she is going through because it is super personal. But she is one of the strongest and most incredible people I have ever met. And the crazy part? She's 24. And she is amazingly strong. And she came to church!!! And she's reading the Book of Mormon!!! Please , please, PLEASE keep her in your prayers!!! Also, a lot of our other investigators made some progress. Not a whole lot, but hey any progress is awesome!! One of our investigators came to church! She still wants to be baptized, but we are going to have to push it back into March. But hey, again, better late than never! I'm excited for her too! Well I'm basically out of time. All I want to say now is how grateful I am that Heavenly Father watches over His children. There have been some stories I heard this week where I just know that Heavenly Father was there for protect and care for those in the different situations. Heavenly Father loves us. He is love itself. I know that. I have felt that. I know many of you have felt that. It's real! Heavenly Father loves us all!!! I love you guys! I pray for you! Have a fantastic week! Elder Cevering

Email February 10, 2015

Heya from a sunny Northern California! Yep, sunny. Not rainy or flash flood-y. Haaha. Sorry to disappoint. ;) it did rain a lot Saturday and Sunday, but I didn't hear any flash flood warnings or of any floods in general. Just unseasonal weather right now - 60s the first week of February. Crazy. I hear that's what's happening over there too. Just insane. Anyway! News for this week! I made it safe and sound to Roseville, California! It's pretty sweet here. It's the biggest city I have ever been in! The drivers here are pretty crazy. My first night here we were about to drive through a green light that had been green for a while and suddenly a car just comes RAGING through doing a right turn through a fire-truck-red light. We watched it happen from probably 100 feet away and there wasn't an accident, but it was just insane. It scared, and continues to scare me, super bad! You never know when something like that is going to happen! I thought drivers up north were bad, this city makes me so much more scared!!! Hahaha I promise I will be super careful, Mom!!! We pray for protection and help to be safe every day. :) I have loved being a zone leader.. I have loved it because I have been so blessed to help and serve the missionaries in the zone like I never have before. And it has been amazing. I have been able to give blessings, rides, and help and serve them with other things, and it has been so, so cool. I love it. I love these missionaries and they make me want to be better every day, and I love that too! They make me want to be better and to work harder. They are so cool. I love missionaries!!! Also, I don't know why, but ever since I got the call to come be a Zone Leader in Roseville, I have just thought about how cool it is to serve in the city the mission is named after. And not only to serve in the city, but to be a zone leader in it. I don't mean that to be prideful or anything, but I love saying that I served in the city the mission was named after. Pretty cool. :) Ever since I have gotten here we have just been busy. Not necessarily just with lessons and visits, but also with meetings and planning sessions and all kinds of other things. It has been awesome. There truly hasn't been any downtime and I have loved it! Wednesday we had a district meeting, after which we planned with the sister training leaders in the zone for a small accountability presentation we would make at the big meeting the next day. So the next day we were at the meeting all day where all of the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders from each zone gather and are taught by the Mission Presidency and the Assistants. It was really good. I am excited to bring it all back to the Roseville Zone. We just have a great group of missionaries here. It's awesome. So Wednesday and Thursday were filled, Friday we spent a lot more time weekly planning than we thought we would and it actually ended up taking most of the day until late afternoon...that was not fun haha. Then we went out and tried to make some visits, most of which fell through. Then Saturday we were able to go out with a young single adult who just got back from a service mission. He's super cool! All three of us were shooting off Spongebob quotes like crazy. It was great! However, the work wasn't very great. :( No one was home. It was really a bummer. The guy we brought with us was like, "Man, I didn't think we'd get 5 strikes in a row." Meaning, he didn't think there were ever times when missionaries knocked on 5 people's doors in a row and there was no answer. Honestly, I thought the same thing before my mission haha. But now we're actually pretty lucky to get 1 in 5. It's actually kind of sad...haha. But that's okay! Want to know why??? Because we had an investigator, her name is Jeannette, contact her member friend and tell her that she wants to be baptized by the end of the month! :D So obviously we are pretty stoked about that. And then on Sunday night when all the missionaries call in their numbers, the number of investigators the zone has on date doubled! When I first got here we had 2 and now there are 4! 3 of which are in the month of February if I remember right! That's so awesome!!! And there were a few new investigators found, which is great because Elder Jones has been saying that new investigators are really hard to find in Roseville. But miracles are happening!!! It's awesome. I've just been feeling, ever since the week before transfer calls, that this transfer is going to be amazing. Nothing in particular has been impressing itself on me, but I just felt like it was going to be an awesome transfer. And it has definitely started out that way. And it looks like it will continue on!!! Ahhh! So cool!!! I love it. Elder Jones and I have said multiple times to each other how good we feel about this transfer and this zone and a few other missionaries have said the same thing. It's really incredible. Elder Jones and I have also said multiple times how hard we want to work and how we want to see the zone grow and become so much better than it has been in the past. It's just so cool how not only we want to see it change, but it seems like just about everyone else does too! Super cool. I love it! Well, shoot. I think that's about it. We have some pretty great investigators. Oh, but it is SO weird to be serving in a YSA ward! No primary, no high priests - it's like half of the ward is missing!!! And not only that, but EVERYONE is around my age. So weird!!! But it's cool too. It's also weird in the fact that in 8 months I'll be going to a ward like that as a member, not a missionary. So weird. But! I don't want to talk about that. So I won't. :) I hope you all have a fantastic week! I am praying for you! Never forget that your Father in Heaven loves you! Love, Elder Cevering :)

Email February 2, 2015

Heya! Greetings from Sunny NorCal! Speaking of which, it has been in the 60s here for the last week or two. The other day we were helping someone move apartments and I was dying! Then at the same place, but a different day, we were outside the apartment talking with the person we were helping move and we were starting to sweat. Just standing there and talking! It wasn't even February yet!!! Crazy. There was basically no winter here. It went from fall to spring. Anyway... Transfer calls are in!!! *drum roll* Part one: I'm being transferred to Roseville 4th & 8th (8 is the YSA)! Part two: I'm going to be serving as a Roseville Zone Leader!!! Wow it was really unexpected! I'm so grateful for this opportunity I'm being given. I'm humbled to know that Heavenly Father trusts me with this calling. I never expected. Plus my companion in Roseville will be Elder Jones who lived in the same apartment with me and was my district leader when I very first got here to Grass Valley. He's a stud! I can't wait to work with him!!! Ah! I'm just so excited!!! I'm so thankful and grateful. I can't wait to get to Roseville and work my butt off like never before!!! So in other news, we had a first lesson with Chuck this week. The Restoration! The cool thing was that he called us and had us come after the dinner he was having with a member. He asked us what the difference is between "Mormons" and "everyone else," haha, a question we get somewhat frequently. We were able to answer his question and have him accept another visit where we will teach him more about what makes us different/what we believe. I'm excited to hear where things go from there. We weren't able to visit Shane this week, he is super busy. Works three jobs and doesn't know which jobs he's working until the day of. So yeah, that was a bummer. :/ But he wants to set up a time to meet with Elder Dixon and Elder Briggs (my replacement) sometime this week. I really hope he'll make the progress that he has the capacity to make! Again, excited to hear what happens there! I was at the temple when Elder Dixon saw Gary and Katie with his companions for the day. They said they couldn't come to church because of the Super Bowl haha. Lame. Speaking of the temple, this is where the title story comes in: my ward mission leader from Redding was taking a temple trip and invited me and the last few missionaries who served there. Getting permission to go (missionaries in our mission are allowed to go to the temple once a quarter if they are close to it) was a pain and is a whole story of its own so I won't go into that, but we did eventually get permission to go (the night before, to be exact haha). The 10 am session is the session the member was going through, so we show up at the temple pretty late. Like, 9:55. We get the recommends checked, get into the changing rooms to get the clothes, and one temple worker asks us, "Are you elders trying to get into the 10 o'clock session?" We say yes. "You've got three minutes. We are going to start on time." So we start getting the clothes and the worker giving us the white ties is taking his time picking his favorites or something, haha, and then another worker tells him we are in a hurry so he just gives us some ties and we get into the stalls and change like mad. I don't know if I have ever changed so fast in my life! We got out and into the session JUST BARELY. It was insane. Anyway, lastly we had dinner and a lesson with a returning member family. It was so good! We talked about faith and how acting in faith builds our faith. He hasn't started coming back to church yet, but she has. He is so close to coming back as well. I just can't wait to hear about what happens! I love that family. I love so many of the families here in Grass Valley. They have become another family here, it's a second home. It has been a wonderful seven months! (Technically 6 months and 26 days, but I'm rounding up) And I have loved it! I know I'm going to come back and visit so many people here. I have learned so much about the gospel here as well. I know my Savior lives. I know that His grace is not only an enabling power, but is THE enabling power that we all need. I know that justice is fair, and mercy is technically unfair, but Heavenly Father wants it to be that way. Yes, He is a just God, but He wants to be merciful. So He will be as merciful as He possibly can. And I love that. Hope you all have a fantastic week! I love you guys and pray for you! Keep on smiling! Elder Cevering