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 :)