Enormous LDS church in Roseville, CA and with Elders Raab and Dixon (Previous companions)

Email March 16, 2015

Top o'the morning to ye on this bright St. Patrick's Day Eve! Hope ye all have had a brilliant week! It was a pretty good one for us out here, which is always really nice! We had a lot of lessons, which is great! Our investigator who is really sick is doing so incredibly well! I can't get over the amazing-ness of the gospel and how it blesses peoples' lives when they live it! The blessings of our Heavenly Father are truly made manifest through obedience to the gospel He has given to us. Her baptismal date is still on for March 28th and she is still super excited for that, and so are we!!! We had a lesson with her immediately following YSA Sacrament Meeting, and she was just so excited to be there at church and to have a lesson. It is so cool! I love it! As for our other investigators, we tried to meet with one lady but all we did was talk in the parking lot of her apartment complex. We are going back over on Friday, hopefully future visits/lessons will see her continuing to progress in the gospel. Hopefully to the point she was at just a little while ago where she wanted to be baptized. Being baptized and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost really do make a big difference in peoples' lives. They do need to be prepared for it though, or else it won't make that difference. But for those who are ready, it literally changes their lives. Another lady we weren't able to meet with. :( I really want to start meeting with her or her desire to be baptized will fade. And that wouldn't be cool... We had a lesson with one of the men we are teaching last night and it went pretty well. We talked a lot about temples and what goes on inside. And his member girlfriend, said that she wanted to take him down to see the Sacramento temple and talk about it a little more there. So that'll be cool! We were finally able to meet with the a couple we're teaching again! And it was a really good lesson, even though they had some pretty intense questions. But we were able to answer them all. So that's pretty awesome. We had a member with us, Brother Merritt who is super cool, and he made a great contribution to the lesson! It was super great! They hadn't been reading or praying for the last little while because they have been really busy, but this week they sounded the closest to coming to church since I've been here. I'm just hoping and praying they will! Speaking of church, we had three investigators there again! One of them brings her 7 year old daughter to church and she said the darndest thing in Gospel Principles! As you can guess, I may or may not be alluding to the title story. The teacher shared a video about what prophets do and why God sends them and after the video ended her daughter raised her hand super excitedly. The teacher calls on her and she immediately says, "That video really prostitutes," then trails off for about 10 seconds thinking about her next word. The whole time I was so confused and worried about what she could say next, but then out came "why prophets are important." I'm pretty sure I was going to die trying to hold in my laughter. It was pretty fantastic. Kids say the darndest things! Well, that's about all for this week. I want to end with my testimony of the Atonement. President Marston has started to send us a daily email with talks, hymns, and quotes to study for our personal study. It is a 31 Day study of the Atonement in preparation for Easter. It has been amazing. The Atonement IS infinite. In multiple scopes. It is infinite in time, reaching back and forward into the eternities. It is infinite in reach, it covers each and every human being in each and every way. It truly is infinite! It covers us. It cleans us. It strengthens us. It saves us. I know that. It is real. Use it! It will help. Even if you don't think it will or can, I promise you both will happen. I know this gospel is real. I know my Savior died for me then rose on the third day. I know my Savior lives. I know He loves me. Have a great week everyone! I love you! I pray for you! Love, Elder Cevering

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Email March 13, 2015

Heya! First off, I know I didn't get this off yesterday...sorry...Reason being I started writing it and then had to stop for our pday activity, thinking we were going to have plenty of time to finish up emails afterward and fully intending to get it off in time. Well, I was wrong. So I'm sorry about being a day late again, but at least I have a legitimate reason this time! Anyway, I hope you've all had a great week! It has been a good one out here, although it has been really tough too. I'll explain throughout the email. We had three investigators come to church, but we were only able to have lessons with one of them - Ali. Which I'm okay with because she has a baptismal date set for March 28th and we have been able to continue helping her a lot. She's really excited for her baptism especially because it'll be a restart for her right before her 24th birthday. She wants to start her 24th birthday off doing the right things, doing the things she knows is right, doing the things she knows will bring her lasting happiness. And she knows that the gospel has been doing that for her when literally nothing else has been. We did cancel a couple of the lessons we had with her, due to health problems. She has had a lot of random health problems recently. Honestly, they started when we set the baptismal date. Satan works hardest on those making the right choices and that has been so apparent every time I have had an investigator on date to be baptized. Please keep Ali in your prayers! She needs it so much!!! Some of the other investigators who came to church the last two weeks were Michelle Picard, Jeanette Prout, and David McGuire. Michelle had a baptismal date for the week before I got here but dropped it due to the missionaries and mostly the bishop feeling she wasn't quite ready for baptism. Which is kind of irksome because the bishop doesn't have keys over that. But it makes sense at the same time because he met with her a lot and knows a lot of things about her that would give him the understanding he has. So yeah. My hope is that even though that happened, she doesn't have any hard feelings toward the church or baptism, that she still feels like baptism is what she should so. And right now I personally feel like she is against the idea, even though she still comes to church and whatnot. Which makes it hard. But we will still work with her. Jeanette is now ready for baptism almost any weekend now! We just need to make sure she is living the Word of Wisdom - she likes to drink chai tea (spell check?) so that'll be one we need to check up on. She has made a lot of sacrifices to even get where she is, though, and I feel like she won't let this get in her way either. Keep her in your prayers as well! David McGuire is a YSA investigator who has been looking into the church since a little before I get here. He's a super cool guy who is religious already, but we aren't sure if he's investigating due to his girlfriend being a member of the church or out of a real interest. But his girlfriend, Taylor, said that he wanted to get together with us again soon? So that's great. And also they've been reading the Book of Mormon together and that's fantastic as well! The Ludingtons didn't come to church this week and cancelled their appointment with us...which makes me kind of sad. I just hope I didn't push too hard to come to church last time I met with them. I didn't mean to if I did, but I guess it could have come across that way. It's just that that's the one thing they aren't doing. And I feel like that could potentially keep them from getting an answer because that's the one thing they aren't quite willing to do yet...but I don't know. I feel like a lot of the feelings I've been getting lately and have acted upon on my mission haven't really seen a lot of success and even in some cases proved to be the opposite. So I'm getting really frustrated with myself that either I'm not listening to the spirit or that I'm not understanding it. Please pray for me...it would be much appreciated. Title story! We were having a big zone lunch and randomly someone pulls out a picture of a person riding a moose. Yep. A moose. Not a horse. A moose. So we all started talking about how it would work and were throwing jokes out there left and right. And one of them came as we were thinking how much horsepower and moose would have. So we came to the verdict that 3 horsepower = 1 Moosepower. And since then, we have just continued to build on joking about riding moose and different cars if converted into moose and just all sorts of stuff. It's ha been super funny!!! It has really made me think about how different our humor is as members of the church. How we find humor in clean ways, ways that allow us to keep our minds clean and ourselves uplifted and others as well. I love it. I love being able to feel close to my Heavenly Father at times like that. I love the times when I feel Heavenly Father's love. It is always there, it never leaves and never changes, but I know that I don't always feel it. But it is there. I know it. What would you do to feel that love? Well that's all for this week! Hope y'all have a great week!!! I love you, I pray for you! Love, Elder Cevering :)

Email March 2, 2015

Good Morning Family! I'm just chilling over here in sunny Roseville, California hoping you have all had a wonderful week! Reasons I say sunny: 1. It's sunny. 2. It's supposed to be raining. 3. Yesterday, basically all of Northern California was fasting for rain. So hopefully it's NOT sunny soon. :) I mean, I enjoy the perfect weather (yes, perfect, it has been absolutely beautiful weather here!), but how's not the time we need it. Right now we need rain and snow haha. And the Lord will give that to us because we are fasting and praying for it. Hopefully Utah is going to get some soon as well! I hear you need it over there pretty badly too! This week was a pretty amazing week! We met with most of our investigators and even had dinner with one in a member's home! With one couple, we talked about the 10 Commandments. It was really cool because right now they are reading from the Book of Mosiah, but they have been getting really confused with all of the different groups of people and the time in history - they are just confused. And it makes sense because the Book of Mosiah jumps around a lot and doesn't offer a ton of explanation. So we helped them clear up what was happening from chapters 5-11 and then they asked us if we could go over the next few chapters with them to help them understand what's going to be happening next. PERFECT. Led RIGHT into the 10 Commandments in chapters 12-14 when Abinadi is teaching the wicked King Noah and his priests the same 10 Commandments given to Moses that the priests were pretending to live and teach, but really weren't. So it worked out really well! Heavenly Father's plan is the best. We talked to them about church attendance because that is their big problem right now, they just don't come. They said it's not because they don't want to because they do, it's because they stay up really later (like between 2 and 4 in the morning) and miss church because they are sleeping. They said they have been working on coming to church and so they should be coming soon. But other than that they don't have anything holding them back from coming, that we know of. Actually, now that I think about it we did have a lot of lessons this week, but most of them were with one of our other investigators. So I'll get to those after I tell you all about Zone Conferences this week! Zone Conference was so awesome! The topic was conversion and boy was it amazing!!! Go read the talk given by Elder Bednar a few General Conferences ago entitled, "Converted Unto the Lord." It sums up everything that we talked about in our zone conference. I know that my testimony and conversion were strengthened because of the meeting. It was long, but it was incredible. A few of the biggest things I got out of this conference, and Elder Bednar says this in his talk, is that testimony is NOT a final destination; it is the point of departure. Gaining a testimony is one of the first steps to conversion, but once we have a testimony does not mean we can stop working. Conversion itself is a lifelong process, one that comes and goes as our obedience to the principles of the gospel comes and goes. It must always be worked at in order to always be strong. And one of the last things I'll share is that deeper conversion doesn't make things easy, but it makes things easier to bear. Read about all of the prophets, were their lives easy? HECK NAW! But what got them through it? Their conversion to the gospel. It is incredible! I don't remember if I have told you before, but I received information from Elder Dixon in Grass Valley that a less active sister that I started working with when I got there, is going to the temple this week! She started off not even wanting to come back to church but when she came for the first time she loved it and kept coming back and kept loving it! We invited her to start working toward going to the temple and she said she would never go back. Then on my last Sunday there she told me how grateful she was for sticking with her. And now I got the info that she is going back!!! I am so excited and happy for her!!! I hope I can make it! So to tell you all about how amazing one of our investigators is: we met with a single sister on Tuesday and had a great lesson with her! Basically right at the beginning she told us that she was in the beginning of the Book of Moroni. And we were like, huh? And she was like, yeah. And we were like, what? And she was like, mhmm. And we were like, really? And she was like, stop it, yes. And we were like, speechless. Okay it didn't happen quite like that, but the last part was true and it was so flippin' incredible!!! I have always dreamed of having that investigator who apologizes for only reading 200 pages since we last met and the Lord blessed us with her!!! The Lord is so incredibly good to His children!!! So we had an incredible talk with her about the gospel and where the Book of Mormon came from, what it is, what it means for us, we talked about the restoration, the first vision, prophets, etc., and she had some really, really good questions for us. But we were able to answer them all and committed her to praying about it. At the end of the lesson, she asked if we could meet more than one time a week and we, of course, were like, Yeah! We can do that! Then we met with her on Thursday! :D It was kind of a rough lesson, we started off asking how she has been since Tuesday and ended up getting pretty off topic for the first half hour...she can talk for days. And then we had a prayer and got started with the rest of the lesson. She finished reading the Book of Mormon! It was super cool to hear! She likes it and thought it was good, but isn't quite sure about it yet. We asked her if she prayed about it and she said she hasn't yet because she wants to make sure she would believe it if she got the answer that it was true. Fair enough. We promised her she could come to know it is true and after talking about that for a little bit, we started into the Plan of Salvation. She has heard so much about death recently, because she very well could be terminally ill, and doesn't know what to believe about it. She said that now when she hears someone talk about death she kind of distances herself because she has heard so many different versions and ideas and doesn't know what she wants to think about it because it is so close to her right now. I'll be honest, but sensitive, when I say that we are literally working with her with a timer in the background. None of us know if she will survive...so we figured sharing the Plan of Salvation would help her. She seemed to get some strength and help from it, but still has the ultimate question of "Why do bad things happen to good people?" So we testified and talked about this life being a test and how bad things that happen to us aren't because we did something wrong in this life or in the premortal life, but that they are meant to help us grow and become so much better than we could have ever been without them. She isn't sure about that yet because she, quite honestly, has never really had much go right for her in her life. But she is one of the most incredible people I know. Seriously. And as we talked about that question, we were able to testify of the reality of the atonement and of God's love for us. It ended pretty well, even despite being a little tough throughout. But after the closing prayer, we all wanted to meet again before Sunday to talk more about the Plan of Happiness, we set up a time for Saturday night! Saturday night came and we had a really good plan to go in and still talk about the atonement and why bad things happen to good people. It was an amazing lesson! The Spirit was so strong! We shared the Mormon Message, "Mountains to Climb" with her. It's taken from one of President Eyring's recent General Conference addresses and it is absolutely incredible. If you are ever going through a hard time or ever want something incredibly inspiring to watch, WATCH IT. In fact, just go watch it right now! Go to LDS.org, type in the search box "Mountains to Climb," and look under the videos section. It's the one with a family in a cemetery as its thumbnail picture. Spectacular. Anyway, it was such a good lesson. We were able to help her understand why bad things happen in our lives and it was so perfect. We asked her if she has been praying about things and she said that she has. And, that morning was the first morning in 5 YEARS that she got out of bed without taking her medication. And not only that, but it was also the first morning in 5 YEARS that she was happy when she woke up. I don't know about you all, but that is an absolute miracle. That is what the gospel can do. It can take the absolute worst situations and make them not easier to do, but easier to bear. It can take negativity and make it positivity. It can push darkness away and fill with light. It replaces doubt with hope, distress with peace, and sorrow with joy. She has changed so much since we first met with her. I can't quite put it into words, but it is completely noticeable. I would best describe it as the Light of Christ is flowing into her life as she has been coming to church and reading the scriptures and praying to our Heavenly Father. She just looks and is so much happier and brighter and it is just amazing. The gospel changes lives. I know it. In closing, she came to church, two other investigators came to church, and one brought her 7 year old daughter and it was so amazing to see them all there! One of them even invited a friend to come along! But she wasn't able to make it. :( But that's okay! I love you all and I hope you all have a fantastic week! I'm praying for you! Elder Cevering