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 :)