Email April 27, 2015

Talofahowdy Everyone! Well, this week was a little tough lesson-wise. But hey, that's okay! We were blessed to be able to find a lot of potential investigators who we have basic schedules for and will be able to stop by again to have lessons with! So that's really exciting! However, because we didn't have many sit-down, lessons that were super exciting I guess I don't have much to write home about concerning lessons. I do have one, though, and it was with a recent convert! We were able to have a lesson again with her, which was great because she has been sick for a long time. It was last night, actually, and it was just awesome. We sat down with her and she just shared her testimony with us the whole time. She talked about her testimony of Joseph Smith, of the Book of Mormon, of the Plan of Salvation - it was incredible. That has been one of my favorite things about my mission - seeing a life turn around, seeing a mindset completely changed, seeing sadness and depression turn into joy and confidence. That's what the gospel can do and does all of the time. We finally had a lesson with a family we've been trying to visit for a long time!!! We actually had dinner with them too! Steak. Mmm. Phenomenal. The lesson went really well! They haven't been reading for a long time, but they said they really want to get back into it. She has kept praying, though, so we are just getting frustrated because they aren't coming to church and I feel like that will be the thing they need to do in order to get their answer. Like John 7:17 says, we need to do the Lord's will and THEN we will know if it is true or not. We need to act in faith before we receive an answer. Whoa. That sounds like...faith! Haha. The principle of faith is amazing, incredible things happen because of faith! There was a great lesson we had with a new investigator in the YSA ward we were referred to by the sisters a few weeks ago, and his friend. During the whole conversation, his friend looked like he was in deep thought and when we asked them questions they both answered back with great insights! And at the end of the lesson we invited both of them to church and the friend said no for now, but the biggest reason he hasn't been religious is because no one has ever invited him to come to church. It was awesome! We're going to go back again next week and try to talk to both of them again, hopefully we'll be able to get them to come next week!!! Since I only have six months left, and because I want to be cool like my dad and older brother and do Spartan Races and stuff, I'm starting what's called a Six Month Slim Down in missionary terms! It's where you start working on dropping weight in the last six months before you go home so that you can look like you've been healthy and fit your whole mission even when you really haven't been. :) I'm going to look so good when I get home! I'm pumped. Okay I actually don't know how fit I'll be when I get home, but it's a goal I have! To share something I have been learning a lot about recently so I can end on a spiritual note, in the Book of Mormon there are multiple times when people make oaths and covenants to one another. One of the most notable in my opinion is when Nephi makes an oath with Laban's servant, Zoram, that he and Laman, Lemuel, and Sam won't hurt him and that if he comes with them he will be able to be a free man like they are. Until that point Zoram had been struggling with Nephi, trying to get free of Nephi's strong hold, to go back to Jerusalem and tell everyone Nephi had gotten the plates from Laban somehow and to incite those in Jerusalem to hunt them down and kill Lehi's family. But the second Nephi makes the oath to Zoram that he and his family won't hurt him if he stays with them, he stops fighting and follows them willingly into the wilderness. What? That's crazy! Why would he do that? Nephi could be lying for all Zoram knows and he could be walking into the desert to be killed. In our culture and society, a word is basically as good as a dime - most people don't keep their promises anymore. But if we look at the significance of a man's word back in their time and in their culture, we see that if a man gives another person his word he was almost giving him his life. When a man went back on an oath, they lost basically all social status and respect. Giving someone your word was a lot more than just an empty promises. That's how the Lord intends our oaths and covenants to be: lasting. God always keeps His word and He wants us to be able to keep ours. His oath and covenant and promise to us is that if we keep His commandments, He will bless us and He always keeps His promises. We need to strive to be the same way, and ultimately that's the goal we will have and hopefully the level of integrity we will be able to attain! Integrity is so important! I know that God keeps His promises. Always. He loves us and that never changes, and that's a promise too. I love you guys, I hope you have a great week! Love, Elder Cevering

Email April 20, 2015

Hello Everybody! What a week! I'm going to kick it off with talking about someone we met last Monday. She came walking into the church as we were getting ready to start emailing and asked if there was someone she could talk to for spiritual help and we were like, you can talk to us! So we sat down and had a good talk with her for over an hour. She told us her story of how she became homeless and how she was looking for a place to stay and how she knew that spiritual help was what she needed the most. So we helped out as much as we could (which sadly isn't much) and after we gave her a Book of Mormon and Restoration pamphlet she went off to look for a phone to call our bishop for more help than we can offer. Then we end up running into her again that night, at the church again. She had hunkered won on a couch that was left behind by the DI trailer and when we came to the church we stopped and talked with her a little more. Eventually we again parted ways saying that we'd see her again the following morning. So we stopped by and sure enough she's there. She had been trying to find places to stay but was unsuccessful. We talked with her a little about the Book of Mormon and she said it was helping her a lot, spiritually speaking, and it has been really good for her. She was going to check another place to see if she could stay there that day so we again parted ways and again met up with her that night as we were getting to the church for a meeting with the 1st Counselor in the Stake Presidency. The place she tried was again unsuccessful and so we pulled her into the meeting and after she talked to another bishop in the building, we went with the bishop to drop her off at a hotel just around the corner and that's the last we saw her. She was so grateful. You know how most homeless people don't really have an aim or that if they do, they don't really have plans to get there? She was totally different. It was actually kind of cool. So she has our phone number and a commitment to contact missionaries where she goes so that'll be super cool. She's awesome and I really hope that she makes it! The rest of our week was a little less eventful, but it was still really good. We've been really busy and I love it! We were able to pick up two new investigators, and potentially even their mom, and they really want to learn! We taught them the Restoration and it went really well! They are so ready to learn, when we told them the story of the First Vision they were like, "Whoa, what? That's cool!" And when we taught them about the Book of Mormon they were like, "Well that makes sense. That's cool!" They're awesome! Super nice guys who truly want to learn about the gospel! We helped the a family with their lawn and that was really good. We have a lesson with them this week finally!!! We're actually going over to have dinner with them tomorrow and then have a lesson following. So that should be really great! On Saturday we had a zone blitz over in the 6th ward and HOLY COW MIRACLES HAPPEN. Just to share one: on the LDS Tools app you can plot on an interactive map where members live in the area, so we did that and we went to visit a man just down the street from the church. We pull up, knock on the door, and it turns out that he hasn't lived there for a long while. The person we talked to was a young woman going to high school and she said that she is religious and would want to learn more about what we believe. WHAT! That's awesome. But wait, it gets better! We get her schedule, tell her missionaries will back by soon, and go back to the car. We write down the info, pull up the map again and the pin showing where the man lived was gone. GONE. It wasn't showing where he lived. I mean, we were already there so it wasn't a problem, but if we hadn't gone there first we wouldn't have been able to find his house. And more importantly, we wouldn't have been able to find Martina, the young woman the sisters are going to go back and visit. The pin was there before we stopped by but afterward it didn't show up. But we were able to find a potential investigator, and potentially even a family of investigators! How incredible!!! Oh man, it was so cool. That whole day was chuck-full of miracles for everyone. Incredible. The Lord's work is real and He executes it perfectly. He knows all of His children's needs. And He knows exactly when and how the gospel will best come into their lives. Miracles are real! They happen all around us, every day (every day, every day! Conference quote, tell me who said it and you win)! As for transfer calls: Elder Jones and I are staying together for a third transfer in Roseville!!! This is Elder Jones' last transfer on his mission, so in missionary lingo I'm going to "kill him." Hahaha. Meaning I'm his last companion before he "dies" as a missionary. Stupid missionary lingo. :D I'm super excited! We've had some awesome meetings focused on missionary work recently and it got both of our wards excited to do missionary work. So we're setting up times to have weekly meetings with the Ward Mission Leaders and ward missionaries in both of our wards and it's going to be awesome! We're pumped to work hard these last weeks of Elder Jones' mission!!! It's going to be awesome! I love the work. I'm excited to work hard and hard work can get us excited so it works both ways. Sweet. The gospel is true, there's no way it isn't. I know that my Heavenly Father lives. I know that He loves each of us. I know that our Savior is the Redeemer of the world. I know that heaven is a real place where we can live forever in happiness with our Creator and our Reclaimer if we can just do our best to keep our covenants and to do what He has asked us to do. Shall we not go on in so great a cause? I love you and I pray for you! Have a fabulous week! Love, Elder Cevering

Email April 13, 2015

Good Afternoon! Well holy cow! This was definitely a crazy week. Very good! But crazy! The title story comes from another investigator we have slowly been working with. He is an older Hispanic gentleman who just loves the missionaries. He was a former we picked up a little while back and he started reading the Book of Mormon again! It was great to hear! So we invited him to come to a church tour and he said yes! That was amazing, especially considering we have been at a loss of what we can do to help him progress. So the meeting we had with him this week was super unexpectedly awesome! He's doing great and always showers the missionaries with praise and thanksgiving for going out and sharing the gospel with everyone. He says we always look so sharp as we are out and about sharing the good message. He says, multiple times in every lesson, "You guys are the tip of the spear." He's a super nice and very sincere and genuine man, it's so fun to go over to his house because he just showers us with compliments! But he has started to progress and that's fantastic. We had a great lesson with one of our investigators!!! It went so well! We were able to talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ with her and bring her back to the basics, it was so good. We have high hopes for her moving forward! She has recently felt that baptism isn't necessary, but we think moving forward she'll be able to understand that not only is it necessary, but it helps us more than we could think! The sister missionaries here keep giving us awesome referrals and so that's pretty amazing. I'm super grateful for that. I'm excited to meet one tonight, he moved in from the Sacramento mission boundaries and wants to be baptized. Perfect! I think we can do that! I sure hope we can, at least. It'll be a little tough because he's with new missionaries and new members, but just have to work in faith and it'll all work out! So since I didn't talk much about Easter or General Conference last week because I was so frazzled and trying to get a half-decent email out, I will talk a little about it this week. HOW INCREDIBLE WAS CONFERENCE Goodness, it was great! I am so happy that we have the chance to have access to the talks so quickly after the conference because there were so many incredible talks! I loved so many, I'll just list a few: Elder Wilford Anderson's talk on dancing and hearing the music really resonated (haha, incidental music joke, and just another right there too) with me. Elder Renlund, right after Elder Wilford Anderson, spoke on how "Saints are sinners who keep on trying," and not being Latter-Day Sinners, Latter-Day Quitters, and/or Latter-Day Hypocrites. President Uchtdorf's talk about being genuine and not putting up "Potemkin Villages," and also his talk on grace were both phenomenal! Etc. There were way too many good talks this conference. I wish I had time to cover it all! Suffice it to say that I received a witness this General Conference that President Thomas S. Monson is God's prophet on the earth today. That he is God's mouthpiece for us to learn Heavenly Father's will and advice for us in these crazy days. I know Thomas Monson is God's living prophet. Also on Easter, I know that the Atonement is real. I know that Jesus Christ, God's Beloved and Only Begotten Son, performed that literally immeasurable sacrifice which allows us to become clean from stains we can't clean ourselves. I know He rose from the grave three days after He was crucified and that Because He Lives, we can live again too. Forever. In unending peace and love and joy and happiness. With Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and those of our family who qualify. I know this is real and I know this is true. I know you can know it too. Don't let anything hold you back from this truth. This truth, as Christ himself taught those in New Testament times, "will set you free." Have a great week, y'all! I love you and pray for you! Love, Elder Cevering

Email April 7, 2015

Dear Everyone Reading This, Wow! What an incredible week! I don't know about all of you, but General Conference was just SPECTACULAR! I learned a lot and will be able to put a lot into action that I know will be able to help me be so much better. And on a side note, I only have one more General Conference left in the field! Literally the week following October's General Conference I will be coming home. Crazy!!! So the work here is going great! Our lessons with a member present have dropped and our lessons to recent converts has gone up haha but that's good! Just have to get working on getting those member presents back up again. I didn't realize how big of a help members are in the work until I got on my mission, and since I started I have come to gain a huge appreciation for members who do missionary work all of the time and who are so willing to keep the covenants they made to serve Heavenly Father. This work is the most important thing ever and members who help with it are absolutely amazing. Not a ton is really happening in the work investigator-wise. I mean, we have a good few of them but for some reason or another we haven't been able to meet with most of them lately. Which is frustrating. But hey, it happens. We are going to work hard to make sure it we meet with them soon. We picked up a new investigator from the Young Single Adult Ward and he's pretty cool. I'm not quite sure how much he truly wants to know and act, but it's a great opportunity, even if he doesn't quite yet, to help him get to the point where he would want to. He's a super cool guy though, and hopefully he does truly want to know. Elder Jones and I, while we were planning for him, were picking out a date to set a goal for him to be baptized and we were looking at dates that I felt might be too close for him, but as we prayed about it I had a good feeling come about it so we decided to move forward. I was holding back because I don't know if he'll be ready by the date, but if he's not we're just going to move it back. So not a huge deal I guess? But yeah, it was kind of cool to feel that confirming witness. Hopefully it will happen! We have been so insanely busy with things other than missionary work because we are Zone Leaders that we have hardly had time to do a lot of missionary work and that has been super frustrating! We have a LOT of meetings and missionaries will call us for help with lots of stuff and we get calls from the hospital pretty frequently to go give blessings. I'm fine doing those things, I have loved being able to serve in that way! But I want to do regular missionary work too haha and a lot recently we haven't been able to do as much as we would both want. But it's all good. Just preparing for the rest of my life haha. Well, that's kind of about it. Conference was incredible. I can't wait to go back and read some of those talks! One of my absolute favorites was Wilford W. Andersen, who talked about dancing and feeling the music. And Elder Pearson had a fantastic talk as well! I feel like until this conference and the last one I have really discounted how amazingly members of the 70 speak. Not that I didn't like those talks from the 12, because those were pretty incredible as always, but I have gotten a lot out of talks given by people I never really expected to and I love it! I wish I had my notes on hand, but I don't...and I don't have much time either...sorry. But I'll give you this challenge: Go back and re-read your favorite, or one of your favorite, talks from General Conference and then post a favorite line from it online and bear simple testimony along with it! It will truly touch more lives than you know! Then not only do that online, but go and share that same line with a friend, family member, or complete stranger and bear testimony to them about how it has helped you! You will be able to be an example of the believers and a light set on a hill. Conference was incredible, Easter is the bomb, and the temples are phenomenal. I know this church is true. I know Christ lived, died, and lives again for us! He gave everything that we might be able to receive it. That's pretty cool. I love you all! Have a fantastic week! Love, Elder Cevering

Baptism!!!

Email March 30, 2015

Helloooooo! How's everyone doing?? Hopefully just splendid! I know that I am doing just fantastic. Week before last was a tough one and last week was really rough as well, but it ended perfectly so that's all I could ever ask for! Anyone who has been on a mission knows how crazy things get right before a baptism. It's as if when an investigator wants to be baptized on a specific date, Satan flips a switch and things you never expected or thought could go wrong go totally awry. This time a week ago one of our investigators was ready to give it all up, things none of us expected saw coming happened and it was crazy. But we kept encouraging her, turning her to the scriptures and to prayer and to her Heavenly Father and Savior, Jesus Christ, and thanks to her building her testimony upon her Savior, she was able to make it through the mighty whirlwinds of the adversary. They really were incredibly mighty! But now I have a stronger testimony of how much the scriptures and prayer truly help us in times of great need. Truly we need to build our testimonies on Jesus Christ! He is the only sure way to have help and hope! The baptism went so well! Elder Jones gave the talk on baptism and then her best friend baptized her. Then Elder Jones and I talked about the Restoration and the new Easter message the church is spreading called Because He Lives (which is super awesome! I'll talk a little more about it later) after which I gave the talk on the Holy Ghost. The Spirit was so strong during everything!!! After my talk we made sure that she had some time to bear her own testimony of the gospel and wow was it just so incredible to hear!!! She even wanted to bear her testimony at her baptism when we very first even talked about the program probably two weeks ago! She's so awesome! It was super cool because her mom, younger sister, grandparents, aunt and uncle and cousins came to the baptism and they, especially her mom, were so grateful for Elder Jones and I. It was so amazing to see their gratitude for helping their daughter to be happy. All I could think and tell them is how grateful I was that their daughter/sister/granddaughter/niece/cousin came into my life and truly sought happiness and worked so hard to achieve it. She really is an incredible blessing in my life. Funny story! So supposedly I look like this girl's ex-boyfriend. No one in her family likes him. When we very first started meeting with her it was pretty distracting because it was hard for her to take anything I said seriously for the reason that I look so much like her ex. But she quickly got over it. Then a day or two before the baptism she said to me in a lesson that her family isn't going to like me very much because I look just like her ex. So I was bracing for all of these comments about how much I look like her ex-boyfriend and whatnot and when the night of the baptism came, nothing. No comments at all! Then come to find out the next day that when I was meeting her family at the baptism, her younger sister thought I was her ex and wanted to punch me. How glad I am that she didn't I cannot explain! Hahaha! But yeah, it has been pretty funny actually to try to not look like her ex. I've tried different hairstyles, different speaking habits, etc., but nothing really worked. We even joked about having me wear a bag over my head in lessons, but we never did haha. But do you know what did make the difference? A smile. She said he never smiled and that I smile all of the time. So much it looks like I have Botox, she said. Hahahaha! So it's true when they say that a smile can make all of the difference! She asked if I would confirm her and give her the Holy Ghost and that was a huge honor as well! I haven't been able to be in the water with any of my investigators, but all three times I have been blessed to be the one to finish the incredible ordinance and I am so grateful and humbled. In Sunday School before Sacrament Meeting she asked me if I was ready and I said yes and she said she wasn't sure if I was and asked if I needed cue cards. She is so funny! Haha! I reassured her that I didn't and it went super smooth. Loved it. Well, other than that huge highlight we were super blessed to be given a few solid referrals this week who became new investigators right off the bat. SUPER awesome!! We have been really blessed here in Roseville. And, again, I am so super grateful for the opportunity that I have to be here. So that has been my week. Another huge rollercoaster ride right up to Saturday and then it all came to a perfect end! And she was interviewed RIGHT AFTER SACRAMENT for her temple recommend! And, of course, she was able to get it! She's going to do baptisms, like, next month! It's going to be so amazing. We were texting her last night about it and she was just so thankful and grateful for everything and so excited to keep progressing in the church. She is doing so incredible! I know it's still super early to say that, but it's such an amazing start! The gospel is true, the book is blue, Moroni is on the ball. Hope y'all have a great week! I challenge each of you who read this to post something online that has comforted you in the past and/or still comforts you today! I promise you that you will touch someone's life if you do so! You may not know it, but to that person you will be a miracle. Love y'all! Love, Elder Cevering

Email March 23, 2015

Hellooooooo family! Well. I don't have much time. Basically none. And there is a lot to cover. But to be honest I can't cover it all, nor will I try to. So. Yeah. Goodness gracious this week has been insane!!! To kick it all off: last Monday night I ate something called baloot (spell check! I spelled it the way it sounds and it's saying it's not spelled right. It's an Asian word. Good luck spelling that.). So for those of you who don't know what that is, I ate a duck out of an egg. Imagine this: a hard boiled egg with a baby duck inside. Yep. Nailed it. I ate that. And it actually didn't taste too bad! It was actually pretty good! WAY better than I was expecting. So, that was awesome. Pictures to come! Well I seriously wish I had so much more time, but I don't. Just know that the work here is going really well! One of the investigators we are working with still wants to be baptized and wants to do it before next transfers just in case one of us leaves so that's a great goal that we are excited to help her with! Things are going well. I'm definitely being stretched really far right now and it is super hard. But it is good. :) I wouldn't have it any other way. The best teacher is experience and that's very true for me! I know my Savior has been here to help me, especially these last few days. I know that He is there for everyone. Sometimes we just don't see it. He's there, arms outstretched, waiting. Excited to see us come back to Him, hopeful we will be able to stay there. Most of the time it isn't us begging Christ to let us into heaven, but it is Christ begging us to let Him in into our lives. And when we do, we can watch miracles happen right before our eyes. Love you guys! Have a fantastic week! I'm praying for you! Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are rooting for you! Love, Elder Cevering