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