Email September 21, 2015

Howdy Hey! I hope everyone has had a wonderful week, we definitely had one out here! Plus, IT RAINED! Yep! It was awesome. I love rain. It was freezing that day, though. High 60s, low 70s. It was rough. But no worries, it got back up to the high 90s again so it was nice and warm for the weekend! So to start it all off, we had two lessons with an investigator this week! We didn't intend to, but it was good. The first one we talked about his experience at church (because he finally came, woot!), even though he didn't stay for all three hours. But hey, he came to the most important one so I'm not complaining! He said it was good even though he sat out in the foyer. But this week he came and sat in the chapel! It was awesome! Anyway, we talked more about baptism and ended up talking again about the requirements. Basically just laid it out again that we want him to have a testimony of everything before he is baptized, he needs to be actively coming to church, he needs to be ready to and be living the way he needs to for the rest of his life. So we agreed we would start the lessons over and work with him towards baptism. It's going to be awesome! The second lesson we covered the Restoration and it went really well. He says he already has a testimony of everything, but we want him to be reading from the Book of Mormon and praying and attending church. We want him converted, not just baptized. We went to visit a less active family, and we caught only the wife home the first time. But it was a great conversation! She wants to come to church, but she can't because her husband works on Sundays so our guess is that she has no car to drive to church. Not a problem, we have an older couple who would love to give her a ride so we are hoping to get that set up is week! Funny story, in the middle of our conversation I looked down at her granddaughter who was playing with one of her toys in the yard and all of a sudden the wife says, "I know you. I know you!" And she's pointing right at me and has this very serious face. I was like..."Uhhh..." And she was like, "When you turned your head I saw the gray spot in your hair and something just clicked. Whether it's from here or from the life before this, I know you." So yeah, that was interesting! It was definitely unexpected. She had me super scared for seven and a half seconds, and then I was fine, just a little weirded out. No big deal! We went back a couple days later and met her husband, he's really nice as well. We hope to start getting them back to church soon! It'll be a little for him because he works on Sundays, but it can still happen! Another lesson I went to on splits with a member was pretty great! We were teaching a 10 year old girl who was adopted, and her 9 year old adopted sister, who is a less active member due to their grandma, who adopted all of them, who always says things are so crazy on Sunday mornings that they can't ever make it no matter how hard they try. We were teaching the Plan of Salvation and so we knew we had to keep it simple. We took a whiteboard, divided it into thirds, and in the first two had them draw heaven and then earth. As they drew we talked about what happened in heaven and why we are on earth, and they asked some good questions! And the whole time, there was another one of their sisters, who never has sat in on the lessons before was in the room and listening and asking questions every once in a while. It was super awesome! A couple more quick people. One creepy story. We stopped by an old beaten up house with overgrown plants, shredded window blinds, and just all-around dinginess. It was also around 7 o'clock and overcast. So it was also dark. Well, we knocked. Nothing. Knocked again. Nothing. And then, the curtains on the inside of the door. Just barely. As if a hand grazed the edge of the curtain as it went to open the door. Then the door handle clicked around a little bit. But nothing happened. I'm telling you, it was another one of those absolutely creepy moments of my life where who knows what is about to open the door and eat me. Oh geez. It was just creepy. Well, no one ended up answering the door, but we did end up getting in contact with him later and he's a less active. When we went over the next time it was raining (woohoo!), and when we pulled up he was wearing, I kid you not, a homemade, cardboard Boba Fett costume. It was awesome. Turns out he makes tons of these super sweet, cardboard and plastic models of Star Wars, Star Trek, and tons of other movie ships and characters and stuff. It was pretty sweet. He has won contests and stuff. He does a good job with all these things. Spiritually, he's saddened because his mom passed away in May of this year but he wants to come back to church. So it was a good talk and we will be going back again this week. Lastly, I almost got attacked by my first dog! I'm not sure whether to be excited or worried. Just kidding, I'm obviously much more worried. I didn't get attacked, but as we were walking up to a door to contact a former investigator, this dog came up and was barking at us. Usually that's not that big of a deal because the dog will calm down when you let it sniff you. I tried to, but it went for a nibble. Not cool, so I said to Elder Bernhisel that he's not a nice dog. Each step closer to the door, the dog got more vicious and loud and finally halfway to the door it jumped at Elder Bernhisel and bit his slacks. Immediately we both turned around and got in the car. We weren't about to have anything worse happen. So at was exciting! Well, that's how things are going! I have been really blessed over my mission to see many blessings and miracles. I know God is a personal God. I know He watches over us and blesses us in many ways, even if they aren't good at first. God is always there. I promise! I'm super excited to see everyone again, but I've still got a good three weeks left of wearing he tag and I'm so glad I still have that much time left! It is such a blessing to serve my Lord! I love you guys! Have a great week! —Elder Cevering— - Exodus 14:14 -