December 5, 2011
Hello Family!
Well, with the weeks rapidly winding down, it gets harder to focus, but I am determined to finish strong. Elder Nelson and I have been setting up appointments like crazy for this coming week, so far we have 19 set up, and seven of those are with investigators! If everything goes as planned, we should pick up nine or ten new investigators this week, that would be awesome. I can just see Heavenly Father allowing all these appointments to cancel though hahaha just so He can test me. It's the hardest to stay focused when we have nothing to do, especially during weekly planning and stuff, it's awful.
But! I am doing well. This week was pretty long. We had LTMs in Lethbridge this week on Tuesday and Wednesday. While we were at LTMs the fire alarm in the church went off and we couldn't continue the meeting with it squealing, so we all just sat around and sang Christmas hymns until someone came to turn it off hahaha. That was cool. President sat in as Elder Riddle and I role-played something called How to Begin Teaching. It went so well! President said it was a perfect example and couldn't get over how good it was. Neither could we! He's serving out in Creston right now so we just pulled something out of our hats and it was so good. That was cool.
Sister Baril asked Elder Nelson and I to sing at the 7th Ward's Christmas party this week so we sang "Tractin' in a Winter Wonderland" by VoiceMale. It was a hit! The Barils video-taped us do it at their home later, they should be sending you the video. It's...I don't know, it's kind of embarrassing, but whatever, the ward loved it, we have been hearing about it all week.
This weekend Raymond had their 14th Annual Old-Fashioned Christmas party, they shut down all of main street and held special sales at the two stores that line the street, Santa Claus came, they lit up the town Christmas tree, there was all kinds of stuff going on. It wasn't too hot for missionary work. But we did manage to set up some appointments, two with some potential investigators, Dillon tomorrow and Lauren on Friday.
We also got a hold of Alex and found out that he lost his job! The apartment he was living in was also part of the job, so since he lost his job he lost his place to stay. Sister Judy-Lee Jensen took him in, though, and hopefully he will stay around a bit longer. He's got to find a new job and there's not really much work here in Raymond so who knows what he'll do. When we met with him on Saturday we read through 3 Nephi 11 and he realized we were going to invite him to be baptized. He's not sure about baptism, but he now understands how important it is, especially since we read the scripture, "whoso believeth not in me, and is not baptized, shall be damned." He was pretty upset at first, he thought we were telling him that he was going to hell if he didn't get baptized, which, of course, is not the case at all. What does it mean to be damned? It means to be halted in one's progression. When he understood that, he opened right up and FINALLY realized how important it was to read the Book of Mormon. We invited him to take all of the discussions before making up his mind on this, which he agreed to, and then he went to church in the YSA ward yesterday, hopefully it went well.
When we met with Chris and Rachel this week we taught them about keeping the Sabbath day holy. Elder Nelson and I have really felt that that would help their lives tremendously. They said they would do their best, they came out to church yesterday, then we swung by their house later and both Elder Nelson and I felt a difference. The house was so much more peaceful, wow, I hope they recognized that. Rachel is still as stubborn and self-conscious as ever but she's coming along.
Also, Trey got the priesthood yesterday! He asked us if we would stand in the circle to ordain him, that was sweet. And, while we were there, his grandma, Ursula (or Sister Favel), introduced us to her sister, Petra, who isn't a member of the church but came to see Trey get ordained and now wants to learn more! We're meeting with her on Thursday. It was weird to stand in church yesterday and bear my testimony for the last time as a full-time missionary. I thought that day would never come. I'm giving a farewell talk on Sunday in 8th ward hahaha isn't that funny? They asked me to speak about Preach My Gospel. What a lame topic! Oh well. By the way, I don't have any stories for your talk, Mom, sorry.
On Monday we visited a family, I'm not sure if the man and woman are married or if they are living together, but this family just had two deaths and they said we could come by and teach them about the plan of salvation, so we'll be going there tonight, hopefully it goes well. The kids were really excited to have us come over, they've been thinking about taking seminary and they love going to church when they can (their mom makes them go to the Mennonite church), in fact, when we asked if we could come by they were nodding their heads and whispering 'Yes!' to their parents. Hahaha and it worked.
Oh yeah, and this week Brother Kesler took a leap of faith and started the stop smoking program! I'm pretty nervous about what's going to happen if he doesn't make it, I hope he doesn't recoil and not let us come over anymore because he feels like a failure. That would be bad. He can do it though! They are having us over for a farewell dinner on Sunday, that will be sweet. I hope we will keep in touch, then I can come up and go through the temple with them!
That's pretty much all for this week. I guess you'll hear from me again next week. LAST E-MAIL!!!! WHAT?!?!? I feel like I'm going to be a missionary forever. It's just weird that it's MY turn to come home
Love,
Elder Cevering
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
November Pictures 2011
Baptism of Jessie November 19, 2011
Canada's Remembrance Day
Baptism of Justin & Kaitlyn
Canada's Remembrance Day
Baptism of Justin & Kaitlyn
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
November Emails
**ONLY 16 MORE DAYS UNTIL HE COMES HOME!!!**
November 28, 2011
Hello Family!
Another week down, we are halfway through the transfer. I keep thinking about how crazy it is that I only have like two weeks left as a missionary. It's so surreal. I don't even know what to say. I actually thought I might get evacuated out of my last area. This week we have had crazy winds, up to speeds of 130 kmph. Then yesterday there were three different grass fires across southern Alberta, one just south of Raymond, one on the west side of Lethbridge, and I'm not sure where the other one was. If the wind had been blowing north instead of east it would've blown the fire straight into Raymond. There were some families and Hutterite colonies evacuated south of town but no one in the main town was evacuated.
On to missionary work. This week we taught Chris Sherman's friend, Billy, who just moved in with them. They, meaning Chris and Rachel, flew him out here from Nova Scotia so he could have a fresh start at life. It seems like I told you this last week, but I can't remember. They are good people. The lesson with Billy went well, we taught him the plan of salvation. He thought it was really interesting, but he's more of a 'science' person than anything. He said he would think about baptism. We'll continue to meet with him as we meet with Chris and Rachel. Chris is an awesome fellowshipper, by the way, wow, he kept telling Billy how the gospel would help him and how it's blessed his own life, it was sweet.
That same night we met with the Keslers again. I love meeting with them. Things are coming along! He will be finishing the Book of Mormon in the next week or two, so that is sweet. I am so glad we were able to start meeting with them, I can't wait til they can go through the temple.
For American Thanksgiving this week we had two dinner appointments. By the way, looking at the pictures of myself from the past two years, I have chunked up. After Thanksgiving, I can understand why. Jesse's dinner was good, he did make some cornbread that was pretty darn good. Cornbread...yum. Thursday was kind of a gong show day, we had to do our weekly planning, then we had to go into Lethbridge to fix our car, and then we came back and finished weekly planning, we didn't get to proselyting til about 4:00 that afternoon and dinner was at five. We kind of felt like piles. But we worked hard during that hour and found a potential investigator, Barb. When we started talking to her she said she knew a little bit about the church and wasn't really interested. Then we asked her, "Do you believe that God has a plan for you?" and she really opened up. She had no idea that she was welcome at the church services. We left her a pamphlet, which she said she would read, with our number on it, and then said she would talk to her member-neighbor and try to come to church. That would be sweet!
On Friday we met with a new investigator, Evelyn, she's an older lady. She has met with the missionaries on and off for the past couple of years but she has never made progress until now. She has been coming out to church every day since about July, and she even stays for all three hours now! When we asked her about baptism she said she wouldn't be baptized and we couldn't figure out the concern, she brought up a couple different things. But she stands up for the church, she goes to church, she reads the Book of Mormon, we'll just have to keep working with her. In fact, last night we stopped by to drop something off to her and she said, "I learned something from my reading, why you are called Saints! In Mosiah 3:19 it says, "...becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord..." so that's why you are called saints!" She was really excited about that little revelation she received.
We talked to quite a few other nonmembers this week who have some potential. One man quit taking the discussions a couple years ago but when we talked to him he realized that the missionaries said they were going to take him to the family history center and then never did. So we offered to take him! Another man we talked to was so depressed...wow, I don't think I've ever talked to someone that depressed. He would say things like, "I want to believe in God, I just can't right now, I'm not ready. You can't help me. I don't know if God can help me. But I have your card here, there's a little bit of hope left in me, I just can't make myself be ready to believe in God. I'm further away from believing in God now than I ever was." We spent probably ten or fifteen minutes talking to him and bearing testimony and everything and he wouldn't budge. Finally he just said, "I know you want to help me but you can't, only I can. I'm trying to quit smoking right now and this time I'm determined to do it." Of course, we picked up on that, and offered to help him quit smoking. He said we could try! So we're gonna go back this week and show him the program. It's interesting with these two men as we tried everything we could to help them feel the Spirit and accept the invitation to meet with us, when we didn't know what to say they said something that then helped us know what to say.
I forgot to mention that Jesse got the priesthood this weekend! On Saturday we went over and taught him about the priesthood and then Sunday he was ordained, so that was cool. I didn't think it would happen that fast, but hey, it's cool. I think Bishop wants him to bless the sacrament next week hahaha that could be funny. I've never heard the sacrament prayer said by someone with a southern accent.
We also met with Alex on Saturday night. We walked down to the burger joint in town, got shakes, and then went back to his apartment and read from the Book of Mormon. He's really opening up to us. His apartment is just two rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom. So we read part of 3 Nephi 11 with him and he was like, 'Wow, this is awesome.' Then we read part of Alma 32 with him and he got it! We invited him, when we had finished reading, to say the closing prayer and ask God if the Book of Mormon is true. When he had ended the prayer he said, 'Wow, I feel light. Do you know what I mean? I just feel lightened, I feel like my burden has been lifted!' Elder Nelson told him that he was feeling the Holy Ghost and there's no way he could've made that feeling up and Alex said, 'No way, it was too instant to just be fake or made up or anything. Wow.' That was sweet. I would love to see him get baptized before I come home.
Yesterday afternoon we met with Charlene Simpson again. She is thinking about baptism as well! She loved stake conference last week but then didn't come out to church yesterday because the wind was so strong she was afraid of the electric cables coming down and shocking her to death. I like her a lot.
So, that's pretty much it for this week. Just think about it: two more e-mails!
Love,
Elder Cevering
November 21, 2011
**ONLY 22 MORE DAYS UNTIL COLBY COMES HOME!!!**
Hello Family!
Wow, I never thought going home would be THIS hard. All week long I have struggled to stay focused, not thinking about home, but just thinking about my mission, all the opportunities to share the gospel that I missed, did I help everyone I was supposed to help, just questions like that. This past week we had zone conference and it was all focused on finding people through our own efforts, so like GQ-ing and tracting and stuff. I had the opportunity to play the musical number, my arrangement of Hark, All Ye Nations/O Canada Medley. I'm going to ask President if I can play it at the farewell fireside we have in Calgary the night before I come home.
On to missionary stuff. Jesse got baptized this weekend! Elder Nelson and Brother Graham got in the font with him to help him out of the water, but then Jesse slipped so he made a big old splash and they were having a hard time getting him out. He came out of the water spitting and choking and everything.
On Tuesday I went on exchanges with the elders in Magrath. While there we visited a young man, Jimmy Stringham, who served with Nate in Australia! It was sweet to talk to him and hear about some of the experiences they had together. We had dinner that night with a family that I met out in Creston while they were visiting, isn't that funny? Such is the towns in southern Alberta. We met with the Keslers that same night. I love visiting them, they are sweet.
Friday Elder Nelson had to go to a training in Lethbridge so I went on splits with the Cardston West elders for like two hours, then when Elder Nelson got back we did our weekly planning, then right after that we met up with the zone leaders in Cardston to go on exchanges so that we could do five baptismal interviews, and I stayed in Cardston with Elder Conder for the rest of the night. I have come to love him. He doesn’t judge you for your weaknesses, he wants to know how to help you, I really appreciated that.
Saturday Jesse got baptized! Later that night we had dinner with the Nilsson family, they made this crazy dessert that had chocolate chip cookie dough on the bottom, oreos on top of that, and then brownies cooked on top of that. Put some hot fudge and vanilla ice cream with it and you have got a delicious heart attack on a plate. I called them Three Degrees of Glory bars. Yum.
Yesterday was stake conference. Elder Nelson and I were invited to sit on the stand with the speakers. Well, the Seventy that was in attendance, Elder George Rhodes, Jr., during the intermediate hymn walked up to us and asked us to bear a two-and-a-half minute testimony of the Savior. After the meeting he thanked Elder Nelson and I saying he was very pleased with what we said. President Archibald was in attendance, and when he e-mailed me today he said, "Just so you know as I was at stake conference and heard your testimony and then had occasion to talk with several members who expressed their appreciation for you and about your work, the Lord gave me to know that He was pleased with your mission and your sacrifice. It was a wonderful little blessing I think meant for you to hear." So that was cool.
We also had two investigators at stake conference! Maureen didn't come, neither did Krissy, but Charlene and a new investigator, Alex, were there, so that's awesome! After stake conference we had lunch with the Jensen family, Sister Jensen is awesome. She has been trying and trying to find someone for us to teach, and she finally succeeded! This young man, Alex, walked into the library here in Raymond and said he just moved here a couple days ago, he has no family, no friends, just a job. Well, she invited him to come over on Sunday for lunch and to meet the missionaries as well, to learn about the dominant religion of Raymond. He accepted the invitation and then invited himself to church! Over lunch we were talking to him about his religious background and he has a very small knowledge of Christianity. He has read parts of the Bible, knows about Christ and God and all that, he just doesn't have any direction in life, he said he has no idea what the purpose of life is. So we go into the family room and I start us off with the second lesson, the plan of salvation. This totally threw Elder Nelson off guard and the remainder of the lesson was almost a disaster. He asked all the right questions but he was taking us all over the board and we had no idea where we were going. I don't think I've ever prayed so hard in a lesson on my entire mission. He loved what we were teaching him, he took it all in and said, 'If this is true, this changes everything. It will make me happier, it will help me to not be afraid of death, and I won't have to be so hard on myself when I make a mistake.' He is solid. He was excited to read about the Book of Mormon, he's never really heard about the church, never seen missionaries, all he knows is that he has a friend back home in Ottawa who is a member of the church. He said he doesn't drink alcohol, he doesn't do drugs, he doesn't drink coffee or tea, he's totally prepared for the gospel. What a miracle! We have another appointment with him scheduled for Sunday.
Chris and Rachel also have a friend they flew over from Nova Scotia. Chris is working with him, hopefully to get him interested in the gospel. We met him last night, he doesn't really believe in God or anything but he is open to learning, so with a little prayer and fasting his heart can be softened and the Spirit will bring him into the fold. So, the work up here in Raymond is good.
Thanks for all your prayers! I love you!
Elder Cevering
**ONLY 27 MORE DAYS UNTIL COLBY GETS HOME!!!**
November 14, 2011
Hello Family!
No I don't have any pictures for you :) I will have some next week though if Jesse's baptism goes through this weekend. I also just finished getting registered for school. I am stoked! I will have a total of 14 credit hours, I'm taking Spanish, Geography, Racquetball, Strength Training, and both choir classes. I basically start every day at 9:30 and finish by 1:30. That will be so sweet, I can't wait. Since I've "finished" my associate's degree and half of my music classes aren't available until next semester, I thought I would just take a fun class (racquetball) to make sure I exercise during the week and also strength training to turn all this fat into muscle :) I wrote Nate a letter a couple weeks ago saying he and I should take some courses together, like some gym classes or something, I don't know if he ever got it, but that would be sweet if we could make that work.
On to more missionary-like things. So, yes, Jesse is scheduled to be baptized this Saturday. Our only concern with it is finding baptismal clothes big enough for him. :) We met with him this week and watched the Joseph Smith movie from the memorial building and he really enjoyed it. He said he would be willing to give up coffee and his occasional beer and everything to be baptized so here we go! Unbeknownst to us, Jesse wanted to learn more about Joseph Smith's life. He then came out to church this weekend even though his wife couldn't, which was sweet, we weren't sure if he would come without her. He's so funny, he calls me and Elder Nelson by our first names, and when we showed him the baptismal font this weekend, along with our ward mission leader, Brother Graham, he got even more excited about the baptism. As he said the closing prayer he said, "Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Scott, Coby, and Father Grant to help me come closer to you..." Hahaha it was so funny, I guess you'd just have to hear him say it with his Alabama accent and everything, but Elder Nelson and I laughed about it for a good long time.
There's a less-active young man we've been working with, I don't know if I've told you about him. He is 16-years-old and doesn't hold the priesthood, so, he expressed to the bishop that he wants to come back to church and receive the priesthood and everything. Bishop wanted us to teach him the discussions before he gets ordained so that he has a testimony of everything. Well, we just finished the discussions last week and tonight we're going over to teach him a lesson specifically on the Priesthood. Hopefully he can be ordained soon.
Tuesday night we met with a less-active member. She randomly showed up at church a couple weeks ago and said she was thinking about coming back. We were able to talk to her about the Atonement and it was a really powerful lesson. She said she's still not sure if she wants to have the church in her life so our job is to help her see how it can bless her. Her kids don't like us very much, though. We were hoping that with her coming back we could also teach her kids but they've gotten into some anti stuff so they think we're not Christians and that we're going to brainwash them and everything, but we'll see, maybe they'll come around.
Chris and Rachel Sherman came out to church again this weekend, and this time they stayed for all three hours! Rachel is really coming around! This week she asked us if we could start coming over to read scriptures with them! I've really come to love them and I want to keep in contact with them after for sure. They had us over for dinner this week and it made Elder Nelson sick hahaha.
Most of our lessons this week were with investigators and less-active members. Unfortunately, Maureen dropped us this week, she wants to wait for her husband to baptize her so she doesn't want to meet with us anymore. So we'll see what happens. We taught a nine-year-old girl this week who is totally solid, wants to be baptized and everything, but her dad won't let her. That's so frustrating! We were also supposed to meet with a lady, but she cancelled twice on us due to circumstances beyond her control. There was also a less-active man that dodged us twice. And Danny and his dad said they were going to be at church and then weren't. And Maureen didn't come to church like she said she would. The Geddes family didn't pray about the word of wisdom, but they did make us cookies...and such is missionary work.
Then Elder Nelson and I had to speak at a youth fireside last night. I also had to sing, Sister Baril and I threw it together at like three o'clock yesterday afternoon hahaha it went well though.
We're almost back at square one here in Raymond, all our progessing investigators will be getting baptized and we'll have to find new people to teach. Tell Nick thanks for the e-mail last week, I'm stoked to see him. Well, I love you, we gotta get going, but, we'll keep in touch, don't worry. Only three more e-mails! Crazy, hey? I'll try not to think about it too much...
Love,
Elder Cevering
November 7, 2011,
Hello Family!
Well, unfortunately Jesse's baptism didn't go through this weekend, but it is rescheduled for November 19th, hopefully he will be ready by then. He isn't sure about the word of wisdom. We are going to have to work through that one. He's doing really well, though, he invited us to have American Thanksgiving at his house in a couple weeks. American Thanksgiving in Canada with an African American man from Alabama. Sweet.
We started teaching a new investigator this week. She has met with the missionaries on and off for the last four years or so and now feels like she is ready to be baptized if that is what God wants her to do. I guess her family back in Ontario disowned her brother when he joined the Church so she has been afraid of being disowned as well. When we taught her this week a lot of things clicked that she never understood before, like why her church doesn't have prophets and apostles, why they don't practice baptism of any kind, different things like that. It was really neat, she was asking these questions that were just PERFECT and I got so excited and felt the Spirit super strong, and when I asked her what made the difference this time she said, "I looked into your eyes and felt it was true. That's never happened before, but I get it now." She believes that Joseph Smith saw the First Vision, she's just not sure if he was a prophet, probably because she's never read the Book of Mormon, and she has a severe reading disability so we have to work around that. She's pretty solid though, hopefully things continue to go well.
Maureen is solid as well, we met with her and taught her the law of tithing, fast offerings, and follow the prophet. The clip we showed of Pres. Monson really brought the Spirit and Maureen has such a strong desire to be baptized.
This week we also met with a less-active family. They've been through the temple and everything, but church just became less of a priority and so they have forgotten their testimonies. They both have word of wisdom problems but they say they know Joseph Smith was a prophet, they're just not sure about the word of wisdom thing. It was intense because Elder Nelson and I went in there with no idea what to teach, we just prayed for the guidance of the Spirit, asked lots of questions, and eventually found out that they haven't prayed and asked GOD if the word of wisdom is something they should live. The husband seems to be a lot more receptive than the wife, she is adamant that she doesn't want to come back to church, but he wants to strengthen his relationship with Jesus Christ. We'll see how things go with them.
Keslers are doing great, we taught them again this week and they are sweet. It was a little hard to concentrate in that lesson after having dessert crepes for dinner...yum. Thursday was like our miracle day, that's the day we met with Charlene; that night at dinner the family gave us a solid referral that we can contact; we were able to set up an appointment with a less-active member who has two unbaptized children; and we set up an appointment with a former investigator for tonight. That was sweet.
We forgot it was daylight savings this week so Elder Nelson and I showed up to church an hour early. The whole time we were freaking out, 'Why is nobody here?! Did they move to another building?!' And then we realized our stupidity. But! Chris and Rache had their baby blessed in sacrament, Elder Nelson got to give the blessing, and that was so sweet. To see the both of them at church, partaking of the sacrament, and then when Chris held his baby after the blessing he just broke down in tears and was so happy. I am glad that we stuck with them. I'm sure they will eventually come around, it will just take some time, probably longer than I will be here, but that's okay.
Last night we had dinner with a less-active/part-member family from the Philippines and had some crazy food. It was good but weird. When we invited the wife to take the discussions she didn't really answer, but she has a copy of the Book of Mormon in Tagalog, she talks like a member, she has pictures by Latter-Day Saints throughout her house, I don't know what to think. We'll try to build a stronger relationship there and invite her again, but, who knows what will happen.
I feel for some reason that I should include how I dealt with that anti stuff from the week before. It bothered me for a while, most of the weekend probably. Finally, I came across the scripture in Moroni 7:16-17 which tells us the way to judge. I put the Book of Mormon to the test. Does it persuade me to believe in Christ? Yes. Does it persuade me to do good? Yes. Then I can know with a "perfect knowledge" it is of God. If the Book of Mormon is of God, then how could Joseph Smith, being a wicked man, bring forth the Book of Mormon, it being a book from God? It goes perfectly with Elder Callister's talk in conference, which was sweet by the way. So, I'm thankful to know that the Book of Mormon IS the word of God, regardless of what people say, and that Joseph Smith truly was a prophet of God.
That's pretty much all that happened this week. Thanks for your prayers!
Love,
Elder Cevering
November 1, 2011
Hello Family!
Well, I will be dying here in Raymond, and Elder Nelson will be killing me off. I have been freaking out this past week, realizing that I am coming home in six weeks. It might be a rough adjustment for a while. So, yes, Elder Nelson and I will be staying together for my last transfer, here in Raymond. I think that will be good.
On Wednesday we met with an investigator and tried to set a date for baptism but she was pretty dodgy. She wants to be baptized, she said, but she wants her husband to baptize her, and he's got some work to do before he can do that. We're not sure when it will happen, but we are sure it will.
We also met with another investigator this week. We had a killer lesson with him Sunday night. We took him on a church tour, which is basically a first lesson but different principles are taught in different rooms, it's pretty cool, and by the end of the lesson he said, "I know this is what I need to do. I feel like I can believe what you're telling me, I believe it, I feel myself coming closer to God and Jesus Christ as you teach me." He closed the lesson with a prayer and off he went on his merry way. It was kind of funny, Elder Nelson and I said to ourselves this past week, "Man, we don't want to go from setting a baptismal goal of 8 in one week (to fulfill our baptismal goal of 9) to setting a baptismal goal of one. Is it even possible?" Then we felt like he could be ready this weekend, so when we were teaching him on Sunday, Elder Nelson was going to invite him to be baptized. In my heart I was thinking to myself, "Please invite him to be baptized on November 12th, please, please, please," and then it came out for November 5th. O me of little faith. He said he would prepare for baptism and our ward mission leader, who was with us, said he would plan on it, so we may or may not have a baptism this weekend.
Another investigator went in for surgery this week. He seems to be coming around more and more. So does his wife. We'll see what happens with them. They always call us and ask us to find them something for free, he probably calls us at least three times every other day. Well, this weekend we were pretty busy so finally he left us a message that said, "I love you guys, but I WILL light your phone on fire if you don't return my calls..." Hahaha Elder Nelson and I laughed so hard, it's just so fitting of something he would say.
We met with a couple we've been work with, and the husband is doing really well. He has been reading his scriptures and praying, and he shared with us something the Spirit taught him this past week. He was reading in Jacob 5 and wasn't really getting much out of it until in the last ten verses or so there is a scripture that talks about cutting off one branch at a time so that the roots don't overpower the branches and the whole tree is lost, something to that effect. When Elder Nelson and Elder Madsen met with him the week before, they talked about how we are going to focus on building his testimony first and THEN get him on the stop smoking program, one thing at a time. Then when he read that scripture he understood it in a different way than was meant in the allegory, but still applicable. That was sweet. We then had a little discussion about God, our relationship with Him and all that, it was really neat.
On Saturday Elder Nelson got bit by a dog. It was pretty funny. "You laughed for like twenty minutes," says Elder Nelson as he looks at my screen while I'm typing this. I'm pretty sure it wasn't 20 minutes though. Maybe ten. There was this little white poodle, okay, I don't know what kind of dog it was, but it was a little white dog, like Muffy. It was running around everyone's yards barking it's heads off and it was barking at us while we walked to our car. Well, there was a huge pile of leaves on the ground so Elder Nelson kicked some leaves at the dog to get it to go away, which it did, and then when he turned his back it ran at him and nipped his ankle hahahahahaha. Oh man, it was so funny to see it. Elder Nelson yelled, "Ouch!" and the member that we were with gasped and yelled, "Did that dog just bite you?!" and the dog ran off, oh man. Probably not as funny to you, but it was hilarious in the moment. Don't worry, all is well, the dog didn't even draw any blood, he just wanted to taste Elder Nelson.
Saturday night we had a good experience. It was like 8:45 and I didn't want to drive out of the town of Raymond to visit this referral, but Elder Nelson did, so I just decided to go with it. I've learned a lot about following the Spirit this week. Anyways, we went out there and the whole time I was thinking to myself, "This man is going to be so mad at us because it's dark outside, maybe his kids are in bed, what if his dog goes crazy" all that stuff. We show up, he invites us in, we talk for quite a bit, and he says he is slowly coming to believe this is the true church. He said he wasn't ready yet for the discussions but we are welcome any time and it won't be long before he does take the discussions. That was sweet.
Then yesterday we spent like half the day making brownies for our investigators and less-active families we are working with. It took us A LOT longer than we thought it would. We had to be in by six, so then we just hung out at our apartment and now we are here and it's November. Crazy. Until next week! Thanks for your love and prayers!
Love,
Elder Cevering
November 28, 2011
Hello Family!
Another week down, we are halfway through the transfer. I keep thinking about how crazy it is that I only have like two weeks left as a missionary. It's so surreal. I don't even know what to say. I actually thought I might get evacuated out of my last area. This week we have had crazy winds, up to speeds of 130 kmph. Then yesterday there were three different grass fires across southern Alberta, one just south of Raymond, one on the west side of Lethbridge, and I'm not sure where the other one was. If the wind had been blowing north instead of east it would've blown the fire straight into Raymond. There were some families and Hutterite colonies evacuated south of town but no one in the main town was evacuated.
On to missionary work. This week we taught Chris Sherman's friend, Billy, who just moved in with them. They, meaning Chris and Rachel, flew him out here from Nova Scotia so he could have a fresh start at life. It seems like I told you this last week, but I can't remember. They are good people. The lesson with Billy went well, we taught him the plan of salvation. He thought it was really interesting, but he's more of a 'science' person than anything. He said he would think about baptism. We'll continue to meet with him as we meet with Chris and Rachel. Chris is an awesome fellowshipper, by the way, wow, he kept telling Billy how the gospel would help him and how it's blessed his own life, it was sweet.
That same night we met with the Keslers again. I love meeting with them. Things are coming along! He will be finishing the Book of Mormon in the next week or two, so that is sweet. I am so glad we were able to start meeting with them, I can't wait til they can go through the temple.
For American Thanksgiving this week we had two dinner appointments. By the way, looking at the pictures of myself from the past two years, I have chunked up. After Thanksgiving, I can understand why. Jesse's dinner was good, he did make some cornbread that was pretty darn good. Cornbread...yum. Thursday was kind of a gong show day, we had to do our weekly planning, then we had to go into Lethbridge to fix our car, and then we came back and finished weekly planning, we didn't get to proselyting til about 4:00 that afternoon and dinner was at five. We kind of felt like piles. But we worked hard during that hour and found a potential investigator, Barb. When we started talking to her she said she knew a little bit about the church and wasn't really interested. Then we asked her, "Do you believe that God has a plan for you?" and she really opened up. She had no idea that she was welcome at the church services. We left her a pamphlet, which she said she would read, with our number on it, and then said she would talk to her member-neighbor and try to come to church. That would be sweet!
On Friday we met with a new investigator, Evelyn, she's an older lady. She has met with the missionaries on and off for the past couple of years but she has never made progress until now. She has been coming out to church every day since about July, and she even stays for all three hours now! When we asked her about baptism she said she wouldn't be baptized and we couldn't figure out the concern, she brought up a couple different things. But she stands up for the church, she goes to church, she reads the Book of Mormon, we'll just have to keep working with her. In fact, last night we stopped by to drop something off to her and she said, "I learned something from my reading, why you are called Saints! In Mosiah 3:19 it says, "...becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord..." so that's why you are called saints!" She was really excited about that little revelation she received.
We talked to quite a few other nonmembers this week who have some potential. One man quit taking the discussions a couple years ago but when we talked to him he realized that the missionaries said they were going to take him to the family history center and then never did. So we offered to take him! Another man we talked to was so depressed...wow, I don't think I've ever talked to someone that depressed. He would say things like, "I want to believe in God, I just can't right now, I'm not ready. You can't help me. I don't know if God can help me. But I have your card here, there's a little bit of hope left in me, I just can't make myself be ready to believe in God. I'm further away from believing in God now than I ever was." We spent probably ten or fifteen minutes talking to him and bearing testimony and everything and he wouldn't budge. Finally he just said, "I know you want to help me but you can't, only I can. I'm trying to quit smoking right now and this time I'm determined to do it." Of course, we picked up on that, and offered to help him quit smoking. He said we could try! So we're gonna go back this week and show him the program. It's interesting with these two men as we tried everything we could to help them feel the Spirit and accept the invitation to meet with us, when we didn't know what to say they said something that then helped us know what to say.
I forgot to mention that Jesse got the priesthood this weekend! On Saturday we went over and taught him about the priesthood and then Sunday he was ordained, so that was cool. I didn't think it would happen that fast, but hey, it's cool. I think Bishop wants him to bless the sacrament next week hahaha that could be funny. I've never heard the sacrament prayer said by someone with a southern accent.
We also met with Alex on Saturday night. We walked down to the burger joint in town, got shakes, and then went back to his apartment and read from the Book of Mormon. He's really opening up to us. His apartment is just two rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom. So we read part of 3 Nephi 11 with him and he was like, 'Wow, this is awesome.' Then we read part of Alma 32 with him and he got it! We invited him, when we had finished reading, to say the closing prayer and ask God if the Book of Mormon is true. When he had ended the prayer he said, 'Wow, I feel light. Do you know what I mean? I just feel lightened, I feel like my burden has been lifted!' Elder Nelson told him that he was feeling the Holy Ghost and there's no way he could've made that feeling up and Alex said, 'No way, it was too instant to just be fake or made up or anything. Wow.' That was sweet. I would love to see him get baptized before I come home.
Yesterday afternoon we met with Charlene Simpson again. She is thinking about baptism as well! She loved stake conference last week but then didn't come out to church yesterday because the wind was so strong she was afraid of the electric cables coming down and shocking her to death. I like her a lot.
So, that's pretty much it for this week. Just think about it: two more e-mails!
Love,
Elder Cevering
November 21, 2011
**ONLY 22 MORE DAYS UNTIL COLBY COMES HOME!!!**
Hello Family!
Wow, I never thought going home would be THIS hard. All week long I have struggled to stay focused, not thinking about home, but just thinking about my mission, all the opportunities to share the gospel that I missed, did I help everyone I was supposed to help, just questions like that. This past week we had zone conference and it was all focused on finding people through our own efforts, so like GQ-ing and tracting and stuff. I had the opportunity to play the musical number, my arrangement of Hark, All Ye Nations/O Canada Medley. I'm going to ask President if I can play it at the farewell fireside we have in Calgary the night before I come home.
On to missionary stuff. Jesse got baptized this weekend! Elder Nelson and Brother Graham got in the font with him to help him out of the water, but then Jesse slipped so he made a big old splash and they were having a hard time getting him out. He came out of the water spitting and choking and everything.
On Tuesday I went on exchanges with the elders in Magrath. While there we visited a young man, Jimmy Stringham, who served with Nate in Australia! It was sweet to talk to him and hear about some of the experiences they had together. We had dinner that night with a family that I met out in Creston while they were visiting, isn't that funny? Such is the towns in southern Alberta. We met with the Keslers that same night. I love visiting them, they are sweet.
Friday Elder Nelson had to go to a training in Lethbridge so I went on splits with the Cardston West elders for like two hours, then when Elder Nelson got back we did our weekly planning, then right after that we met up with the zone leaders in Cardston to go on exchanges so that we could do five baptismal interviews, and I stayed in Cardston with Elder Conder for the rest of the night. I have come to love him. He doesn’t judge you for your weaknesses, he wants to know how to help you, I really appreciated that.
Saturday Jesse got baptized! Later that night we had dinner with the Nilsson family, they made this crazy dessert that had chocolate chip cookie dough on the bottom, oreos on top of that, and then brownies cooked on top of that. Put some hot fudge and vanilla ice cream with it and you have got a delicious heart attack on a plate. I called them Three Degrees of Glory bars. Yum.
Yesterday was stake conference. Elder Nelson and I were invited to sit on the stand with the speakers. Well, the Seventy that was in attendance, Elder George Rhodes, Jr., during the intermediate hymn walked up to us and asked us to bear a two-and-a-half minute testimony of the Savior. After the meeting he thanked Elder Nelson and I saying he was very pleased with what we said. President Archibald was in attendance, and when he e-mailed me today he said, "Just so you know as I was at stake conference and heard your testimony and then had occasion to talk with several members who expressed their appreciation for you and about your work, the Lord gave me to know that He was pleased with your mission and your sacrifice. It was a wonderful little blessing I think meant for you to hear." So that was cool.
We also had two investigators at stake conference! Maureen didn't come, neither did Krissy, but Charlene and a new investigator, Alex, were there, so that's awesome! After stake conference we had lunch with the Jensen family, Sister Jensen is awesome. She has been trying and trying to find someone for us to teach, and she finally succeeded! This young man, Alex, walked into the library here in Raymond and said he just moved here a couple days ago, he has no family, no friends, just a job. Well, she invited him to come over on Sunday for lunch and to meet the missionaries as well, to learn about the dominant religion of Raymond. He accepted the invitation and then invited himself to church! Over lunch we were talking to him about his religious background and he has a very small knowledge of Christianity. He has read parts of the Bible, knows about Christ and God and all that, he just doesn't have any direction in life, he said he has no idea what the purpose of life is. So we go into the family room and I start us off with the second lesson, the plan of salvation. This totally threw Elder Nelson off guard and the remainder of the lesson was almost a disaster. He asked all the right questions but he was taking us all over the board and we had no idea where we were going. I don't think I've ever prayed so hard in a lesson on my entire mission. He loved what we were teaching him, he took it all in and said, 'If this is true, this changes everything. It will make me happier, it will help me to not be afraid of death, and I won't have to be so hard on myself when I make a mistake.' He is solid. He was excited to read about the Book of Mormon, he's never really heard about the church, never seen missionaries, all he knows is that he has a friend back home in Ottawa who is a member of the church. He said he doesn't drink alcohol, he doesn't do drugs, he doesn't drink coffee or tea, he's totally prepared for the gospel. What a miracle! We have another appointment with him scheduled for Sunday.
Chris and Rachel also have a friend they flew over from Nova Scotia. Chris is working with him, hopefully to get him interested in the gospel. We met him last night, he doesn't really believe in God or anything but he is open to learning, so with a little prayer and fasting his heart can be softened and the Spirit will bring him into the fold. So, the work up here in Raymond is good.
Thanks for all your prayers! I love you!
Elder Cevering
**ONLY 27 MORE DAYS UNTIL COLBY GETS HOME!!!**
November 14, 2011
Hello Family!
No I don't have any pictures for you :) I will have some next week though if Jesse's baptism goes through this weekend. I also just finished getting registered for school. I am stoked! I will have a total of 14 credit hours, I'm taking Spanish, Geography, Racquetball, Strength Training, and both choir classes. I basically start every day at 9:30 and finish by 1:30. That will be so sweet, I can't wait. Since I've "finished" my associate's degree and half of my music classes aren't available until next semester, I thought I would just take a fun class (racquetball) to make sure I exercise during the week and also strength training to turn all this fat into muscle :) I wrote Nate a letter a couple weeks ago saying he and I should take some courses together, like some gym classes or something, I don't know if he ever got it, but that would be sweet if we could make that work.
On to more missionary-like things. So, yes, Jesse is scheduled to be baptized this Saturday. Our only concern with it is finding baptismal clothes big enough for him. :) We met with him this week and watched the Joseph Smith movie from the memorial building and he really enjoyed it. He said he would be willing to give up coffee and his occasional beer and everything to be baptized so here we go! Unbeknownst to us, Jesse wanted to learn more about Joseph Smith's life. He then came out to church this weekend even though his wife couldn't, which was sweet, we weren't sure if he would come without her. He's so funny, he calls me and Elder Nelson by our first names, and when we showed him the baptismal font this weekend, along with our ward mission leader, Brother Graham, he got even more excited about the baptism. As he said the closing prayer he said, "Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Scott, Coby, and Father Grant to help me come closer to you..." Hahaha it was so funny, I guess you'd just have to hear him say it with his Alabama accent and everything, but Elder Nelson and I laughed about it for a good long time.
There's a less-active young man we've been working with, I don't know if I've told you about him. He is 16-years-old and doesn't hold the priesthood, so, he expressed to the bishop that he wants to come back to church and receive the priesthood and everything. Bishop wanted us to teach him the discussions before he gets ordained so that he has a testimony of everything. Well, we just finished the discussions last week and tonight we're going over to teach him a lesson specifically on the Priesthood. Hopefully he can be ordained soon.
Tuesday night we met with a less-active member. She randomly showed up at church a couple weeks ago and said she was thinking about coming back. We were able to talk to her about the Atonement and it was a really powerful lesson. She said she's still not sure if she wants to have the church in her life so our job is to help her see how it can bless her. Her kids don't like us very much, though. We were hoping that with her coming back we could also teach her kids but they've gotten into some anti stuff so they think we're not Christians and that we're going to brainwash them and everything, but we'll see, maybe they'll come around.
Chris and Rachel Sherman came out to church again this weekend, and this time they stayed for all three hours! Rachel is really coming around! This week she asked us if we could start coming over to read scriptures with them! I've really come to love them and I want to keep in contact with them after for sure. They had us over for dinner this week and it made Elder Nelson sick hahaha.
Most of our lessons this week were with investigators and less-active members. Unfortunately, Maureen dropped us this week, she wants to wait for her husband to baptize her so she doesn't want to meet with us anymore. So we'll see what happens. We taught a nine-year-old girl this week who is totally solid, wants to be baptized and everything, but her dad won't let her. That's so frustrating! We were also supposed to meet with a lady, but she cancelled twice on us due to circumstances beyond her control. There was also a less-active man that dodged us twice. And Danny and his dad said they were going to be at church and then weren't. And Maureen didn't come to church like she said she would. The Geddes family didn't pray about the word of wisdom, but they did make us cookies...and such is missionary work.
Then Elder Nelson and I had to speak at a youth fireside last night. I also had to sing, Sister Baril and I threw it together at like three o'clock yesterday afternoon hahaha it went well though.
We're almost back at square one here in Raymond, all our progessing investigators will be getting baptized and we'll have to find new people to teach. Tell Nick thanks for the e-mail last week, I'm stoked to see him. Well, I love you, we gotta get going, but, we'll keep in touch, don't worry. Only three more e-mails! Crazy, hey? I'll try not to think about it too much...
Love,
Elder Cevering
November 7, 2011,
Hello Family!
Well, unfortunately Jesse's baptism didn't go through this weekend, but it is rescheduled for November 19th, hopefully he will be ready by then. He isn't sure about the word of wisdom. We are going to have to work through that one. He's doing really well, though, he invited us to have American Thanksgiving at his house in a couple weeks. American Thanksgiving in Canada with an African American man from Alabama. Sweet.
We started teaching a new investigator this week. She has met with the missionaries on and off for the last four years or so and now feels like she is ready to be baptized if that is what God wants her to do. I guess her family back in Ontario disowned her brother when he joined the Church so she has been afraid of being disowned as well. When we taught her this week a lot of things clicked that she never understood before, like why her church doesn't have prophets and apostles, why they don't practice baptism of any kind, different things like that. It was really neat, she was asking these questions that were just PERFECT and I got so excited and felt the Spirit super strong, and when I asked her what made the difference this time she said, "I looked into your eyes and felt it was true. That's never happened before, but I get it now." She believes that Joseph Smith saw the First Vision, she's just not sure if he was a prophet, probably because she's never read the Book of Mormon, and she has a severe reading disability so we have to work around that. She's pretty solid though, hopefully things continue to go well.
Maureen is solid as well, we met with her and taught her the law of tithing, fast offerings, and follow the prophet. The clip we showed of Pres. Monson really brought the Spirit and Maureen has such a strong desire to be baptized.
This week we also met with a less-active family. They've been through the temple and everything, but church just became less of a priority and so they have forgotten their testimonies. They both have word of wisdom problems but they say they know Joseph Smith was a prophet, they're just not sure about the word of wisdom thing. It was intense because Elder Nelson and I went in there with no idea what to teach, we just prayed for the guidance of the Spirit, asked lots of questions, and eventually found out that they haven't prayed and asked GOD if the word of wisdom is something they should live. The husband seems to be a lot more receptive than the wife, she is adamant that she doesn't want to come back to church, but he wants to strengthen his relationship with Jesus Christ. We'll see how things go with them.
Keslers are doing great, we taught them again this week and they are sweet. It was a little hard to concentrate in that lesson after having dessert crepes for dinner...yum. Thursday was like our miracle day, that's the day we met with Charlene; that night at dinner the family gave us a solid referral that we can contact; we were able to set up an appointment with a less-active member who has two unbaptized children; and we set up an appointment with a former investigator for tonight. That was sweet.
We forgot it was daylight savings this week so Elder Nelson and I showed up to church an hour early. The whole time we were freaking out, 'Why is nobody here?! Did they move to another building?!' And then we realized our stupidity. But! Chris and Rache had their baby blessed in sacrament, Elder Nelson got to give the blessing, and that was so sweet. To see the both of them at church, partaking of the sacrament, and then when Chris held his baby after the blessing he just broke down in tears and was so happy. I am glad that we stuck with them. I'm sure they will eventually come around, it will just take some time, probably longer than I will be here, but that's okay.
Last night we had dinner with a less-active/part-member family from the Philippines and had some crazy food. It was good but weird. When we invited the wife to take the discussions she didn't really answer, but she has a copy of the Book of Mormon in Tagalog, she talks like a member, she has pictures by Latter-Day Saints throughout her house, I don't know what to think. We'll try to build a stronger relationship there and invite her again, but, who knows what will happen.
I feel for some reason that I should include how I dealt with that anti stuff from the week before. It bothered me for a while, most of the weekend probably. Finally, I came across the scripture in Moroni 7:16-17 which tells us the way to judge. I put the Book of Mormon to the test. Does it persuade me to believe in Christ? Yes. Does it persuade me to do good? Yes. Then I can know with a "perfect knowledge" it is of God. If the Book of Mormon is of God, then how could Joseph Smith, being a wicked man, bring forth the Book of Mormon, it being a book from God? It goes perfectly with Elder Callister's talk in conference, which was sweet by the way. So, I'm thankful to know that the Book of Mormon IS the word of God, regardless of what people say, and that Joseph Smith truly was a prophet of God.
That's pretty much all that happened this week. Thanks for your prayers!
Love,
Elder Cevering
November 1, 2011
Hello Family!
Well, I will be dying here in Raymond, and Elder Nelson will be killing me off. I have been freaking out this past week, realizing that I am coming home in six weeks. It might be a rough adjustment for a while. So, yes, Elder Nelson and I will be staying together for my last transfer, here in Raymond. I think that will be good.
On Wednesday we met with an investigator and tried to set a date for baptism but she was pretty dodgy. She wants to be baptized, she said, but she wants her husband to baptize her, and he's got some work to do before he can do that. We're not sure when it will happen, but we are sure it will.
We also met with another investigator this week. We had a killer lesson with him Sunday night. We took him on a church tour, which is basically a first lesson but different principles are taught in different rooms, it's pretty cool, and by the end of the lesson he said, "I know this is what I need to do. I feel like I can believe what you're telling me, I believe it, I feel myself coming closer to God and Jesus Christ as you teach me." He closed the lesson with a prayer and off he went on his merry way. It was kind of funny, Elder Nelson and I said to ourselves this past week, "Man, we don't want to go from setting a baptismal goal of 8 in one week (to fulfill our baptismal goal of 9) to setting a baptismal goal of one. Is it even possible?" Then we felt like he could be ready this weekend, so when we were teaching him on Sunday, Elder Nelson was going to invite him to be baptized. In my heart I was thinking to myself, "Please invite him to be baptized on November 12th, please, please, please," and then it came out for November 5th. O me of little faith. He said he would prepare for baptism and our ward mission leader, who was with us, said he would plan on it, so we may or may not have a baptism this weekend.
Another investigator went in for surgery this week. He seems to be coming around more and more. So does his wife. We'll see what happens with them. They always call us and ask us to find them something for free, he probably calls us at least three times every other day. Well, this weekend we were pretty busy so finally he left us a message that said, "I love you guys, but I WILL light your phone on fire if you don't return my calls..." Hahaha Elder Nelson and I laughed so hard, it's just so fitting of something he would say.
We met with a couple we've been work with, and the husband is doing really well. He has been reading his scriptures and praying, and he shared with us something the Spirit taught him this past week. He was reading in Jacob 5 and wasn't really getting much out of it until in the last ten verses or so there is a scripture that talks about cutting off one branch at a time so that the roots don't overpower the branches and the whole tree is lost, something to that effect. When Elder Nelson and Elder Madsen met with him the week before, they talked about how we are going to focus on building his testimony first and THEN get him on the stop smoking program, one thing at a time. Then when he read that scripture he understood it in a different way than was meant in the allegory, but still applicable. That was sweet. We then had a little discussion about God, our relationship with Him and all that, it was really neat.
On Saturday Elder Nelson got bit by a dog. It was pretty funny. "You laughed for like twenty minutes," says Elder Nelson as he looks at my screen while I'm typing this. I'm pretty sure it wasn't 20 minutes though. Maybe ten. There was this little white poodle, okay, I don't know what kind of dog it was, but it was a little white dog, like Muffy. It was running around everyone's yards barking it's heads off and it was barking at us while we walked to our car. Well, there was a huge pile of leaves on the ground so Elder Nelson kicked some leaves at the dog to get it to go away, which it did, and then when he turned his back it ran at him and nipped his ankle hahahahahaha. Oh man, it was so funny to see it. Elder Nelson yelled, "Ouch!" and the member that we were with gasped and yelled, "Did that dog just bite you?!" and the dog ran off, oh man. Probably not as funny to you, but it was hilarious in the moment. Don't worry, all is well, the dog didn't even draw any blood, he just wanted to taste Elder Nelson.
Saturday night we had a good experience. It was like 8:45 and I didn't want to drive out of the town of Raymond to visit this referral, but Elder Nelson did, so I just decided to go with it. I've learned a lot about following the Spirit this week. Anyways, we went out there and the whole time I was thinking to myself, "This man is going to be so mad at us because it's dark outside, maybe his kids are in bed, what if his dog goes crazy" all that stuff. We show up, he invites us in, we talk for quite a bit, and he says he is slowly coming to believe this is the true church. He said he wasn't ready yet for the discussions but we are welcome any time and it won't be long before he does take the discussions. That was sweet.
Then yesterday we spent like half the day making brownies for our investigators and less-active families we are working with. It took us A LOT longer than we thought it would. We had to be in by six, so then we just hung out at our apartment and now we are here and it's November. Crazy. Until next week! Thanks for your love and prayers!
Love,
Elder Cevering
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
October Pictures
Elder Cevering & Sister Marchant (She is from North Ogden & is now serving in the Calgary Mission!)
Elder Cevering & Sister Marchant - They graduated together in "08"!
Elder Cevering & Elder Nelson in Raymond, Alberta
Elder Cevering & Sister Marchant - They graduated together in "08"!
Elder Cevering & Elder Nelson in Raymond, Alberta
Monday, October 3, 2011
October Emails
October 24, 2011
Hello Family.
Not too much exciting stuff happened this week. Justin and Kaitlyn got baptized but other than that this week has been a lot of ups and downs.
Unfortunately, Maureen didn't get baptized this weekend, she didn't feel she was ready. We can't blame her, she didn't meet with us very frequently, we hadn't taught her everything, but she is back on date for November 5th. So much for the nine baptisms in October goal. But she DOES have a testimony of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smith, so that is a miracle in and of itself.
Tuesday afternoon we were finally able to meet with Jesse, he's the man that I told you about a week or two ago, the black kid from Alabama that I scared on the doorstep? Yep, that's him. We met with him Tuesday and taught him lesson one. He was shocked to hear that there is a prophet on the earth today, when we told him he was like, "What?! Where does he live? Just down in the States?! How come I didn't know that?" It was sweet to see him understand and be so excited. Then Elder Nelson and Elder Madsen taught him again when we went on exchanges and he told them, "I was thinking about the whole prophet thing, and I wanted to tell my family so I called my mom and told her there's a prophet on the earth today...she had no idea! Her side of the family is pretty religious, though, they're all Baptist, so I'm sure THEY know there's a prophet today." Hahaha he is a funny man. A big, 27-year-old married black man calling his mom to tell her there's a prophet, that's pretty funny. When we asked him about baptism he said he would think about it but as we have continued to meet with him he says he's warming up to the idea, especially since he's never been baptized before. Hopefully that goes well.
On Thursday Justin and Kaitlyn were baptized, that was sweet. Right after the baptism we met with another investigator. We walked into his house and he told us that he wants to be baptized on November 5th! We were pretty excited about that, however, he is still on probation with the Canadian government, so we weren't sure if he was going to be able to be baptized. When we called President that night to ask him about it, sure enough, he can't be baptized until he's off of probation. He didn't take that too well. He was so excited about being baptized on the 5th and then to be told he couldn't, he's still SUPER upset about it, he called us last night saying it wasn't fair and that's so judgmental of the church to do that, he's never going to set a baptismal date again if he doesn't get baptized on the 5th, all this stuff, and all we could tell him was, "Sorry, this probation is still part of the repentance process. You may not be doing those things anymore, but according to the government of Canada, this probation is part of restitution, and you can't be baptized until that process is finished." He then went off about how members of the church who don't 'fess up' go to the temple and take the sacrament when they aren't worthy but he can't be baptized because he 'fessed up' and 'took it like a man' so that he could be baptized, it's just a nightmare.
We did see some sweet miracles on Thursday, though, other than the baptism. We went to the high school for lunch and one of the teachers pulled us aside and said, "Did you hear about the miracle this weekend?" I guess this less-active lady came to church last weekend, she hasn't been for who knows how long, and this lady was last on his list of people he thought would come back soon. That was pretty sweet! Hopefully we get to start meeting with her soon, it sounded like she was excited to start getting back into church. Also as we were eating our lunch this girl came up to us and introduced herself. She has been reading the Book of Mormon, she goes to church and seminary occasionally, and she accepted her friends' invitation to start meeting with us. We're hoping to be able to meet with her some time this week. As we were going to one of the church buildings to prepare for the baptism, another lady drove up and told us one of her friends she was working with came to a Relief Society activity and has been showing some interest in gospel-related things, so hopefully that one turns out positive and we can start teaching her as well.
That night we met again with a couple and introduced them to the 15 Step Stop Smoking Program. We saw the wife at church yesterday and she said it wasn't going too well, but they haven't been able to really do all of the steps, they are lacking some 'ingredients' and so they have to get that first and then they can do it more officially. They are sweet, I love going to see them. And speaking of church, Maureen, Jesse, and Danny May were all at church this weekend! We were pretty stoked about that.
Friday we went on exchanges with the zone leaders and I was out in Cardston. Man, I wish I could've served in Cardston, it would be sweet. We went out to lunch at this place called The Cobblestone Manor, and it's as fancy a restaurant as it sounds. Good things missionaries eat there for free! It was a full course meal, soup, entree (steak), and dessert (pumpkin pie) for free. What a blessing! And the food was good. We then did just a little bit of tracting to find out where this kid named KJ lives. When we found his house, his mom wasn't too happy to see us. She told us to come back in about thirty minutes when her husband would be home and then we could discuss religion. You can tell where this is going. Well, Elder Harris wanted to bring a member along so he brought this man that was in training to be a Pentecostal minister when he converted. It wasn't a pretty sight. We come back and the husband clearly wasn't interested, he kept saying little things to slam us like, 'I'm okay, I have my own religion, and it's better than your anyways,' or 'I don't have to be brainwashed to be a member of my church', things like that, and this man and Elder Harris didn't take that too well. Pretty soon their neighbor pulls up, hears all the commotion, comes over and joins them in proving us we are wrong. Then their other son, Dustin, pulls up and joins the commotion, on their side of course. Now we have five against two, I was just standing there not really saying anything while all this went on. I tried a couple times to end the conversation but somehow it would just all start up again. Pretty soon the argument moved inside the house but I just hung back with this Dustin kid and started talking to him about his life. He calmed down quite a bit and then called Elder Harris to come outside, referring to him as 'Young Guns' and said, 'Look, this isn't the right way to discuss this. I'm willing to listen on another day when I'm not all riled up and we can talk about it calmly.' I'm not sure if he actually meant it or if he just wants to keep anti-ing them, but they were able to set an appointment with him and then we left. The member that came with us stayed, though hahaha, it was a gong show.
Not too much happened on Saturday and then Sunday we were able to meet with Krissy St. Pierre again. Since she didn't come to church yesterday she can't be baptized until November 12th, but she was willing to work for that date, and I feel a lot more confident about her this week than I did the week before. Nevisha's sister, Felisha, and her husband had us over for dinner last night, Jamaican jerk chicken, yum. We had a good meal with them, shared a message about the doctrine of Christ, and then Elder Nelson committed Nevisha to read the Book of Mormon. Who knows if she actually will, but it was good nonetheless.
That's pretty much all that happened this week. We don't have too much going on this next week, we'll see what happens. I don't think we'll have nine baptisms this month but who knows, if the Lord wants it, He can do it.
Love,
Elder Cevering
October 17, 2011
Hello Family!
Can you believe you will only get eight more of these from me?
Well, we didn't do too well this week progressing towards our goal of nine baptisms. We did alright, just not what we wanted to do. We picked up a new investigator this week, a girl that we GQ'ed a couple weeks ago. She is scheduled to be baptized on November 5, but we might be able to move it up to the 29th of October, I don't know, so here's how I feel about this...I feel like if I were to move it up, I would be moving it up so that we could 'reach our goal' not so that she could 'receive the blessings of baptism sooner.' We've been trying to get in to see that foreign exchange student, and I guess this week he told his parents and his parents e-mailed him and said they don't want him taking the discussions. If he will or not, I don't know, but there is a man in our stake who is in charge of him while he's here as an exchange student, and he said we shouldn't meet with him. And if we DID meet with him, I would want to invite him to be baptized, but his parents would freak and probably not give him permission to be baptized. So do I go behind their backs and invite him anyways? I want him to be baptized :) He is a stud.
Anyways, we met with another investigator again this week, no progress there really. We found out that he is currently on probation so he can't even be baptized until that's done. His wife is slowly coming along. She started sitting in on the lessons again but isn't really interested, she's just doing it to support him. I think she'll come around eventually, she's just really hurt right now. We went over there on Saturday and watched Finding Faith In Christ with them. Then they told us about all their problems for the next hour or so, Elder Nelson and I couldn't get a word in. I was kind of frustrated, so I finally said to them, "I'm going to be a little bit bold with you. We came over here tonight to help you build your faith in Jesus Christ, and we haven't been able to talk. We are glad that you like us coming over and that you feel comfortable talking to us about your trials, but our purpose in being here isn't to be a counselor, it's to help you come closer to Jesus Christ. How can we do this when you won't listen to what we have to say to help you? You just keep telling us your problems and won't give us time to help you with them." It was a lot nicer than it sounds, I promise. Ha, now that I think about it, I wonder if that's what Heavenly Father thinks about our prayers sometimes hahaha. QUIT TELLING ME ALL YOUR PROBLEMS AND LET ME SAY SOMETHING TO HELP YOU!!! We even called the speakers in first ward and asked them to say something specific about trials that would help them...and then they didn't even show up to church! We were so bummed, it would've been awesome for them.
We had some pretty solid member lessons this week, man, there is so much that could happen here in Raymond, we just gotta get the ball rolling! We had several names of people who might be interested in meeting with us come out of the woodwork this week, people who were meeting with missionaries before but then stopped that we don't have teaching records for. One lady, named Evelyn, we have been working with a member family to see her. Wednesday night Elder Nelson and I were planning when to go visit this family, and we had them earlier in the afternoon and then moved them back, for no reason really. When we showed up at their doorstep they were shocked. They said if we'd come fifteen minutes earlier they wouldn't have been home, they'd been gone all day, and half of that time was spent talking to Evelyn about taking the discussions. Evelyn said she doesn't feel worthy to be baptized and is really busy right now, so we're going to go help her out at the museum where she works and hopefully she will let us come and teach her.
Friday we had to go up to Calgary for the re-training meeting. And guess who I saw? None other than Kaitlyn Marchant, a girl that I graduated with who just got to the mission three weeks ago, she came out with Elder Nelson and is serving in Okotoks. It was so awesome to talk to her. Then we went out for lunch at Brother's afterwards. Remember me telling you about Brother's, the Chinese restaurant in my first area that was awesome? Yes. It's still as good. Anyways, the training was really good, I learned a lot about faith and miracles, now we just need to have some of those here in Raymond, nine baptisms, one in each ward, in the next fourteen days...think it's possible? I have no idea how it's going to work out. We'll just have to wait and see.
We also had dinner with the Hornberger family, I mentioned them a couple weeks ago when I felt like I massacred the lesson and that they never wanted to see us again. But! We got in to see them again, so that was good. And so was the dinner. Yum. Yorkshire pudding, roast beef, curried cauliflower...yum. We get fed so good here in Raymond, holy cow. Yesterday we had TWO dinner appointments. One of the families saw us at the gas station earlier on and bought us candy bars while we were filling up our tank. As we walked in to pay, she walked out of the station saying, "I see chocolate in your future..." and then when we payed for our gas the cashier said we could pick any king-sized chocolate bar, this lady had paid for Elder Nelson and I to have one. That was sweet of her. Anyways, the Hornbergers...I shared the message with them, this time about the Book of Mormon, and the two kids, Sam and Leah, actually participated this time. I think the best thing we can do for them is just be their friends and talk to them about the church. We are planning to go visit Sam sometime this week and play some music together, and we'll talk to him about how he feels about the church and everything, I really feel that's what we need to do.
We met with the a couple last night who we've been working with, they're all ready to be baptized on Thursday so that's good. She came out to church yesterday and we talked to her husband on Tuesday. He says he doesn't think she will be baptized this Saturday. Obviously, she has to have a testimony of her own in order to be baptized, but if she doesn't have somebody to encourage her to get to church and read and pray and all that, that's going to be a lot harder. We're meeting with her tonight, hopefully things go well and she will want to be baptized this Saturday. We also met with a less-active couple who wants to go to the temple to be sealed in the next few months.
So, not too much going on for convert baptisms, that's a work in progress, but I really feel that we are receiving revelation for our investigators and seeing miracles throughout the week, so that's awesome. I'm not gonna lie, now I'm getting nervous to come home. Part of me wants to just stay here forever :) but part of me wants to get back to doing other things than just missionary work.
Thanks for your love and support, I'll talk to you next Monday.
Love,
Elder Cevering
October 12, 2011
Hello Family.
Well, yesterday was Thanksgiving up here, hence the reason I didn't e-mail you. Everything was closed here in Raymond. Last Canadian Thanksgiving! Crazy. This week has been crazy. I'm starting to get nervous about coming home hahaha some days I just want to stay on a mission and then other days I get excited to come home. Heads up: It might be a rough transition.
So! Week #95. Not too much happened this week, unfortunately, it's been kind of a rough spell. All of our investigator lessons cancelled except for one, and then none of them were at church on Sunday. Bummer. On Sunday we did get in contact with an African-American man who moved here a couple weeks ago that got married to a LDS girl. Bishop talked to him and invited him to take the discussions, which he agreed to, so we went by to set up the appointment. We're knocking on his door and this big old truck comes down the road, just making all kinds of noise. It stops at the stop sign, and then as it turns it makes this big banging noise that made me jump and scream just a little bit. At that very moment the man opened the door. So he opens the door, this kid in a suit (me) jumps and screams and it scared him so bad he screamed too..."Ahhhh!" Oh man, it was bad but funny. What a great first impression. Luckily, we didn't scare him away, we have an appointment with him next week.
I don't really know what to say, that was like all that happened this week. We had some member lessons that went just okay, we had interviews this week, we did some tracting since our lessons kept cancelling, it was kind of rough. But good, that's how you grow, going through rough spots. My second area in Calgary was probably the toughest area that I served in, and it's probably the area in which I grew the most.
We met with a non-member again this week and got to the bottom of his concerns about coming to church. He doesn't want to just "jump right in," he said he is afraid of failing. What if he gets active in the church and then goes right back to smoking? Or what if he gets reactivated and then it's not what he expected? We talked a lot about what it's like to feel the Spirit and how his life can be blessed. They also had us over this weekend for a block barbecue. They made us steaks. Yum. And the barbecue was so good. All the neighbors in the cul-de-sac, all members by the way, pulled their grills out into the road and all the tables in the middle of the street and we just grilled and ate and everything. It was good.
Another investigator we’re working with is just the same as ever. We actually had a pretty good lesson this past week with him. We talked about choosing TODAY to serve the Lord, not waiting until things are better, and also talked about his desires to serve others and his obstacles to baptism. He actually sat there and thought about and listened to what he had to say. It was good. But then he wasn't at church so I don't know how much he actually learned. We are going to meet with him tomorrow with Brother Oler, our assistant ward mission leader, who is sweet. I don't know how much more we can do to help him, but Elder Nelson and I realized today that we need to get the members here more involved in missionary work, we are really shouldering most of it. It would be much better for everyone if they could get involved with the people and help us help them to progress in the gospel.
We also visited with the young man from Norway. He said he would be interested in going on a church tour, hopefully he will feel the Spirit there and even if he doesn't join the church now, maybe he will in the future. He's a sweet kid.
I had a personal experience this week that I want to share. I was reading in 2 Nephi 3 where Nephi has included on the gold plates the prophecy of Joseph in Egypt concerning the restoration of the gospel. There's one verse, I think it's in verse...23? Maybe 24? I don't remember. Anyways, it talks about Joseph Smith, saying he would be a man with exceeding faith, a man who would do much good, things like that. I realized in that moment that THAT is how Heavenly Father feels about Joseph Smith. The LORD feels good about Joseph Smith, the WORLD says he is a con-artist, false prophet, all that. But the Lord Himself revealed to Lehi, or Joseph, or whoever that Jospeh Smith would be a good man, not a wicked man. It was a real testimony-builder to me.
So, that was our week this week. Nine baptisms, here we come!
Love,
Elder Cevering
October 3, 2011
Hello Family!
Well, this week was kind of a gong show, but it was good nonetheless.
Monday night we had dinner with a member family. I shared this message on baptism and everybody was like, "Wow, that was such a great message!" (As Elder Nelson later said, it was a "bomb-dot-com" message.) The reason I share this is to explain that they felt the Spirit strongly, and then I extended to them the 7-Day Challenge...and all went quiet. They started coming up with all these excuses about why they couldn't do it, we even worked through a couple concerns, but they convinced themselves they couldn't do it, nobody was prepared, and the Lord couldn't help them. They noticed my frustration, apparent by my killer silence, and as we were walking out the door they yelled to me, "Elder---we'll think about what you've shared with us tonight." I was so frustrated. But! We had a great experience that made up for that.
Right after that appointment we met with a family that has less-active kids. One s 16-years-old, I think, and he is solid. His dad called us the week before and said he wants to get back into church and receive the priesthood and all that, so we are stoked to be working with him. We are meeting with them every Monday night, and when we called them last night to confirm the appointment they said, "Yep, in fact, we are just in the middle of our daily family scripture study." That was sweet!
Tuesday I had to go to Leadership Training Meetings all day in Lethbridge, that was long. I saw the elder who is serving in Creston right now and he said that a girl I worked with in Creston was interviewed by a general authority and is now waiting for First Presidency approval to be baptized. That's sweet! Then how about Elder Ballard's throw-down this weekend, hey? I was thinking about them the whole time. Anyways, that night we taught the mission prep class and another man & his wife in our area that wants to start coming back to church. They are sweet, I like them a lot, they both have solid testimonies of the gospel, they just got a little sidetracked for a bit.
Wednesday was a gong show. Everything fell through. We role-played a church tour so that Elder Nelson could learn how to do it, and then the investigator that we were going to teach it to called and cancelled on us. Then our dinner appointment with a less-active family fell through. So we went and picked up an investigator, took him to the church, taught him the church tour, and then went to dinner with him. It was good, it just didn't feel very productive. I hope it was good for him, though, we both felt like it was. I think it was also this day that we got a call from the elders in Magrath saying they had an evil spirit in their apartment during the night. This is a funny story. So I ask them what happened and one of the missionaries starts talking and he says, "I know this sounds funny, but I had a dream last night where I walked into this room and all of a sudden this evil dishcloth jumped off the window sill and hit me in the head!" Well, so far I wasn't convinced of it being an evil spirit or anything, nightmares about killer dishcloths happen sometimes, and then talking to his companion, who is all rough and tough, talked about his experiences and then I started to think it was possible that there was an evil spirit there. They haven't had any bad experiences since, so who knows.
Thursday night we met with Danny again. I don't know what was different this time, but it went SO much better than all the other times we've met with him. The best part about the whole lesson was when we shared a scripture, Alma 7:14, and Danny highlighted it. He felt the Spirit!!! We were so stoked about that. Since we didn't have sacrament meeting this weekend we weren't able to see if he 'came to church,' but he knows that his next step. Thursday night was such a pay-off, it was great.
Friday was a gong show as well. We had to take our car in to Lethbridge to get fixed, and they said it would take a couple of hours. Pretty soon 3:00 comes around and the car place still hasn't called us. We dropped the car off at 9:30 that morning. We went out for lunch with the missionaries there in Lethbridge, to a place called Wing King, and then they had a meeting while we continued our planning efforts. When the meeting was over at 3:00, we decided we should probably call the car place. They said, "Oh, yeah, we just finished it, come by and pick it up." Then we had to take our car to another dealership, who referred us to another dealership, and it took them another 45 minutes to fix something ELSE on the car. We didn't get back to Raymond until almost 5:30. Gong show.
The members that we live with, the Streibels, had a mini-concert in their backyard on Friday night and they asked us to sing a song. We sang "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go". It went pretty well, Elder Nelson can carry a tune but he has trouble with harmony hahaha but overall it was good. Except on the last verse we accidentally sang, "I'll say what you want me to be" instead of "I'll be what you want me to be." We felt dumb, but whatever, nobody cares.
Then this weekend was conference! It was sweet. Both of the morning sessions were incredible, I loved them. Did I see Emma in the choir in the Saturday afternoon session? If it wasn't her, there was a girl that looked A LOT like her. I also saw Taysn Haslam and maybe Emily Hull? I told Elder Nelson at the very beginning, "If I see any of my friends or family, I am going to lose it, I'm going to be so trunky." Fortunately, it didn't make me trunky, and I also didn't see any of you or any friends or anything, so that was good. After conference the Baril family had us over for wings and things. It was great. I love the Barils, they are sweet. They are really committed to helping us find someone who is ready to be baptized in the 7th Ward. We told them about our plans to fast today and they said they would join in with us. They are awesome.
We also met with a non-member family last night and re-scheduled their baptismal date for October 20th. Hopefully it goes through this time. It should, the problem last time was just the funeral. They are sweet, I like them a lot. And they always send us home with goodies.
Last night right after we finished saying our prayer to begin our fast, we got a call from Bishop Steed in 2nd Ward saying that he talked to a part-member family this weekend who accepted his invitation to meet with us. That's sweet! We are supposed to see them on Sunday and set up an appointment then. Hopefully things go well there. Ike also talked to the young man from Norway who agreed to take the discussions but cautioned Ike, "I'm not going to be converted." It's kind of a touchy situation because his dad is a Lutheran minister back in Norway and he is here on an exchange program, right? We'll see what happens there. He's a solid kid, I've met him once before and he should totally be a member of the church.
That's all for this week!
Love,
Elder Cevering
Hello Family.
Not too much exciting stuff happened this week. Justin and Kaitlyn got baptized but other than that this week has been a lot of ups and downs.
Unfortunately, Maureen didn't get baptized this weekend, she didn't feel she was ready. We can't blame her, she didn't meet with us very frequently, we hadn't taught her everything, but she is back on date for November 5th. So much for the nine baptisms in October goal. But she DOES have a testimony of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smith, so that is a miracle in and of itself.
Tuesday afternoon we were finally able to meet with Jesse, he's the man that I told you about a week or two ago, the black kid from Alabama that I scared on the doorstep? Yep, that's him. We met with him Tuesday and taught him lesson one. He was shocked to hear that there is a prophet on the earth today, when we told him he was like, "What?! Where does he live? Just down in the States?! How come I didn't know that?" It was sweet to see him understand and be so excited. Then Elder Nelson and Elder Madsen taught him again when we went on exchanges and he told them, "I was thinking about the whole prophet thing, and I wanted to tell my family so I called my mom and told her there's a prophet on the earth today...she had no idea! Her side of the family is pretty religious, though, they're all Baptist, so I'm sure THEY know there's a prophet today." Hahaha he is a funny man. A big, 27-year-old married black man calling his mom to tell her there's a prophet, that's pretty funny. When we asked him about baptism he said he would think about it but as we have continued to meet with him he says he's warming up to the idea, especially since he's never been baptized before. Hopefully that goes well.
On Thursday Justin and Kaitlyn were baptized, that was sweet. Right after the baptism we met with another investigator. We walked into his house and he told us that he wants to be baptized on November 5th! We were pretty excited about that, however, he is still on probation with the Canadian government, so we weren't sure if he was going to be able to be baptized. When we called President that night to ask him about it, sure enough, he can't be baptized until he's off of probation. He didn't take that too well. He was so excited about being baptized on the 5th and then to be told he couldn't, he's still SUPER upset about it, he called us last night saying it wasn't fair and that's so judgmental of the church to do that, he's never going to set a baptismal date again if he doesn't get baptized on the 5th, all this stuff, and all we could tell him was, "Sorry, this probation is still part of the repentance process. You may not be doing those things anymore, but according to the government of Canada, this probation is part of restitution, and you can't be baptized until that process is finished." He then went off about how members of the church who don't 'fess up' go to the temple and take the sacrament when they aren't worthy but he can't be baptized because he 'fessed up' and 'took it like a man' so that he could be baptized, it's just a nightmare.
We did see some sweet miracles on Thursday, though, other than the baptism. We went to the high school for lunch and one of the teachers pulled us aside and said, "Did you hear about the miracle this weekend?" I guess this less-active lady came to church last weekend, she hasn't been for who knows how long, and this lady was last on his list of people he thought would come back soon. That was pretty sweet! Hopefully we get to start meeting with her soon, it sounded like she was excited to start getting back into church. Also as we were eating our lunch this girl came up to us and introduced herself. She has been reading the Book of Mormon, she goes to church and seminary occasionally, and she accepted her friends' invitation to start meeting with us. We're hoping to be able to meet with her some time this week. As we were going to one of the church buildings to prepare for the baptism, another lady drove up and told us one of her friends she was working with came to a Relief Society activity and has been showing some interest in gospel-related things, so hopefully that one turns out positive and we can start teaching her as well.
That night we met again with a couple and introduced them to the 15 Step Stop Smoking Program. We saw the wife at church yesterday and she said it wasn't going too well, but they haven't been able to really do all of the steps, they are lacking some 'ingredients' and so they have to get that first and then they can do it more officially. They are sweet, I love going to see them. And speaking of church, Maureen, Jesse, and Danny May were all at church this weekend! We were pretty stoked about that.
Friday we went on exchanges with the zone leaders and I was out in Cardston. Man, I wish I could've served in Cardston, it would be sweet. We went out to lunch at this place called The Cobblestone Manor, and it's as fancy a restaurant as it sounds. Good things missionaries eat there for free! It was a full course meal, soup, entree (steak), and dessert (pumpkin pie) for free. What a blessing! And the food was good. We then did just a little bit of tracting to find out where this kid named KJ lives. When we found his house, his mom wasn't too happy to see us. She told us to come back in about thirty minutes when her husband would be home and then we could discuss religion. You can tell where this is going. Well, Elder Harris wanted to bring a member along so he brought this man that was in training to be a Pentecostal minister when he converted. It wasn't a pretty sight. We come back and the husband clearly wasn't interested, he kept saying little things to slam us like, 'I'm okay, I have my own religion, and it's better than your anyways,' or 'I don't have to be brainwashed to be a member of my church', things like that, and this man and Elder Harris didn't take that too well. Pretty soon their neighbor pulls up, hears all the commotion, comes over and joins them in proving us we are wrong. Then their other son, Dustin, pulls up and joins the commotion, on their side of course. Now we have five against two, I was just standing there not really saying anything while all this went on. I tried a couple times to end the conversation but somehow it would just all start up again. Pretty soon the argument moved inside the house but I just hung back with this Dustin kid and started talking to him about his life. He calmed down quite a bit and then called Elder Harris to come outside, referring to him as 'Young Guns' and said, 'Look, this isn't the right way to discuss this. I'm willing to listen on another day when I'm not all riled up and we can talk about it calmly.' I'm not sure if he actually meant it or if he just wants to keep anti-ing them, but they were able to set an appointment with him and then we left. The member that came with us stayed, though hahaha, it was a gong show.
Not too much happened on Saturday and then Sunday we were able to meet with Krissy St. Pierre again. Since she didn't come to church yesterday she can't be baptized until November 12th, but she was willing to work for that date, and I feel a lot more confident about her this week than I did the week before. Nevisha's sister, Felisha, and her husband had us over for dinner last night, Jamaican jerk chicken, yum. We had a good meal with them, shared a message about the doctrine of Christ, and then Elder Nelson committed Nevisha to read the Book of Mormon. Who knows if she actually will, but it was good nonetheless.
That's pretty much all that happened this week. We don't have too much going on this next week, we'll see what happens. I don't think we'll have nine baptisms this month but who knows, if the Lord wants it, He can do it.
Love,
Elder Cevering
October 17, 2011
Hello Family!
Can you believe you will only get eight more of these from me?
Well, we didn't do too well this week progressing towards our goal of nine baptisms. We did alright, just not what we wanted to do. We picked up a new investigator this week, a girl that we GQ'ed a couple weeks ago. She is scheduled to be baptized on November 5, but we might be able to move it up to the 29th of October, I don't know, so here's how I feel about this...I feel like if I were to move it up, I would be moving it up so that we could 'reach our goal' not so that she could 'receive the blessings of baptism sooner.' We've been trying to get in to see that foreign exchange student, and I guess this week he told his parents and his parents e-mailed him and said they don't want him taking the discussions. If he will or not, I don't know, but there is a man in our stake who is in charge of him while he's here as an exchange student, and he said we shouldn't meet with him. And if we DID meet with him, I would want to invite him to be baptized, but his parents would freak and probably not give him permission to be baptized. So do I go behind their backs and invite him anyways? I want him to be baptized :) He is a stud.
Anyways, we met with another investigator again this week, no progress there really. We found out that he is currently on probation so he can't even be baptized until that's done. His wife is slowly coming along. She started sitting in on the lessons again but isn't really interested, she's just doing it to support him. I think she'll come around eventually, she's just really hurt right now. We went over there on Saturday and watched Finding Faith In Christ with them. Then they told us about all their problems for the next hour or so, Elder Nelson and I couldn't get a word in. I was kind of frustrated, so I finally said to them, "I'm going to be a little bit bold with you. We came over here tonight to help you build your faith in Jesus Christ, and we haven't been able to talk. We are glad that you like us coming over and that you feel comfortable talking to us about your trials, but our purpose in being here isn't to be a counselor, it's to help you come closer to Jesus Christ. How can we do this when you won't listen to what we have to say to help you? You just keep telling us your problems and won't give us time to help you with them." It was a lot nicer than it sounds, I promise. Ha, now that I think about it, I wonder if that's what Heavenly Father thinks about our prayers sometimes hahaha. QUIT TELLING ME ALL YOUR PROBLEMS AND LET ME SAY SOMETHING TO HELP YOU!!! We even called the speakers in first ward and asked them to say something specific about trials that would help them...and then they didn't even show up to church! We were so bummed, it would've been awesome for them.
We had some pretty solid member lessons this week, man, there is so much that could happen here in Raymond, we just gotta get the ball rolling! We had several names of people who might be interested in meeting with us come out of the woodwork this week, people who were meeting with missionaries before but then stopped that we don't have teaching records for. One lady, named Evelyn, we have been working with a member family to see her. Wednesday night Elder Nelson and I were planning when to go visit this family, and we had them earlier in the afternoon and then moved them back, for no reason really. When we showed up at their doorstep they were shocked. They said if we'd come fifteen minutes earlier they wouldn't have been home, they'd been gone all day, and half of that time was spent talking to Evelyn about taking the discussions. Evelyn said she doesn't feel worthy to be baptized and is really busy right now, so we're going to go help her out at the museum where she works and hopefully she will let us come and teach her.
Friday we had to go up to Calgary for the re-training meeting. And guess who I saw? None other than Kaitlyn Marchant, a girl that I graduated with who just got to the mission three weeks ago, she came out with Elder Nelson and is serving in Okotoks. It was so awesome to talk to her. Then we went out for lunch at Brother's afterwards. Remember me telling you about Brother's, the Chinese restaurant in my first area that was awesome? Yes. It's still as good. Anyways, the training was really good, I learned a lot about faith and miracles, now we just need to have some of those here in Raymond, nine baptisms, one in each ward, in the next fourteen days...think it's possible? I have no idea how it's going to work out. We'll just have to wait and see.
We also had dinner with the Hornberger family, I mentioned them a couple weeks ago when I felt like I massacred the lesson and that they never wanted to see us again. But! We got in to see them again, so that was good. And so was the dinner. Yum. Yorkshire pudding, roast beef, curried cauliflower...yum. We get fed so good here in Raymond, holy cow. Yesterday we had TWO dinner appointments. One of the families saw us at the gas station earlier on and bought us candy bars while we were filling up our tank. As we walked in to pay, she walked out of the station saying, "I see chocolate in your future..." and then when we payed for our gas the cashier said we could pick any king-sized chocolate bar, this lady had paid for Elder Nelson and I to have one. That was sweet of her. Anyways, the Hornbergers...I shared the message with them, this time about the Book of Mormon, and the two kids, Sam and Leah, actually participated this time. I think the best thing we can do for them is just be their friends and talk to them about the church. We are planning to go visit Sam sometime this week and play some music together, and we'll talk to him about how he feels about the church and everything, I really feel that's what we need to do.
We met with the a couple last night who we've been working with, they're all ready to be baptized on Thursday so that's good. She came out to church yesterday and we talked to her husband on Tuesday. He says he doesn't think she will be baptized this Saturday. Obviously, she has to have a testimony of her own in order to be baptized, but if she doesn't have somebody to encourage her to get to church and read and pray and all that, that's going to be a lot harder. We're meeting with her tonight, hopefully things go well and she will want to be baptized this Saturday. We also met with a less-active couple who wants to go to the temple to be sealed in the next few months.
So, not too much going on for convert baptisms, that's a work in progress, but I really feel that we are receiving revelation for our investigators and seeing miracles throughout the week, so that's awesome. I'm not gonna lie, now I'm getting nervous to come home. Part of me wants to just stay here forever :) but part of me wants to get back to doing other things than just missionary work.
Thanks for your love and support, I'll talk to you next Monday.
Love,
Elder Cevering
October 12, 2011
Hello Family.
Well, yesterday was Thanksgiving up here, hence the reason I didn't e-mail you. Everything was closed here in Raymond. Last Canadian Thanksgiving! Crazy. This week has been crazy. I'm starting to get nervous about coming home hahaha some days I just want to stay on a mission and then other days I get excited to come home. Heads up: It might be a rough transition.
So! Week #95. Not too much happened this week, unfortunately, it's been kind of a rough spell. All of our investigator lessons cancelled except for one, and then none of them were at church on Sunday. Bummer. On Sunday we did get in contact with an African-American man who moved here a couple weeks ago that got married to a LDS girl. Bishop talked to him and invited him to take the discussions, which he agreed to, so we went by to set up the appointment. We're knocking on his door and this big old truck comes down the road, just making all kinds of noise. It stops at the stop sign, and then as it turns it makes this big banging noise that made me jump and scream just a little bit. At that very moment the man opened the door. So he opens the door, this kid in a suit (me) jumps and screams and it scared him so bad he screamed too..."Ahhhh!" Oh man, it was bad but funny. What a great first impression. Luckily, we didn't scare him away, we have an appointment with him next week.
I don't really know what to say, that was like all that happened this week. We had some member lessons that went just okay, we had interviews this week, we did some tracting since our lessons kept cancelling, it was kind of rough. But good, that's how you grow, going through rough spots. My second area in Calgary was probably the toughest area that I served in, and it's probably the area in which I grew the most.
We met with a non-member again this week and got to the bottom of his concerns about coming to church. He doesn't want to just "jump right in," he said he is afraid of failing. What if he gets active in the church and then goes right back to smoking? Or what if he gets reactivated and then it's not what he expected? We talked a lot about what it's like to feel the Spirit and how his life can be blessed. They also had us over this weekend for a block barbecue. They made us steaks. Yum. And the barbecue was so good. All the neighbors in the cul-de-sac, all members by the way, pulled their grills out into the road and all the tables in the middle of the street and we just grilled and ate and everything. It was good.
Another investigator we’re working with is just the same as ever. We actually had a pretty good lesson this past week with him. We talked about choosing TODAY to serve the Lord, not waiting until things are better, and also talked about his desires to serve others and his obstacles to baptism. He actually sat there and thought about and listened to what he had to say. It was good. But then he wasn't at church so I don't know how much he actually learned. We are going to meet with him tomorrow with Brother Oler, our assistant ward mission leader, who is sweet. I don't know how much more we can do to help him, but Elder Nelson and I realized today that we need to get the members here more involved in missionary work, we are really shouldering most of it. It would be much better for everyone if they could get involved with the people and help us help them to progress in the gospel.
We also visited with the young man from Norway. He said he would be interested in going on a church tour, hopefully he will feel the Spirit there and even if he doesn't join the church now, maybe he will in the future. He's a sweet kid.
I had a personal experience this week that I want to share. I was reading in 2 Nephi 3 where Nephi has included on the gold plates the prophecy of Joseph in Egypt concerning the restoration of the gospel. There's one verse, I think it's in verse...23? Maybe 24? I don't remember. Anyways, it talks about Joseph Smith, saying he would be a man with exceeding faith, a man who would do much good, things like that. I realized in that moment that THAT is how Heavenly Father feels about Joseph Smith. The LORD feels good about Joseph Smith, the WORLD says he is a con-artist, false prophet, all that. But the Lord Himself revealed to Lehi, or Joseph, or whoever that Jospeh Smith would be a good man, not a wicked man. It was a real testimony-builder to me.
So, that was our week this week. Nine baptisms, here we come!
Love,
Elder Cevering
October 3, 2011
Hello Family!
Well, this week was kind of a gong show, but it was good nonetheless.
Monday night we had dinner with a member family. I shared this message on baptism and everybody was like, "Wow, that was such a great message!" (As Elder Nelson later said, it was a "bomb-dot-com" message.) The reason I share this is to explain that they felt the Spirit strongly, and then I extended to them the 7-Day Challenge...and all went quiet. They started coming up with all these excuses about why they couldn't do it, we even worked through a couple concerns, but they convinced themselves they couldn't do it, nobody was prepared, and the Lord couldn't help them. They noticed my frustration, apparent by my killer silence, and as we were walking out the door they yelled to me, "Elder---we'll think about what you've shared with us tonight." I was so frustrated. But! We had a great experience that made up for that.
Right after that appointment we met with a family that has less-active kids. One s 16-years-old, I think, and he is solid. His dad called us the week before and said he wants to get back into church and receive the priesthood and all that, so we are stoked to be working with him. We are meeting with them every Monday night, and when we called them last night to confirm the appointment they said, "Yep, in fact, we are just in the middle of our daily family scripture study." That was sweet!
Tuesday I had to go to Leadership Training Meetings all day in Lethbridge, that was long. I saw the elder who is serving in Creston right now and he said that a girl I worked with in Creston was interviewed by a general authority and is now waiting for First Presidency approval to be baptized. That's sweet! Then how about Elder Ballard's throw-down this weekend, hey? I was thinking about them the whole time. Anyways, that night we taught the mission prep class and another man & his wife in our area that wants to start coming back to church. They are sweet, I like them a lot, they both have solid testimonies of the gospel, they just got a little sidetracked for a bit.
Wednesday was a gong show. Everything fell through. We role-played a church tour so that Elder Nelson could learn how to do it, and then the investigator that we were going to teach it to called and cancelled on us. Then our dinner appointment with a less-active family fell through. So we went and picked up an investigator, took him to the church, taught him the church tour, and then went to dinner with him. It was good, it just didn't feel very productive. I hope it was good for him, though, we both felt like it was. I think it was also this day that we got a call from the elders in Magrath saying they had an evil spirit in their apartment during the night. This is a funny story. So I ask them what happened and one of the missionaries starts talking and he says, "I know this sounds funny, but I had a dream last night where I walked into this room and all of a sudden this evil dishcloth jumped off the window sill and hit me in the head!" Well, so far I wasn't convinced of it being an evil spirit or anything, nightmares about killer dishcloths happen sometimes, and then talking to his companion, who is all rough and tough, talked about his experiences and then I started to think it was possible that there was an evil spirit there. They haven't had any bad experiences since, so who knows.
Thursday night we met with Danny again. I don't know what was different this time, but it went SO much better than all the other times we've met with him. The best part about the whole lesson was when we shared a scripture, Alma 7:14, and Danny highlighted it. He felt the Spirit!!! We were so stoked about that. Since we didn't have sacrament meeting this weekend we weren't able to see if he 'came to church,' but he knows that his next step. Thursday night was such a pay-off, it was great.
Friday was a gong show as well. We had to take our car in to Lethbridge to get fixed, and they said it would take a couple of hours. Pretty soon 3:00 comes around and the car place still hasn't called us. We dropped the car off at 9:30 that morning. We went out for lunch with the missionaries there in Lethbridge, to a place called Wing King, and then they had a meeting while we continued our planning efforts. When the meeting was over at 3:00, we decided we should probably call the car place. They said, "Oh, yeah, we just finished it, come by and pick it up." Then we had to take our car to another dealership, who referred us to another dealership, and it took them another 45 minutes to fix something ELSE on the car. We didn't get back to Raymond until almost 5:30. Gong show.
The members that we live with, the Streibels, had a mini-concert in their backyard on Friday night and they asked us to sing a song. We sang "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go". It went pretty well, Elder Nelson can carry a tune but he has trouble with harmony hahaha but overall it was good. Except on the last verse we accidentally sang, "I'll say what you want me to be" instead of "I'll be what you want me to be." We felt dumb, but whatever, nobody cares.
Then this weekend was conference! It was sweet. Both of the morning sessions were incredible, I loved them. Did I see Emma in the choir in the Saturday afternoon session? If it wasn't her, there was a girl that looked A LOT like her. I also saw Taysn Haslam and maybe Emily Hull? I told Elder Nelson at the very beginning, "If I see any of my friends or family, I am going to lose it, I'm going to be so trunky." Fortunately, it didn't make me trunky, and I also didn't see any of you or any friends or anything, so that was good. After conference the Baril family had us over for wings and things. It was great. I love the Barils, they are sweet. They are really committed to helping us find someone who is ready to be baptized in the 7th Ward. We told them about our plans to fast today and they said they would join in with us. They are awesome.
We also met with a non-member family last night and re-scheduled their baptismal date for October 20th. Hopefully it goes through this time. It should, the problem last time was just the funeral. They are sweet, I like them a lot. And they always send us home with goodies.
Last night right after we finished saying our prayer to begin our fast, we got a call from Bishop Steed in 2nd Ward saying that he talked to a part-member family this weekend who accepted his invitation to meet with us. That's sweet! We are supposed to see them on Sunday and set up an appointment then. Hopefully things go well there. Ike also talked to the young man from Norway who agreed to take the discussions but cautioned Ike, "I'm not going to be converted." It's kind of a touchy situation because his dad is a Lutheran minister back in Norway and he is here on an exchange program, right? We'll see what happens there. He's a solid kid, I've met him once before and he should totally be a member of the church.
That's all for this week!
Love,
Elder Cevering
Friday, September 23, 2011
September Pictures
A "GREENIE" Dinner for Colby's new "Greenie" Companion!
Waterton Park with a bunch of missionaries...and some Asian man who stood in the pictures...Haha!
Elder Cevering Pondering the Questions of the Soul
Elder Cevering with his new companion - Elder Nelson
The TUBBY DOG!!! Yes...with Peanut Butter & Jelly & Cap'n Crunch Cereal!
Elder Schriever Enjoying his Tubby Dog!
A Bear Wandering Down the Road Right in Front of Elder Cevering...
Watch out...Goats on the Road!
Elder Cevering enjoying his Dairy Queen Blizzard at the Cardston Temple
The Cardston Temple at Night
Waterton Park with a bunch of missionaries...and some Asian man who stood in the pictures...Haha!
Elder Cevering Pondering the Questions of the Soul
Elder Cevering with his new companion - Elder Nelson
The TUBBY DOG!!! Yes...with Peanut Butter & Jelly & Cap'n Crunch Cereal!
Elder Schriever Enjoying his Tubby Dog!
A Bear Wandering Down the Road Right in Front of Elder Cevering...
Watch out...Goats on the Road!
Elder Cevering enjoying his Dairy Queen Blizzard at the Cardston Temple
The Cardston Temple at Night
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
September Emails
September 26, 2011
Hello Family.
Wow, life is great as a missionary here in Raymond. Elder Nelson and I get along really well, so that's awesome. We have a lot in common, too. He is into music and amusement parks and stuff and we have a lot of the same opinion on things. We can talk about how we feel about the mission programs and stuff and try to help each other or figure out what to do, it's great. He pulled out the area book this week and wanted to go to former investigators...FINALLY! We actually had a neat experience, we called this former investigator, Zultan, to see if he wanted to meet with us. Actually, we called the fellowshippers, the LeFevres, because we didn't have a number for Zultan. Anyways, so we call the LeFevres to ask about Zultan and they say, "He's sitting right next to me, do you want to talk to him?" So we did. What makes that even more cool is that he had just come up from Arizona for two weeks, I guess he lives down there now and just visits up here. So what were the chances that we would catch him up here AND at the LeFevres home in the same night? He believes Joseph Smith was a prophet, he loves the Book of Mormon, he lives the word of wisdom and everything, he's basically a dry Mormon. He just won't be baptized because he feels like he would be betraying his deceased parents. We were kind of bummed that he is going back down to Arizona this week but there had to be a reason we contacted him, there's no way that was just a coincidence.
So the picture of the tubby dog---it's peanut butter, jelly, and Cap'n Crunch. It was yummy. And the pictures of the goats and the bear, that was in Waterton. Raymond is all flat and barren, that's why I haven't sent any pictures of it. The only mountain parts of the mission are Waterton and BC. Other than that, it's all prairies and city.
On Elder Nelson's very first night we taught Maureen and he extended the baptismal invitation---and she accepted! She is scheduled to be baptized on October 22nd. It's going to take quite a bit of work still. She believes it's true, she understands the whole priesthood authority thing, she just doesn't feel like she has received an answer about whether or not it's true "for sure." We also have to teach her two more lessons, the next one isn't until next week so that might be a problem. We'll see what happens though.
Then on Thursday we went to seminary that morning, I thought it would be a nice break from a two-hour companionship study. As part of the new training program we have to have two hours of companionship study in the morning and the studies are all laid out for us. Anyways, so we went to seminary because that girl Sydney has it that morning. We show up and this kid walks in like five minutes late, his name is Oyven. He is an exchange student from Norway and he had a free period so he wanted to go to seminary. I thought he was a member, he just seemed to have that glow and everything. Well, we had to leave like ten minutes early because we get free lunch at the high school on Thursdays and we wanted to beat the rush, but after lunch we went back to Brother Bennett's classroom and talked to him about Oyven. Turns out he's NOT a member of the church, we think he's Lutheran, but he comes to church every week and likes learning about it, so he just came to seminary. We have been trying and trying to figure out who he lives with so we could work with them and invite him to take the discussions but NOBODY KNOWS WHERE HE LIVES hahaha. It was a gong show trying to figure it out. We are still on the hunt! But I thought that was a pretty cool little miracle. Then that night we had dinner with the Sugai family, they're sweet, and then we met with Danny May again. I don't know what to do with that kid hahaha he just needs to come to church.
Not too much happened on Friday. We had a couple less-effective 7-Day challenges and we did our weekly planning session and I had to go in to Cardston to do a baptismal interview for the zone leaders. But Saturday afternoon we visited with an investigator again. He's such a sweet kid. He talked a lot more about his conversion story, it was really neat to hear. I don't know how to help him either. I feel like I just don't know any more. I feel like I'm doing my best, so really all I can think is that I'm doing my part and now it's their turn.
Yesterday we went to church from 9 to 4 and taught an elder's quorum class about how to use the Book of Mormon to answer the questions of the soul. I'm not sure that it went over as well as I would have liked it to, but Elder Nelson was really happy with it, so I probably just had super high expectations for it. While the sacrament was being passed one of the young men turned to another, held out his sacrament tray and said, "Can you hold this? I have to go to the bathroom..." The kid says, "No, not right now!" So then they go up to get the water. He comes back to where we are sitting and then asks the usher standing at the door, "Can you hold this? I have to go to the bathroom!" Of course, the usher says, "No, not right now!" It was pretty funny. Then last night the Graves family had us over for a green dinner. Get it, since Elder Nelson is a greenie? Yeah, it was pretty cool. Green pancakes, green eggs, green milk, green orange juice, green cupcakes, ice cream with a green maraschino cherry on top, it was good. Yes, I have pictures. Not lots but some. Okay maybe one.
I guess just keep us and our investigators and the people of Raymond in your prayers. I can't believe Nick gets home next week. Blows my mind and makes me super trunky. I'm going to be the last one of my friends, bah, I can't think about it any more, too trunky. Thanks for your love and support! I love you!
Elder Cevering
September 21, 2011
Hello Family!
Sorry that I kept you in suspense for so long about the happenings of this week. It was a pretty good week. I am stoked to be training again. My companion is Elder Nelson, he's from South Jordan. He seems like a sweet kid, ready to work hard and be obedient, the next few (12) weeks will be awesome I'm sure. I got my trunky papers today. I can't believe we have to fly to Seattle and THEN to Salt Lake. But, whatever, it's cool, I'll get to go to Seattle.
So this week was kind of a gong show. Monday night we went out on splits, I went with Ike, which was sweet. We gave a pretty solid 7-Day Challenge to a family who, we didn't know, has a friend that has all of a sudden started reading the Book of Mormon, just out of nowhere. Hopefully we can start teaching her soon. Tuesday we had our district meetings and DDMs. Then Wednesday I was sick so we just took a sick day that day. Thursday was a little bit better. At dinner Thursday night the two little kids, maybe like seven and five, looked at me and said, "...your face isn't the same colour (<---that's the Canadian spelling) as ours. Why?" It was pretty funny.
We also met with a girl who has committed to baptism and we talked to her about the importance of coming to church and partaking of the sacrament. I thought for sure she would be at church on Sunday since her sister was speaking but when we got there she wasn't there. We were pretty bummed. Oh well, and so it goes. President told me that we need to warn her about procrastinating her baptism until her mom comes. She has a desire to be baptized and she wants her mom to be there and feel the Spirit, so I just don't know if I can go in there and say, 'Don't procrastinate!' That's one thing that I am really working on. In the fourth section of the Doctrine and Covenants we learn that "an eye single to the glory of God" qualifies people for the Lord's work. As I was studying this recently, I had an 'ephiphone' that the glory of God is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39). So while the 'eye single' phrase means to give God the glory and not to seek glory in yourself, I also understood it to mean that we should be working for the salvation of these people, and not just so that we can have another baptism. So that's one thing I'm working on. Anyways, President told the zone leaders back at the beginning of September that each companionship should set a goal to have one baptism in each ward that they cover in the month of October. Well, for us, that means we would set a goal to have nine baptisms in October, or to make it sound more like 'an eye single to the glory of God', we would set a goal to work our hardest to open the doors of the Celestial Kingdom to nine of His children here in Raymond. At first I was pretty skeptical, but the other night as I was praying about it I felt really excited and it felt right so Elder Nelson and I are going to work for it.
Anyways, so Thursday night the Cardston elders drove in and went on splits with us here in Raymond. Elder Bartholomew and I visited a single mom and her two kids. The kids are less-active and they weren't too keen on having us over but I just felt like we should visit them. They are both musically talented so I thought we would have an 'in' there. He is really into guitar and wants to be a sound and music producer, and lucky for me, Elder Bartholomew is really into guitar as well, so that was good. We talked to them about music for a bit and then we started teaching lesson one. I told them upfront why we were there, to help them to come closer to Jesus Christ, and it was up to them if they wanted to or not, we would invite them to do things but they had their agency to say no. So we're teaching this lesson and I just felt like it wasn't working. I was stammering for words, I didn't know what to say, and neither of them was really paying attention. So I just bore my testimony to them and said, "I feel like I don't know what to say. I guess I can just say that Heavenly Father loves you and you are His son and His daughter. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the way to happiness in this life, Sam and Lea. I know that it's true. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. But it's up to you to learn these things for yourself. So will you pray tonight and ask your Father in Heaven to help you know if He wants you to follow Jesus Christ?" They said maybe. Well, I was feeling pretty dumb so we ended the lesson really quickly and then just talked to them about music. They were a LOT more open than they were at the beginning. Then I just felt like THAT was what we needed to do, is be their friends. As we were talking to them just about music, it was great. They were open and talkative and everything, it was really enjoyable. So, we'll keep working on friendshipping them and maybe we can help bring them back.
Friday I had to go up to Calgary to be trained on how to train new missionaries. Well...Elder Weaver had gone to Cardston with Elder Bartholomew after we had finished our appointments for the night. So Elder Schriever and I went up to Calgary hahaha it was a gong show. We left Raymond at 10:00 a.m. and we decided we wanted to go to Tubby Dog for lunch. We didn't make it back for the training on time. We were only like twenty minutes late, though. Then afterwards the assistants needed us to go on splits with them and then on the way home we stopped for dinner and took a couple wrong turns...we didn't get back til 10 p.m. It was a gong show hahaha but it was SO good to be with Elder Schriever.
Saturday we had a service project in the morning and then we spent the afternoon preparing for the Raymond Heritage Festival. The stake high councilman over missionary work wanted us to put up a booth at the festival so we did a Book of Mormon themed booth. We were the only 'booth' at the festival, everything else was fun and games. We felt pretty dumb. And we did all the work to not even hand out one copy of the Book of Mormon. Oh well. There were some members that kept bringing us hot dogs hahaha I think we had like five or six hot dogs because they just kept bringing them to us. "Elders, did you have some food? We'll go get you a hot dog!" And I had just had Tubby Dog the day before.
Sunday we gave out two pretty solid 7-Day challenges, I was shocked at their faith. If I could write a scripture about it I would say, "Never hath there been so much faith among all the Raymondites." TWO of them were like that. Hopefully we can teach some people as a result of that. There was also a less-active man who called one of our ward mission leaders and said he wants us to come by and teach him and his family, to help them start coming back to church. That was sweet. I don't remember if I told you this, but President Archibald received a promise from our Area Authority, Elder Melchin, that for every less-active member we re-activate Heavenly Father promises to bring one of His children to baptism. So that's sweet. We're working with two families now, I feel very blessed. There's also a bunch of potential among the youth. We go to seminary probably like two or three times a week and try to seek referrals and befriend the nonmember kids who are taking seminary. There is one girl who turns 16 in October that really wants to be baptized a couple days after her birthday, but her parents, who are inactive, weren't too excited about her taking seminary, so I can't imagine what they would say about her meeting with us and being baptized. But, we are just going to keep fasting and praying for them and I'm sure something will work out.
Monday night we met with the Carters again and they are still game to be baptized next week. We're not sure if it will happen on Thursday or the Sunday of General Conference, but they are pretty solid about getting them baptized next week, so that will be sweet. I love that family.
Well, that's it for this week. Thanks for all your prayers and support. Until next week. Adieu.
Elder Cevering
September 7, 2011
Hello Family!
Well, after a pretty tough week the week before, we did see some pretty good miracles in this past week.
Monday evening we taught Maureen again. She had read all the wrong chapters from the Book of Mormon so we just read 3 Nephi 11 with her. When we committed her to baptism at the end she said she wasn't sure if she was ready to be baptized, but she knew that she needed to be. She said, "It tells us right there how we need to be baptized, how can I argue with that?" We haven't met with her since then, but hopefully things will continue to go well with her.
Tuesday we went on exchanges with the elders in the Cardston West Stake. I was with Elder Bartholomew for the day, which was somewhat tough, but good overall. We were able to get lots of work done, lots of stop-bys, so that was good. Halfway through the day I wanted to go get a drink at the church so we pull up and there's all these cars there for a funeral. We got there just as the funeral ended and as we're walking through the doors of the church this man says, "Hang on a minute, Elders, you will want to see the hearse." Around the side of the chapel comes this big green John Deere tractor with a small trailer hooked up to it...carrying the coffin! Hahaha it was so funny, I thought to myself, 'Only in Raymond.' The man was watching the procession go by and he says to us, "Yep, Roy sure loved his John Deeres." Hahaha. What a crazy town.
Wednesday night we met with a less-active man. He's sweet! His wife left him maybe a year ago or so and ran off with his best friend, who was also married. He's still pretty bitter about it, but wow he has a testimony of the Atonement. He has a friend that went to Fremont that served in this mission, I can't remember his name, but he said dad's name sounded familiar.
Thursday night we met with another less-active man. He is from Saskatchewan, served a mission and everything, but I guess just got lost along the way when he got home, went through a divorce and everything, no good. He is a stud though, it was so great meeting with him. Hopefully he will let us teach his kids, I think they've been baptized, but they get a lot of anti stuff from a relative and so they're kind of caught in this "war of words and tumult of opinions."
Friday afternoon we were FINALLY able to get an appointment with our investigator, Nevisha. She is SOLID!!! We decided to teach her the third lesson out of Preach My Gospel, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, and before we could even get to baptism she started talking about how she wants to be baptized, it's not a matter of 'if' she's baptized, but 'when.' She loves coming to church, reading the Book of Mormon, the only thing keeping her from baptism is her mom who lives in Toronto. She wants her mom to be here for the baptism but she has a crazy work schedule. When we asked her what we could do to help her progress towards baptism, she said, "...set a date?" So we set a date for September 17th. I felt impressed to tell her, "Nevisha, if you commit to the Lord to be baptized on the 17th, and ask for His help to get your mom here, I can't imagine that He wouldn't do it." So, I guess we will see what happens.
Then last night we had an appointment with a family, a less-active family that has two unbaptized children who are ready and willing to be baptized. So we started with the first discussion last night, and they are scheduled to be baptized on September 30th. Their dad works up north on the oil rigs and is here for one week then gone for two, so he leaves this weekend, gets home the weekend before the 30th in time to baptize them and then take off again for work. That will be sweet, they are a pretty cool family.
This week I also got my trunky call...that was so bad. It is confirmed that I am flying into Salt Lake City on December 15th, we don't have all the flight details yet, probably not until November they said, but they had to get it all set up and ready. I got that phone call the same day I got the package with Nate, Liz, and Lindsey's letters. Man, I was so trunky after that hahaha it was so bad. BUT! I'm trying not to think about it and instead just focus on the work. But I am stoked to come home :) Also, Liz wanted a shout-out…. Hi Liz!
Well, I'm off to get groceries and all that stuff. I guess I will talk to y'all again next Monday.
I love you, thanks for your support and encouragement!
Elder Cevering
Hello Family.
Wow, life is great as a missionary here in Raymond. Elder Nelson and I get along really well, so that's awesome. We have a lot in common, too. He is into music and amusement parks and stuff and we have a lot of the same opinion on things. We can talk about how we feel about the mission programs and stuff and try to help each other or figure out what to do, it's great. He pulled out the area book this week and wanted to go to former investigators...FINALLY! We actually had a neat experience, we called this former investigator, Zultan, to see if he wanted to meet with us. Actually, we called the fellowshippers, the LeFevres, because we didn't have a number for Zultan. Anyways, so we call the LeFevres to ask about Zultan and they say, "He's sitting right next to me, do you want to talk to him?" So we did. What makes that even more cool is that he had just come up from Arizona for two weeks, I guess he lives down there now and just visits up here. So what were the chances that we would catch him up here AND at the LeFevres home in the same night? He believes Joseph Smith was a prophet, he loves the Book of Mormon, he lives the word of wisdom and everything, he's basically a dry Mormon. He just won't be baptized because he feels like he would be betraying his deceased parents. We were kind of bummed that he is going back down to Arizona this week but there had to be a reason we contacted him, there's no way that was just a coincidence.
So the picture of the tubby dog---it's peanut butter, jelly, and Cap'n Crunch. It was yummy. And the pictures of the goats and the bear, that was in Waterton. Raymond is all flat and barren, that's why I haven't sent any pictures of it. The only mountain parts of the mission are Waterton and BC. Other than that, it's all prairies and city.
On Elder Nelson's very first night we taught Maureen and he extended the baptismal invitation---and she accepted! She is scheduled to be baptized on October 22nd. It's going to take quite a bit of work still. She believes it's true, she understands the whole priesthood authority thing, she just doesn't feel like she has received an answer about whether or not it's true "for sure." We also have to teach her two more lessons, the next one isn't until next week so that might be a problem. We'll see what happens though.
Then on Thursday we went to seminary that morning, I thought it would be a nice break from a two-hour companionship study. As part of the new training program we have to have two hours of companionship study in the morning and the studies are all laid out for us. Anyways, so we went to seminary because that girl Sydney has it that morning. We show up and this kid walks in like five minutes late, his name is Oyven. He is an exchange student from Norway and he had a free period so he wanted to go to seminary. I thought he was a member, he just seemed to have that glow and everything. Well, we had to leave like ten minutes early because we get free lunch at the high school on Thursdays and we wanted to beat the rush, but after lunch we went back to Brother Bennett's classroom and talked to him about Oyven. Turns out he's NOT a member of the church, we think he's Lutheran, but he comes to church every week and likes learning about it, so he just came to seminary. We have been trying and trying to figure out who he lives with so we could work with them and invite him to take the discussions but NOBODY KNOWS WHERE HE LIVES hahaha. It was a gong show trying to figure it out. We are still on the hunt! But I thought that was a pretty cool little miracle. Then that night we had dinner with the Sugai family, they're sweet, and then we met with Danny May again. I don't know what to do with that kid hahaha he just needs to come to church.
Not too much happened on Friday. We had a couple less-effective 7-Day challenges and we did our weekly planning session and I had to go in to Cardston to do a baptismal interview for the zone leaders. But Saturday afternoon we visited with an investigator again. He's such a sweet kid. He talked a lot more about his conversion story, it was really neat to hear. I don't know how to help him either. I feel like I just don't know any more. I feel like I'm doing my best, so really all I can think is that I'm doing my part and now it's their turn.
Yesterday we went to church from 9 to 4 and taught an elder's quorum class about how to use the Book of Mormon to answer the questions of the soul. I'm not sure that it went over as well as I would have liked it to, but Elder Nelson was really happy with it, so I probably just had super high expectations for it. While the sacrament was being passed one of the young men turned to another, held out his sacrament tray and said, "Can you hold this? I have to go to the bathroom..." The kid says, "No, not right now!" So then they go up to get the water. He comes back to where we are sitting and then asks the usher standing at the door, "Can you hold this? I have to go to the bathroom!" Of course, the usher says, "No, not right now!" It was pretty funny. Then last night the Graves family had us over for a green dinner. Get it, since Elder Nelson is a greenie? Yeah, it was pretty cool. Green pancakes, green eggs, green milk, green orange juice, green cupcakes, ice cream with a green maraschino cherry on top, it was good. Yes, I have pictures. Not lots but some. Okay maybe one.
I guess just keep us and our investigators and the people of Raymond in your prayers. I can't believe Nick gets home next week. Blows my mind and makes me super trunky. I'm going to be the last one of my friends, bah, I can't think about it any more, too trunky. Thanks for your love and support! I love you!
Elder Cevering
September 21, 2011
Hello Family!
Sorry that I kept you in suspense for so long about the happenings of this week. It was a pretty good week. I am stoked to be training again. My companion is Elder Nelson, he's from South Jordan. He seems like a sweet kid, ready to work hard and be obedient, the next few (12) weeks will be awesome I'm sure. I got my trunky papers today. I can't believe we have to fly to Seattle and THEN to Salt Lake. But, whatever, it's cool, I'll get to go to Seattle.
So this week was kind of a gong show. Monday night we went out on splits, I went with Ike, which was sweet. We gave a pretty solid 7-Day Challenge to a family who, we didn't know, has a friend that has all of a sudden started reading the Book of Mormon, just out of nowhere. Hopefully we can start teaching her soon. Tuesday we had our district meetings and DDMs. Then Wednesday I was sick so we just took a sick day that day. Thursday was a little bit better. At dinner Thursday night the two little kids, maybe like seven and five, looked at me and said, "...your face isn't the same colour (<---that's the Canadian spelling) as ours. Why?" It was pretty funny.
We also met with a girl who has committed to baptism and we talked to her about the importance of coming to church and partaking of the sacrament. I thought for sure she would be at church on Sunday since her sister was speaking but when we got there she wasn't there. We were pretty bummed. Oh well, and so it goes. President told me that we need to warn her about procrastinating her baptism until her mom comes. She has a desire to be baptized and she wants her mom to be there and feel the Spirit, so I just don't know if I can go in there and say, 'Don't procrastinate!' That's one thing that I am really working on. In the fourth section of the Doctrine and Covenants we learn that "an eye single to the glory of God" qualifies people for the Lord's work. As I was studying this recently, I had an 'ephiphone' that the glory of God is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39). So while the 'eye single' phrase means to give God the glory and not to seek glory in yourself, I also understood it to mean that we should be working for the salvation of these people, and not just so that we can have another baptism. So that's one thing I'm working on. Anyways, President told the zone leaders back at the beginning of September that each companionship should set a goal to have one baptism in each ward that they cover in the month of October. Well, for us, that means we would set a goal to have nine baptisms in October, or to make it sound more like 'an eye single to the glory of God', we would set a goal to work our hardest to open the doors of the Celestial Kingdom to nine of His children here in Raymond. At first I was pretty skeptical, but the other night as I was praying about it I felt really excited and it felt right so Elder Nelson and I are going to work for it.
Anyways, so Thursday night the Cardston elders drove in and went on splits with us here in Raymond. Elder Bartholomew and I visited a single mom and her two kids. The kids are less-active and they weren't too keen on having us over but I just felt like we should visit them. They are both musically talented so I thought we would have an 'in' there. He is really into guitar and wants to be a sound and music producer, and lucky for me, Elder Bartholomew is really into guitar as well, so that was good. We talked to them about music for a bit and then we started teaching lesson one. I told them upfront why we were there, to help them to come closer to Jesus Christ, and it was up to them if they wanted to or not, we would invite them to do things but they had their agency to say no. So we're teaching this lesson and I just felt like it wasn't working. I was stammering for words, I didn't know what to say, and neither of them was really paying attention. So I just bore my testimony to them and said, "I feel like I don't know what to say. I guess I can just say that Heavenly Father loves you and you are His son and His daughter. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the way to happiness in this life, Sam and Lea. I know that it's true. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. But it's up to you to learn these things for yourself. So will you pray tonight and ask your Father in Heaven to help you know if He wants you to follow Jesus Christ?" They said maybe. Well, I was feeling pretty dumb so we ended the lesson really quickly and then just talked to them about music. They were a LOT more open than they were at the beginning. Then I just felt like THAT was what we needed to do, is be their friends. As we were talking to them just about music, it was great. They were open and talkative and everything, it was really enjoyable. So, we'll keep working on friendshipping them and maybe we can help bring them back.
Friday I had to go up to Calgary to be trained on how to train new missionaries. Well...Elder Weaver had gone to Cardston with Elder Bartholomew after we had finished our appointments for the night. So Elder Schriever and I went up to Calgary hahaha it was a gong show. We left Raymond at 10:00 a.m. and we decided we wanted to go to Tubby Dog for lunch. We didn't make it back for the training on time. We were only like twenty minutes late, though. Then afterwards the assistants needed us to go on splits with them and then on the way home we stopped for dinner and took a couple wrong turns...we didn't get back til 10 p.m. It was a gong show hahaha but it was SO good to be with Elder Schriever.
Saturday we had a service project in the morning and then we spent the afternoon preparing for the Raymond Heritage Festival. The stake high councilman over missionary work wanted us to put up a booth at the festival so we did a Book of Mormon themed booth. We were the only 'booth' at the festival, everything else was fun and games. We felt pretty dumb. And we did all the work to not even hand out one copy of the Book of Mormon. Oh well. There were some members that kept bringing us hot dogs hahaha I think we had like five or six hot dogs because they just kept bringing them to us. "Elders, did you have some food? We'll go get you a hot dog!" And I had just had Tubby Dog the day before.
Sunday we gave out two pretty solid 7-Day challenges, I was shocked at their faith. If I could write a scripture about it I would say, "Never hath there been so much faith among all the Raymondites." TWO of them were like that. Hopefully we can teach some people as a result of that. There was also a less-active man who called one of our ward mission leaders and said he wants us to come by and teach him and his family, to help them start coming back to church. That was sweet. I don't remember if I told you this, but President Archibald received a promise from our Area Authority, Elder Melchin, that for every less-active member we re-activate Heavenly Father promises to bring one of His children to baptism. So that's sweet. We're working with two families now, I feel very blessed. There's also a bunch of potential among the youth. We go to seminary probably like two or three times a week and try to seek referrals and befriend the nonmember kids who are taking seminary. There is one girl who turns 16 in October that really wants to be baptized a couple days after her birthday, but her parents, who are inactive, weren't too excited about her taking seminary, so I can't imagine what they would say about her meeting with us and being baptized. But, we are just going to keep fasting and praying for them and I'm sure something will work out.
Monday night we met with the Carters again and they are still game to be baptized next week. We're not sure if it will happen on Thursday or the Sunday of General Conference, but they are pretty solid about getting them baptized next week, so that will be sweet. I love that family.
Well, that's it for this week. Thanks for all your prayers and support. Until next week. Adieu.
Elder Cevering
September 7, 2011
Hello Family!
Well, after a pretty tough week the week before, we did see some pretty good miracles in this past week.
Monday evening we taught Maureen again. She had read all the wrong chapters from the Book of Mormon so we just read 3 Nephi 11 with her. When we committed her to baptism at the end she said she wasn't sure if she was ready to be baptized, but she knew that she needed to be. She said, "It tells us right there how we need to be baptized, how can I argue with that?" We haven't met with her since then, but hopefully things will continue to go well with her.
Tuesday we went on exchanges with the elders in the Cardston West Stake. I was with Elder Bartholomew for the day, which was somewhat tough, but good overall. We were able to get lots of work done, lots of stop-bys, so that was good. Halfway through the day I wanted to go get a drink at the church so we pull up and there's all these cars there for a funeral. We got there just as the funeral ended and as we're walking through the doors of the church this man says, "Hang on a minute, Elders, you will want to see the hearse." Around the side of the chapel comes this big green John Deere tractor with a small trailer hooked up to it...carrying the coffin! Hahaha it was so funny, I thought to myself, 'Only in Raymond.' The man was watching the procession go by and he says to us, "Yep, Roy sure loved his John Deeres." Hahaha. What a crazy town.
Wednesday night we met with a less-active man. He's sweet! His wife left him maybe a year ago or so and ran off with his best friend, who was also married. He's still pretty bitter about it, but wow he has a testimony of the Atonement. He has a friend that went to Fremont that served in this mission, I can't remember his name, but he said dad's name sounded familiar.
Thursday night we met with another less-active man. He is from Saskatchewan, served a mission and everything, but I guess just got lost along the way when he got home, went through a divorce and everything, no good. He is a stud though, it was so great meeting with him. Hopefully he will let us teach his kids, I think they've been baptized, but they get a lot of anti stuff from a relative and so they're kind of caught in this "war of words and tumult of opinions."
Friday afternoon we were FINALLY able to get an appointment with our investigator, Nevisha. She is SOLID!!! We decided to teach her the third lesson out of Preach My Gospel, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, and before we could even get to baptism she started talking about how she wants to be baptized, it's not a matter of 'if' she's baptized, but 'when.' She loves coming to church, reading the Book of Mormon, the only thing keeping her from baptism is her mom who lives in Toronto. She wants her mom to be here for the baptism but she has a crazy work schedule. When we asked her what we could do to help her progress towards baptism, she said, "...set a date?" So we set a date for September 17th. I felt impressed to tell her, "Nevisha, if you commit to the Lord to be baptized on the 17th, and ask for His help to get your mom here, I can't imagine that He wouldn't do it." So, I guess we will see what happens.
Then last night we had an appointment with a family, a less-active family that has two unbaptized children who are ready and willing to be baptized. So we started with the first discussion last night, and they are scheduled to be baptized on September 30th. Their dad works up north on the oil rigs and is here for one week then gone for two, so he leaves this weekend, gets home the weekend before the 30th in time to baptize them and then take off again for work. That will be sweet, they are a pretty cool family.
This week I also got my trunky call...that was so bad. It is confirmed that I am flying into Salt Lake City on December 15th, we don't have all the flight details yet, probably not until November they said, but they had to get it all set up and ready. I got that phone call the same day I got the package with Nate, Liz, and Lindsey's letters. Man, I was so trunky after that hahaha it was so bad. BUT! I'm trying not to think about it and instead just focus on the work. But I am stoked to come home :) Also, Liz wanted a shout-out…. Hi Liz!
Well, I'm off to get groceries and all that stuff. I guess I will talk to y'all again next Monday.
I love you, thanks for your support and encouragement!
Elder Cevering
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Elder Cevering with the Friesen Family & Christine Carter at the Cardston Temple August 19, 2011
Elder Cevering with the Friesen Family (a family he baptized) - They were Sealed in the Cardston Temple August 19, 2011
Elder Cevering with Christine Carter (a sister he baptized) at the temple to receive her endowments
Elder Cevering & Elder Humphries doing their Radio Talk Show
Elder Cevering by a river in Beautiful British Columbia
Elder Cevering Opening his Birthday Package
Elder Cevering's Family wishing him a Happy Birthday
Elder Cevering with the Friesen Family (a family he baptized) - They were Sealed in the Cardston Temple August 19, 2011
Elder Cevering with Christine Carter (a sister he baptized) at the temple to receive her endowments
Elder Cevering & Elder Humphries doing their Radio Talk Show
Elder Cevering by a river in Beautiful British Columbia
Elder Cevering Opening his Birthday Package
Elder Cevering's Family wishing him a Happy Birthday
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
August Emails
August 29, 2011
Hello Family.
Another week in Raymond come and gone, no new investigators, no progressing investigators, nada. I feel like I am really trying to give my all and then some. I guess I can't say that I haven't seen any results because it's only been one week, but I just feel so frustrated. On the positive side, we were able to visit with six less-active members/recent converts this week, the most we've had in this area since I've been here. We had eleven appointments cancel (five of which were with less-active members) but we were still able to get 17 lessons this week, so that's awesome. On the other hand, we didn't see any results from our 7-Day challenges, I still have to be the motivating force for missionary work, and still nothing.
Wednesday I went on exchanges with the zone leaders out in Cardston. That was pretty fun. Our zone leaders are work horses, which is awesome, but man, I was so tired afterward hahaha they like run from appointment to appointment, it's crazy. The zone leader that I was with had to e-mail some stuff to President, so we went to the library and pretty soon this native man walks in and sits down next to us. He starts talking about how he doesn't believe in God because science has proved that God doesn't exist and bla bla bla and I just sat there talking with him. He said that the Bible was just made up, somebody who was really smart a long time ago wrote it so that he could scare people into being 'good.' He said, "We are here, and then we die, and there's nothing any more. Nothing. It's over. What do you believe?" I had the opportunity to tell him that we are here to become like God, just as Jesus Christ says in the book of Matthew. This man then says, "If there was a God, wasn't that Satan's plan in the beginning? I read the book of Revelation one time, and it says that Satan wanted to be like God and that's why he was cast down. Plus, it says Satan was into music." First, what does Satan being into music have to do with anything? Hahaha. Second, I'm pretty sure it doesn't talk about Satan being into music in the book of Revelation. Third, Satan's plan was to dethrone God, which is more than just becoming like God. God will always be God to us, and our becoming gods will not bring Him down in any way, but will add glory to Him. He can then say, "Look what My children have done! I am glorified in them because they have chosen Me and they have reached their full potential, for which purpose I created them." It was a pretty funny conversation with this native hahaha.
Thursday we were supposed to have an appointment with that kid I told you about last week, the one that I felt like we should go back and ask him if he was planning on serving a mission. Well, they called and cancelled, but rescheduled, and then our next two appointments fell through. That was a long day. Friday morning we did a little bit of service, some planning, then did some stop-bys and had appointments for the rest of the evening. Saturday we went on exchanges with the elders in Magrath. That was a long day too. I was with Elder Duckworth, he's been out for two weeks now, and that was sweet. He's a cool kid, and we got a lot done. Kind of. We did a lot of stop-bys and nobody was really home, but that's more than I can get my companion to do. It was a long day, one of those days where I gave my all and gave some more and saw no results.
So then yesterday we went to church and none of our investigators were there and three of our appointments cancelled. We had one appointment go through with a family. Their three daughters are all going less-active, so they wanted us to be in their home and help them come back. It was a pretty good lesson, I felt like the Spirit was there very strongly, and at the end one of the daughters committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Whether she does or not, we'll see, but she said she would so we'll hold her to her word. We're going over there again on Sunday to teach the second discussion, so even though we're not teaching many investigators, we ARE trying to bring others back to the gospel, and that's just as good as a baptism.
That's pretty much it for this week, thanks for your letters of encouragement :)
I love you,
Elder Cevering
August 23, 2011
Hello Family!
THE FRIESENS GOT SEALED THIS WEEK AND CHRISTINE RECEIVED HER ENDOWMENTS!!!! Wow, that was so awesome. All Friday morning I was so nervous that we were going to miss it, but we didn't! Holy cow, there were tons of people there from my past areas, that was sweet. The coolest thing was walking into the chapel and seeing the three of them, Christine, Christina, and Jeff, sitting there on the front row, all dressed in white, ready to receive their endowments. In the terrestrial room I sat directly across from Chrstine, all dressed in her temple clothes, and I just thought about how awesome this moment was, about to enter into the celestial room with three converts. Wow, totally sweet. The sealing was awesome too. The sealer took like twenty minutes and talked about some things that I thought were kind of irrelevant, but when they brought Cathan and Rhiannon up to be sealed to their parents, that was awesome. As I sat and listened to the promises given in the sealing ordinance, I thought about how incredible they are, and how awesome it will be to have that experience in a few short years myself :) At the end of the ordinance "prayer" the sealer said, "That's it! You are now an eternal family!" Cathan stands up and says, "...that was fast!" Hahaha it was pretty funny. It was so great to see them, holy cow.
One or two days each week we meet with a recent convert. He was baptized back in January, four years after he ran away from his Hutterite colony. Hutterites are similar to what we know as Mennonites, but they are not to be confused with each other. Anyways, he is such a solid kid, he's gonna go on a mission some time soon and he has a solid testimony of the gospel. Lately he has just been feeling like he doesn't have a true appreciation for the gospel, so he is considering not going to church or reading or praying or anything so that when he DOES come back, he feels the way he did when he was baptized. We are trying to help him see that is NOT the right way to go, and he understands, he still does all those things, he just is experiencing some opposition. He's solid, I love him.
We had some pretty cool miracles happen this week. We were finally able to meet with a part-member family and teach the wife. I can't tell if she is very sensitive to the Spirit or if she just gets nervous talking to us, because it seemed like she was going to cry the entire time, she was always right on the verge of crying. The lesson went really well, though, and she understood the need for priesthood authority, although she was pretty crushed when she realized that her baptism wasn't performed by that authority. She also didn't think it was right for us to ASK God for things, but when we showed her James 1:5 again after the lesson, she said, "I guess I never really thought about it that way." Hopefully things will continue to progress there.
We were able to meet with a couple of auxiliaries this week, relief society presidents, bishops, ward mission leaders, stake presidency members, elders quorum presidents, and others, hopefully we can get missionary work going here and bring more people into the fold of God here in Raymond. Our bishop in sixth ward, Bishop McMullin, asked us to go visit a man. We stopped by to see him but his son answered the door and said he wasn't home. We left our number then climbed back in our car, but I felt that I had this strong impression to go back and talk to the son about serving a mission. I debated for a couple minutes but then got the courage to go back and do it. I was really glad that we did! He opened the door again and the smell of weed came pouring out. But, I felt we needed to do this, so we talked to him a bit about his plans for school and then invited him to meet with us and prepare to serve a mission. He said yes! We have an appointment with him on Thursday, so hopefully that goes well. Then yesterday we were able to make an appointment with two families that have less-active missionary-aged sons and one of them is a part-member family that I have been feeling strongly we need to visit with. Hopefully we continue to see success there. I am really trying to focus on following the Spirit in this area. With nine wards, that's all we can do, pray over the ward lists and ask who Father in Heaven wants us to go see and then go and do.
So then yesterday we met with Elder David S. Baxter of the Seventy. It was great! President asked me to do a musical number so I found someone to play the piano for me and I sang my arrangement of "O My Father." As I was walking off the stand Elder Baxter said, "Thank you, that was exquisite!" That was neat. President called me out a couple months ago on quote-unquote "hiding [my] singing talent" and since I had enough days' notice I thought I would show him that really it's just about having time to find an accompanist, not about me hiding that talent at all. Towards the end of the meeting Elder Baxter had all the new missionaries stand up. One of them was standing in the back, Elder Tuahivaatetonohiti, obviously from some Polynesian island. Elder Baxter asks all the new missionaries to share with him why they chose to serve a mission. When it was his turn, Elder Tuahivaatetonohiti bore his testimony of the gospel and said that was why he was here, and Elder Baxter looked at him, noticed the two missionaries sitting next to him who were from Mexico and the Philippines, and said, "Excellent. I see you're sitting with all the other brown people." Hahaha the whole room burst into laughter. He was pretty funny and he taught a lot of good stuff, he said some things that I needed to hear, and it was just good.
I am loving being able to testify of Jesus Christ and to prepare others for His second coming. I love feeling and following the Holy Ghost as He prompts me. I don't know why, but I have been feeling kind of down lately about the first half of my mission, maybe just like that I didn't give it all that I could have or what, but I feel so good about the past eight months of my missionary service. I feel like I really came to know Jesus Christ when I was serving in 6th ward, I have fond memories of the Spirit that I felt in that area. Fetch now my computer screen is all blurry hahaha it brings tears to my eyes just to think about it. Creston was incredible, that's where I learned that the Lord can make me an instrument in His hands to strengthen an area and leave it better than I found it. Here I am learning how to really rely on the Spirit and to just give myself totally and completely to the Lord's work. It's great! There are still tough days, days I want to be done, but when I look back at all the positive experiences, the times when I've felt the Spirit, I know that I only have short time left in this experience and I have to work hard! Thanks for all your love and support. I love you!
Elder Cevering
August 15, 2011
Hello Family!
Well, what a week. To be perfectly honest, it's almost been as rough a week as it was my first week in Claresholm. My new companion is from Idaho Falls.
Nothing is going on here in Raymond. We have one investigator that I haven't met, another that is out of town and has a crazy work schedule, and two that don't want to meet until school starts again. It's hard to go from having an investigator lesson like every day to none all week. We are the only missionaries in Raymond, so we cover the entire stake, all nine wards. The district includes Magrath and Cardston, but there are other missionaries serving there. Each of them covers a stake. Raymond is kind of like Claresholm, but I would say it's smaller. The population might be about the same but the biggest restaurant we have in town is Subway.
Raymond is a HUGE sports town. What are we supposed to do when the high school football team is playing and all the businesses are shut down at 5:00 and everyone is at the football game and it's against the rules to go to the football game? Who are we going to teach?
All we did this week was service and member lessons. There is a family, the Bartsoffs, who own a ranch just outside of town. We went out and helped them build a fence this week. They are sweet, I like them a lot, I just think that it would be more effective to help them maybe once a week and spend the rest of our time either doing service for other members or trying to contact people to have lessons with them.
And I'm so stoked to go to the temple with Christine and the Friesens on Friday!!!! I can't wait. You will have to wait until next Tuesday to hear about it, Elder Baxter from the Quorum of the Seventy is coming to speak to us on Monday, so P-Day will be Tuesday instead.
That's all I can think to share with you right now. Thanks for your love and prayers!
Love,
Elder Cevering
Hello Family.
Another week in Raymond come and gone, no new investigators, no progressing investigators, nada. I feel like I am really trying to give my all and then some. I guess I can't say that I haven't seen any results because it's only been one week, but I just feel so frustrated. On the positive side, we were able to visit with six less-active members/recent converts this week, the most we've had in this area since I've been here. We had eleven appointments cancel (five of which were with less-active members) but we were still able to get 17 lessons this week, so that's awesome. On the other hand, we didn't see any results from our 7-Day challenges, I still have to be the motivating force for missionary work, and still nothing.
Wednesday I went on exchanges with the zone leaders out in Cardston. That was pretty fun. Our zone leaders are work horses, which is awesome, but man, I was so tired afterward hahaha they like run from appointment to appointment, it's crazy. The zone leader that I was with had to e-mail some stuff to President, so we went to the library and pretty soon this native man walks in and sits down next to us. He starts talking about how he doesn't believe in God because science has proved that God doesn't exist and bla bla bla and I just sat there talking with him. He said that the Bible was just made up, somebody who was really smart a long time ago wrote it so that he could scare people into being 'good.' He said, "We are here, and then we die, and there's nothing any more. Nothing. It's over. What do you believe?" I had the opportunity to tell him that we are here to become like God, just as Jesus Christ says in the book of Matthew. This man then says, "If there was a God, wasn't that Satan's plan in the beginning? I read the book of Revelation one time, and it says that Satan wanted to be like God and that's why he was cast down. Plus, it says Satan was into music." First, what does Satan being into music have to do with anything? Hahaha. Second, I'm pretty sure it doesn't talk about Satan being into music in the book of Revelation. Third, Satan's plan was to dethrone God, which is more than just becoming like God. God will always be God to us, and our becoming gods will not bring Him down in any way, but will add glory to Him. He can then say, "Look what My children have done! I am glorified in them because they have chosen Me and they have reached their full potential, for which purpose I created them." It was a pretty funny conversation with this native hahaha.
Thursday we were supposed to have an appointment with that kid I told you about last week, the one that I felt like we should go back and ask him if he was planning on serving a mission. Well, they called and cancelled, but rescheduled, and then our next two appointments fell through. That was a long day. Friday morning we did a little bit of service, some planning, then did some stop-bys and had appointments for the rest of the evening. Saturday we went on exchanges with the elders in Magrath. That was a long day too. I was with Elder Duckworth, he's been out for two weeks now, and that was sweet. He's a cool kid, and we got a lot done. Kind of. We did a lot of stop-bys and nobody was really home, but that's more than I can get my companion to do. It was a long day, one of those days where I gave my all and gave some more and saw no results.
So then yesterday we went to church and none of our investigators were there and three of our appointments cancelled. We had one appointment go through with a family. Their three daughters are all going less-active, so they wanted us to be in their home and help them come back. It was a pretty good lesson, I felt like the Spirit was there very strongly, and at the end one of the daughters committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Whether she does or not, we'll see, but she said she would so we'll hold her to her word. We're going over there again on Sunday to teach the second discussion, so even though we're not teaching many investigators, we ARE trying to bring others back to the gospel, and that's just as good as a baptism.
That's pretty much it for this week, thanks for your letters of encouragement :)
I love you,
Elder Cevering
August 23, 2011
Hello Family!
THE FRIESENS GOT SEALED THIS WEEK AND CHRISTINE RECEIVED HER ENDOWMENTS!!!! Wow, that was so awesome. All Friday morning I was so nervous that we were going to miss it, but we didn't! Holy cow, there were tons of people there from my past areas, that was sweet. The coolest thing was walking into the chapel and seeing the three of them, Christine, Christina, and Jeff, sitting there on the front row, all dressed in white, ready to receive their endowments. In the terrestrial room I sat directly across from Chrstine, all dressed in her temple clothes, and I just thought about how awesome this moment was, about to enter into the celestial room with three converts. Wow, totally sweet. The sealing was awesome too. The sealer took like twenty minutes and talked about some things that I thought were kind of irrelevant, but when they brought Cathan and Rhiannon up to be sealed to their parents, that was awesome. As I sat and listened to the promises given in the sealing ordinance, I thought about how incredible they are, and how awesome it will be to have that experience in a few short years myself :) At the end of the ordinance "prayer" the sealer said, "That's it! You are now an eternal family!" Cathan stands up and says, "...that was fast!" Hahaha it was pretty funny. It was so great to see them, holy cow.
One or two days each week we meet with a recent convert. He was baptized back in January, four years after he ran away from his Hutterite colony. Hutterites are similar to what we know as Mennonites, but they are not to be confused with each other. Anyways, he is such a solid kid, he's gonna go on a mission some time soon and he has a solid testimony of the gospel. Lately he has just been feeling like he doesn't have a true appreciation for the gospel, so he is considering not going to church or reading or praying or anything so that when he DOES come back, he feels the way he did when he was baptized. We are trying to help him see that is NOT the right way to go, and he understands, he still does all those things, he just is experiencing some opposition. He's solid, I love him.
We had some pretty cool miracles happen this week. We were finally able to meet with a part-member family and teach the wife. I can't tell if she is very sensitive to the Spirit or if she just gets nervous talking to us, because it seemed like she was going to cry the entire time, she was always right on the verge of crying. The lesson went really well, though, and she understood the need for priesthood authority, although she was pretty crushed when she realized that her baptism wasn't performed by that authority. She also didn't think it was right for us to ASK God for things, but when we showed her James 1:5 again after the lesson, she said, "I guess I never really thought about it that way." Hopefully things will continue to progress there.
We were able to meet with a couple of auxiliaries this week, relief society presidents, bishops, ward mission leaders, stake presidency members, elders quorum presidents, and others, hopefully we can get missionary work going here and bring more people into the fold of God here in Raymond. Our bishop in sixth ward, Bishop McMullin, asked us to go visit a man. We stopped by to see him but his son answered the door and said he wasn't home. We left our number then climbed back in our car, but I felt that I had this strong impression to go back and talk to the son about serving a mission. I debated for a couple minutes but then got the courage to go back and do it. I was really glad that we did! He opened the door again and the smell of weed came pouring out. But, I felt we needed to do this, so we talked to him a bit about his plans for school and then invited him to meet with us and prepare to serve a mission. He said yes! We have an appointment with him on Thursday, so hopefully that goes well. Then yesterday we were able to make an appointment with two families that have less-active missionary-aged sons and one of them is a part-member family that I have been feeling strongly we need to visit with. Hopefully we continue to see success there. I am really trying to focus on following the Spirit in this area. With nine wards, that's all we can do, pray over the ward lists and ask who Father in Heaven wants us to go see and then go and do.
So then yesterday we met with Elder David S. Baxter of the Seventy. It was great! President asked me to do a musical number so I found someone to play the piano for me and I sang my arrangement of "O My Father." As I was walking off the stand Elder Baxter said, "Thank you, that was exquisite!" That was neat. President called me out a couple months ago on quote-unquote "hiding [my] singing talent" and since I had enough days' notice I thought I would show him that really it's just about having time to find an accompanist, not about me hiding that talent at all. Towards the end of the meeting Elder Baxter had all the new missionaries stand up. One of them was standing in the back, Elder Tuahivaatetonohiti, obviously from some Polynesian island. Elder Baxter asks all the new missionaries to share with him why they chose to serve a mission. When it was his turn, Elder Tuahivaatetonohiti bore his testimony of the gospel and said that was why he was here, and Elder Baxter looked at him, noticed the two missionaries sitting next to him who were from Mexico and the Philippines, and said, "Excellent. I see you're sitting with all the other brown people." Hahaha the whole room burst into laughter. He was pretty funny and he taught a lot of good stuff, he said some things that I needed to hear, and it was just good.
I am loving being able to testify of Jesus Christ and to prepare others for His second coming. I love feeling and following the Holy Ghost as He prompts me. I don't know why, but I have been feeling kind of down lately about the first half of my mission, maybe just like that I didn't give it all that I could have or what, but I feel so good about the past eight months of my missionary service. I feel like I really came to know Jesus Christ when I was serving in 6th ward, I have fond memories of the Spirit that I felt in that area. Fetch now my computer screen is all blurry hahaha it brings tears to my eyes just to think about it. Creston was incredible, that's where I learned that the Lord can make me an instrument in His hands to strengthen an area and leave it better than I found it. Here I am learning how to really rely on the Spirit and to just give myself totally and completely to the Lord's work. It's great! There are still tough days, days I want to be done, but when I look back at all the positive experiences, the times when I've felt the Spirit, I know that I only have short time left in this experience and I have to work hard! Thanks for all your love and support. I love you!
Elder Cevering
August 15, 2011
Hello Family!
Well, what a week. To be perfectly honest, it's almost been as rough a week as it was my first week in Claresholm. My new companion is from Idaho Falls.
Nothing is going on here in Raymond. We have one investigator that I haven't met, another that is out of town and has a crazy work schedule, and two that don't want to meet until school starts again. It's hard to go from having an investigator lesson like every day to none all week. We are the only missionaries in Raymond, so we cover the entire stake, all nine wards. The district includes Magrath and Cardston, but there are other missionaries serving there. Each of them covers a stake. Raymond is kind of like Claresholm, but I would say it's smaller. The population might be about the same but the biggest restaurant we have in town is Subway.
Raymond is a HUGE sports town. What are we supposed to do when the high school football team is playing and all the businesses are shut down at 5:00 and everyone is at the football game and it's against the rules to go to the football game? Who are we going to teach?
All we did this week was service and member lessons. There is a family, the Bartsoffs, who own a ranch just outside of town. We went out and helped them build a fence this week. They are sweet, I like them a lot, I just think that it would be more effective to help them maybe once a week and spend the rest of our time either doing service for other members or trying to contact people to have lessons with them.
And I'm so stoked to go to the temple with Christine and the Friesens on Friday!!!! I can't wait. You will have to wait until next Tuesday to hear about it, Elder Baxter from the Quorum of the Seventy is coming to speak to us on Monday, so P-Day will be Tuesday instead.
That's all I can think to share with you right now. Thanks for your love and prayers!
Love,
Elder Cevering
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