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