Email December 16, 2013

Hello from Puerto Rico, I think this past week felt like one of the longest weeks of my mission. I can't really give a reason why, but it felt like two weeks combined into one. Great things continue to happen here in the Aibonito branch: there was a baptism Saturday night, 38 people came to church, and we have a baptismal date set up for January. We're excited. This email is going to be pretty short because we're going to be going to a member's house pretty soon but first I want to be able to send some pictures of the Christmas lights and such. The baptism Saturday night was of an 18 year old girl who the zone leaders have been teaching in Barranquittas. She is a really good basketball player: we play basketball with her and some other kids each Friday or Saturday and it's been fun. The zone leaders need to take advantage of teaching more of those kids. This girl really want to serve a mission. She said after her baptism that the missionaries were "the light to (her) life" and said she will be turning 19 in about 7 months, so she wants to do the same thing for others. It was a really spiritual meeting. We've been working hard to increase the attendance to 40 people. It's been consistently between 30 and 35. That was why we were so excited yesterday when 38 people came. The greater news too is that two families that usually come to church weren't there, which would have made the attedance 46. Good, good work. We have a branch council meeting tomorrow and we're going to talk with the leaders about some things, so we're excited. Our investigator Junito accepted a baptismal date for January 12th. We've been working hard with him, and he's never come to church. Last week we took him pancakes before church and he STILL didn't come. But he tells us he's really excited to be baptized and he loves having us over. We just need to get him to be converted to the gospel, not to us. Amarilis and Anna are doing well. Everything is falling into Amarilis's hands for the wedding: they have received a lot of donations from people for their wedding. Walgreens is going to give them all their pictures free. WOW. Super cool. We're going to have a really good week this week: our planning session was great last night. I'm excited. The title is from an experience I had with our elders quorom president. He's from Colorado. He never remembers my name, even though I'm at his house every Sunday for lunch with his family. While we were there yesterday he asked me where I was thinking about going to school after the mission and if I'd thought about coming back to Puerto Rico. We talked, and he said to me, "Let me give you some dating advice, Elder Sylvestre. When you see a girl that you really like, just take her by the elbow and look into her eyes like this..." So he grabbed my elbow and looked into my eyes. He just stared at me...and his wife pulled him away and said, "Whatever you do Elder Cevering, don't do that to a girl." It was really random and weird. I thought you'd enjoy hearing that story. Love you all! Elder Cevering