Email January 13, 2014

Hello Family! This was a good week: just a lot more walking. I have a few cool stories but not a lot to say. My companion and I get along really well, and all is well in the district. They are slowly growing to be more reverent. I love them a lot: it's the best house of missionaries I've lived in, but I am working with them on reverence. It's good. We found a man two weeks ago named Carlos. We were walking in the street and offered to help him in his garden. He asked us to pull some plants out with him and throw them in bags. So we did that, then left him with a Book of Mormon and our number. He called us last week and asked us to come back to help him move some rocks and explain the B.O.M. to him. Because of time on the day we went we weren't able to tell him much about the B.O.M. but we set up an appointment with him on Tuesday. We asked him if there was anything else he wanted help with on Tuesday and he said, "No, I just want you to explain this book to me so I can start reading it and learn from it." HA. It's super cool, we're super excited. Saturday night we went with a member to a lesson, but it fell through so we went with him to Home Depot to help him load some wood in his truck. We arrived there late, and weren't able to get everything bought until 9:38, and we are supposed to be home by 9:30. Another problem…it was raining that night, so the member didn't want to put the wood in his truck. We stood outside Home Depot for maybe five minutes and then I said, "Alright let's say a prayer so the rain will stop." We did just that: and as we prayed we could still feel the rain coming down. Elder De Oleo said he didn't think it was going to stop. But in the moment we said Amen, BOOM, there was no more rain. We threw the wood in the truck and headed home. On the way home the member looked up at the sky and said, "It's cloudy and dark enough that I can't see the moon or the stars. There's no reason it shouldn't be raining. God really does answer prayers." As we opened the door to enter the house, it started raining again :) God knows and loves His children. Apart from those two stories, a girl we've been working to reactivate in the church came yesterday. We were super happy about that. She's been inactive for a year due to an ugly divorce with an ex-missionary she passed through. But she's really great and she was really happy to be back. Oh, another story: listen to this. Elder De Oleo and I were walking the other day and without realizing, we walked into the middle of a swarm of bees. There were hundreds of them buzzing all around us. They circled all around us, but they didn't touch us. We laughed at the end and said, "We're going to make a movie of all the miracles we see here." So, things are going well. I'm content here in Bayamon. The ward has members that want to work. We get fed almost every day. But I'd rather go to lessons with members than have food. However, I realize that the members do their duties within their families and within the chapel, which is absolutely important. Something we are planning to do as missionaries to help the ward is talk about the atonement. I've been doing a test with members to find out how well they understand the atonement, and I was really surprised this past week when we had dinner with the second counselor in the stake presidency. This man has been a branch president, bishop, and is in his third stake presidency. That's quite showing for a Puerto Rican. But here's the thing: we talked with him about 2 Nephi 2:8--the merits, mercy, and grace of the Savior. He defined the merits of the Lord, the mercy of the Lord, but neither he nor his wife could define the word "grace." That was pretty disturbing to me, and it's sad. How can anyone really understand the atonement of Christ without understanding what grace is? With that question in mind, we're going to be talking with the members about grace. We've already found that many don't know what it means, and we've had the chance to teach it to them. Anyway, things are well. I love you all a lot and miss you! Elder Cevering