Email February 10, 2014

Hello family! Well, unfortunately transfers came this past week and I wasn't sent out to a different island like I was hoping to. I heard something really funny: our zone leader asked president what his chances were to serve on an island, and president told him: 100% elder, you're already on one. HAHA. So I'm still in Bayamon with Elder De Oleo. Things are alright. The ward is in the beginning of a huge change: they just don't know how big it's going to be! We proposed an idea to our ward mission leader which we thought would help the members, he presented it to the bishop, and the bishop loved it and has decided to use it. They're going to start having trainings with the members, especially the priesthood holders, and they want our help to do it. I'm excited about that. Our bishop is an older man. He's a tough bishop and has almost always been against the missionaries here. But over the past year he's had a gradual change of heart and now we're invited to ward council and such. But the funny thing that happened this week was we were with him at the church on Tuesday and he began to tell us that he thinks President Smartt is crazy for taking our cars away. He said president Smartt is out of tune with the Spirit because he as bishop feels that we should have cars so that we can go up to Naranjito (the mountain area of Bayamon) in order to find people and start a branch. I said to him, "Bishop, we need to focus on strengthening the people who are already here in the ward of Bayamon before we start thinking about opening a branch." He got angry and had no response to me. The funny part: on Sunday he came up to us, after having his meeting with our ward mission leader and hearing all our ideas, and said to me--as if he were a genius haha--"We are going to strengthen the members here so that we can go out and strengthen others." And since he's an old man who doesn't remember anything, I said, "That's a great idea bishop." Haha. Life in Bayamon. We found a new investigator: his name is Eduardo. He lived in Florida and as a kid listened to the missionaries. His sister joined the church, but he didn't. He was super happy to talk with us because he really loves the missionary and invited us to go back to visit him this Wednesday. Our ward mission leader also has a family home evening set up for this week for us to teach some of his friends, so we'll see how that goes. I'm excited about that. We teach an English class every Tuesday and Saturday. Elder Arana--the Mexican who lives with us--teaches the class. He is really funny. He was giving definitions to words to the students and he said, "Dictionary significa arroz con gandules" or in English, "Dictionary means rice with pigeon peas." HAHA. I was laughing so hard. Love you all a lot! Elder Cevering