Email May 26, 2014

Hello family, This week was a solid week! I feel so much better about continuing forward to finish my mission as a result of all that's been happening, though my trunkiness seems to grow every day! Haha. I love home, how can you blame me for that? We had our interviews with president Zwick this week, which went really well. He's strict, but he's not a preacher. Our interviews were short -- we only had 10 minutes to talk and it was just about the basics, like worthiness and such--but I could feel president Zwick's love and that's the important part. He said three things this week that have changed my mission specifically. He had a meeting with us and with each stake in the island, and in the meeting he had with our stake he came down pretty hard on the members. Ha. He read to them directly from the red manual of instructions about all the things they need to do to help missionary work move forward. He read about the ward council and its responsibility in doing missionary work, and then said, "Does that make ANY reference to knocking doors? NO." Ha. I loved it so much. He then said to us missionaries, "Elders and Sisters, you can contact as much as you want and you won't have baptisms. You have to work with the members." Then he said to me, in my interview, that he specifically, as an Elder of the first quorom of the 70, is going to approve for Migdalia to be baptized in the ward of Bayamon. He asked me about her whole story, then said, "I think it would be right for her to be baptized in Bayamon. I will take care of the details so that she can stay there." Then he gave me goals for baptisms: he asked me to have one more baptism with Migdalia. So...we invited her daughter to be baptized this Saturday with her and she ACCEPTED! It was a miracle. I'm super happy about it. I was humbled when she said yes that she would like to be baptized. I realized again how this is the Lord's work and not Michael Cevering's. And that's the only reason I have faith in this work: because it's His. In terms of companionship, Elder Matamoros and I are getting along much more. A member called us to see if two of us could go to his house to help him power-wash his roof. As you can imagine, the flat, cement roofs of Puerto Rico get filthy. I offered to go do the work, and Elder Matamoros went to the lesson with Elder Armstrong. And it turned out to be a good day to wash a roof: the sun was super hot so I got burnt all down my arms. It hurt bad haha it was probably the worst burn I've gotten in my mission. But I was happy to do the work because I'm grateful for that member and all he's done for us. It was a good lesson for me to learn. So, this week we have the baptism of Migdalia and her daugther. The ward is really excited about that. Our work with the members is starting to show fruits: we're supposed to have a lesson tonight with the friend of some members, and the ward also gave 4 references to our ward mission leader yesterday, so things look like they're on their way up. Our bishop is still horrible--he didn't want to give us a ride home yesterday after church---but we continue working anyway. And the members are rallying to the call. I believe this ward can see miracles if they continue growing like they are :) I'm grateful to be here. I love you all a lot! Elder Cevering