Email July 21, 2014

Hello family! This week was a solid week with great things that happened! We had zone conference, I had my goodbye interview with President Boucher, and we did the Book of Mormon Excursion here in Vega Baja. I am really happy with how things are winding down. My interview with President was really great: he got straight into the goodbye haha. He said, "Elder are you excited to go home?" I wondered if it were a trick question but I was honest and said yes. He said, "Good. I think you should be excited to go home at the end of your mission. That's healthy." We talked about different plans and ideas that I have for what I'm going to do when I'm home and he shared with me that he thought I had my head on straight. We talked about my mission: he asked me to share the most important lesson I've learned, and when I told him that the most important lesson was that I'd learned that God requires a lot from His children he looked surprised. He said, "Thank you for sharing that new perspective with me." It was interesting. He's a really great man. I would have loved to have had him as my mission president for a longer time. And his wife is awesome: I sat and talked with her for about 45 minutes before I had my interview. She's actually Bishop Burton's daughter---crazy right? Friday night we did the Book of Mormon Excursion here. It was a HIT. I think the members here liked it more than the members in Bayamon. We had to make some changes to it since there are two sisters in our district (so one of them acted as Abish, and the other acted as a nephite woman who was present at Christ's descent in the land of Bountiful). It was really awesome. They want us to do it again soon. The members who didn't come are really jealous and are asking us to plan to do it next week. Ha. I thought to myself, "Do whatever you want, I'll be home!" The best thing about the week though was to see the people who came to church as a result of the Book of Mormon excursion. There's a woman here whose husband doesn't like her to go to church with their kids. He's a member but he doesn't live the majority of the commandments. However, they came as a whole family to the excursion, and then Sunday the woman showed up to church with her kids for the first time in a long time. She asked us to teach her son and daughter and to prepare them for baptism. It was awesome! I felt really touched and blessed. Really, my feelings have been of profound gratitude. I've had some sleepless nights as I've pondered about finishing my end. I've felt trunky this whole transfer and the transfers before for different circumstances, but now I'm stuck between the excitement of getting home and the sadness of leaving. I haven't broken down at all, but I've stayed up till 12:00 some nights and had tears come to my eyes as the thoughts continued coming to me that I'll be home soon. They're tears of gratitude and tears of sadness and tears of excitement all at the same time. I know those feelings will probably last for awhile so I guess I have to get accustomed to it haha. I love you all so much! As I look around the ward and as I ponder on the families I've met in my mission I see in my mind my friends and my family at home and I am reminded how blessed I am. My Father in heaven has been merciful and gracious to me in my life. One thing I'm continually learning is how He is always with us: we just have to learn to recognize His work. That'll be something incredible about being home: starting a new work with the Lord. I'm not perfect but I know that He's calling me. I know there are challenges, blessings, and joys awaiting me, and for that reason I can look at the end of my mission and say, "Alright, this isn't the end." I've been preparing myself for this time my whole mission and now that it's hear I'm just excited to see what's in store. Elder Cevering