Elder Cevering's First Email from the MTC

Hello Family! The first few days at the MTC: BLAH! I was a slug. I was way sad to be gone from home. But in the past few days I've really come to love it a lot. It feels weird to think that I'll be leaving here in just a few weeks. That moment when I turned away from you guys and followed my Usher felt like an immediate transition. There's no time to think about anything but getting adjusted to the MTC. They take your picture, take you to your room, then to your classroom. It was a bad, bad day. I can think of only two days in my whole life where I can remember feeling nearly as low as that day and the next. My companion's name is Elder Acor (like acorn, but no "n"). He's pretty cool--he just barely graduated, and he was a football player in high school. He and I get along and work really hard together. He motivates me to have fun and to learn Spanish. He's going to Puerto Rico too, so we'll be flying to the Dominican Republic together and everything. He has a friend there too, so he has told me some cool things about the mission. Learning Spanish is going great! I've truly been blessed with the gift of tongues since being set apart. I'm not fluent at all: but after three laborious days of reading The Book of Mormon in Spanish and English, I finally finished the first chapter of Nephi yesterday :) and as I finished I was able to mostly understand all I read in Spanish without looking at the English. The hard part with Spanish is not understanding what is said, but responding and speaking it. We teach a girl named Lesly--she's a fake investigator/one of our teachers--and when Elder Acor and I teach we do a good job at teaching her, but a terrible job at responding to her questions. She asked us what el Expiacion was (the atonement) and we froze. After about 10 seconds I was able to say El Jardin de Getsemane, and Elder Acor was inspired from there. He really is a good kid. One of the Spanish teachers served in Puerto Rico. He got back about six months ago: apparently he served on an island where he didn't get the chance to shave for 4 months. I'm going to grow a beard :) My teacher's name is Hermano Zimmerman (hermano means brother in Spanish, fyi). We spend about 6 hours a day with him in class. That's pretty tough, but the work really isn't that hard. I feel really fresh in learning because I didn't go to school for a year. My zone is CRAZY! There's an Elder Bradshaw in my zone, but I don't know if he's the Puzey's relative or not. I'll find out. Anyway, my zone is really bad. Our branch president called us the worst zone he's had in the four years he's been here. Even the MTC president, President Brown, talked to them-- before I got here. But this is great: they have this guy who monitors our zone's dorm at night. As you know, we have to be in bed, lights out at 10:30. Well, Elder Perrenoud--one of my awesome roommates--had to go to the bathroom. He walked out to go at exactly 10:31, and this guy flipped on him. It was ridiculous: Elder Acor and I and Elder Laws--our other roommate--were all standing by the door listening. He asked Elder Perrenoud: "If Jesus Christ asked you to meet Him at the temple, would you be late to THAT? When you baptize someone, do you expect them to just pay NINETY percent of their tithing?" And Elder Perrenoud just said: "I just drank a lot of water tonight..." HAHAHA. It was crazy and awesome. There's an Elder in my district, Elder Bone--he went to Weber High. He graduated the year before me. Also, Preston Healy is in my district. I've seen Nik Aardema, Braydan Allen, Jamon Carver, and others. It's pretty cool to see and talk to them. Anyway, I love you all! Thank you so much for your prayers. I know I wouldn't be able to do this without the grace of Christ--He has truly lifted me through these past few days. I truly, honestly wouldn't be here if it weren't for Him. As much as I want to be home, I know Christ wants me to be here. That's my sacrifice I guess. Love you and miss you! Elder Cevering