September 25, 2012

Hello Family! First off, we had some great experiences this past week haha! Every Friday we do a service project here at el CCM. We go to the same building every week and we work under the direction of a girl named Dallas Taylor Stringham--her name is important! So, this week they tell us "Hey, we need twenty Elders to bring some water up from the basement and switch it out with the new water bottles we have upstairs." So Dallas gets 10 of us Elders in the elevator with her. We're going down when...suddenly...boom. We hit the bottom floor. The elevator doesn't make a sound. The door doesn't open. We were stuck in the basement! HAHA. It was so great. 11 of us crammed in a small elevator. We were there for forty minutes! And I really needed to go to the bathroom. But that's something I'll never forget--we ended up just talking with Dallas the whole time. She asked us to share gospel lessons with her in our language, so that's what we did for forty minutes in an elevator: teach the gospel! Now, if you want to see a picture of our elevator extravaganza, you can go to Dallas Taylor Stringham's Facebook page. She took a picture of all of us in the elevator and promised she'd put it on her Facebook page. I thought you'd like that Mom ;) Also, this past week Elder Acor and I finally had some success with one of our progressive investigators. His name is Li (as portrayed by my teacher Hermano Finley) and he's an old man, a Jehovah's Witness, very interested in religion but not very committing. He'd been really hard on us since our very first visit! Elder Acor and I had no idea what to teach him. But last Friday and Saturday we both did a lot of pondering, and went in to our lesson with Li that night WITHOUT any plan, but with a lot of thoughts. And it was the best, most powerful lesson we've had at any time here in el CCM. We addressed him directly and found out more of his concerns with the gospel. We jumped into the Bible and The Book of Mormon, and our mouths and minds were filled--I don't know if my Spanish has ever been better either! We taught him about how to recognize when you've received confirmation to your prayers, and how we should pray. Then we addressed his religious concerns which were along the lines of "Who is Jehovah? Isn't He THE God? Isn't Adam also Jesus Christ?" So we had a great lesson, and we left it feeling very edified. And after when we talked with Hermano Finley about it he said he felt like it was the best-planned lesson we'd had--and we hadn't even gone in with a written, communicated plan! We just tried to follow the things the Spirit had told us to do. So finally, some success in progressive investigator! We also do a weekly teaching here called the TRC, where we go as companionships to the Teaching Resource Center and teach people who walk on campus as volunteers. This week Elder Acor and I taught a converted woman from Bolivia named Justa (sounds like Hoosta). She was so cool! She was something like 68 years old, and spoke incredibly fast Spanish! But we were able to teach her and understand a lot of what she said. She reminded me a lot of Shayna haha she smiled just like her! She was a Latin-American, older version of Shayna, which I thought was pretty cool! Alright, funny story of the week. Hermana Eyring served her mission in Uruguay, and she just got back in December. So we were asking her questions about her mission: so I asked her the above question "Did you see any exotic animals in Uruguay?" I asked, expecting her to tell us all about monkeys or something. But she said--excitedly and completely serious--"I didn't see any monkeys or big lizards or anything, but I got to pet a horse!" She was so serious, it was hilarious! We all burst out laughing, and she laughed with us cause she realized how funny it had sounded. It may not be too funny to you, but it was hilarious to us. I had a bit of a break out moment with Spanish this past week. We've finished all our assigned Spanish lessons, so now we're just doing a lot of review. I've been going through the dictionary and other books in an attempt to learn as much vocabulary as possible. In saying that, I still don't feel (entirely) ready to speak with natives in two weeks. But, just two more weeks left her in el CCM! I can't explain how excited I am to get to Puerto Rico. The only other news I can think to tell you about is that we finally got new roommates last week. Elder Acor and I had a whole room to ourselves for 3 weeks and sadly it had to come to an end. But our new roommates are alright--we get along with them fine. One of them is from Indiana and the other is from North Carolina. They're very different--one is a bit feminine and the other is very masculine, and I think he went to boot camp or something before coming here. He's cool. But they make our room stink, and guess what: I don't even have that good of a sense of smell! Haha oh well, it's not a big deal! Things here are going to go by faster than I think they will. Well, that's all I have for this week. I think that's all I had written down to tell you about too. My testimony is strengthened every day I'm here, and I'm growing to really love this work more than I thought I could, and I know that I still have a lot of room to grow in the coming two years! Haha. Well, I love you all! Elder Cevering P.S. The Ipod and speakers are not allowed here at el CCM...but I listened for a minute just to make sure they work. They work great! Haha. My departure date is the 9th, but we don't know the times yet, and wash here is going well! haha I do it every week. But that's all I have time to say. Love ya!