October 22, 2012 Email

Hello Family! Well...week 2 down. What a week! It was a fast one, to be entirely honest, but just wait till you hear the things that have happened! First off, your favorite missionary (that's me) now has to do all contacting from a car: no more biking for a week :( I was doing some workouts last Friday and I did something to my abs. I was using one of those ab wheels (it's a little thing that Gold's Gym produces) and the rest is history...I wasn't able to stand or get up for about ten minutes after the injury, just because of the pain: we were in all day Friday because of me! HA. It was terrible. But on Saturday I went out with Elder Garcia: that was both a blessing and a mistake! We got to work hard for our investigators, but imagine the pain I was in yesterday (Sunday). It was really bad! We biked at least 20 miles and I was covered in sweat, and my body ached terrible. I fell asleep fast that night, but because of the injury I didn't sleep well. Then yesterday because of the pain we didn't go out to work, only to Sacrament. I called the mission nurse and she told me she doesn't want me biking or walking long distances (no biking at all!). She doesn't think I tore the muscle, but she is restricting me from all exercise EXCEPT for missionary work--which I can only do if I use a car! Haha! Oh man, this is going to be an interesting week. Alright, so in other news: we have 3 baptismal candidates right now. I really love them, they're great people! I think I told you about them already. The husband has a smoking problem, and the wife is addicted to coffee as well, so we taught them about the Word of Wisdom. He was smiling in pain when we talked about the use of tobacco being contrary to the Lord's commandments: he's a big man with a bit of a beard and mustache, glasses, and a lot of white hair! I would compare him to Santa Claus, but he's not fat like Mr. Navidad. He makes Christmas lights though (I'll send you a picture of one of the lights he made). He's been smoking since he was 16 and now I think he's in his 60's, so it's going to be tough for him to overcome that addiction. We've been praying for him, but he smoked two boxes last Saturday! She has actually been off coffee since we taught the Word of Wisdom! She really loves the gospel: she was the second of the two to accept it. She's one of the kindest, most understanding people, and she really helps him a lot. Right now is their busy season for work: a lot of people buy their Isaias's Christmas lights, so that consumes their life night and day. They do it by hand, so it's really time-consuming! Their son has a job--I have no idea where though! We are only able to drop by his house after 7:00 at night because of his work. But he has a bad leg from an accident years ago. He accepted the gospel immediately! He was sick yesterday though so he couldn't attend church. Their grandson is also one of our investigators, but he's a lot busier than his dad. He's probably 21 or 22, but the young adults here work a lot (if they can find a job). I don't know where he works either! Besides that, most of our week was lost because of my injury! And because our area is so big and because we only have bikes it's difficult to visit everyone we want to. Elder Garcia is going to ask President Alvarado for a car: we have one, but the other elders use it because their areas are farther than ours'. As for now we're planning a lot of exchanges: I'll go with Elder Jensen, and Elder Astle will go with Elder Garcia. It's the only solution! Elder Garcia is really great! He's learning English pretty well: he just doesn't discipline himself to use-it-in-order-to-learn-it. He and I get along really well, but we've had a few long discussions about missionary work because we disagree with each other. He has a lot of ideas of how to do missionary work (which are great!) but he forgets to use Preach My Gospel. A lot of the time he takes one principle from Preach My Gospel but doesn't apply the other ones, so he doesn't do all that is necessary. For example, this morning we were planning a lesson for a family: he asked me to lead the plan, so I said we should teach about the Plan of Salvation. He immediately shut that idea down, so I pried into why. He said: "We need to 'Teach People, not Lessons'" which is one of the fundamentals of Preach My Gospel. I said: "Yeah, that's what I want to do: we'll take the Plan of Salvation and apply it to him and his challenges." It took him 20 minutes--and a lot of reading in Preach My Gospel--to finally agree with what I was wanting to do. When he understood he still blamed me for the waste of time haha it was lame. He's not rude at all! But he's one of those missionaries who's a little bit eccentric! Yesterday he went on a cleaning rampage in the kitchen because he "couldn't feel the Spirit when he opened the fridge" because it wasn't that organized. Haha. He's so funny. Teaching him English is fun because I get to mess with him! The other day the four of us (Elder Jensen, Astle, Garcia, and I) were driving and we were teaching him "English". Elder Jensen pointed at his eyebrow and said "Buttcheek!" So time goes on and Elder Garcia says "What, what does buttcheeks mean? These things on my forehead?" Oh man, I thought we were going to die from laughter. Elder Jensen was driving but he was laughing so hard. Not much else has happened here in this great island of Puerto Rico! They have great chinese food :) haha but that's all else. I had some the other day! They give you fries with it...which is interesting. I really miss you all: I find a lot of comfort in thinking about "reunion": with family and friends in two years! Time will only make that reunion sweeter :) I miss you all! Love ya. Elder Cevering