Email July 22, 2013

Hello family! I have some good news, good news, and some bad news. The good news is I am still in Carolina! Woo-hoo! The bad news is, Lin and Esteban broke up. She almost cried telling me about it at church yesterday. All that bread-bag-tie-ring talk ended with a heart break. I felt bad for her haha but I wasn't able to give too much consolation you know. I just tried to tell her she should date one of the other single adults in the church. The other good news: things went crazy this week here in our area: we have 8 baptismal dates for August. What?? Elder Cevering is baptizing again? It's true. All the work with the leaders is beginning to pay off because the home teaching program is getting going, the bishop is leaving with us, and there is a lot more organization now. We had a really great ward council yesterday where we decided to start an English class, a Book of Mormon class, and began planning an activity for less active members to come to. We're excited. The exciting news: Rosa and Omar are doing their blood tests tomorrow for their wedding. Here in puerto rico you have to do that if you want to get married. You can't be related, nor can you have any diseases or such if you want to be legally married. It takes about 10 days for results to come back, so we're hoping they will still get baptized the 4th of August. The other exciting news: Elder Delcompare and I went to the houses of old investigators this past week and had some great success. We went to a woman's house: Leangie. I went with Elder Delgado to visit her before, but we were never able to teach her. When we showed up at her door the other day she came running out to say hi. I knew when she came out that she was ready to accept the gospel. Why not before? Because she'd finally watched the movie we left for her months ago. She told us to come back Sunday (yesterday) and when we did she came out and within a minute she asked us for materials to read. We talked to her about the Book of Mormon--and her drunk neighbor who came over when he saw us with her, because he's very protective of her cause he has a crush on her--and she was blown away by the doctrine of prophets in the Americas. She read Moroni 10 last night, and when we talked to her this morning she said she wanted to read more so she just opened up the book when she woke and started reading in Alma. She told us all excitedly about Ammon and King Lamoni. It was super cool. She wants to be baptized and all. And, when we were visiting her before, she asked us to visit her sister Rebecca on the other end of our area because she had cancer. We taught her about the plan of salvation, but because of her cancer she had to go to Florida to be treated. We've gone back every once in awhile to see how she's doing, and her husband has always been really nice and informed us. But yesterday we finally got to talk with him about the gospel. We were talking about his bikes, then he said, "Now we've talked about bikes, I want to know what you teach." He went on to tell us that he sees us as "different" from other representatives of churches. We then taught him about the restoration and the apostasy. When he heard the doctrine of the apostasy he just said, "Ahh I understand..." It was so cool. He then accepted to be baptized on the 11th. He wants us to come back to teach he and his son and Rebecca (who comes back tomorrow) because he wants to do it as a family affair. It was a true miracle. The sisters in Pontezuela had a baptism yesterday. The man's name is Joe. He is the father of a young boy who came to church last week here in Carolina with a member. This little boy came with his brother and his grandma--who are family of Pablo who was baptized in February. Well, we had no idea of the connection between Joe and them. So when the sisters went to visit Pablo's sister, because she lives in the area of Pontezuela, they were so surprised to find Joe's son. They told him they were going to floor 18, apartment 15 to look for a family. The boy told them it must have been wrong and took them to floor 15, room 18. When they then told him they were looking for Myrka, the boy said, "Wait, that's my grandma!" And so they went up to the room, found out the connection, and they all decided they wanted to get baptized like Joe did. How crazy is that? Another awesome miracle. So, altogether our district has about 14 baptismal dates for August. We're planning to baptize weekly until the end of this transfer starting this Sunday with the baptisms of the girls Nicol and Minely who I was teaching previously with Elder Castaneda. We're stoked. And the zone leaders are really excited too. Well, that's all I've got for ya. I'm really realizing just what I am: I'm really nothing. I try to do things on my own sometimes, and the results aren't so great. The Lord is really humbling me. It's really hard sometimes. I've felt more than ever this past week like just giving up because I feel like I've had so much opposition, and I felt for a bit that I was beginning to fail. Then the Lord lifted my spirit by giving me these great experiences. He is the one who is at the head of this work. Not Elder Cevering. Anyway, I love you all. Elder Cevering