Jan 29 2013

Thats soo cool hearing about Tommy getting his mission call to Brazil, i definitely thought he would go somewhere in mexico but i guess not. Its also great to hear how far along Paul is on his. When do you guys expect to recieve his letter? When it does come, is Paul going to wait for everyone to get home to open it or is he just planning on opening it right away and then calling everyone when he finds out where he is going?

Ummm I havent eaten any bugs yet, and well most of what i eat tastes pretty good. The worst thing we have to deal with about the food is that food sometimes seems to flow right through and you have to go to the bathroom right away. And also, there are a lot of missionaries that gain a ton of weight. I have had two friends here who, by the end of the mision, had gain 30-35 lbs. I havent really lost any or gain any, i just go up and down depending on the transfer, where i am, and the holidays. During holiday time there is just not end to the food.

Also yes my mission has its own tradiciones for completing time in the mission. Idk if its the same for all of mex or just tijuana but here some people at 6 months burn a tie, 12 months or 1 year burn a shirt, 18 months burn a pair of pants, and 24 months or 2 years burn a suit or a combination of pants shirt and tie. At this point in time ive just burned a tie. 

That would be cool to come home from singapore and bring home those hunting things. Here in tijuana, the normal souvenirs that people bring home after the mission are soccer jerseys (the team here in Tijuana is called the Xolos, there are actually doing really well so they are really popular right now), other Xolos stuff, and just other mexican stuff you can find in the touristy areas. Being a border city there isnt really a huge diference in culture other then here they just arnt as well off as the states so the stuff u find here is just outdated stuff from the states. 

So btw i wasnt able to write monday like i thought i would be able to because we left the secter to go out with other misioneros and when we were trying to get back it took an extra long time. If you can imagine, my secter is up in the hills to get the the main part of the zone or the Blvd you have to take a bus down the hill and over to the Blvd. There is only one bus or way to get there and that bus is very undependable, sometimes it takes 2 mins for one to come by and sometimes it takes 25 mins. That day we ended up waiting like 35 min for the bus to get back into our area and by the time we got back we had to go to appointments we had that night.

That night we had a family home evening with the second counsiler to the stake pres and his family. It was really fun. They feed us dinner and then we shared the message of the Restoration of the Gospel mixed with how us as member s of the church have the oppertunity to help those of our friends learn about the true gospel. When then had to go home beause of the time. It was a great time. 

Well i must go

Love Elder Evans

Ps hope you like the pictures, were you able to find the Weird Al?

Pps No i still havent gotten the packages. Apperently the car used to cross for the packages is being repaired and so i guess i wont get them until the car is fixed.

Ppps I did how ever get grandmas card from like jan 11th So thank you very much Grandma!

 

 Yeah here in Tj hay personas que miran futbol americano. Not too many people but enough. And from what i have seen it looks like most all want the 49rs to win. My companion though is from maryland so he wants the raven, but hes not really too into football so he doesnt really care all that much.
The areas good, i like it all except that its like 30 - 45 mins away from any major store or laundry place. But yeah i am acostumbrado to the area. I still havent got the pcks yet because some problem with the car that is used to cross  for the pcks. But when the car is fixed i should get them.
How is paul feeling? is the excitement building up for his call? where  does he want to go?

Jan 28 2013

I dont have much time right now to write but i have sent pics, i hope you can see them all and i wll be writing latter today.Btw transfers happened and..... we stayed the same. no changes for us.

[Mother's note: He didn't write "latter." So all we have for this week are pictures. If you would like to see a picture that really isn't missionary worthy, email me and I will send you a link. It's not bad by any means, in fact it is funny, but I'm still not going to put it on this blog. sarakevans12 at gmail dot com]

It's green this time of year

His shoes seem to be still viable

balconies?

Hay nublado. I remember that from 7th grade Spanish

EJ looking every bit a missionary

EJ and his companion at a local laundromat with a lovely mural depicting less technological methods of getting clothes clean

Can you spot Weird Al Yankovic's face in this pic?

 

Jan 21 2013

Dear Familia,

Im doing great here in Agua Caliente. And yes it does sound funny to translate the ward names into english. If i were to do that to all my wards it would be Los pinos = The pine trees, industrial = industrial, agua caliente = hot water. Some other funny ward names are lago = lake, Ojo de aqua = water's eye, tacate (name of city and name of biggest beer brand here), la mesa = the table, casa blanca = white house, olivos = olives, ect.. i cant think of all the rest.

So this transfer here has gone by really fast, only one more week left. I like this ward but its also a bit more dificult that the others that i have been it. Its great because a lot of the families in the ward, they are all really cool but my area is all hills! thats all fine and all but becuase of that there really arnt any big stores here so to go shopping we walk 30 and enter a different sector to buy are stuff. Oh and its the same with laundry mats, we was 35 mins with our laundry to the nearst place to wash. Also its a little bit more difficult here to find people to teach. Now i dont want you to think i am complaining, just telling it how it is haha. 

ALthough on the bright side we do have 2 investagaters. Roberto might get baptized this week and Alfredo is what you would call an eternal investagater. Roberto is pretty cool, he knows a ton about the bible and loves to tell us stories from it. Usually those people who know a lot about the bible are difficult to teach cause they dont like to accept that there is more that they dont know. But hes not like that. He has accepted the Book of Mormon to be true and that there should be Prophets in these days too. Only it is a little difficult for him to change religions. I understand him on that, it would be really hard to make such a big change like this, going from something very familier were you feel at ease to something that is completely new. 

Now Alfredo is a little different. He loves having us over at his house and we love goin over there but as much as he says he will go to church, he never does. He is also reading the Book of Mormon and likes using the Mormon.org site. Hes a pretty big guy, and he works on computers and security systems. Apperently he has put up camera systems in house and cars of some very powerful people, both tijuana and san diego. 

Now i dont have my camera with to send pics but i will the next time.

Oh and today for the activity we are going play volleyball, eat tacos, and watch Tangled. We get special permission to watch the movie because the Assistantes to the President ar e in my zona. 

In my district its just me, powell, fjelstrom, and his companion harro. Powell is from Upper Marlboro, Maryland. 

Con Mucho amor

Elder Evans

After Jan 6 2013

Dear Everyone

First off, sorry for not having written for much time. With holidays and then just being busy during pday i havent really been able to write much. 

So i will fill you all in on the updates. At the end of december i was moved out of Industrial because the new missionaries arrived and the president had to make some special changes. Right now i am in the area Agua Caliente. Its very different from where i was before. Insteed of being flat like Industrial, it is located on a really steap hill. So if i am not walking down hill, i am walking up, there is no flat area here. But i dont mind it. Its actually a nice change of scenery. Its acually pretty green up on the hills and it overlooks a lot of the city. The people here are also a lot more humble (poor), but thats alright, the people in the ward and everyone else i have meet are really nice. Also, i have a new companion. His name is Elder Powell and he is from Maryland. Its kind of cool being companions with another american becasue we can talk about stuff from the states, speak english when we dont want anyone to understand us, and well those are like the only differences haha. We both speak spanish without difficulty so there is no probably with not having a native born spanish speaking companion. 

Well about my ward. Its pretty small, i am still learning peoples names, and the building is like a 30min walk from the house. You can look it up if you want, go to mormon.org, and search from the building, its in Fundadores Tijuana. 

Well i guess i can talk about christmas and new years here in mex. Well for christmas i spent most all of the 24th and 25th visiting families and eating with them. The tradicion here is the night of 24th is noche buena and everyone holds parties and feast for dinner. More people are out celebrating the 24th then the25th. The 25th is really just a day to rest frrom the party and eat the left over food, which is usually tamales. That whole week was really fun, we shared a lot of messages with members and nonmembers about the birth of Jesus Christ. A lot of people here, and im am sure everywhere else, get all caught up in plans, parties, work and so being able to take 20 to 30 mins of their time to talk about the really reason for celebrating christmas feels really good and i could see that they really enjoyed it too.

Now for new years, well here there are no big firework show to go watch so there are a lot more roadside parties and fireworks. Everyone was having their own party so there was a lot music blasting in the roads. Here fireworks arnt illegal so eveyone gets them and launches rockets in the air and lights off fireworks that really are more like tiny bombs. When they go off it sounds so loud that all the car alarms nearby start to sound too.

It was a really fun experience.

Now about the missionary work that is going on in this area... when i came here there really wasnt anyone progressing and well didnt really have too many to teach. Now we have 2 people that we are visiting normally, Roberto and Alfredo. Roberto has studied much of the bible and so he really like talking about the similerities between when the Book of Mormon says and what the Bible says. He has also been to church with usonce and likes it. The hardest part for him will be making a change in churches. But hes pretty awesome!

Alfredo is awsome too but still hasnt been to church. he says he will go this time though. 

And we are still battling to find more people to teach.

Oh and i am going to forward a email to you guys with a link so you can see all the misioneros in my mission and where they are from.

Love you all a ton

ELder Evans

7 Enero 2013

[Mother's note: this is all we got this week. Compared with the nothing we got last week, we are glad to have this]

 i will write you guys later today. this place is closing for an hour!

Pics in drop box.

I have a new area y compa

Agua Caliente con Elder Powell

EJ and other missionaries with some traditional Mexican Christmas celebration items

This is possibly his new area. Or it could be his old one.

EJ holds a shovel used in the TJ temple groundbreaking