July 15 2013

To everybody.

Wow! Thats so crazy that Paul is almost gone! I know i say this about ever email but what ever. Btw Happy Birthday Paul! Your birthday will be your year mark on the mision. Mine is my half year and 1and half year mark. 

Well just so you all know... Im going to the Bufadora today in just a little bit so.... my letter is probably not going to be all that long. But summery of what happened this week.

Fist off, we are working with two kids 15 and 11 yrs old. Their family is menos activo but are really excited in becoming more active and they are all working together in helping L---- (15) and D------ (11) get baptized. The date is set for this saturday. I hope everything goes as planned. It will be really cool be cause L----- is planning on going to EFY the monday after getting bptized.

I saw the inside of a guys foot. It was cut in half and i got to see the family wrap and unwrap it. I saw the bone and muscle. Elder G----- helped with the process. I am going to help the next time we go.

I will write more latter. 

Love you all 

Elder Evans

 

 

July 9 2013

Hey all!

Wow only a few more days and paul will be writing to you guys just like me. I think that would be cool to spend a little bit of time in both mtc's. I really enjoyed my time in mtc provo.  Btw i talked to a fellow misionary from peru. He tells me that it gets pretty cold where paul will be going, he will be eathing rice with almost all of his meals (no tacos, no beans, no mexican food,, just 100% rice and chicken), oh and he also says the spiders there can get pretty big. He also says the beaches there are super cool... but you cant go cause your a misionary haha but dont worry im not allowed to go to the beaches here either :(

So this week was really fun and flew by fast because it was filled with a bunch of zone activities. On Wednesday we had a concert at the stake center. The concert was put together by one of the wards and was done with the intention of inviting nonmembers. There were about 10 songs sung. Us misioneros sang "Alli donde hay amor" i sent the video of it. i hope you can understand it and guess what song it is in english. The guy who recorded it on my camera didnt do the best job of recording it but oh well. 

We also had a zone service project on saterday. The project was to clear out and clean the space infront of some members house. It was pretty dirty there. I was blessed with the chore of cutting things down with the machete. I cut grass, trees, bushes and a whole bunch of other stuff. The machete i used had a broken/crappy handle and so i handed with a bunch of blisters but its all good.

Oh yah i forgot to mention, today is transfer day.... no changes. Same companion, same area, same companionship that share the house with us. 

So teaching wise... nothing has really changed. We are looking for people to teach, people that will progress. Sunday we actually met a family that is menos activa and found out that they have a daughter that hasnt been baptized yet. We will be working with them to help them re-activate and also help the daughter get ready for baptism.

Well hope you liked the fotos,

Love you all

ELder Evans

 

If anyone can give me a better translation than Babelfish for the phrase above, I would appreciate it. Jim didn't quite know what to make of it either. Babelfish translated it as "keep it is easy to clean"

The singers from the video (EJ is on the far left)

Machete and shovel

Using the machete

 Also, here is a link to the video he mentioned. And beware that it does get jumpy and weird sounding at the end. But still--EJ was singing on stage! It sounded about like I expected it to, but I couldn't help but be proud of EJ.

July 1 2013

Dear Family and Everyone

This is the last week of transfers. It has gone by really fast, i feel like i just got here. Its crazy to think that in this up coming transfer Paul will turn 19, go on his mision, i will turn 21 and finish 3/4 of my mision. And the way things are going this coming transfer will go by faster then this one. They just keep getting faster and faster. My guess is that i will be staying here in Lomitas Ensanada and i am fine with that. My companion is probably going.

You say its super hot in mexicali... i actually wouldnt mind going back and seeing how bad it really is. Its pretty hot hear too, or maybe its just the humididy and the constant climbing hills. 

So this week we have been working really hard and finding new people to teach and setting baptismal date for them. Everyone in my district baptised this month which is great but now we are all without people who have set baptismal dates. So that is what we have been focused on for this week. We are teaching a family that could get baptised and actually have desires to get baptised but they are not married and the husband still has to fix some things with is devorcement papers from his last marrige... If they work hard in getting that stuff fixed they should be able to get baptized this month.

In other news i finally took pics of the house so you guys can see what it looks like. I just so happened to take pics when it was super dirty though. Its not usually that dirty. The othe pic is of that family that i just mentioned in the paragraph above and some extended family of theirs and out ward mision leader. If this was facebook i would just tag them all so you could know who is who but because this isnt facebook i will just have to leave you guessing. We took this pic right after a family home evening we had with them. It was their first FHM ever! It was pretty fun. 

Well i hope you all have a great day 

love you all

ELder Evans

 

A hammock!

The dumbbell is just itching to be tripped over.

kitchen/study/ironing board

the "facilities"

happy group picture! Even the ward mission leader does thumbs up!

 

June 25 2013

Dear everyone,

Wow thats pretty crazy. I dont ever remember anything like that happening at the house when i was there. I dont even think the sump pump ever failed when i was home. Here in the mision i have had periods where i have been without electricity or water for a few days. Its really annoying when it happens. 

So this week i feel like we didnt really have a whole lot of time to work because monday is pday, tuesday we had a zone conference and that lasted about half the day and then en the evening we had another meeting with the ward mission leader, wednesday we worked like normal, thursday was weekly planning and that goes until 12, friday we had to send one of the elders we live with off to tijuana for a conference and then that same day go get him, saturday service activity and i also felt sick the whole day, sunday church and a really cool conference from the Apostles and Profet.

By the end of the week we had accomplisted finding a lot of menos activos and putting appointments with some people referaled from other missionerys. 

There is one food here that i will have to start to avoid i think. Its called Mole. Its basically a sause that is made up of like 20 different ingredients, including chocolate and chilies, and it is usually spread over chicken. It doesnt taste bad or anything but the last two times that i have eaten it, i have had pretty bad stomach problems. Right now i feel just fine so done worry.

This sunday we had the privlige of watching a special conference for all the ward counsle members, mision presidents, and misionaries. I really liked who they all talked about how it is really important that the misionaries and the ward work together. The have changed the phrase from mision work to Obra de Salvación. Idk what it is called in english. Salvation work?

My favorite part was when Pres. Monson talked about his time as a Mision Pres and when he visited the town of StThomas and the branch pres asked him for a new church building and he said not until they more members and could cover some of the funds.... so what did the branch pres do... he sent the misionaries to invite workers of a whole bunch of different skills that are needed in constructing the church building to his house and to be tought the gosple there.

Well love you all.

Have to go

ELder Evans

June 19 2013

Hey everybody,

So sorry i didnt write monday. Monday was pretty busy and after the activity we were super far away from my sector and it took super long to make it back and we had to go streight to an appointment when we made it back. 

Its crazy that in a months time paul will be a misionary. How does he feel about that. Has it kicked in yet? I know when i was a month away from the mision it still hadnt kicked in yet.
Wow, the Ostlers are back in the ward? They were called to the other ward so long ago i dont even remember when they left. I do remeber helping them move things around in there house with paul a little before i had left.

My shoes are actually doing farely well. They are holding up find, just super worn out on the insides. They should last me until i end. Its nice havin two pairs, i have used them both equally. I generally switch ever time i move secters. 

Washing clothes by hand isnt as fun as it sounds... and it doesnt really sound fun either. I dont was them all on monday because it would take me too much time. I generally was about 6 articales of clothing every day before i go to bed and on mondey i try to wash as much as i can. The problem is there are 4 missionaries in the house and we all have to wash our clothes haha.

So this week was pretty great. Lots of work paid off. We had a baptism on saturday. --------- is her name. She was actually fairly easy to teach, accepted everything and she her friend who is member helped a lot. 

Now we are working with a family that wants doesnt really have to much of a religios background but wants to get baptised. Its really fun teaching them becasue i feel that just about everything we teach is something that they are hearing for the first time. They have a date set for the 29th of this month but we will see if it all works out. There is just one little problems... actually 2. +++++ and ====== are the names of the parents and they arnt married. More... ++++++ was married but got devorced and somewhere along the process the electronical record of the divorcement was lost and they now have to find a copy so they can get married. We all have our fingers crossed that everthing works out. :)

Enjoy the week

Love

Elder Evans

June 10 2013

Hey everyone!

Wow thats pretty crazy that school is out. So Hayley will be a Junior and Matt a freshmen when i get home? Thats crazy, and even more crazy that Paul will be on the mision just a little over a month.

Time here is really flying by fast too. I already have like 16 months on the mision, but ever time i get asked i say i only have 14 month just so i dont get the reaction from all the members saying ¨oh your almost done¨.

So this week has kind of gone by normally, nothing to different happen. The most exciting this is that ========, the woman we are teaching, should be getting baptised this week. I was already told that i will be the one baptising her. Its alway a blasting being able to do the baptism because you feel the spirit real strong. That and just walking around in the baptism font when its full is fun, its the closest i get to going swimming. We also have a few other families that have gone to church  but still dont have a baptism date, we will be working with them on tuesday to get them set up with a date. 

Oh yeah and im not sure if i have told you this but there is like no where to go here to wash clothes so i am learning to wash my own clothes by hand. All the houses here have like built in wash boards of stone and thats what i am using to wash with. The process is a lot longer 

I will write more but we have to go.

I will also bring my memory to send fotos.

Love Elder Evans

June 3 2013

Hola a todos!

Ok so i am slowly getting used to all the hills. I didnt get much of a chance to tell you about my last week in mexicali so i will tell you what i remember from it. Not too much out of the ordinary happened over there BUT i did finally get to eat Menudo (cow stomach). I remember dad telling me a little about eating stomach and how it had a really weird texture. I didnt mind it though, i eat two full bowls. While on the other hand my companion almost throw-up when he took his first bit. Felt pretty proud of myself.

No this week in ensanada has been very tiring but i feel very content. We are teaching more here then in mexicali. Mainly because the members here have been helping helping out with referals. We meet the girlfriend of one of the guys in the ward and have been teaching almost every day. The guy was ward mission leader in Mexico, Mexico a while back so he is a little familier with misionary work and had actually taught his girlfriend a bit before entraducing her to us. When we started teaching she was already reading a bit of the BoM and Principios del Evangelio. Shes definitly ready for baptism just needs to go one more time to church.

Today i will be going down to central ensanada where i will be closer to the shore, should be fun. I will right more when i have more time.

Love

Elder Evans