Monday, December 30, 2013

Dec 30 2013

This last week could not have been more like a roller coaster, unless I was actually on one of course. It started perfectly with a branch activity for christmas on monday, followed by skype on tuesday, my companion couldnt for some reason so we changed plans so he could on christmas day. Then on the 25th, Elder Mulford and my companion Elder Vasquez went to skype their families while Elder Melo and I ran to get another computer for him to use. We had to go to the market and I stood outside the store waiting for him while he talked to a member. Apparently I stood completely still without knowing it and I was right next to some manequins so people walked past and as I made eye contact they screamed or laughed and said 'yo pensé que era un manequin' ('I thought he was a manequin') so I made a game of it and even in my missionary clothes people came up to me to touch my arm to see if I was real or not. Also, Elder Melo would push me a bit and I would rock back and forth. And we would go to a new store and I would make my manequin pose and he would ask the worker there how much my tie costs, and the worker would look at the tie, and then at my face and start laughing cause she thought I was a manequin in her store.
The bad news this  week is that we had a baptism planned for this coming satuday, the first saturday of the new year. HAD. The mom of the 14 year old investigator told us that he is not ready and doensn't know what he is doing. She said we can visit still but she won't let him get baptized for a few years. We tried convincing her becaue he has all the lessons and is ready, he's old enough to understand the covenant of baptism but she is set on her decision. Also, a teenage girl wants to get baptized and we have been teaching her with her parents but she leaves tomorrow to Lima to study for a few months so we're working on getting an address to send a reference. Also, the other 14 year old boy Jose Maria is moving to Piura so he is going too. We're also going to try sending a refernce to get missionaries over to his new house. We pretty much have to start anew here. But luckily, this very morning we got a reference to a lady who had been working in Lima for a while but lives in Morropon and the missionaries have taught her and say she's ready to be baptized so we are going to try visiting her tonight to get to know her and invite her to the branch activity tonight.
We have no idea what we will do for the new year's but I hope you all have a wonderful time!!

Love, 
Elder Evans
 


 

Monday, December 23, 2013

Dec 23 2013

Hey everyone, this last week has been very interesting, full of different experiences. Because my compenion Elder Vasquez is still sick he couldn´t work so we had splits, Elder Melo, serving in Chulucanas, came to moropon with me to get some work done since we haven`t been able to do anything for almost 2 weeks. the two days that Elder melo was here we got so much work done in such a short time. It was great. We still couldn´t visit everyone I wanted to but we had the two must succesful consecutive days I can remember. But were also a little unfortunate to walk past a group of people in the street trying to get their pigs to mate.
On saturday we had a blast at the christmas program with three other zones so I got to see my trainer and talk to him and also my companion in the ccm so I saw all my previous companions there. A few missionaries shared their christmas traditions, one of my zone leaders bore his testimony because he goes home next week. President and Hermana Rowley played a duet on the piano but I dont remember which christmas hymn or song it was. Then the different zones did different acts. I was Papá Noél malo and tried to get Elder Villena (he`s in a picture with me and good santa) to wish for material things and the good santa convinced him to change his mind to wish for 2 angels to be sent to his house to help fix their family relationship and introduce a gift that will last for eternity, the 2 angels were missionaries and the missionaries said santa is always happy cause he is mormon. Anyway, it was very chistoso (funny-joking).
On a brghter note I remembered that we have been promised by Elder Ucéda de la setenta (the president of this area in the 70) that if we work with the less actives we will find new investigators through them. Until now I haven't witnessed the fulfillment of that promise but when Elder Melo came to Morropon with me we visited  a few less actives and two of them had friends or family there when we taught them and now we have two new investigators and finally witnessed the promise starting to be fulfilled in Morropon. 
Espero que todos tengan una feliz navidad y lea la historia de la vida de Jesucristo en Lucas 2 o en Mosíah 3 o en otras pasajes de las escrituras. ¨Todos tendrán un espíritu de la navidad si tiene el espíritu de Cristo.¨ (dijo un apóstol, no recuerdo cual)

Les amo mucho!!

Elder Evans


Some elders (Elder Paul is on the left) and their pretty sweet gorros



Papa Noel (the good guy) and Papa Noel Malo (Bad Santa)

fighting over Elder Villena (Elder Paul reminds me of one of the Soggy Bottom Boys, the one played by John Turturro, as they are singing onstage at the political rally)

Elder Paul and the mission president and his wife

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Dec 16 2013

This week we taught barely any lessons. Elder Vasquez got a stomach in fection and we spent tuesday to friday in the hospital and then all weekend he still had major stomach pains and almost fainted sunday morning, then I think he went unconscious on his bed beause I tried waking him up by calling his name and moving his arms and stuff but he didnt move or respond at all for a minute or so. Today we are going back to the clinic to see his doctor. I'm nervous that we will have to stay in the hospital again but we'll see. I gav e a blessing of health to him and want him to get better cause we havent been able to do anything pretty much this last week and a half. The branch president visited us in the apartment a few times to check up on us but we couldnt  do any intercambios with priesthood holders in the branch because there are only 3 men that could help us, and two always work so we were stuck  in the room and couldnt get work done.
On a brighter note, today we had a zone activity in Catacous, a district in Piura, where a lot of tourists go to buy stuff and I bought a pretty sweet gorro, I am trying to send pictures from today but I cant access them on the computer for some  reason, I can only access the pictures I downloaded from dropbox, but I stilll have the pictures on my camera. The workers at a restauraunt called me the caballero, everyone else thinks I look like Indiana Jones or Levi Savage from 17 miracles hahaha. 
Oh and I think my spanish finally "clicked" because I can actually talk mostly fluently and understand people.  I noticed that I talk better than a few elders who have been out for 9 months so I feel better. I can't believe I already have 5 months down!
Oh and on saturday I will be playing Papá Noel *malo in the Christmas Program with 3 zones. I hope I can send a video of this act or whatever y ou call it. It´s gonna be great.
Thats about all for this week!

Love, 
Elder Evans, Paul
 
*Note from the mother: I asked Jim what malo meant and he said, "badly."

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Dec 9 2013

Email to Dad:
All the homesickness went away out of nowhere this week. I still think about home at night but not in a distracting, longingly way like before. I can't believe its already been a year since I left BYU. I feel like I was there a month ago. My knee is still having its on and off days. some days it hurts or is realy uncomfortable and others its perfect. I just hope the 19 months left will continue helping it (i think its still improving because i dont need to wear any braces or the cloth sleeve anymore) because I still am going to try my hardest to make it on the byu track team, I miss running a ton. Anyway, I'm currently acting as 1st counselor to the branch president right now and i was going to conduct the meeting yesterday but my companion was sick so we were pretty late. I only jsut started this week so Im excited to conduct this sunday if possible. I gotta go now!
Love, Elder Evans! 

Email to Mom:
Hey mom! Yeah this week was way better! We were able to visit a lot more people and we're still working hard with a few teenagers to get them ready for their baptisms. Although two of the three have problems with getting permission from their parents. They both have moms that don't want them to get baptized so that makes it difficult. Wow that must be pretty hard for Grandma, I can't imagine all those things happening at once. Though Chipotle sounds really good right now since their is no such thing as fast food or anything like it here. In piura there is a big store sort of like walmart called Tottus but it's no where near as good as walmart or target. But 2 hours away here in morropon we just go to tiny little stores (inside people's tiny homes) to buy pasta and snacks and ramen and fruit and stuff like that. There is a big market in the plaza where they sell a ton of mangos and grapes and other fruit, the apples arent very good here though.
Elder Vaszquez got sick again on Saturday. He's 3 for 3 on getting sick on the weekends he has had in the field. He had a 101 degree fareinheit temperature and today we are going to a clinic in Piura to find out if he has anything bad. He needs to take blood tests and I'll be there to watch it...I'm excited to see those needles haha. Since nobody could go on splits with us we had a lot aof time to talk in the room and get to know each other more. My spanish is getting much better being the companero mayor nad talking so much with elder Vasquez. I thought a lot about my old running days and with my knee still hurting (though better because I dont use the braces or anything) I worry that I won't be able to run like I did before. Which brings me to my question. I figured out how to copy the fotos from dropbox onto my memory card (not all the fotos show up on my camera when i insert the card but they all show up when i put it in the computer or a dvd player) and was wondering if you could upload a few of my best running fotos from track and CC into dropbox, like from Minnetonka or PL or my section True team meet in Apple valley and st thomas. Also a foto of the house with all the snow and lights or something, may people here ask what christmas is like in the states so id like to show them. I think thats a lot easier, and cheaper, than sending fotos huh? :P Thanks a ton!!! I'll be sending another email fro the blog but it won't be very big, not a whole lot happened.
Love, Elder Paul

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Dec 2 2013

Another week down of training my son and it has gotten a lot better. He is getting to know all the people we are working with so now he´s talking mre and having more fun. We have been working very hard this week with our less actives because our rama has 80 menmbers but only 15 are active so we were sort of told we should focus on less actives for a while and try to bring as many back as possible. One less active member and her husband who is active started yelling and arguing after we finished our lesson and I kinda freaked out inside cause I didnt know what to do and then she asked ¨que dices tu¨ and then all of a sudden I opened the Book of Mormon and found the perfect scripture to share. We aren´t allowed to take sides in the argument so I shared a scripture about havng patience and love one for another and stuff like that but I don´t remember the exact referecnce. She started crying and we challenged them to pray together morning at night and promised that Heavenly Father would help them work things out if they did it. It was intense, the spirit left when they started aruging but once I shared the scripture and Elder Vasquez and I shared our testimonies and such the Spirit came back.
Today we went to the waterfalls again but this time we went with the whole zone. One picture I sent is me on the back of the moto taxi after the waterfalls and if you look closely you can see Elder Mulford haha. To thinkof how it felt today, imagine walking through an oven or a sauna, take your pick, for an hour...going up. That was TO to the waterfalls, luckily the trip back was downhill so it was much easier, but still just as hot if not hotter. 
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!! And have a great week in the snow!

Love,
Elder Evans