April 28 2014

Ah the rain sounds good. The peruanos dicen que it rains very hard here, but their 'raining hard' significa a normal rain in minnesota. And it only rains for one night and no more. It would be cool to see a good downpour. But it is alway ssuper hot and muggy despues de la rain. Piura is hotter and the sun burns more but here in tumbes it is much more humid and you sweat much more here in tumbes. Today I ate cow stomach for breakfast and it was super good. We eat it with rice and a certain type of sauce. Also, the mayonaise here is very differetn. Here they put lemon in it and it is super good. Here, you put mayonaise on almost everything. Rice, chicken, beef, anything. Also, they put lemon in almost every drink and soup, it gives it more flavor. Today I started a soccer jersey collection. Well, I already bought one od Peru but now I'm buying one of a country of my companions. Until now, I've had a companion peruano, chileno, y ecuatoriano, so I bought a jersy of Chile. All of the jersies are the ones the teams use for the sorld cup. So soon I'll have one from Ecuador and a few other countries as I have more companions from other countries. I don't have any pictures yet. And I stil cant get on to dropbox. But I don't have many new pictures yet. 

These last few weeks have been a little hard but I'm excited for the transfers coming up this week. I'll try sending a photo or two of the day I went to a chacra of a member. It's a tree farm, or orchard.

Love, Elder EVans

April 21 2014

Hey everypone, this week went alright, but not great. We had a bunch of fun and had an activity called Puertas Abiertas. All of the missionaries in Tumbes and Puyango se runieron in the stake center and we invited ppeople to enter the church and learn about us. All the missionaries left to contact people in the streets and fill out referencias and invite them to the church for a cultural night on Friday. We filled out about 150 referencias and handed out a lot of liahonas and books called Our Legacy or Legend. In spanish it's called nuestro legado. On friday night all the missionaries in the two zonas farthest away from Piura got togetther and did a skit for a ton of members and investigators. It was way fun. Everyone laughed super hard. Our skit was about the life of a missionary. In the skit I was an investigador de oro (gold) father, with my wife and son. It was really funny. Me and my 'wife' (a sister missionary) changed our 'son's' name to Nefi because we read the first 23 chapters of the Book of Mormon and found it to be true. Sorry I dont have a video. The skit lasted like 45 minutes because every missionary had to enter and play a role.

Today all the same missionaries went to the playa again. But this time we went to Zorritos. It was great. Afterward, Elder Villena and I went to a teenage member's house to eat with him and his family. His name is Luiggi. He is the only active member in his family but his sister and mom siempre let us in. The mom doesn't want him to go on o a mission though. He turned 18 today and so we ate with him and then surprised him by smashing eggs on his head. His mom recorded it on my camera haha. He always tells me I haven't accepted his friend request on facebook yet but I remind him it's because I am on the mission and who knows if my family goes on or not haha. 

Anyway, my companion goes to lima tonight to fill out papers since he is from Ecuador and doesn't have his visa either. So I will be with Elder Castro from Chile for a few days. He is one of my zone leaders.

[This next part is in response to some specific questions: 1) Do Peruanos have any Easter traditions? 2) What was one hymn you sang yesterday? 3) What did your pensionista cook for you recently? 4) Do you ever shine your shoes? and 5) Do you ever speak English?]

Sounds like it was a great Easter. Here there isn't much of a specific 'Easter.' But the whole week a lot of people take time off of work and school. It's called Semana Santa. En la iglesia cantamos un himno se llama Dios Bendícenos. numero 100 en el himnario en espanol. [Hymn #163 Lord Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing] Oh and the dropbox site isn't working for me. It won't open up at all. It never goes to the home site to put the passwords or anything. I'll try sending a few pictures by email. 

I rarely shine my shoes. Only for meetings really important. At times I brush the dust and sand off but I dont actually shine them except for special occasions. The olives that the people here eat are super different. And theyre nasty. the flavr is really strong. Here they are callled aceituna. The members of the ward know that 3 of rthe 4 missionaries in their ward (Elder Stanley, Mamani, Villena, and I) do not like the aceituna so they never prepare it for us when we eat in thier houses haha. And I hardly ever speak english, unless I'm with a latino trying to learn english, or when another gringo and I are naming songs, meals, restaurants, that we miss haha. Last night was fun because the 4 missionaries in my ward were all together and we talked about a bunch of super funny and stupid movies, but we all talked about them in spanish.

That's all I got for now, hope you all have a great week!!!!

Love,

Elder Evans

 

 

April 14 2014

Hey everybody, hope everyone had a great week! My week was a little slow and rough, a ton of our appointments fell through this week, or simply we didn't have time to visit people due to many meetings that we had this week. Yesterday we walked a bunch but all of our appointments and back up appointments fell through, no joke. It was pretty bad.

A few things pretty cool haened though! The dad of Anggely (the girl I batized a few weeks back) who was inactive for many years, received the Melquisedec riesthood and was called as 2nd counselor in the Elders quorom here. And his son Paul (cool name huh?) also received the Melquisedec riesthood at 21 or 22 years old. This family goes to church evry week now, every since a few weeks before Anggely got batized. Also, one of our invsetigators who went to general conference also went to church yestserday with her niece. They both go to the catholic church every sunday but they said they would go to our church this week and see how they feel. I pray that they are all good, they had to leave after sacrament meeting because the aunt has been sick for a few days. We will visit them and work with them a lot this week.

Hope everyone has a great week! No matter what, stay POSITIVE! :)

Love ya, 

Elder Evans

April 7 2014

 Esta semana fue lo maximo. This week we had a zone conference and learned a lot there and we are all trying to start praying on our knees with our investigators more often after a lesson. Here in Peru the floor of all the houses are usually dirt so barely anyone ever prays on their knees in the lessons but we started doing it this wee and even though everyone gets their pants dirty it has brought the spirit more and more. Also I got to go to Ecuador this week. Solo for a little bit though. We had to fill out papers for 30 or 40 minutes or so. There was a guy who went with us from Lima, he works in the church general offices in Lima and he said he would try getting us to lima in a few weeks to continue working on our papers and to send us to the temple! I dont know if we'll actually be able to but he said he would try getting permission and all that.

This week we found a joven and taught him and his family the restauracion. Then, two days later he and his grandma went to general conference, the saturday afternoo session. The grandma found it really interesting that we do baptisms for the dead and that we have a huge library database for family history. She is a Testigo de Jehova but is very interested in the temple and family history work. We are going to work hard with this family, we've got high hopes!

General conference was great as always, on saturday they quoted the apostale Pablo so many times, the epistles  that he wrote in the new testament are some of my favorites (and not for his name haha) so I thought that was pretty cool. Also in the Priesthood session, President Uchtorf asked a question "Are you sleeping during the restoration?" He said that we all need to work and spread the gospel and quicken the spread of the message of the restoration. We can't just let others do it and "sleep" during the work. We all need to do our part so we can  say in the judgement seat that we worked gave it our all, instead of saying that we were asleep and didn't do anything.

I am sending some fotos from the youth activity from a week or two ago. When all the youth served as missionaries for a day. They had fake plaques that said futuro misionero.

That's about all I got for now. This coming week nothing too special or cool will happen, we just have a multi-zone conference on friday, but that is pretty cool actually.

Hope everyone learned something new in conference and that you'll apply it and have a great week! And don't sleep during the restoration ;)

Love, Elder Evans

March 31 2014

Hey everyone this week was pretty good. We had more appointments than the last week. On saturday there was a youth ward activity where they all served as missionaries for a few hours. They did studies in the morning and we 4 missionaries taught them how they need to study and such and then they left with us to go visit less actives. The missionaries seperated to go with a group of youth (there was always at least one priest in the group so we could go on 'splits'). We found a bunch of new less actives to visit and the youth bore such strong testimonies and shared a message from the 1st presidency in the liahona. It was awesome. It made me remember the days during missionary week when the youth left with an adult to visit a family and practice teach the Restauracion. I remember going with Bro Giblette and Haden and Nathan Johnson and this activity made me think of that day many years ago.

Also,last sunday one of our baptisms fell through, the lady told us she doesn't want to hear anymore from us and said she won't get baptized, so we stopped visiting her this week to give her time and yesterday she actually showed up to church!!! She said she will start going to church every week and was much happier than she seemed when she told us she didn't want to hear more. I know it was for sure a miracle that happened and we hope she can keep up with these desires to go to church and get baptized, she just needs to attend church one more time before the Sacrament. 

Can't wait for general conference! I'll be watching here in the stake center in tumbes Peru!

Oh yeah, and on wednesday I'll be going to Ecuador because I still don't have my visa*, other missionaries are coming with me too. It'll be only a few hours but it'll be cool because I'll be able to say I also went to Ecuador! I'm pretty excited for that! We'll contact and share the gospel there too in the market or something so I can say I served in two missions! Haha. 

Anyway, thanks for all the prayers and everyhting you all do for me, have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Evans

 

*Mother's note: Jim explained to me that because Elder P E is technically in Peru on an expired tourist visa, he has to leave Peru for a day and then re-enter on a new tourist visa. Hence the quickie trip to Ecuador.