July 14 2014

This week was alright. I had to go to lima this week and so I couldnt work in my area until thursday. This week went pretty slowly according to the success we had. I honestly dont have much to write this week because nothing great happened, nor terrible. I did have a good time in Piura and then in Lima with Elder Tunney and Elder Prince from the CCM and a bunch of other american missionaries. We all spoke english for that day. But really we just switched between english and spanish. It was funny hearing some southern texas accents and a few laughed when I said 'pop' instead of 'soda' haha. In my trip we couldnt go to the temple but i did finish my visa stuff. They gave me my visa card thing. I look super mad in the picture, maybe its because we waited hours for it just talking haha. Hopefully I dont have to go back to lima for another year. Its nice to get a taste of chill weather but I like Piura, the hot humid desert.
I'm not looking forward to transfers in two weeks because I love this ward and my companion Elder Campo is the coolest companion in the world. This morning we went out and worked out at some pull up bars and then the other 4 elderes and a less active (who we have brought back to the church) and a nonmember joined us to play 4 on 4 soccer. It was sweet. I went really easy for my knee's sake but still put in the first two goals of the game.

Another reason why the work was hard this week was because of the final in the world cup and Puyango had governor ellections this weekend. I'm excited to get back to a full week of work this week. One investigator wants to move her baptism date from the 2nd of august to the 26th of july so we'll try helping her prepare faster to be able to get baptized. 

I hope you like my pictures this week. We found a live crab on the beach and played with it a bit and then let it go. Cool guy. This week will be pretty awesome!

Love you all! Have a great week!!

Some elders and a crab

dinner

Zorritos means little foxes

Elder Evans labeled this picture "Little Buddy"

Paul and the blue footed booby. Those really are some blue feet.

Elder Evans

July 7 2014

Hey everybody!! All is going well. We did nothing for the fourth of july here, just if you're wondering. Although we did have a multi zone conference all day from 8:30am till 3pm. Anyway, this week was the best. Elder Campo and I set 5 baptismal dates. A few of them ofr august fo I won't be here to see them but that's alright. The weird thing is that of all our many investigators, the only 5 that have a baptismal date set up are references from members of the church. That means something I think. References from members are going to progress a whole lot more than people that the missionaries themselves find haha. We were super happy when one investigator finally showed up to church this week. She and her older sister are investigatores and cousins of a member. Their grandpa also is a member and they always are there in the lesson with us to share testimonies and stuff. They've helped them feel welcome and loved in the church and have the baptismal date for the 26th. Hopefully all goes well.

Tomorrow I have a training meeting with the rest of the district leaders and have to stay the night in the mission office in piura so Elder Cortijo (a missionary in Zarumilla, Tumbes) and I took the 5 hour bust trip in the morning to be with Elder Stanley, Elder Roman my trainer, Elder Mulford, and a few other elders that I don't know. One is Elder Hunt from Los Angeles California. 

That's sweet that they were in town! How did matt like tomahawk compared to many point? Oh wow I miss potato salad and rainbow jello. I always asked to have rainbow jello for my birthday but I'll wait another year. Today for pday Elder Cortijo and I traveled in the morning to piura to meet up with Elder Mulford (he was in chulucanas when i was in morropon), Elder Roman (my trainer), Elder Stanley (he was in los angeles for two transfers and now is a zone leader in Capullanas, Piura). They were all wit their companions as well. We ate in Chillis. It was my first time eating there, and im in peru haha. we have one in burnsville and I never went until now. Tomorrow or wednesday I will be going to Lima to fill out more papers so I wont be in my area for a few days :( but I'll be going to lima with a bunch of americans so we'll have a good time speaking english for a day haha. 

Hope everyone had a great time for the 4th of July!! I saw the pictures so I'm sure you all did. Hope everyone has a great week this week!!! Love Ya all!!

Elder Evans

 

Reunited with his trainer

Chili's in Peru

 

June 30 2014

This week went pretty fast. My last transfer in Los angeles is going quicker than the rest. I'm already getting sad to leave. My companion and I have the goal of 7 baptisms this month and are working as hard as we can to do it. One oinvestigator said that her mom and dad said she could get baptised (she is best friends with the family of the pensionista so she has support in the church) but her extended family aren't very excited so we're really hoping all goes well. Another inveistigator that lives with the pensionistas's family wasn't progressing a whole lot but this week went to church for the first time so we are gonna work super hard these few weeks to resolve her doubts and all about getting baptized a second time. We have a few others that go to church and my english classes, yes I am teaching english here, and we have a lot of work to do but we are doing it and we have faith that we'll see at least some success before leaving here. 

Today I cut my hair super short because it was getting a little long. I'm super excited for the coming weeks, my whole district have people to baptize this month. It's like our baptism droubt might come to an end in July. I love my district and we're alll trucking it here. 

Tell hayley i would die for a cold and windy week haha. Today it is super hot and we're styarting winter haha. That's sweet that matt is going to tomahawk. I never did go there. But I loved manypoint. Tell Katie and Christian hi for me.Starting tomorrow, I am just going to tell peopple I have a year in the mission. The start of July is close enough. Yeah that's so true about the story of Abinadi and Ll that. One person or one family can make a huge difference. We reactivated a family, and I baptized the youngest girl in the family. Since then, they have presented us to 3 families and we are working with one and will startt working with the others this week hopefully. They go to my english classes. This week in my class I had them all present themselves in english, saying their name, where they're from, and what they like to do. It was super cool.

Oh yeah, and this week I went on splits with Elder Bradshaw for two days. he's my zone leader and it was super cool. It's so weird that almost a year ago we were together in the ccm hah. Oh and Elder Miller in my district was born in burnsville minnesota. The same hospital. He lived in Eagan for 3 years only and then moved to new mexico. He's the only one else here from mn that I know of! It feels good to have a brother here haha.

 

Love you all and hope all is well back home!!

Elder Evans

June 23 2014

Hey everyone, this week was pretty sweet. For the first time in a long time we were able to give service this week. Two times! WE shoveled dirt one day and the other the zone leaders Elder Bradshaw, Elder Castro, and also Elder Campo and I took down an active wasps nest in the terreno of a family near the chapel. It was pretty cool, and no one got hurt. At the end the injured wasps were on the ground were fighting with the ants, and the ants won. They satrted carrying the wasps to their holes to eat and what not. Also, we had a bunch of appointments this week and our investigators are progressing a bunch. The family Pacherres (the family we re-activated and baptized the youngest daughter) presented us to one of their neighbors and now we are teaching her and her kids. Normally she attends the family home evenings in the house of the family Pacherres with us and she went to church too this week. Another interesting thing that happened is that we found a cousin of the stake president and are now teaching her, her husband, and her kids (her husband is a taxi driver and we really found him and contacted him first, he accepted having us over one afternoon so we started teaching them). The husband is super cool, they have 3 kids and want to get married so we will try helping them with that as well.

Today for Pday we went to the beach with the zones tumbes and Puyango and played american FOOTBALL!! And my companion from the ccm Elder Prince is in tumbes so we caught up a bunch today. All is going well with me here in the hot frontier, or desert. The work is going well. We're hoping to have 7 baptisms in July, we'll be working harder than ever before I think.

And yes, the world cup is big here but Peru doesnt have their team in the world cup so everyone has to choose a different team. I plan on buying a USA jersey in a week or two. Maybe a few other jerseys from other countries. I want to take advantage of the world cup here and buy some jersyes haha.

Anyway, I'm quite alright. Hope everyone up in the states are doing well too. Know that I love you all!

Elder Evans

Ps. This week in my studies I read a lot about Alma and when he and his sons went to preach to the zoramites. chaptes 31 to 33 or farther are pretty sweet. It talks about faith and the people who keep the commandments before being impulsed to keep them are the most blessed.

A service activity picking mangos

Boys love to be in trees

Pday at the Pacific

A mango and a smile

Elder Paul is holding a wasps' nest that they "exterminated"

 

June 16 2014

Happy Fathers day! I hope one day late is alriht. I hope everything went well yesterday and you all had a good time!

We had transfers today but Eldr Campo and I are staying! I ll have 6 months in my first two areas and i'll have my birthday here and my year mark. A bunch of the members, especially the ward mission leader, and the family of the pensionista, and my district are super excited that I'll pass my birthday here ha. I will finish the training of my compnion elder campo and I am once again district leader. Elder Bradshaw, who was with me in the ccm, arrived here as my zone leader and elder prince, my ccm companion is in tumbes so I'll see him a bunch too. I am sad that Elder Stanley left and went to Piura, and Elder Mena, one of my zone leaders, left just after once tranfer here, because he is now Assistente. But that's suepr cool, I'm supper excited for him, hes super cool. Elder Castro still is my zone leader here for these 4 transfers, we arrived to puyango together and we will leave together (in this mission 4 transfers in one area is the maximum so it's sure that we both go). 

Anyway, this week was great. We had 2 investigadores present in the stake conference yesterday, the both of them want to get baptized. The both already want to get baptized, one has a baptismal date set for the 5th of July and the other we stll have to set up a day and time, and she has to go to church one more time (three times at least). We are starting to see the work coming along really well here and there are lots of people progressing or going to progress.

In the stake conference one of the presidency of the temple Guayaquil gave a talk, as well as Luiggi Mendoza (a member in my ward getting ready to send his mission pappers in). Luiggi's talk was so good, he said stuff like (in the translation): ¨When I read the scriptures, I tell myself: The Church is true. When I go to church on sundays, I tell myself: The Church is true, When I go out with the missionaries, I tell myself: the Church is true.¨ He also said that in a liahona magazine (ensign) he found a quote that said something like this: ¨Äs members of the church, we leave the bad behind for the good, and we leave the good behind for the better.`  

I hope that we all can start telling ourselves without a doubt that the church is true as we go about in our daily routines, and that we can leave the good behind for the better because we have all already left the bad behind for the good. We can always improve in something. 

I love you all and once again I hoppe you all had a great Father's day, especially you Dad!

Love,

Elder Evans

June 9 2014

This week went pretty well. One of our investigators is pregressing pretty well and went to church for the second time. Her grandpa is from Trujillo and he is a faithful member with a lot of time in the church and she got interested in the church after showing him the church here because he is visiting Tumbes just for a month and wanted to go to church here. We had a meeting with ward mission leaders, ward missionaries, full time missionaries, led by the stake president and his counselors yesterday. It was super cool. This new stake president from my ward is super excited to get to work with the missionaries and taught us how to better work with the ward mission leaders and ward missionaries and bishops. We set up some big goals as a stake and are planning for a huge family home evening in the stake center with 15 people for every companionship. We're hoping that it all works out well, it's planned for July11.

OnSaturday Elder Stanley and Elder Mamani had a baptism and Elder Campo, Elder Mena, and Elder Castro, and I helped out. I played piano for the meeting. Come unto me, choose the right, and a few others that I never had played before, that may only be in the spanish himnario.

Today we had a super cool P-day. You all can look at the pictures, we pretty just messed around like we did as little kids. It helped relieve some of the stress that naturally comes from being a missionary ha. 

I'm glad everyopne is doing well and hope that you all have a great week!

Love you all!

Elder Evans 

 

June 2 2014

This week was crazy, I pretty much missed an entire wek of work. I first went to Lima last sunday night until Tuesda night, then Wednesday night after the district meeting I made the 5 hour trip  to Piura with my companion and the other trainers and new missionaries, then my companion Elder Campo went to Lima. It was rough on our numbers but we have high hopes this week. One lady showed up to church because she had to take her grandpa (a member from Chimbote) there to church. We will start visiting her this week and her family. I have very little to write because that is all that happened this week. In lima we ate papa johns and mcdonalds. In tumbes we made french toast again. And we taught a few lessons in our few open windows of time. The work is going slow right now ever since our investigator with baptismal date set up and all fell through. She had passed her interview and everything and was all ready to get baptized that week but her kids changed her mind and discouraged her. It's super sad. Right now we have to find a bunch of new people. We'l be working super hard this week! I'm looking forward to it.

Elder Stanley showed me this verse a while back in 3Nephi 5:13

 13 Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life.

And after reading Ether 12:27 about the faith, read 2 corinthians 12: 9-10. I think those are some of my new favorite scriptures.

Love you all!!

 Elder Evans