Oct 27 2014

Hey everybody, hope you all had a great week. I had a pretty fair week. We had a zone conference on thursday and President Rowley and Elder Grow (from the 70) met together and said if the mission wants better success we have to keep talking with the families in the street, giving them proclamations for the family and start knocking on doors and having faith in Christ and that He will lead us to those who are ready. This week we knocked on doors when the appointments fell through and then visited a few of those families yesterday but they weren't home. This week we'll be placing a few baptismal dates now that two investigators returned from Lima. Angelica is now reading in 2 nephi and her son still goes to church every week. We have to help encourage her to go to church every week because she only has 1 attendance that counts toward baptism but went to church twice so far. We also went looking for a family that we had contacted in the street and they either gave us a false address or my companion and I didn't take good note of the address. BUT, the person we found in that house, that we thought belonged to the family we had contacted, ended up receiving us and said that missionaries visited her in the past and she is a friend of a returned missionary that is in my ward here in San Pedro. She is like 20 or 23 years old and lives with her family (parents and brothers) and they couldn't join us but the next time they will hopefully.Yesterday  we went on splits with the ward missionaries and the returned missionary that I mentioned and another member went with my companion to visit and teach her, We are focusing a lot on finding new investigators and are looking hard, knocking on doors, talking with people in the street, and we will be hosting some activities in the church in the coming weeks to obtain references. The members will be required to bring at least one non member friend.

Yesterday was the primary program here and it was pretty cool, the kids did great. some made me laugh pretty good. But half the ward couldn't here them because there was no microfone or electricity for some reason :P

Anyway, I hope you guys have a great Halloween, eat lots of candies but don't get cavities. 

love,

Elder Evans

someone was drying "pig meat"

Eating out with the ward mission leader (who incidentally posts pictures of Elder Evans on facebook almost every week, which I love. Not only is he the ward mission leader, but he cooks the elders one meal every day. He's a chef by trade)

Oct 20, 2014

This week went well. We have been looking for a less active member for a few weeks and on saturday we found him and were able to teach hi and his non member wife and son. He expressed desires of returning to the church. He has cousins, and his dad, that have served missions but he went inactive and wants to come back and go to the temple with his family. He and his wife work a ton so it's hard for them to go to church. This sunday they couldn't go. But they told us to visit them every saturday because that's the only day we'll find them. Also, a recent convert from the Piura Central stake moved into the ward boundaries here in San Pedro and nobody knew but some missionaries passed us the reference and we met him. He hasn't gone to the church for a month but said he will start going again. He is new to the area so we told him where the church is located and invited him to the elder's quorom activity that they'll have on thursday.

And this transfer I will be staying in San Pedro with Elder Melo. I'll be here another 6 weeks at least. I'm pretty excited and happy to be able to stay.

One youth got his mission call this week to Bolivia, La Paz. I was the only one out 15 or so people who guessed the right country haha. He is super pumped. It made me remember the day I got my mission call almost 2 years ago in Febuary. How the time flies! I love it here, although it is getting pretty hot. 

Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Evans

Elder Paul with a kid who just opened his mission call

Oct 13 2014

Hey everybody. I know I'm a little late, but, General conference was great. We had  to wait a week and so we watched it saturday and yesterday. On saturday I watched two sessions in english with a bunch of other americans but the rest I decided to watch in spanish because I only have one more general conference to watch in spanish. It was great. I, as Tommy, loved the talk by Elder Uchtdorf and the apostals that, instead of blaming others, asked "Lord, is it I?" When He had said that one of them would betray him. We shouldn't say "Oh good thing that so and so is listening to this talk, it's directed to him" or something like that. We should be humble and ask the lord to help us change and improve. This week we continued talking to families in the street and setting up appointments but to no avail. One of our less active members that we are teaching brought two of his from from the university with him to the conference. That was super cool. They are from Tacala and so I called for the elders from Tacala to come talk to them and get to know them. I hope Elder Parra and Elder Chavez (the elders in Tacala--Elder Parra is from my group, we arrived together) can start teaching them and that all goes well. And now we find ourselves in the last week of transfers. I think I'll stay here for one more transfer at least because I don't have much time here. I'll find out on Saturday and let you know on Monday.
So here the elections are absolutely obligatory unless you want to pay a fine. Also, here there are waaaay more political parties than in the states. In the states there are two main parties and some smaller ones too. But here they have about 5 or 6 main parties and a ton of small ones. In the states the republicans' mascot is an elephant and the domocrats' is a donkey. Here there are sombreros (hats), an A, the llave (key), and a ton more than I don't remember off the top of my head.

Love ya! And have a great birthday Matt!

Elder Evans

 

Oct 6 2014

Hey everybody, this week was alright. But I'll start by telling you stuff I forgot to say the last week. About a week and a half ago, I think it was the day Katie had Jackson, I found out the son of a less active in San Pedro loves to play instruments. He plays flute, french horn, the recorder, piano, and the organ. He took out his french horn and his other instruments and after almost 3 years I played a french horn. I could play a scale or two but I definitely lost a lot of that talent ha. Also in the same week Elder Melo colmpleted 12 months in the mission and so our ward mission leader made us a torta de tres leches. It was super good, even though in the picture it is uneven.

Anyway, this week we had a multi zone conference with the zones Algarrobos (my zone) and Capullanas. Elder Stanley is a zone leader of Capullanas so we talked a bit and caught up. He was in Tumbes with me for 2 transfers. And Elder Mena was there too (my old zone leader and current assistent). We learned a lot about following the Holy Ghost and discerning the needs of the investigators by listening to them and the spirit. It was a pretty cool conference, better than ones in the past. 

Our main investigators are still in Lima because they had to vote for their regional governor but hopefully they get back soon this week. We looked for new investigators and references this week but they all said they were busy. Not a single one let us in this week. But that's missionary work, this week we'll keep looking for them. 

I hope you all enjoyed the general conference, this week on saturday and sunday we will be able to watch it, we're a little behind haha. I'm way excited for conference; some members said it was great. Also, today Elder Stanley invited us to chilis with them for pday so after finishing my time in internet Elder Melo and I will head over there and eat well today. I'll have pictures of that for next week. We still havent seen confrerence because they had elections yesterday for regional governers and its mandatory that everyone votes. If you dont vote you have to pay a fine. And if you moved from one region to another in Peru without changing your address in your papers, you have to go back to where you lived to vote. thats why some investigators went to lima to vote. Because they never changed their information adn address. I'm excited to see conference, and here they also have someone speak spanish so I never get to hear the real voice of the people speaking. I hope they have conference in english to hear their voices, I heard last year in the stake I'm in they put it up in spanish and english in different rooms because in my stake there are some other english speakers that work here in piura or something like that. 

The transfers are in 2 weeks, I haven't gotten the package yet, and yes I think in spanish.

 

Love ya guys! Have a great week!

Elder Evans

 

 

Sept 29 2014

Hey everybody, I'm pretty tired today. Elder Melo and I have been getting up early at least 3 days a week to go run and do pullups and stuff that like that. I was happy running 4 miles in 28 minutes. Then we went to the church with the whole zone to practice the special musical number for Thursday. Afterward we played soccer for about 2 hours so I got a lot of sun but feeling good. I love geting out and exercising!!

Anyway, this week was a little rough because one investigator and her son who had baptismal dates ended up traveling to Lima for 2 weeks to vote and so we will have to push the baptismal date back. But Hermana Angelica (the mom) took the Book of Mormon with her! That surprised us, but made us super happy. Before leaving for Lima she was already in 1 Nephi 7 and she likes reading it so that will help her a ton in her trip. Hermano Alex this week went to church and has a baptismal date set for the 18th of october so that is cool too. We are working a lot with him and we're great friends with him. I think he enjoyed going to church. Also one of the members that we re-activated a few weeks ago sent 9 names to the temple to get their baptisms and other covenants done so we congratulated him for that. In all the churches, There is a tree with leefs on it with the names of people who have sent names to the temple. It only got put up recently and the ward has worked a ton; about 20 people in the ward have sent names to the temple in the last few weeks. It´s great to see them working so much in the family history work. 

Right now I'm reading in Mosiah and I love learning from King Benjamin and Abinadi, let's keep being strong and sharing our testimony even when the world won't believe it, because eventually it will have an affect in someone like it did in Alma.

Anyway, that's all for now. Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Evans

Sept 22 2014

Hey everyone! Hop you all had a great week! I'm doing alright over here. This week we found a ton of new people to teach. Mainly inactives and a few investigators. It's been a good week. The neighboring ward Miguel Grau passed us a new area so the members that live in that area now belong to my ward. We received 2 investigators from that ward and the zone leaders (they were teaching them). I feel bad because now the investigators have to get used to new missionaries ( not that we're bad or anything haha). Anyway, we placed baptismal date with Joanne's sister. Joanne  got baptized right before I got here and now her 32 year old sister Angelica and her 12 year old son Dick want to get baptized. Dick goes to church every week but angelica only went once for the whole time and yesterday she showed up late and left early so hopefully she can go to church at least 2 more times before the 18th.    

Today we played vollleyball and soccer with the zone and that was fun. My team won once in volley and lost once. Then we played soccer. It was a good time. The zone algarrobos (the zone I'm in) has special musical number in the multi zone conference on the 2nd so that's cool. We're going to sing Youth in Latter Days or something like that? The Latins have to study english every day so that's why we'll sing in english. I'll help teach the song to my district in the district meeting this week. it'll be the best!!!!!

This week we had ward conference and 154 people (without the stake leaders) showed up!! The previous record in my time here was like 132 or something. 

Anyway, that's about it. I'm having a good time. So you guys should too!

Love you guys!

Elder Evans

Sept 15 2014

Hey everyone! This week went pretty slow but it was alright; we got to the apartment every night tired from a good day's work. The mission is focusing a ton in contacting every family we see in the street, but my area is so small this week we only saw 5 or 6. They said we could visit them but they were never home when we got to their houses. Other times they kept doing what they were doing without even looking up at us. But I feel good that we at least did our part and I'm sure this week or another week we'll find a family that accepts our message. This week I was pretty worried that one of our less actives named Eric wouldn't show up to church but when we arrived he was already sitting down waiting. Now he has gone to church 4 or 5 times and has started wearing church clothes. And he didn't leave early either, he stayed the whole 3 hours. He's a great guy, and he wants to go on a mission so we are talking to him a lot about the mission. And he has a friend that is interested in learning more about the church and the Book of Mormon so hopefully we can meet his friend and he can help us teach his friend.

The sister of Joanne, a recent convert with 7 weeks in the church, and her son are investigating the church and receiving the lessons. She is catholic by tradition and has some doubts but she went to the stake conference last week and her son goes to church every week so hopefully things go well!!

Anyway, that's about all I have this week, we didn't do anything special today but I bought more food than normal. Some missionaries and some members from morropon said I'm skinnier than I was then. I didn't know that was possible.

[Mother's note: I asked him if people call him any nicknames] Yes people call me gringo. Some nonmember kids that talk to us in the street found my real name in my scriptures and one of them sometimes calls me by that name. But he stopped saying it a few weeks ago. Only once a week ago he reminded me that he knows it hah. And also a lot of the missionaries in the mission and members know me for making faces. The members closest to the missionaries love it when I make the faces and move my ears without my hands stuff like that. They think its hilarious and have never seen anyone do it before.

Hope school, work, and church is all going well!

Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Evans