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
 

 

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Nov 24 2013

So this week had lots of ups and downs. I picked up my new companion in Piura, his name is Elder Vasquez from Chile. He just came from the CCM in Lima. We got to go to chiclayo with the whole mission to see Elder Nelson speak so that was awesome!! All the missionaries from the mission Piura and Chiclayo were there and we all got to shake his hand. He talked a lot about how we can hasten the work of Salvation and talked about how our families will be alright and that we need to lose ourselves in the work. I saw a ton of friends from the CCM there and one of the friends I met there was at the conference as well and in his 8th day in the field he lost his finger playinng baksetball. He had a ring on and when we dunked the ball his ring got caught and ripped his finger off.
But anyway, after that we went back to Morropon and my companion got very homesick, and the net day he got physically sick for two and a half days so we literally did almost nothing this week. No priesthood holders could stay with him and go on splits with me to visit people, we only have like 4 or  priesthood holders in the branch in the first place. So I am super bummed with this week with our work in Morropon. He's better now so this week should me better! We did have a big activity with the ward and investigators and it was all about the family. The whole district came to help with referencias. The activity was super fun and we got some referncias now too so I am excited about that!

Have a great Thanksgiving! I'll try to remember and celebrate in the room a little haha.

Love, Elder Evans

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Nov 18 2013

Hey everyone! This week has been a wild one. All week I have felt pressure on whetherI'll stay in Morropon and teach the area to an experienced misionary or leave. Then we found out that a huge group of new missionaries are coming in so that changed things. Either Elder Roman will stay for two more cambios or I will to train. I went on splits with Elder Chen in Chulucanas and that was great. He is a very hard working missionary and we taught a lot of good lessons. Then on saturday night we had noche de hogar in the ouse of a member, once we got back to the apartment the pressure was intense waiting for the call from the zone leaders. When they finally called they told us that Elder Roman is going to serve in Sullana and I will be staying in Morropon, to train a new missionary! I'm pretty nervous because I only just finishe my training, but I am really excited as well. Today I am serving with Elder Chen because his companion Elder Farnsworth and my companion Elder Roman left to their new areas. Tomorrow Elder Chen and I will go to Piura to get our new Elders, fresh from the CCM, and then sleep in Piura with other Elders because on Wednesday we travel early to Chiclayo (3 hours away) to go to the devocional with Elder Nelson. I'm so excited and pumped for this week, I get to start training and I get to hear another apostole.
This makes me think of Ether 12:27-30 because I am so new and I still have a long ways to go with my spanish but Presidente Rowley received revelation that I should be a trainer. The Lord does call the weak, so they can become strong. I know other americans that started their missions with me and some of them are being transferred to other areas instead of training or teaching the area to an experianced elder so it makes me wonder why I was chosen to train. I look forward to it and to learning and I know the Lord wants me to train now, so early in my mission so that's what I'll do, he has a way prepared for me to do it. Plus I love challenges, I'm always up for a new challenge, so here we go!
Have a great week and keep smiling!

Love,

Elder Evans (Paul)
 
 

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Nov 10 2013

 So this week was pretty sweet. It was mainly two or three days so I won't write a whole lot.
We started teaching seminary classes this week to the 3 youth in the ward, we teach the classes el martes y el sabado a por 2 hours each class. And this month we happen to have to teach the book of revelations (since we started so late) so not only am I teaching seminary, I am teaching seminary for the book of revelations. Oh, and in spanish, so it's a little rough haha. Luckily though this past week my spanish has improved so much. I just noticed different grammatical frases or something that has made it so much easier. On martes only the branch president's son showed up though, and on saturday, no one did...
Then on thursday we had splits, Elder Farnsworth from Georgia came to Morropon to serve with me and it was so fun. He only has one more transfer so he was talking all about the classes he is going to take at BYU, it made me prettty trunky but we did a lot of good work that day. We challenged 2 people to baptism, both accepted for th 30th so we're hoping to close out the month with two baptisms. We taught 4 other lessons, 6 in total, which is rare in Morropon, we just need to find more nuevos investigadores. Anyway, that night Elder Farnsworth and I made a giant dinner of spaghetti and garlic bread (we just poured some liquid garlic on the bread and microwaved them because we don't have an oven) and the next morning we got up at 5:30 to go running and exercise an extra hour. We ended up running up a mountain and there were some ruins up there so that was way cool. The mountain wasn't super big, and there was no climbing involved so it was all good.
Hermano Clemente is doing great, he tried to bring his neighbor to church who we are teaching but the neighbor Miguel Angel is very shy so he didnt want to this week. We'll get him there though. Oh and on suday I gave another talk with a last minute notice. I spoke on the scriptures and how through them, we partake of the love of Christ (similar to Lehi's dream and the iron rod).
That's all for now folks, have a great week and do some good!

Love,
Elder Evans, Paul
I sent some pictures. One of my zone at the zone activity we had last monday, and one of Elder Farnsworth and me in my room after a very successful day in Morropon eating a spaghetti dinner and garlic bread and drinking milk. He only has one transfer left so I'll miss him. He gets home the 31st of december and the semester at byu starts the 6th or 7th for him. The next morning we ran up a mountain and those are the next pictures.
 

 

Monday, November 4, 2013

Nov 4 2013

Hey Everyone!
This week was not as successful as the last few but we're working hard. We only have two weeks left with this transfer so Elder Roman or I will be leaving most likely, more likely I will stay to teach someone the area. I have been reading the Book of Mormon like there is notomorrow (during my study times or before going to bed) because I want to get this language down quick and learn new things to share with my investigators and less active members. 
This week we walked into Hermano C______ outside his house again in his chair, and as always, he was reading el Libro de Mormon. It's awesome, he has learned a ton. And he wanted to tell us his life story, which is very sad. His parents both have passed away and his mom was blind the last 15 years of her life, one or two of his siblings have passed away as well and hes only 51 or so years old. He was a drunk before he joined the church but now he stopped drinking and reads el libro de Mormon cada dia. He bore his testimony to us and broke into tears and thanked use for all we have done for him and he thanked God as well. He told us he wants to take their names to the temple and be baptised for them and have all their work done. We are going to try to help with that. It showed me how reall and true the Book of Mormon is. It changes lives. It turns them around and puts them on the path to Eternal Life. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be out here sharing this message and this book with the Peruanos. 
Also, the branch is going through some major changes. the Missionaries will be starting to teach all the sunday school lessons on sundays, and seminary classes for the 5 youth (2 of which are investigators but we can't get them to church so we don't know if they will show up), and the Branch president doesn't have counselors because there are only 2 elders, the branch president and the elders quorom president so he wants us misssionries to be his counselors so we'll see how these next few weeks go. They will be crazy with teaching seminary and sunday school and if we do end up being called to be his counselors. Seminary, however, will only be two classes per week, 2 hours each class.
That''s abaout all from the southern side of the world. I'll be back in a week!

Love, 

Elder Evans, Paul

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Oct 28 2013

Hey everybody!!
And another great week comes to an end but here comes another one! Nothing really special happened, we had a cool multi zone conference and President Rowley taught a lot about the missionaries in the Book of Mormon, like Abinadi, Amulek, Alma, the sons of Mosiah, and Moroni. It was reall motivating. I can feel the Lord helping me a ton, especially with spanish, this week I got a ton better out of nowhere it seems. I remember hearing somewhere, that if you read the book of Mormon in another language, you will be fluent by the time you finish (i was reminded of this saying in one of tommy's emails)  and so I have been stepping up my reading in the Book of Mormon, reading about  5-7 pages per day my spanish is rapidly improving, especially when I read it out loud or in a whisper even. I have laearned that trials are really just temporary, short periods of time. Think about moral life and how small it is compared to the Eternal Life that we will have afterward. Mortal life on earth really is practically nothing. Then think of the trial you just got over or are currently going through. This time period is very small usually, barely a sliver of time compared to an average mortal life. So when all is said and done, your trial is actually nothing at all. It's just a tiny sliver of another very, very, very small sliver. This thought has helped because relally even if it takes me 5 or 6 months to learn spanish really well, that time is absolutely nothing compared to a lifetime and even less significant whpared to the Eternal Life that follows this life. 
Oh and a missionary at the zone conferenec accidentally sprayed sauce on me (my suit pants) when we were eating lunch. So its stained now but hopefully the lady who does our laundry can get it out haha. 
C_________, our recent convert has been doing great. He was the ideal investigator and now is the ideal member, he is sharing the gospel with his neighbors and friends, asking us for more pamphlets so he can give them to friends. We are now teaching one of his neighbors. He is working hard and studying the scriptures. Elder Roman and I think that he will one day be a leader of some sort in the church, like the Elder's quorom president or something like that.
That is my storyfor this week, I hope you all had a great week and have another great one comign! remember, any trials you have are only for a very tiny particle of time, and then you'll be stronger than before!, 
We visited a menos activo this week and her daughters were there (both have families, one in Spain and the other in tumbes, the northernmost city of this misison. They talked about all the things that the summer brings to Piura. Here are some things they talked about: giant, jumping tarantulas (doesnt that sound fun), snakes, big bug/insects that bite and cause a lot of itching (mainly they come out at night and bite when you're sleeping), rain that sometimes floods the street and people even go out to SWIM in it. They saw big tarantulas that drowned just floating down the streets and other nasty stuff. Oh and there are already a lot of bats but im not worried about those, they have never bothered anyone. But our apartment is getting more and more spiders, and theyre getting bigger, mainly the daddy long leg type ones though.
Oh and i got letters from aunt jenny (smith) and Maddy, and a dear elder from uncle Travis, and mike, you can tell them and thank them for me if you can.
Love, 
Elder Evans, Paul

I only sent one picture home, its a huge lizard or iguana thing, idk. but its on the wall and you will see the taail more than anything. I thought of matt when I saw it, its across the street from my apartment. my camera is zoomed in a ton. Ill send another picture of it in just a sec.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Oct 21 2013

Hey! Yeah I got to baptize C_______ on Saturday. It was sooo cool! And he has been so excited for it for weeks and now he is doing great. He reads the scriptures and the Liahona everyday and every time we teach him he surprises us how much he knows and how much he has already progressed. The baptism was in the basin of a waterfall because the river was dirty from construction farther up so we went to the waterfal at the Piedra Del Perro (one of the pictures has my current district on the Piedra del Perro, maybe you can see the face).
I enjoy the dear elder updates about the other missionaries, I do get emails but I very rarely have time to read them thouroughly so it is cool to read them sometimes. But you don't need to send them anymore, I am getting better and reading their emails, and we are all emailing each other anyway, thanks though!
Today we went to the waterfalls again with our new and updated district. Elder Martinez was only a temporary missionary here waiting for his visa to go to the Dominican Republic so he left there now and Elder Zerillo got transferred to Tumbes, the farthest north area in the mission. We got Elder Chen who served 6 months in Guatamala waiting for his visa to come here and Elder Melo who is from Guayaquil Ecuador, he is brand new so I'm no longer the newest missionary in the district ha. But he does have the language advantage. 
This coming week we have Multi Zone conference, my zone is meeting with zone Sullana. I'm pumped for that. I love it when we get to travel to Piura.  Hope you like the pictures and have a good week everyone!
Also, I got all the packages and letters, Elder Mulford and Chen went to lima for visa stuff and were kind enough to pick all of them up on the way back from Piura. But I havent had time to open them yet. I only saw them in the room of my district leader and the n we left to eat lunch and internet. Thanks a ton for everything! 
At home I never liked cucombers or tomatoes but here thats almost the only vegeattable we get served so i eat it every chance i get. Now i realize I love them both haha. And while waiting for people to show up to the capilla for a meeting I played piano more and  little laizard was on the side just chilling there, it was pretty cool, he or she just chilled on the piano while I played piano and sang haha. And there was a huge lizard on the road once and a cat tried to get it but the lizard no joke ran sooooo fast it looed like it was hovering in the air. 
Show this email to dad cause I might not have time to write all this to him but I ll try. I usually tell you two different things so I dont have to write it all twice anyway. So look at his in case I remember something new to say. 
Hope everyone is well!
Love, Elder Evans 

So for the pictures:
I sent one of me, elder Roman, and C_____ before and after the baptism at the waterfall(the waterfall is not the one we visitted last month, we went to that waterfall and a much larger one today) So there are in total 2 waterfalls that we visited.
1 of my district on the Piedra del Perro from this morning
1 of me on top of the waterfall that we visited a month ago with the district before the changes.
1 of my district at the big waterfall, which I would love if you changed that to my cover photo on faceboook, thatnks!
 





 

Monday, October 14, 2013

Oct 14 2013

Dear Blog
Here comes the heat the bugs, and spiders. When the sun is out, it's ridiculously hot and when the clouds cover it, it's ridiculously humid. But it's all good, Clemente passed his baptismal interview this week and will be baptized on saturday morning. We go up to a river or some waterfalls farther into the mountains for the baptisms because there is no font in the casa capilla*. It's my first one on the mission so I'm more than excited. Yesterday we went with the son of the Branch President to go scouting for places where the water is high enough, Arilson (the son) is the one who tested the water.
My spanish is slowly picking up, teaching isn't hard, I feel good teaching but it's the normal conversations that are hard. I'm still trying hard to understand and all that.
This week I have been studying a lot of the characteristics of Christ in the Preach my gospel, It's pretty great. Some good chapters in the scriptures that caught my attention were 2 Peter 1 (verses3-8) and Doctrine and Covenants section 121 (verses 45-46).
I don't have a whole lot else, I'm just super excited for Clemente's baptism this saturday, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT! It's so weird you're 15 already. Have as much fun as you can without hurting yourself!
Love, 
Elder Evans, Paul
 
*literal translation: "house chapel." The branch meets in a little house that the church bought. I think. [this has been a note from the mother]



Monday, October 7, 2013

Oct 7 2013

Hey everyone! Sorry last week I didn´t right much. The pictures [from last week] were of Elder Zerillo´s birthday, he is in the picture of me with the pizza but he´s not my companion. He`s in our district though, in Chulucanas. His birthday was on a Monday so we celbrated it on our Pday. We ate peruvian chinese food, called chaufa or something, they had good wantons surprisingly!! Then we went to another restuarant for dinner and we ate "cuartos de pollo" or a quarter of chicken with lots of french fries. We eat there almost every Monday. 
Then last monday we had a zone activity in Piura and that was pretty fun. It was all competitions and small games, I won one where we all had one oreo on our forehead and we had to eat it without using our hands or anything. Then Elder Mulford in my district was a close second. 
This week I was on splits in chulucanas with Elder Chen, a new elder who spent 6 months serving in Guatamala waiting for his visa. Elder Farnsworth and my companion Eder Roman found Clemente, the man with a baptismal date, drinking with a friend that night so that is a huge bumer, but we vsited him the next day and he said he feels terrible and really wants to change. He has the interview in a week or two so hopefuly all is well by then for the baptism on the 2nd of November. Also Jose Maria accepted the baptismal challenge for the 2nd as well and attended general conference with his grandma who is a member so we`re really excited about that. Other than those two, it`s still pretty slow, many people we are teaching are called vivientes, they have an esposa or esposo and kids and live togethter but they aren`t married so that gives us a big challenge. And that isn`t just here, it`s everywhere in our mission and probably in south america in general. 
This week is transfers but I will still be in Morropon with Elder Roman because I have still have one more transfer of training, then I teach an experienced missionary the area so Ill probably be here until January.
Im trying to send pictures but the computer doesnt seem to read my camera. 
Anyway, that`s all I have now, Elder Zambrano has much more excited stories than me it seems, with a lizard running up his pants haha.
Love, Elder Evans

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Sept 30 2013

Thats awesome!! I dont have a lot to say this week but I found a scorpion in a house while have FHE with a family in the branch haha. That was pretty coool. My spanish is geting better. I went on splits with a zone leader named Elder Valledarez, from Honduras but lived in Utah and Wisconsin (I thought of Giant Spider Invasion when he said that haha) He goes home on october 7th! its crazy. Ill have more next week, I didnt have much time to write today. But Ill be sending a letter home.
Love elder Evans
 
from email to dad:
I havent played a lot of soccer but one night i played one on one with a 14 year old member in the ward while my companion was with the guy´s dad, we just played in the street and I won 2-0. I was even in all my misionary clothes and shoes and he had good clothes and shoes. I think it was mainly cause I was faster and have much longer legs. He definitely had the skills and tricks though. BUt I still managesd to win haha. 
 
missionaries with cake

missionaries with pizza
 

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Sept 23 2013

Hey Everyone,
This was a week with many ups and many downs. I had a great time on splits in Chulucanas with Elder Farnsworth (probably because we spoke english and we talked about so much stuff, doctrinal and our home lives and BYU, etc.). We had one day where it was actually a little chilly in the morning, everyone was wearing jackets except me, and it even sprinkled rain!!!! It was so nice! Here there are no service opportunities it seems but the day it sprinkled one lady was washing the bars outside her window but couldn't reach the top of them, so I went over and washed the top for her haha. No one around was tall enough, that was a little act of service that was kinda fun hah.  Also the day we went to Piura for the interviews was great, I got all those letters and pictures at once, including two from the stake presidaency. I got letters dated back from JUly and letters dated from early September, that shows how good the mail system here works. I love all the pictures and the letters from 'Dear Elder.'  I plan to send a letter next week or two in Piura so hopefully I can. I heard Aunt Jenni and Uncle Travis are moving to Detroit???
One night at a members home for Family Home Evening, one guy named Manuel, he`s not a member of the church but he`s our best friend in Morropon, started talking about el senor de los anilllos (lord of the rings). And we talked a lot about it and he and his sister said I am like Legolas without the long hair, it was a funny, interesting conversation.
I'm excited for the branch of Morropon because they have just started taking temple preparation classes. None of them have gone through the temple so a family from Piura comes to teach them. They are tying to go as a branch at the beginning of December.
This week was also hard though because a ton of appointments fel through and Clemente was suppposed to get baptized on saturday but he was at work during the time we had set up for his baptimsmal interview. He said he was super busy but still wants to be baptized, our new date for his baptism is October 12th.
Hopefully this week gets better, I have splits with the Zone Leaders on Thursday, we´ll see how that goes! 

Regarding the email from my family:
Did you guys make applesauce with all those apples? Beacause I remember that was super good the one summer we made it with our home picked apples. I remember also, when Jimmy, other friends in the neighborhood, and I would take bats and hit and kill the wasps around our appletrees. Those were fun times, but I wouldn't do that anymore ha. The food is good. but wwe rrarely eat fish, its all rice, chicken, beef, and eggs. But its realy good and i love the food every day, i dont get sick of eating rice every day. Thats awesome matt made the [robotics] team, i never thought he was into that but thats great, I am impressed, PL has always had a really good robotics team.
Yeah that is crazy! there will be so many missionaries! It's great! And Jimmy, Ethan, and Eric come home in February!

Miss and love you all!
Elder Paul Evans
 
a house made of earth. My disrtrict, from left to right are E. Martinez, me, E. Zerillo, E. Farnsworth (DL), E. Mulford, and E. Roman
 


on the roof of the missionaries apartment in Chulucanas on my exchange.

 

Monday, September 16, 2013

Sept 16 2013

Dear Family and Friends
This week went well and fast, although the language is still a bit frustrating but I think it´s slowly getting better. Good job Matt in marching band, I still remember marching band like it was yesterday, and it was two years ago, that´s crazy. I´ll for sure look up DC 76. This week one chapter that really helped me was Ephesians 3. I don´t have zone conference till october 23 so hopefully the pictures will be here on Friday when we have interviews with President Rowley. 
I had a few strange/cool experiences this week. One was that it took me three weeks in the field to get sick. I was throwing up most of the day on Wednesdsay so I was in bed all day and that´s it. On thursday I returned to work but had reallly bad stomach and chest pain, and one investigator is some sort of shaman or something. He did some strange thing to help me with my sickness but it wasn´t as weird as most would think when they hear the word shaman. My companion Elder Roman just laughed the whole time. 
Also, we have been teaching a 14 year old boy named J_____, he said we walked by one day and felt something so he called us over from his house and taught him about the plan of salvation the first meeting. Oh and his Grandma is a member but no one else. Then we taught him a second time and he had a friend or two over so we taught all of them. Then our third time he had  more  friends over and we taught all of them the restoration and now we have three new investigators, J_____ and two of his friends are intrerested in hearing more. I´m really excited to see how this plays out!
Today my district went to the waterfalls nearby, we took a moto taxi for 1 minutes and then walked an hour and a half. Then the two other americans, one latino missionary, and I ran back in 20minutes while two other latinos just walked. It was really cool! I´m going to experiment with dropbox today to drop some pictures. 
Tomorrow I will be on splits in chulucanas with my district leader Elder Farnsworth from Georgia so I´m excited for that, it´s my first splits.
I had stake conference which was a broadcast, we listened to two people but the audio was bad so we couldn´t hear them, and then after we had Elder Bednar and Elder Scott speak. I couldn´t get much out of it though because it was all spanish ha.
That's what I have for this week, Love and miss you!!
Elder Evans, Paul

Pictures:  The log is pretty high haha. like 10 or 15 feet over rocks
the ice cream is at the mission home my first day
elder farnsworth and i are in the waterfall, but not getting very wet, we´re behind the water
I uploaded the turkeys for Uncle Mike :P
elder farnsworth and I are on a rock really high up too, that was cool. 









Monday, September 9, 2013

Sept 9 2013

Thats awesome! I wish I could have been there for the rain, rainsortms are my favorite! Here we`ve had nothing but sun, sun, and more sun, except this week wev had a few days with clouds. Im slowly getting better i think, with the language and with the homesickness, though sometimes all i can think about is the day i get home and coming out of the airport with you guys, and haveiing macncheese, im still trying to find my place here and am trying to like it here but its slow in coming. The culture is completely different and very strange to me. BUt its coming along.
Here its the same, just working with members mostly , especialy the less actives, thats our focus in this mission. My night time teacher from the ccm called our phone today because he has friends in morropon and got our number from them. We talked for 20 minutes and it was awesome, made me feel much better. Ill try using that one website for pictures today cause i have some pictures to send. 
Morropon has very little cars, most people travel by small moto taxis, and whenever we need to travel to chulucanas for a district meeting or to piura for something we need to hop in a van or on a bus to take us there. We`re super isolated here, the nearest elders are in chulucanas 45 min away. But we see them most pdays and meetings so its not too bad. also, we have stake conference this coming sunday.
Yesterday and today we havent had water, except at random times so yesterday i couldnt shower, and today i showered using pure water that i put in my water bottle earlier. Except my companion got luky and when he howered he had water both times haha. Also im not sure if i have bed bugs or im just getting misquito bites. Oh and there are LOTS of spiders in the room, lots of daddy long leg type spiders but im doing fine, when we cleaned the room today i probably killed 20, but they kill the bugs so i left a bunch alone haha.
Tell Morgan and Grandma I got their letters and I loved gettting them, they took a few weeks to get here and i can only send letters in piura so it might be a while before i can send anything back so if they want my email you can give it to them, that is much faster. Im sorry about Great uncle Morris, that has to be hard. 
 Love you all!
Elder Paul

Monday, September 2, 2013

Sept 2 2013

Week 1 in Piura
Please forgive my grammar and punctuation, I type fast and dont have much time. My first area is a city called Morropòn, about 2 hours farther inland from Piura. Its beautiful here, up in the mountains. The people are super nice too. Its hard getting used to it but Im doing alright. I feel way better already just from writing everyone for the first time in 2 weeks. 
In this mission, the missionaries pay one lady in the ward to serve us lunch every day, and the food is fantastic. Its a ton of rice everyday with chicken or eggs on top, sometimes we get soup too. This lady is one heck of a cook, it fills me up pretty well, at least until dinner, which we usually eat at around 830 or 9. Although, I have to say I do miss my mom´s home cooked dinner a lot, because I´m so used to that. I also miss burgers, theres nothing like that here. 
My branch only has about 18 active members so its really small. We have had good luck this week though, especially fast saturday (in south america we fast starting right after staturday lunch, and then we fast until lunch on sunday at 1 or 2 in the afternoon). On that saturday we committed an investigatior Hermano Clemente to baptism and his date is set for the 21st. He is trying to get over his problems with the word of wisdom but we are helping him and we think he will be ready, he said he should be ready by then. Its also strange that here they call each other hermano/a followed by their first name rather than their last. 
My spanish was great in the CCM (MTC) but out here its virtually nonexistent haha. Im trying my best though and I have faith that it will come in time. 
This is all I have time for now, sorry I couldnt say much and if I didnt respond to your emails its because I didnt have time, the internet is slow and for one whole hour neither my companion´s nor my email would open so we went to another cafe.
Love and miss you all, hope everything is going well!
Elder Paul Evans

Friday, August 30, 2013

email from mission home

Elder Evans 2.0 made it to Piura. The mission home sent a letter and a picture. Paul sent a brief message, but left out all the details I wanted to hear. Like the name of his trainer and where his first area is. But here is the picture:
Mission president's wife, mission president, Paul, Paul's trainer
He is in Piura, being a real missionary!

Thursday, August 22, 2013

August 22 2013

 I leave really early on Tuesday morning I believe but we dont know for sure yet. Most missionaries leave at 2, 3, or 4 in the morning. And the time here is the same as in MN right now because peru doesnt observe daylight savings, Its 3:30pm while writing this email here so you can see if it is actually the same. I dont know if we will be able to call home but i will try to if we get the opportunity at the airport. None of our district were able to buy phone cards at the stores because we couldnt find any.
I am so ready to go to piura but i wil miss the ccm because I run with another runner from california in gym hour and also we play ultimate frisbee and soccer. My district is the best district at ultimate frisbee, we destroyed everyone all the time. Only lost 3 or 4 games out of about 20 at least. This morning we went to the temple one last time for two years and we had a district prayer in the Celestial room and it was great. The Spirit was so strong and real. All of us are going to Piura except two are going to Santa Cruz Bolivia and one is going to Iquitos Peru. Itll be hard splitting up with them at the airport and when we Piuran missionaries leave the mission home.
This weekend is going to be a huge grand finale. Our district is having a sort of Christmas Party, weve heard they celebrate christmas here this week or something. and then Elder cook visits on sunday. We learned a ton about the Gospel this 6 weeks, a few misisonaries here, in and out of my district, have been very homesick and we have given blessings and helped one elder decide to stay on his mission and just get transferred to a states mission, originally he was already set to go home and had called his parents.
Love you all, have fun and work hard in school and work or whatever!
Elder Evans (Paul)

Excerpts from email to Jim:
Yeah Lima has its chilly days in the winter but ist starting to warm up because its getting closer to spring and summer here. The spanish is good! Elder Patterson and another elder and I helped translate for a devotional but the other elder who is from utah and spoke spanish to his parents actually translated the whole time, the time flew by so he just kept going, Elder Patterson and I just got the scriptures ready for him to read in english.
Thats awesome that matt skipped the freshman bands, tell him congratulations! Tell them good luck at school and get good grades, work hard and have fun!
Today was the last day I will get to go to a temple for two years most likely and we went as a district finally, so we got permision to say a district prayer in the Celestial Room. It´s really weird to think that in less than a week we will all be with new companions in Piura, Iquitos, or Santa Cruz Bolivia. It´s starting to feel like the same feeling I had a few days before leaving home. We´re about to leave the place we´re comfortable and going to a new place with new people but at least most of us are going together. Im really excited. 
 
Can you find Elder Evans 2.0? This is his group at the CCM
 

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Aug 15 2013

Oh yeah I know her husband He also went to the singles branch so I have talked to him before. Tell Matt that´s super awesome, he jumped off 30ft cliffs, I´ve only ever jumped a 15-20ft bridge and a dam so he has me beat in that!I had no idea Taggart was engaged or anything, and that´ss great Riley is back! And it is pretty weird thinking hayley can already be a laurel president! She will do really well! It´s good she´s working a lot, hopefully she has a lot saved in a few years. If you see Sister Hadley again tell her I said thanks! I won´t be in the CCM for very long, I have one more full week and then I leave for Piura next Tuesday, so like 12 days or so.
    And Jeff P came today, I talked to him and got a picture, I'll send it in another email. He told me you guys had figured the card situation out, and thanks for doing that. I already shopped today so I just paid with my card instead of withdrawing money, I spent about 60-70$ today only because I bought a set of spanish scriptures for myself, not just those paperback ones that we hand out, and some cases for both, the book of mormon case has "peru piura mission" on it so it's really cool! Also, I finished the whole Book of Mormon in 17 days here, and read the Pearl of Great Price two days ago and now I'm on the Doctrine and Covenants. I already feel way more familiar with the scriptures and all the stories in the Book of Mormon. I went to the temple again this morning cause it opened.
    Last week my companion and I proseltyzed without a latino with us and it actually went really well! we handed out 6 Book of Mormons and talked about the restoration with everyone and I understood almost everything and was able to respond except for one old guy who had fake teeth that kept sliding out of place so there was no chance. Luckily his son came down and he knows a member and we talked to him a bunch and gave him a boook of Mormon.
   Last thursday on the night of Pday my teacher got us some Papa Johns! We paid him back but he got it in and my companion and i just stood watch in the hall to make sure no one saw haha. It was amazing to have some papa johns again, we then ripped the boxes and stuffed it in a bag and in the garbage. It was a lot of fun and the teacher loves us, which is why he did it. Pictures will be up sent too. I can't use dropbox in the CCM though.
   That´s about all I have here, love and miss you guys!!
       Elder Evans, Paul

Contraband, tasty tasty contraband.

EP and his friend from MN, Jeff, now also an Elder in Peru

Friday, August 9, 2013

Aug 8 2013

No I never went to boundary waters but I wish I did! He should love it though! And when do you get back? Because I´ve had a problem, the ATMs wont let me pull money out like eveyone else. My two only pin numbers that I would ever use are incorrect. Im not even sure if I set up a pin number for my travel card cause the pin numbers wont work. In one of the two big containers of my stuff I have my normal debit card (the light blue one, NOT the dark gray one). Jeff P leaves for the Peru MTC on Tuesday I believe so if you could try to contanct them and give jeff my normal debit card and have him give it to me when he gets here, that would help a ton because otherwise I can´t pull cash to use for buses and stuff.
        
Other than that problem, everything else is awesome, Ive been running a lot, working out, playing soccer during exercise hours. My spanish is really coming along. I don´t use translators at the devotionals anymore and I email Leroy Z in spanish only. We're proselyting again on saturday and the three-weekers might not get paired with latino companions, we're not sure because there arent't as many latinos as there were two weeks ago but Im a lot better than I was last time and I talk to people in the city a lot too, we have met a few members who love talking to us on pday haha.      

We also have been doing a Book of Mormon challenge, to read it through during our time here and I started about 10 days late because I didn't wanna do it but I am now in alma 50 or 51 so I am still way ahead of schedule and it´s been a week or so since I started it over. My district is awesome and I love being district leader, it helps with leadership skills I may need in the field. People have been getting sick here but not too bad. I have only had a cold or two. We have learned a lot more about the gospel and the Atonement and i´'s really great! I'll send some more pictures in the next few emails in just a sec. If at all possible, try to give my other debit card to Jeff P before he leaves so I can use it here! If that´s risky you can send it and have me email when I get it, but thats really risky too.   
 
Love, Paul

It's still weird for me, Mom, to think he's on the OTHER side of the world. The southern hemisphere.

hills behind the CCM

CCM grounds

the new missionary dress standards