Feb 23 2015

Hey everybody! This week was pretty great! After working and not baptizing anyone for almost a whole year I feel like I'll see the fruits very soon. Our 21 year old investigator Jairo Fiestas is excited for his baptism on March 14th and we are gettting close to finishing the lessons with him. Yesterday one investigator, the sister of a less active that is coming back to church, attended again for the 3rd time and she told us she wants to get baptized and asked if she could get baptized next week or the week after! I don't think anyone has ASKED me if they can get baptized the next week in my whole mission. We didn't set a sepcific date for her baptism yet but we are hoping to set it up for the 21st of March. She's 17 years old and has a ton of new friends in the church. Also, another investigator, Alejandro, who is best friends with the bishop's family, asked us if he could get baptized soon. We set the baptism date for the 14th of March, for the same day as Jairo. Alejandro is 17 I think as well. He is way excited.

Alejandro and Rosa, the girl that wants to get baptized, even stayed after church yesterday for the baptism of 8 year old twins. It was a great service. We four missionaries sung a special number, we sang a primary baptism song in spanish. "Me encanta el arco iris despues de ver llover...." It's like "I love to see the rainbow after the rain..." I don't remember it in english haha. We also sang Come Thou Fount (in english). It turned out great. They loved it. 

Oh yeah and today we had transfers. Elder Arce my Argentino companion went to Talara and Elder Bradford from San Diego arrived as my companion. His birthday is July 6th, 9 days before mine and he has a year and a little more in the mission. I'm showing him what zone leaders have to do. Today I was running around the whole city of Sullana in moto taxis paying for the bus tickets of the missionaries leaving Sullana. It was a bit hectic but I'm all good. We'll see how Sullana treats two gringo missionaries hah. 

Hope you all have a great week and that al is going well. Love you guys!

Have a happy birthday Dad! Love you!

Elder Evans

Feb 16 2015

Hey everyone, I don't have a whole lot of time but I just want to let you know I am doing great. Elder Arce and I invited a 21 or so year old to be baptixed and he accepted for the 14th of march so we are super excited. The zone had interviews this week with President Rowley and as zone leaders we went on splits with the assistants so my companion and Elder Sosa could go to some lessons and Elder Parra (from the CCM, you may recognize the name) and I had to check all of the area binders of every companionship in the zone. It was only slightly boring but it was kind of cool because it was new, but I would've rather been out in the lessons haha. This week I fought through a bacterial infection or a staph infection. They're not sure which but I took antibacterial pills and put on a cream and it's pretty much all good now :) It was pretty ugly. Oh and today we had a pretty cool Pday. We had a barbeque with the elders in our district and with a member family in the Sullana Ward. It was soooooooooo good!I hope everyone is doing great. Love you all!

Feb 2 and Feb 9 2015

Feb 2

Hey everybody hope you all had a fantastic week! This week was pretty crazy. Running aroung helping missionaries in my zone move into new rooms and we had a small activity in the church on Friday night for investigators and members. We watched the Restoration movie of 1 hour and it turned out well. We also found a pretty cool family this week sitting down in the street and so we talked to them and they let us in and we taught them. They each had their seperate families and kids and such so we started by sharing with them The Family, a Proclamation to the World. They really enjoyed it. One of their husbands looks like a gringo (white ,person). Here they called white people gringos or "colorado" (they call me that all the time) and well his friends all call him colorado as well for his blue eyes and lighter skin. But he is in fact Peruvian. Also, a single mother Elena and her 8 year old daughter are very interested in the restoration and were 100% sure they'd go to church. After a lesson she told her daughter "on sunday we're going to their church" but something came up and they couldn't but we'll continue teaching them.

Today We went to an area called Marcavelica outside of Sullana about 20 minutes out in the country and played "carnavales" a tradition of throwing water balloons and using waterguns to soak friends or random people you dont know. However, we only played as missionaries in our district and some members that joined us. It was super fun. A wasp stung Elder Espinoza in the arm and me in the neck...but that's fine, we're all good. I tried sending pictures but it doesnt seem to have worked. I'll try next week...

 

Oh yeah I'm already accostumed to streets without stop signs, they don't exist here in Piura or sullana or tumbes as far as I know. In lima there were a few here and there. That's aweomse. Is it a large tourist area? 

The best lesson we taught this week was with a single mom and her 8 year old daughter because we taught about the book of mormon and she promised to read it and was really excited to go to church to investigate. She never made it but we'll keep trying to encourage  her to go this coming sunday. 

On wednesday Ill have my first zone leader traing meeting but we talk about how the mission is improving and what it needs to do to change and get better. Stuff like that. 

I took pictures and sent them to dropbox but  I cant tell if they are good or not. I couldnt see them after putting them on dropbox...

Love you, hhave a great vacation!!!

Love you guys, have a great week! Especially Mom and Dad in vacations!

Elder Evans

 

Feb 9

Hey  everybody again. Wow the time is flying faster every week. This week was pretty great. We had a council of the mission leaders (zone leaders and the sister leaders or whatever they are called in english and assistants with the president). It was great. We learnede a ton and President Rowley asks our opinions on how we can become better missionaries and how we can become a better mission as a whole. We're going to receive small cards to give to members so they can set goals in the missionary work. They wil place the starting date and the date in which they have to have completed the goal(the final date). 

Well this week we were super happy because finally one of our less active guys here named Ivan finally went to church after many years and he brought his sister Rosita who is investigating the church. Their both young adults and he felt super good after returning to the church and wants to keep coming. His sister really liked the church as well. We are working super hard but we still don't have baptisms set up. Maybe in a few weeks.

About two weeks ago you asked if I had seen a llama or an alpaca in the mission and I said no but about 20 or 30 minutes later I saw one in the plaza and this guy lets you take a picture with it for 2 soles (about 75 cents). I didnt have time to take one but the next time I see him I will. Ill for sure check the pictures on dropbox. I also sent a few pictures from our meeting we had in piura. Elder Mulford who is in the middle of the picutre is already going home in two weeks. I remember in Morropon talking with him about the year a 10 months I had left and he talked about the year and 5 months. And now he's already going home. Elder Chen is going home in April. 

Love you!

Hope everyone is doing great. Love you all!