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

Sept 8 2014

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a good week.This week we knocked on doors and didnt find much success. A few families said that they were busy but we could come back in a few days and in the mornings. In Morropon people accepted us in their houuses almost right away but here it seems a little harder, but that's fine, we'll just work harder and keep looking for new families to teach. We'll pass by 2 of the families that we contacted in their houses because they were friendly and said if we come by another day in the morrning they would have more time, the rest didn't seem interested.

We also gave servce this week painting a house of a member family. They ended up giving us lunch too. And another day they fried some good ol guinea pig. Here it's called CUI. We had to watch the people who sell them kill them. They stretch them out and break the neck. It made me super sad to watch it but it was very tasty! We also saw how they kill turkeys and that's a liittle more gruesome so I wont share the details. I have a video of them killing the guinea pig if you want me to send it. It's just 4 seconds ;)

And big news for the transfers this weekend! I'm staying in San Pedro haha. I love it. Even though it is progressnig very slowly. It's the best, adn my new companion is Elder Melo, he is also from ecuador (like my last 3 companions) and he was in Chulucanas when I was in Morropon. We spent 2 transfers in the same district there adn now we're companions. I'm excited for this transfer but at the same time I'll miss Elder Encarnacion, he was pretty cool.

Hope everyone has a great week coming ahead.

Love ya!  

Elder Evans

eating cui

Sept 1 2014

Hey everyone! Hope you are all enjoying your labor day! This week went pretty fast for me but we had no success in finding new investigators. Plus all of our investiagors that we already have were all busy whenever we went to our apointments with them so it was hard. We are going to try harder this week to find new investigators. We visited a bunch of less actives and we ´rescued´one of them. They are considered rescued when we teach the 5 missionary lessons, and they return going to church every sunday adn have an interview with the bishop. We have a ton of inactives here and we're working hard with them so they can go back to church and receive the blessings of the sacrament and all that. This week Erick went to church again and bought church clothes so it was super cool to see him there even though he only went for 20 minutes. He is a 20 year old that stopped going to church a year or more ago. He is progressing little by little, but surely. The first time he went he didn't have church clothes but was there for the whole sacrament meeting and then left. This time he made it for the end of the meeting and then left halfway into the class that followed. He is a great guy and he is excited about getting back into the church.

Today we went to the market in Piura and it's crazy! But at least now I'm getting to know the city a little more. We saw one guy bagging octupus, people cutting open chickens and fish. I only missed someone killing a guinea pig (here it's a meal called Cui and apparently its really good). One family in the ward said they would give it to us one day, I am willing to try it, but to kill it you have to break it's neck. The family said I could kill it but I said no thanks haha. I'm excited to try it though. 

Anyway, it's the last week of the transfer, I have no idea what the transfers have in store for. I think I'll stay another 2 transfers here, maybe I'll even train a new missionary again. 

Have a great week!!! Love ya all!!

Elder Evans