The Purple Belford

June 24, 2014

Dear Family and Friends, 

What a long week full of trains, buses, subways, and walking! This week was a little different than normal because my comp is new in Brasil, so we had to go to Flamengo where the mission office is on the Largo Do Machado (a big plaza) so that he could go to the Polícia Federal with some of the other hispanic newbies. I enjoyed my time waiting at the office with the assistants and secretaries. We had a pretty fun day on last Monday. 

Tuesday, like I think that I mentioned, was our Pday last week. because of the Brasil game in the Cup. Just like today too, we have to spend the entire day indoors at our house on Brasil game days. For the best too, it can get a little crazy.  

Thursday we had a very spiritual experience at zone conference. It was the last time that we'll see President and Sister Lima, until after the mission. They both had plenty of inspiring words to share with us. I learned a lot about the things that I need to do better and really about the things that all of us need to get better at being disciples of Christ. It was a really sad night when President gave his last talk to us and bore his powerful testimony. He and Sister Lima are amazing people and I can't wait to get to see him every year at BYU when he has to come up to Salt Lake for General Conference. But that also means that this week will be an interesting week when our new President arrives on Friday.

We have an awesome week planned out. We are going to do a lot of work to make up for this past week that we didn't have the time for, plus we keep on meeting more and more prepared people to teach and bring to church. We planned out an open house for the chapel here with the ward that we are going to do on Wednesday, and we are hoping and praying that we can have lots of visitors at the church on Wednesday night.

 I love this work, and I love Brasil. I hope all of you are seeking to have your own missionary experiences wherever you find yourself.

Thanks for all of the support back home and I hope that everything continues to go well for all of you.

Love,
Elder Evans

 Me and 3 of my comps.

The original District 220, at least some of us!

 Reunited and it feels so good... Elder Mountain (My very first companion) finally made it to Brasil 6 weeks ago. Thursday was the first time that I'd seen him in almost a year now. 

The mission family tree. Me and my son with my dad and my brother and his sons. 

May 26 Another week "Na Baixada"

Dear Family and Friends,

One more week done already here in the baixada (bye-shada) fluminense (what they call this region of rio). Time has been flying lately for me. I'm quickly coming up on my one year mark here in July. Caramba. Sounds like it has been a good, busy week for all of you back at home. My week was pretty good. It didn't seem like much was accomplished but we did what we could.

This week the big news was that we had interviews with our mission President who starting in July will fully take over his responsiblilities as an area 70 for Brasil (He currently is working as both area 70 and mission president). I've got huge respect for President Lima. You can tell that he is incredibly inspired by the spirit and it seems as if he can look right through you into your spirit. Intimidating a little, but amazing because every bit of advice that he gives is exactly what you need to hear every time. Interviews were good for all of us in the zone. My comp got 4 packages delivered to him too, so that is nice for me as well! There is a funny story that goes along with those packages, but I'll explain later.

There was a fun thing that happened here in Rio this week that I'm sure will scare mom a little. On Wednesday there was a 24 hour police strike in the entire state! Zero policemen were on duty for the entire day and night! Crazy! Don't worry too much. We got sent home early before dark so that nothing bad could happen, but that was definitely a neat experience. You don't hear that too often, all the police stop working for a day AND announce it to everyone. They are protesting for more money because of the world cup, just like everyone else. It's starting to get crazy down here with the cup fever. I wish I could watch some games because nobody is going to be available to teach during any gameday. it'll be hard for sure. 

I ate blood sausage on Tuesday and 3 yr old pumpkin yesterday. Gotta love it!

Hope you all have a good week!

#Brasil #TheRioLife

#ElderEvans

June 16 Training Week 2, Belleford Roxo

Truth is Light

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was great! We have been blessed with an awesome investigator who is progressing amazingly. Her name is C, and actually we started to teach her probably 6 weeks ago. She is the mom of another investigator that we have been teaching.  One day she came in the apartment as we were teaching him and she asked, Who is Mormon? What is that book that you gave to my son? I want to know more about it. Perfect! We can help! We taught her, gave her a book.    We hadn't seen her since and this past week we passed her on the street.  We stopped and I talked to her and she said hey, I started to read that book of Mormon, I'm almost to the chapter that you marked with me. She had read all of 1st and 2nd Nephi by herself and without us there to help her. Wow!   I invited her to church and she came with us. We taught her again after church and she has a baptismal date for July. She is awesome! 

We had to stay inside Thursday.  We found out that every day that Brasil plays we will have to stay home. It's boring, and I'm dying to watch a game or two. It's very hard to be here right now. But it's also an experience of a lifetime.

On a mission in Rio, and while the World Cup is in Brasil. Never would have guessed that.

Well, that's it for this week, I'll have more next week! Stay classy!

Love, Elder Evans

June 9 World Cup Fever Begins!

Dear Friends and Family, 

Man it's hot today. And they had said that winter had started here in Brasil. Caramba!  Sounds like everyone is doing pretty well there in the states, or Canada, wherever you happen to be. I had a good, and stressful week this week as a missionary here in Rio. As I mentioned last week, I got called to be a trainer, and on Tuesday I picked up my new companion, my son, and took him home to Belford Roxo. I felt a little bad for him at first because this is a rough area to have your first look at Rio. He was having a little hard of a time adjusting to everything at once, like all missionaries, but he is starting to feel better, and he is a pro missionary already. My son's name is Elder Montoya, the first thing I thought of was the Princess Bride quote "My name is Elder Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die" haha. He is from the great South American country of Colombia. He is fresh out of whatever the equivalent of high school is there, with 18 years of life, and practically is training me how to be a missionary. We are becoming good friends and are having success already together. I can't wait to see all the things that he will do on his mission.

As in specific stories, we had stake conference this week and it was legit! We all got to go to Salt Lake for the conference to hear M. Russel Ballard, Richard G. Scott, Carole M Stephens, and the Area Presidency of Brasil speak to us. Well, we didn't literally go to Salt Lake, it was a broadcast transmission to the Brasilian states of Rio, São Paulo, and Espírito Santo. It was cool to get to hear the apostles speak to us again. Richard G Scott gave his talk in Portuguese too! the others had to have translators. What was also funny was that Richard G. Scott gave a talk to us while I was in the MTC almost a year ago. And yesterday he gave the exact same talk that he gave to the missionaries in the MTC, just in Portuguese this time. It was about prayer, it was really good.

Many have asked how the world cup will work with us serving in Rio. On the 12th, the day it starts, we were told that we will be at home all day. We will leave for lunch like normal, but we need to be back at our houses by2 PM and we will stay home the rest of the day. But after that we just have to be careful. We are not allowed to even talk about the cup with anyone. It'll be hard. And I hope that everything will be safe for us serving. But that's it. I am looking forward to having a good week and an exciting time in the missão maravilhosa.

Love y'all, enjoy the cup for me, I'll take pictures of what I can. What a time to remember, huh?

Elder Evans

 Me in front of the maracanã! Where the championship games will be held!

 Me and my Brelder, Brelder Braun. We are both training right now. 

 Elder Siebers, Me, Elder Kunzler (my missionary brother), and Elder Heidenreich. Some of my American buds, all training.

Me and my son Elder Montoya. I feel like I look so different now than before the mission.