First Week in Texas

Hello Fam and friends, So I have like no time so this might be a quick email, but I'll include the best story of the week for ya'll. I hope you got all the info and pictures from President and Sister Crawford, they were supposed to email you some pictures of me and my comps and stuff. So I am in a trio with my trainer Elder Memea and Elder Wright. Memea is from Hawaii and Wright is from South Carolina, and we are in Vidor, Texas. Look it up. I am in the boonies, trailer homes, wild dogs, broken down cars sitting in lawns and beer cans on the side of the rode, but all in all it's a great place. You should check it out. So I got off the plane in Houston and the President and Sister were there to pick us all up and we were waiting for our bags. We waited and waited and I got my smaller bag with a bunch of misc. things in it, but my huge suitcase with literally all my clothing but the suit that I was wearing in it never came down the chute onto the claim circle thing. I was getting worried, and nervous and we eventually had to talk to the baggage people who would send it to the mission home in Kingwood, Texas once it came in (they let us know that it was in Dallas still.). So we left and we went through that day and the morning of the next with orientation stuff and lessons and everything, and then we had transfer meeting where I met my comps and soon after drove about an hour and half out to Vidor. I was told by the APs that they would drive it out as soon as they got it. So Wednesday I just wore the same clothes that I had for the 3rd day in a row, and we ride bikes mostly out here. Wednesday evening Pres. called and said that the airport called and they wouldn't have it until Thursday morning. We waited for it and everything but we had a bunch of stuff to do on Thursday and It never showed up. That night I got a call from Pres and he told me this "Elder Evans, guess where your bag is right now? It's on a flight back from Seoul, South Korea!" So that was a fun bit of information. My suitcase was sent all the way to South Korea and back. That's pretty neat. It was an interesting week only having the one pair of underwear and pants and shirt and tie. It was a sweaty week too. haha. We are having a baptism this Thursday! It's with a 17 yr. old kid named Tyler. He is a cool guy and the missionaries have been working with him for a long time. The only reason that he wasn't baptized earlier is that he used to be and still kind of is, very afraid of water. But we've been meeting him at a member's pool with an adult member who goes in with him and helps him overcome that fear. But it's awesome to see how much progress he has made and it's going to happen for real on Thursday! I'm excited for it! We are teaching several other people and a couple of other great families and hopefully they can all overcome the struggles that have and everything. The Book of Mormon is true and everybody needs to read it and pray about it. JUST DO IT. That's about all I have time for right now. The rest of the stories will just have to wait for 2 years until I get home! Love, Elder Evans Here's the address to my apartment! (We live in a member's home) 6282 Woodridge Drive Orange, Texas 77632

Alex is in Houston

Your Missionary has arrived safely to T.H.E. Mission!  Upon arrival we met your missionary at the airport and took them directly to the mission home where they were fed Texas Bar-b-que and met the office staff.  An orientation by the office staff followed lunch while individual interviews were conducted by President Crawford.  That evening they were invited to share their testimonies.  The following morning was focused on training after which they met their new companion and were transported to their area of service.  They are now out diligently searching for our Heavenly Father's children and doing the work of the Lord. Thank you for sending your daughters and sons to us, they have added great strength to our small army here in the Texas Houston East Mission. We love them and are so grateful to have them with us. You will find attached a picture of your newly arrived missionary with Sister Crawford and myself as well as their arriving group.

We are writing to confirm your e-mail address.  We use this method to keep you informed in case of hurricanes or in getting you other important information concerning T.H.E. Mission. We are delighted that your Missionary is here and look forward to working with them.
Sincerely, 
President and Sister Crawford

So today we were surprised with our REASSIGNMENTS IN THE MAIL!!!!!! Just some background info on my thoughts and wishes for this mission call. There were 2 missions that I wanted to go to. 

1. Houston, Texas - Dad's mission

2. Los Angeles, California - Landon's mission

So I was really hoping and praying to go to one of those missions. AND.

DRUMROLLLLL PLEASE!!

Elder Evans, you will be serving a temporary assignment in the TEXAS HOUSTON EAST MISSION!!!!!!!! So I don't know if that was a recent split or if it used to be your mission dad, but it is close enough! 

I leave the MTC on Monday morning at 2:30 and my flight leaves from SLC to Dallas at 6. and then I have a 2 hour layover until I fly to Houston. I am soooo excited! I will call sometime before 6 I honestly have no idea what exact time but it will be probably like 5, and I'll be able to email on Saturday. The Church is True and there are no such things as coincidences. I cannot wait to get into the field and meet the people who are being prepared for me!

The other missions that my District members are going to are

Tacoma, WA

Gilbert, AZ

LA, CA

Cleveland. OH

Rapid City, SD

Charlotte, NC

Email me back by Saturday and send me that picture book!!

Love You all!!!!

Week 5 AKA - The Longest Week of My Life

This last week has been roughhhhh. So like I mentioned last tuesday, I was feeling kinda sick. Then from Wednesday until probably Sunday night I had the nastiest sinus infection. I was blowing my nose every couple seconds, my sinuses felt like they were going to explode, and on top of all that, I couldn't sleep. It was like a little personal hell here in "Spiritual Prison" as those of us who have been here for longer than 4 weeks like to call the MTC. Don't get me wrong, though, I am still loving my time here and am still continuing to learn way more than my brain can physically handle, but you get a very real case of cabin fever here (Cue the song from Muppet Treasure Island). But I powered through what I could. I tried to stay back and sleep most days until about lunch time and I was able to make it to at least my evening class or studies. Mas tudo bem em Sião.

So to answer some questions that Mom asked me in a dear elder this week:

1. The MTC gives you a nice set of Scriptures in your mission language along with all of your other language materials on your first day here. Free.

2. In regards to the food here. I hate it. I feel gross and fat just thinking about having to eat in the cafeteria. It's not bad for the first couple days here, but all the meals are cycled every week and they all are just mass quantity thawed frozen meals basically. The meat is all Nast.

3. Bed bugs. We actually are just all sleeping in one room now, our district elders that is. The other room has 6 beds and there are only 6 of us left, so we keep all our stuff in our room, but sleep in the other one. I have not seen anymore for like a week and a half or so.

4. Tuesday Devotionals and Sunday Night Firesides here are awesome. Up until today they have all been emeritus general authorities and their wives on Tuesdays and on Sundays we usually have an administrator for the Missionary department in the church HQ, or somebody like that. But two weeks ago we had Jenny Baker Oaks (Dallin H. Oaks' daughter) who graduated from Jiulliard in Violin Perfomance and she came and played her own arrangements of a bunch of hymns with her friend who also went to Jiullard for piano. She was a huge diva, but it was some of the best violin I've heard live in my life. Also big news. Tonight at the devotional we are all expecting someone big. We are singing Jesus Once of Humble Birth and the whole devo. is being broadcast to all the MTCs worldwide. So crossing my fingers for an apostle. (Please be Bednar or Holland!) haha.

5. I did see Marissa Miller. It took me 4 days to find her, and I've seen her a couple times since.

6. Being a Zone Leader isn't too hard in the MTC. I really don't have that much responsibility or very many duties. But I've enjoyed it a lot. I like to introduce all the new frightened sheep that show up every Wednesday haha. I like leading.

I think that was all of them.

Some more news from this week. I got my haircut yesterday, it looks good. The ladies in the barbershop are technically not allowed to cut the top of you hair shorter than about a 5, but I told the lady just to cut it as short as she could and she got it down to at least a 4. It's so much nicer. Life is a lot better when you don't have to deal with curly hair. 

So this is my last week here at the training center and I am excited to get into the field wherever the Lord sees fit to send me for now. I will get my reassignment on Friday most likely. So to explain how that works for everybody: When you are going to Brazil or Argentina, you are probably not going to receive your VISA until you are out of the MTC for a while. So they have us all here learning Spanish and Portuguese (which is way better than Spanish), for our 6 weeks, and after the 6 weeks we are all fluent in the language (ha), and about 3 days before you are supposed to leave you all get a new mission call with travel itineraries, and it's not certain when you will be leaving. There's usually at least one missionary who gets his or her reassignment on Friday and they leave that night at like 2 in the morning. Either way, after I get my call I'll get to have a "Pday" and I will email and then I'll call when I fly out, or if I just walk down the street to the Provo Mission Home haha which happened to one of my friends here who left last week. 

I still wish that I could go straight to Rio de Janeiro for a couple reasons, mainly being that I don't want to forget Portchy, and come on, I'm going to Rio de Janeiro, probably the most amazing and beautiful mission in the world. Plus from all that I have been hearing about Brazilians and Brazil missions, it sounds like the promised land, the people are all so faithful and religious already, they love Christ and God and they accept the true Gospel of Jesus Cristo happily and smiling all the while. But I am also so excited to know where I will be going in a week! I know it will be a much needed learning experience and will help me tons as I truly become the missionary that I am going to become.

Eu amo este evangelho. Sei que Jesus Cristo é meu Salvador e Redentor. Se léssemos o Livro de Mórmon e orássemos sobre a mensagem dele, Deus vai responder por meio do Espírito Santo. Precisamos escutar para os pensimentos e sentimentos que ele nos dá continualmente. Estas coisa são verdadeiras. Eu sei isto porque escutei e continuo a escutar ao Espírito. Vocês podem saber isto também. Como fala em Tiago 1:5 "If any of you lack wisdom, ask of God. Who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given you" or something like that. Mom - you can fix that scripture before you post it to the blog. Tiago=James 

Pedi e recebereis. Bateis e ser-vos-á aberto. Amém.

Com amor!

Elder Evans

MTC Week 4
August 6, 2013

This week went by crazy fast. And I only have 2 more weeks here. It's coming up quick. I'm starting to get pretty nervous about entering the real world and leaving this bubble of spiritual seclusion. Especially since I'll most likely get my reassignement next friday. If I don't get my VISA by then. VISAs have been coming like crazy this last week. it's good news. I know of 4 missionaries that got their VISAs through the LA consulate even. It made me feel a little bit more optimistic. There was one elder in my district who got his last Wednesday i think, and he left for the airport this morning along with I think over 20 other missionaries that got their VISAS last week, including Elder Phipps! So if I had been able to do my paperwork in Kansas I would have probably got my VISA too. That was a bummer, but I got over it, kinda. Not much happened this week besides all that commotion. I have been trying to work hard and FSL, (Fala Sua Lingua, Speak your language). We started teaching our other teacher now too, so we have 2 progressing investigators and we do TRC every Friday morning. We also will start to be investigators for other companionships in our district, and teach each other. So it'll be a busy last 2 weeks, but I have never not been busy here. And I don't expect to never not be busy for the rest of the next two years.

Keep praying and wishing upon stars that I'll get my VISA quickly! I am dying for it! I know that I'll get it sometime, I'd like that sometime to be soon, though. That's awesome that your promotion covers a little bit more than the payments for my mission. The Lord is looking out for you guys back home just as much as He's looking out for me. It sounds like everybody is staying busy and working hard. It's crazy to think that summer is almost over! Good luck to Madi and Ethan in school and I hope everything goes smoothly for you Landon as you get back to Provo and go to school. Theres actually a possibility that I could get reassigned to the Provo mission in 2 weeks. That would be sweet. That's actually the mission that I want to go to haha. Keep sending me mail and stuff! Good luck in Omaha Dad! Good luck as manager Mom!

Love you all!

Hey familia!

MTC Week 3

July 30, 2013

 

How is everyone!? I'm doing just dandy. This week was pretty dang uneventful. Everything has begun to become routine and normal. Although one thing that happened this week was one of the elders in my district ended up going home on Wednesday. It was sad, he is a great kid, he just wasn't ready yet. But he is going to get things figured out back home and come back as soon as he can. So that threw off the whole vibe of our district, most of the last week was just a little strange without him. But also on Wednesday we welcomed in two new districts to our zone and I got to lead the orientation stuff for Marcus' district. It was fun and a cool experience and I get to do it again tomorrow and every Wednesday.

My Portuguese is still improving and I'm still getting better at teaching. I am really starting to love the language, though. There's so much nasalization and it sounds really awesome. Just so that when I start to email some more Portuguese stuff, here is a quick and easy guide to pronunciation.

So to start just pronounce everything like you would in Spanish, but with all these exceptions:

1. All "g"s and "j"s make their hard sounds.

2. All "di"s sound like "gee" as in "gee whiz Portuguese is neat-o".

3. All "ti"s sound like "chee"

4. You pronounce "de"s and "te"s normal except when they are alone or the last letters of a word, then they are "gee" and "chee".

5. Whenever you see a "ç" it is an "s"

6. Whenever a word ends in an "m" you nasalize the vowel before it and you don't close your lips, so like the word falam (they speak) sounds almost like fall- oww.

7. Nasalize whenever you see a çao or a çoes. the first sounds like s-oww and the second sounds almost like your trying to say the word "coins" but with an s instead of a c.

That's pretty much all there is to it. A fun word that I like is diligentimente (diligently) but it is pronounced jill-e-jenchi-men-chi.

Also, fun story. We have our service assignment on Wednesday mornings and I have to wear jeans to that. So we clean a residence hall for an hour and a half and then we get like an hour of personal exercise time. So we were just leaving the hall and heading back to our rooms to change to exercise, and we were starting to run. So I took off running and I had to kind of skip to the side to dodge somebody on the sidewalk, and I felt and heard this loud ripping noise. I looked down and the whole crotch on my jeans had blown out... hahaha it was hilarious, and super embarrassing.

Not much else happened. I know that once I leave the computer I'll think of a thousand more things to say and ask for, but for now I have a couple requests.

Another pair of jeans, my soccer pants, other things that you feel inspired to send me. I honestly blank every tuesday on all the things that I need to ask for from you guys. Just pray to know what I need and send it as quick as you can. I want a package!

The Church is True. Keep the faith. Fique forte.

Your boy, brother, friend,

Elder Evans

PS Tell my friends to send me an email this week, like Mark and Michael especially, but just post it on my facebook for me, and keep sending me dearelders, they are nice to get every night.

MTC Week Two
July 23, 2013

 

 Week Dois "Bears, Beets, Bed Bugs" what......​

Oi Familia! Tudo bem? Tudo bem.

This last week has been long and jam-packed full of adventure and thrills. I'll explain the subject title later on the email, just to scare mom and add some suspense ;). So starting on last Tuesday I forgot to mention that I have been doing the choir, and plan to do it the whole time I'm here. It's a lot of fun and it's a really nice break to normal missionary life. On Wednesday and Thursday we taught our last two lessons to our first fake investigator, Aquilino, which is a sweet name, and they went well! Then the guy who played Aquilino walked in on Friday during our second class period of the day and he is our second teacher for the rest of our stay here, and something else crazy. I recognized him! He is the older brother of one of the kids in my ward at BYU! He is a super cool guy and he is hilarious. He's also a really good teacher. Him and our other teacher both agree that there are 2 types of missionaries for our church: those who serve in Brazil, and those who wish they could serve in Brazil. :) I am totally beginning to agree with them. Brazil is so awesome and so is Portuguese! I cannot wait to be in Rio de Janeiro!

So then on Thursday and Friday and Saturday I was feeling pretty sick. I'm not sure exactly what I had, but it made me nauseous and congested and exhausted. So on Friday I was so out of it, and at about 4:45 on Friday night I fell asleep, and I didn't wake up until 9:30 Saturday morning. It was glorious! I was so much better after that. But I was itchy. Particularly on my knee. So I itched it a little. And noticed that it was all bumpy. So as my anxiety grew, I also realized that I was itchy all over. I jumped out of bed and ran to the shower and sure enough I had small patches of bumpy bug bites all over my body. (Not completely "all over" but there were bites on about every part of me). I realized that it must have been bed bugs and I was super angry. I was sick and I had bed bugs. Stupid. I went to the front desk on Saturday night and got the form from them that tells me what to do, and they were supposed to make calls and other things, but they didn't do anything but give me new bedding. So for the next two nights I slept in the room next door with my other district members on an empty mattress that they had. On Sunday morning I went and tried to figure it out with the front desk people again, and this time it was two men. Here is our conversation.

Me "Hey can you help me with this form and everything? I had bed bugs and came by here late last night but they just handed me this list of things to do and get, but didn't tell me how to do or get these things." (most of the form is just check lists telling me that I need to wash all of my clothes and dry clean my suit, and spray every single one of my possessions with Permethrin and do all these other things along those lines)

the stupid secretary man "Well did you do everything on this list?"

"Not yet, I'm here to figure out how I'm supposed to get all this done"

"Well I would just do the things on this list."

"Ok I will, but how?"

"Well did you wash or dry clean all of your clothes?"

"No I haven't yet, can I even do that today?"

"Not on Sundays no, the laundry room is closed from Saturday night through Sunday, but yeah I would do everything on this list."

"How am I supposed to do that, or have had that done if the laundry room has been closed since last night?"

"I don't know."

Then I walked away. But don't worry! I solved the crisis on my own and I am bed bug free.

To answer a few questions- my responsibilities as a Zone Leader. The biggest one is welcoming and orientating new missionaries in our zone every wednesday. And guess who is going to be in one of our two new districts?? Marcus Phipps! So I'll get to orient him and be his ZL for the next 4 weeks! Also there's a kid from the Olathe Stake in that same district. I know a lot of people here at the MTC, basically half of my ward at BYU is here and a bunch of other people as well.

Our other responsibilities are to choose people for prayers and other things in Sacrament Meetings and Priesthood meetings on Sundays, and participate in all of the branch councils, and hold weekly interviews with the district leaders about the welfare of all the missionaries. It's pretty chill.

Days go by fast here! It seems like yesterday I was the overwhelmed newbie getting orientated here, and now I'm the overwhelmed newbie orientating others, but it's all good :) I will be sure to include some pictures, I don't have much more time so this will be all for this week. Love you all and take care!

Oh ps. tell me about the Lexus you got landon! and the sd card thing was because the computers here don't recognized when you plug in a camera with a cord like that, also some last minute requests. If you find my retainers ever, please send. Also my adidas soccer pants would be nice. And look up chemicals or sprays for bed bugs and send me some stuff. I don't want them to come back, or get them in Rio.

Thanks!