Courtney's Week #3

So I really hope Walker told you, but if not my P-days have indeed been changed to Thursdays. Everything changed at the end of the BYU semester, including P-days and meal times. It's kind of amazing that after two weeks of eating dinner at 4:30 all of the sudden I feel as if I am about to die of hunger when I finally get to eat at 5:00 p. Having Walker leave this week was really hard for me. I hadn't gone through any homesickness at all until the night before he left. Because he was here I hadn't actually let go of home yet, he was the one piece of home that I was really clinging to. The night before he left I was in a pretty sad condition, but Walker gave me a little pep-talk (Weird to think that Walker gave an effective pep-talk) and so I have now bounced back very well.

 

The past few days I have hit a breakthrough with Spanish. I have come to the conclusion that I can indeed speak Spanish. I am no longer afraid to speak it, and although it is a huge struggle trying to express what I want to say with half the vocabulary of a normal 3-year old I am still always anxious "to teach and preach and work like missionaries do."

 

Funny story, the same day I had this breakthrough, a sister from mexico who was new to the MTC came up to me in the lunch line, saw my nametag, and then started talking very rapidly in Spanish... All I can say about that is that I am glad I still have six more weeks in the MTC.

 

So on Tuesday nights we have a devotional where one of the general authorities come and speak to the entire MTC. We were very lucky to have Elder Scott last Tuesday, and then we had another apostle this Tuesday, Elder Oaks! It was so very exciting and special to have to apostles in a row. What a spiritual feast! Elder Scott's talke was more of a feel-good talk than doctrinally deep like Elder Oak's was, but Elder Scott, in the middle of his talk, stopped and asked how many were learning a language. The majority of the congregation raised their hands. Then he held out his hands in front of him and said, "As an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, and as one of his special witnesses, I confer upon you the gift of tongues." It was so super awesome, he continued to tell us that we would still have to study but that we would now have an additional help and that the language would come much easier if we strive to do our best. It was so powerful, and I am so extremely grateful.

 

On a less reverent note, it turns out that there is no visa required for Chile; I will be traveling on my passport alone. Which is kind of cool because it means that there isn't anything to delay my departure date.

 

I would like to tell you a little bit more about my life here at the CCM (MTC). So we are all in districts of anywhere from 5 to 12 people, your district is pretty much your family. We spend ALL of our waking time together, mostly in the classroom. The classroom becomes more like your home than the room full of beds where you sleep, which is why it is difficult to switch classrooms every single week. I love my district they are so great. Elder Matthews is probably one of the funniest people I have ever met, and most of the time he doesn't even mean to be funny. Elder Walton, his companion is such a dilligent worker, he has pretty much taught himself all of the grammar principle in our advanced Spanish book (I don't even understand that book). Elder Coromandel is from New Zealand and Austrailia, and as you will see in the pictures he is incapable of acting normal in a picture, but he is so so spiritual. All of the Elders are so unique and I have come to love them all, it is kind of bummer that we are not even allowed to hug them when they are having a hard day, that has been a struggle for both of my companions as well.

 

I am so excited to go to Chile. I look forward to being able to declaring the Gospel.

 

I love and miss you all so much!

Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #9 In Costa Rica

Hola, I made it.

So its so awesome here, I love it so much. Its a little toasty but its not bad yet. The fruit here is so tasty, yep I'm doing good love you all.


Yes I look stupid but this is me and my companion.


Hey whats up. So pretty much it is so beautiful here. It is way hot and it rains alot. So I got my companion today he is from Honduras and his English is about as good as my Spanish. We have very limited conversations but they will get better. I am in the city right now. I think its name is Amiagualla but I´m not sure. It is the one right by San José and has the airport in it. So I am not allowed to email any one but my family, as in my Mom and Dad and maybe Courtney depending on what I have to say.

Oh so awesome story last week at the MTC I went to the devotional thing that is every Tuesday night, but this time I new that Richard G Scott was coming so I got there super early and got the front row in the very middle, like right in front of the pulpit. It was awesome. So he started talking and he was talking about how it doesn´t matter where we go, weather it is (he looks right at me) Costa Rica, then looked at someone else and said Burmingham Alabama . It was so cool.

So my p-day's are on Wednesday. Yep, oh Mama I am supposed to tell you to use USPS if you send anything. You probably won´t but if you do there you go. So I have already seen 2 parrots they were coool and green. There are like no morals here so everyone walks around in the smallest clothes they can find. Oh every girl wears heels. I am not sure why because the sidewalks are terrible, But if they feel cool thats cool. Oh and every bilboard has a person in a bikini on it, yep this place is wierd. So my house is a shack. Yep I sleep on the floor. There is no airconditioning and we have one fan for the 6 of us that live there, yep its hot. Our roof leaks also. My desk is a picnic table. I´ll take pictures and send them next time. So one minute it will be sunny and the next you will be soaked. I don´t have an umbrella because I don´t get money tell Friday. They have a store here that is just like Costco except has nothing. The fruit here is sosososo good. So the sun sets at 5 and rises at like 4, yep my sleep has not been good. On the bright side I have someone who makes my dinner and does my laundry. I´m pretty sure it is because it costs more to use a washer than to pay someone to do it. And they want us out teaching instead of spending all day washing clothes.
Well I love you all.
bye

Walker's Week #8

So every thing is going great this week, I was sick on Tuesday through Thursday. I had a humongo head ache and just every thing hurt.

So Friday my branch president called and told me he found a patriarch it was awesome. I had told him that I needed a patriarchal blessing when I first came in. Anyways I got it that night so Friday night I got my patriarchal blessing, and Courtney was there too.

 

Well I leave in a week its so crazy how fast its going I am 4 days short of 2 months. So next Monday I am going to be in the airport so Familia I will be calling home that day. If you want to here my beautiful voice I would recommend being by the phone during the afternoon ish area I don't really know how the time zones work.

So its so hard to say anything because we are only talking in Spanish so I am forgetting English words it kind of sucks. But oh well, in one week I will be in Costa Rica its so crazy i am not nearly ready to go teach in Spanish. Yep i am scared a little. We aren't even taught any words about anything except the gospel so if I need to get food or have to go to the bathroom I am in trouble.

 

So Joe I can't wait for the day that you finally break down and by one of these cars that you are always writing me about. You will have to let me drive it. Yes that is a good idea.

 

Well I am running out of time but tonight I think I get to here Richard d Scott talk to the MTC that should be pretty awesome.

Courtney's Week #2

Hola!

Well, this week has been pretty eventful. My whole district is trying to adjust to having companions, which is not an easy thing to do. My companions and I have had some hinderments this week as well. My problem was that I do not handle an abundance of other people's emotion very well. And one day this last week my companions both had lots of emotion and problems that they wanted to share. I kind of snapped after a whole day of it and told them to leave me out of their problems and go write in their journals about it. Needless to say, that did not make things better. So we had a few very long companionship inventories and things have been a lot better. But it is a constant struggle for me to be patient with their emotions. Two companions=double the emotion.

Anyways I ran out of time last week before I could tell you where everyone is going. Elders Walton, Matthews, Bond, and Holbrook are all going to the New York, New York South Mission. Elder Coromandel, from New Zealand and Austraila, is going to the Tuscon, Arizona Mission. Elder Wirth and Hermana Kimball are going to the Dallas, Texas Mission. And then Hermana Taggart and I are both going to Chile Santiago North Mission.

Spanish is coming pretty well, it only comes on days when I am doing well with my companions. Which is another testament that it is the Spirit who is actually teaching me Spanish not myself or my teachers. If the Spirit is not there, no Spanish.

So Walker leaves for Costa Rica next week, which is kind of super sad for me. Its like saying goodbye to him twice. It has been such a blessing and comfort to have him here. Oh I got to be there when he got his patriarchal blessing, that was super super cool. I told him to send the original home to you, then you should probably scan it and make an electronic copy like you did with mine.

I'm so excited whenever I get mail it is such a happy thing. The mail comes twice a day, and it is so happy when there is something for me. Just so everyone knows my address is:

Hermana Courtney Evans

MTC Mailbox #245

CHI-SATN 0606

Everyone should send me mail and Dear Elders. Mail is exciting! And I promise I will respond.

Oh we watched a little clip of a talk and everyone should see if they should find it because it was so amazing. It was an MTC Fireside by Elder Bednar, and I think it was called "The Spirit" but that may not actually be the title of the talk.

So as part of the pilot program they are trying all sorts of things to figure out the best program for the missionaries. So from now on we will be switching classrooms every week, which is kind of a big deal because you spend at least 12 hours a day in your classroom so it is more like your home then your bedroom. We started with a super awesome classroom with the light panels printed like clouds and trees--it was pretty awesome. It was also three times the size of most of the classrooms. Now we are in a super tiny room, because they want to observe how we respond to different media setups. Which is a little bewildering to me because it is just a computer with a big TV screen. Anyways, we'll see where us guinea pigs end up next week. It is kind of exciting to be able to be a part of such a huge change though.

So I actually still have 8 minutes left, so this would be the point where I would send you pictures, but I don't have an adapter quite yet. Oh, by the way Dad the converter sounds awesome I am excited to recieve it. I found out that there are several free MTC mail dropoff points for both letters and packages here in Provo. The one that I do know of is a UPS store on University Ave. So if you find yourself in Provo again, it may be cheaper to drop it off, than a flat rate box. And I would appreciate anything that you love me enough to send me.

The talks that we have to prepare each Sunday are a different topic every week. My companion actually got called on this week, so my nonexistent Spanish is apparently not a good enough excuse to not have to give the talk.

I can now say most of a prayer and most of a testimony in Spanish but it takes me a while to think of all the words, but I will make sure to bear my testimony to you guys next week, both in Spanish and English.

Out of time,

I love and miss you guys!!

Hermana Evans

2005 N 900 E

Provo, UT 84604-1793

Walker's Week #7

I still don't no anything about my visa. I really am not supposed to untill like the week before I leave. Hey so my companion was sick all week so I had to stay home with him some days, yep it sucked. I had nothing to do but study. Yep thats about all that happened this week well miss you. Spanish is coming woot woot.

Courtney's Week #1

So I am a little panicked because we only have 30 minutes of email time and I have so much that I want to say. But, you don't need to worry about how many or how long your emails to me are. Our Zone Leaders showed us a really cool trick about how to print our emails super fast, shut the computer down, and then read and respond to your emails later in the laundry room. So point of the story-Long emails=bueno!

 

This week has been so overwhelming, exhausting, and exciting. Oh, so first of all, I have two companions, I am in a trio. There is Hermana Taggart from Orem and Hermana Kimball from Belgium. She is not actually a belgian, she just lived there for 7 years and then went to school at BYU. Hermana Taggart also went to BYU. It seems that that is the school of choice for everyone here, which I think is Lame! Oh Her. Taggart is 22, and Her. Kimball is 25.

 

So next on my list, I have seen Walker. He and I actually have the same meal times so I see him fairly often. So my Branch Presidency told me that I should not hug him because the handbook says no contact "regardless of relationship," but his Branch Presidency told him that he should most definitely hug his sister. So in my mind that means that we can hug, I just can't be the instigator. And Walker seems to have softened a little bit so he has given me a very good hug. It was actually very comforting to me because the first few days here are so stressful.

 

So my District has six Elders and then us three sisters, in my Zone there are about 55 people and only 5 sisters, including me and my companions. Which is okay, the Branch President loves the sisters, yesterday his wife brought us two huge boat bags full of junk food. It was really nice but it hasn't done much good for our physiques.

 

The food here isn't too bad, except I am most definitely sure that Fruit, Turkey, Nuts, Milk, and Lettuce should definitely not be mixed and should not be considered a salad. Other than that the food isn't too bad.

 

My Zone is in the "Pilot Program," which means that they have one Zone of each language that they are using as guinea pigs for a new program that they plan on implementing accross the whole MTC. Some of the major changes are that we have a lot less down time, our P-days end earlier, and there is a lot more emphasis on teaching. We taught an investigator on our second day, in SPANISH, just for the record, I do not know Spanish! But Hermana Taggart spent some time in Guatamala, so she knows some Spanish and taught most of the lesson.

 

Spanish is super hard! But I know that the Lord is helping me because in situations where the Spirit is super strong I can mostly understand what is going on, but if not I have no idea what the conversation is even about. I am currently using a ton of flash cards to try to get the vocabulary down and it is going okay. I will get it, but my mouth seems to struggle with the actual annuciation of Spanish.

 

So in our Branch we have to prepare a talk for Sacrament meeting each week and then you find out if you are actually giving the talk as they announce your name over the pulpit. Oh, and the talk is in Spanish!

 

Funny Story, so during our first investigator lesson we challenged the investigator to read El Libro de Mormon, so Hermana Kimball "placed a book of mormon". Then after the lesson we left and Hermana Kimball realized she had just given out her own Spanish Book of Mormon, so then she knocked on the door and asked her for the book back. It was the funniest thing I have seen all week. And then if things weren't bad enough she proceeded to ask her a question about Spanish grammar. The lady was kind of taken aback, probably because we took back the book that we had just barely gave her. It was so funny. We later found out that our "Investigator" was actually one of the teachers acting the part, but it was still way funny.

 

Another funny fact, the sisters rooms all have six beds as opposed to the Elders who only have four. Also the Elders have bars on their windows, which I find hilarious. because ours open freely.

 

Oh the Provo Temple is pretty inside, but it does seem rather rushed. We went there this morning and we kept dozing a tiny bit during the session because we were up all night. Our roommates left this morning, one at 3:00 am and the other at 4:30 am. And we stayed up late to visit with them, which pretty much means no sleep. And then a 7:00 am session was no bueno.

 

Allof my district is going Spanish speaking in the states except for Hermana Taggart and myself who are both going to the same mission in Chile.

4 going to New York

 

I am completely out of time and it will not send if I go over.

Much Love,

Hermana Evans!!

Courtney Enters the MTC

The day was bitter sweet. Sad to see her go but so happy for her.

Bridger Wanted to go this time. I think he will be taller than Courtney when they pose together next.

Time to unload

One last hug as the Host Missionary's prepare to take her away.

Walker's Week #6

So I get to be a host this week ( the person that shows all the new missionaries around) its going to be awesome which means I might see you. But if not its ok it just means I am helping some other missionary but you should look for me.

 

What do you do on a normal Sunday. 

So on a normal Sunday I study all day, then go to sacrement, then study some more, and thats about it. Wait there is a fireside on Sunday nights and I get to watch a movie after witch is usually the Joseph Smith one. Yep seen it 3 times. I've got it down.

 

Any word on your Visa.

I should be getting my travel plans next week. woot! woot! So i'll know how well every thing is working then.

 

How is the Spanish coming.

The espanol is coming I guess. I think that is what happens when you study it 10 hours a day and 7 days a week for 6 weeks.

Walkers First MTC District. In front of the Provo Temple

Where are thay all going?

Walker's Week #5

Hey you should also send me pictures of my car it would be much appritiated.

 

To courtney, so you don't need to bring soap or any of that stuff por que it is like 50 cents here and don't worry about weight coming in just fill your bags as full as you can and then figure out what you need then send the rest home shipping is like half as much here to so yep thats just what i'd do.

Oh so the stuff  you dont need costs like half as much here but the stuff you do need is like twice as much.

Courtney has a urgent question for you, in your dorm do you have access to a vacuum with a hose?

Yes we have access to vacums with hoses. 

How was your week?

My week was exactly the same as every other week i think they do it so you don't keep track of time. 

How do you like the Provo Temple, is it full when you go?

The provo temple is not nearly as cool as ours the end but i did do sealings the other day. its really not very full and like 3/4 of the people that go when i do are missionaries.

Do you have a favorite scripture you would like to have on your plaque.

I will get back to you about favorite scripture.

What have you learned about Costa Rica. Do you get classes about the culture as well as the language?

Nope don't have culture classes i really wish i did but oh well i guess i'll just figure that out when i get there. i guess i get mosquito nets its pretty sweet. they are really laid back down there to. so i think i will be able to fit in a little.

We got your letter and sd. Funny story so are you the elder she keep trying to kiss.

Hey can you send my sd card back after you get pictures off that would be good. and pretty much every girl here has tried to kiss me so i wouldn't write it down if she did.

So are they having a elder choir for conference and are you in it.

Nope don't get to go sing in conference.  

Can't write any more don't want to get your expectations up so see ya