Courtney's Week #35

Well, before I forget, we just got more information about calls for Christmas. For all of the gringos, you guys are supposed to call us. So if anyone needs the calling card its you guys. I´m supposed to send you the number to call, which I do not have yet because I we are not sure which one of the members we are going to be with for Christmas. We can use skype, which is free, or I will try to get the number of whoever we are going to be with for the navidad. We only have 40 minutes to talk, and our calls have to be finished by 5 o´clock Chile time, which I think is 1 o´clock in the afternoon there. Questions? Oh, I really think that skype might be a lot cheaper (free) and easier, so if you guys could make a skype account that would be great, add me as a friend on there, my username is just courtneygraceevans.

So I have been pretty down on myself lately because I haven´t felt as though I am the missionary that I should be and I couldn´t figure out why. I´ve been working hard and being obedient and everything, but I just didn´t really feel like a real missionary. We had intercambios this week with the Hermana Martinez, my old companion, and she was with us for one day and pin-pointed it out for me. She sent me a little note on the back of the chocolate wrapper that I had given her that said, in spanish of course, "Hermana Evans, Thanks for the delicious chocolate, continue working hard and remember, without love we won´t see any miracles." I started getting a little bit teary-eyed, right in the middle of planning. I realized right then and there that that was what I was missing. As I walked through the street that day, I thought to my self, "Do I love these people that are walking all around me?" Nope, not really. Somewhere in my mission I lost the love and charity for the people around me...for the chileans, for my companions, and for myself.

So that is my story of how I realized that I´m not a very good missionary, but this story is going to be a cliff-hanger because I haven´t quite figured out the solution yet. All I know is that I am studying and praying so hard to have that amor again, because it´s true, we´re not going to see any miracles without love.

Hey, I got my package last Tuesday. I was probably the happiest missionary in the world! Thank you so much for everything! You guys are the greatest.

So right now we have a lot of really great investigators, but only one of them has a baptisimal date, Maria Soledad. She is the one who falls asleep in church a little. Funny Story about that really quick, this week we bought her a bar of chocolate and gave it to her to try to help her stay awake, but the funniest part is Hermana Sampson was sitting next to her and fell asleep more than Maria Soledad! It was so funny.

 Oh, so we had an appointment to pass by for Maria Soledad at 7:30 last night. As we were walking to her house, we found her in the street with one of her friends who I´ve seen before and I knew has negative feelings towards the church. Maria Soledad was just telling her friend about Joseph Smith and the whole story of the restoration, and all of the things that we had taught her. It was so cool to see her so excited to share what little she knew with her friend. She would tell her friend something and then she would turn to us to make sure that she was right. It was so cool, but her friend didn´t want to hear anything and they went off to the house of her friend to eat once, which is like a small dinner that they have here. We changed our appointment to 8:30, but then when we got there she wasn´t there, we taught her husband a quick little lesson than we left. We were so worried, because if we didn´t find her that night we were going to see her for like 4 days and her baptism is this week. We said a little prayer in the street and then we decided to walk in the direction of the house of her friend. As we were on our way, Hermana Sampson had a strange impression to knock the door of an old lady. It was kind of out of nowhere, but we did, and as we were there Maria Soledad passed by. We walked with her to her house. She had all sorts of crazy anti-mormon ideas, but we were able to help and teach her, and she is all excited for her baptism this week. It was really intense, but so cool.

Well, I´m out of time. Love you guys.

Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #41

Q. Sawyer asked, How is your Spanish coming along

Okay so pretty much my spanish is super ok, I can understand almost everything. Well I'd like to say I can understand everything but I'm sure there are times when I don't.

On your p-day do you get to do whatever you want? Or is there certain rules about what you can or cannot do.

On p-day I'm sure there are rules like no swimming but I really don't know all of them, and if I have a question I have all the rules with me so it isn't a problem.

So this week we went to the beach it was super awesome. But when we were coming home the police stopped our bus. And there was a gringo that didn't have papers. So I got to translate to the dude why she didn't and why she was sitting there crying and all of that stuff. So this week was super awesome. Here for christmas they have this thing called festival of light. It's like hollydays. But it's this huge parade that everyone goes to. There were like three floats and like thirty bands because every one plays an intrument. So we are teaching this super awesome family (Pablo and Cintia) they are super ready, we are trying to baptize them this month. So yeah oh so um the problem with calling cards from the states is that you have to call the states to use them wich costs money and I don't have money because I'm pretty sure that someone stoll my box. Hey if you try to send another you should put a picture of Jesus on it. So I have no idea what I am going to do. We will all think about that this week and share our ideas next week.

Oh so the one picture is of me with a puffer fish.

Courtney's Week #34

Well, this week has been a really humbling experience for me. I am learning a lot from my new companion Hermana Perez. She has told me that I have problems with ´d´, ´r´, ´rr´, ´m´, ´n´, and ´g´ in my spanish. There are only 26 letters in the alphabet and I have problems with 6 of them, Ugh. She pretty much says that nobody can understand me, but that´s not entirely true. It´s just been a little bit frustrating. Oh, so it is not bad manners in the latino culture to tell someone that they are fat. But Hermana Perez has some sort of sickness where she can´t eat a lot of things. It´s also really hard for her to finish all her food, but we have to finish all our food or else the people get a little offended. And so since she got here I have been eating almost double portions of everything. So yesterday after lunch I was overstuffed as usual and I was lamenting because I am gaining weight. Hermana Perez was nice enough to expand on that thought. She told me that I was gigantic and how when I arrived I was not how I was now and she just went on and on about how fat I am getting. It kind of made me a little bit unhappy because I am the one who has to eat all of her food! Oh well, I will just have to work on that a little bit more.

 

Oh so it is no longer cold down here in Chile, it is actually quite toasty. We pretty much are drenched in sweat all day. But because it so dang hot we are also drinking a lot of water, and all the people that we teach give us coca-cola. I have never drank so much soda in my life.

 

So for Thanksgiving we didn´t do anything, we actually had a very small lunch on Thursday and we didn´t receive any food for the rest of the day either, so I was actually really hungry on Thanksgiving. I did pick Thanksgiving hymns to sing in all our lessons though, but Thanksgiving doesn´t exist at all here. Which I think is weird because they celebrate everything else. During the summer they had Dia de Madre (Mother´s day), dia del Padre (Father´s day), and then they also had Dia del niño (Child´s Day?). Anyways it seems like they are always searching for reasons to celebrate, so why not celebrate Dia de Gracias.

 

Anyways I don´t have a lot to say today, but I will be sending off your package today! You should be excited!

 

Love you all!

Hermana Evans

So just as an afterthought, the temple open house and dedication in Quetzaltanango, Guatamala is the hometown of my companion Hermana Perez. How cool, when she gets home there will be a new temple.

Walker's Week #40

So pretty much here they don't do anything for thanksgiving so we were trying our hardest to find someone from the states to eat with. But I have come to the conclusion that there aren't any gringos in Cañas. But I like it allot here. Everything is starting to turn around. My branch is starting to give us referrals and the members actually want to do stuff with us. I am super excited for this next month. So we have this family that we are teaching that are super awesome. They are super prepared and everything but when we found them  they didn't have jobs. But now yes, so its a lot harder to find them, especially when its a half an hour to walk to there house. But yea adios.

Courtney's Week #33

Here I am! So today we had cambios, and guess what, I am in a trio again. Hermana Sampson and I are staying in the same sector, but we now have Hermana Perez from Guatamala with us. Its going to be really great. She has 6 more weeks in the mission than I do, but we will be going home at the same time because I was in the MTC for longer. I am so excited because we are going to baptize the world! We have a lot of really great investigators, we just have to get them to come to church, but we are working on that.

 

Ugh, so speaking of church, this Sunday we finally got one of our investigators, Maria Soledad, to go to church. She is a little bit older and she started to fall asleep during sacrament meeting and she started to snore a little bit. My companion and I were trying so hard to keep her awake nicely by moving around, making small noises, and even occasionally nudging her gently, but to no avail she would just keep falling back asleep. I think some people when they feel the peaceful feelings of the spirit it just puts them right to sleep. Anyways, one of the members in front of us, leaned over to me and said, "Hey, wake up your investigator so they don´t snore!" Anyways, I think Maria Soledad heard that because she didn´t fall asleep again during sacrament meeting. Then in Gospel Principles, our lesson was on the milenium and the teacher made up her own lesson. I have a strong testimony that the manual is there for a reason, there is just some stuff that is not exactly perfect to teach someone who is just getting to know the church. I also don´t think its good to tell an investigator that if they reject the message of the missionaries they will be condemned, but that´s kind of what happenned. Sometimes I feel that the investigators would be better off if they didn´t come to church. Hopefully Maria Soledad wasn´t offended, but she wasn´t there for our appointment later on that night.

 

Oh, so we found out that we can skype for Christmas! I don´t exactly know how or when, but I do know that there is a four hour difference between Chile and Utah right now. So here as I am writing my email at 5 in the afternoon you guys are just getting done with lunch! I will try to figure out what´s going on more, but we just barely figured out that we will be in this sector for Christmas.

 

This week was so good! We passed by a couple of our investigators, se llama Miriam y Geraldo. They are a couple that are probably the same age as you, mom and dad. They have 2 kids that are like 13 and 11. When we passed by only she was there because her husband had to work last minute. It was so cool though, she told us how they can feel a huge difference in their lives. She is very involved in the Catholic church, she actually prepares the kids for their confirmation, and so she is not quite ready to get baptized and everytime we talk about it she kind of takes a few steps backward as far as progress, but she has noticed the Spirit acting in her life and the difference that it can make which I think is a huge step. Her husband is pretty much willing to accept anything, the only problem is that we can only teach him on weekends, but no importa, I´ve decided we´re going to baptize their whole family!

 

I am just so happy, we have so many great investigators, and the thing that makes me happiest is that it´s not like they were golden investigators or anything, but through our study and prayer we were able to find them and teach to their needs and remove their doubts and they are starting to progress. I am just so happy.

 

I love you all!

Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #39

Bueno, so it is Tuesday today. So yesterday was changes so I was in a bus for 8 hours yesterday. Still haven't got that package, but lets just hope it takes forever. So this week was good we should be baptizing someone this week. So my area is super hard, everyone we talk to in the street is like super excited and give us there address and we go and look for them and it doesn't exist. its pretty awesome and then also no one has telephones here so we can't call them either. But we don't have one either so I guess its okay. I think I'm going to start asking contacts if they really want us to come and if the address is a lie, but oh well.

So my lider misional (mission leader) is super awesome, last week he came up and told us he has some one that wants to be baptized so we are going to baptize him this week. Okay it wasn't that easy.

So sorry I didn't write much, in the last 3 days I have only slept for about 9 hours I am super tired.

So the other day my companion was showering and a scorpion started climbing out of the drain so he killed it but the other day there was one in our room so i got a picture