Courtney's Week #51

First off, I just want to take a guess at the reason Teri is going to email us, is Sam engaged? I definitely
need to at least see a picture before I will approve anything.

So, guess what changes were today and...I´m TRAINING!! The new missionaries get here tomorrow and I will be training one of them, I don´t know who, I don´t even know if it will be a gringa or latina,
but I am super excited!

Oh, I guess some of you might be more concerned about "the earthquake". Well I´m not sure exactly what they call an earthquake. I haven´t heard of an earthquake at all, but we did have temblores, or
trembles, that were super strong and I guess could have been called earthquake. The first one was Saturday at about 4:30 in the morning. The movement was pretty strong, strong enough that a few things in our
department fell from their places, but there also a lot of noise, it was like the earth was angry! It was a huge growl or something, my companion is a pretty sound sleeper and so she didn´t wake up until
the noise started, it scared her and she leaped onto my bed and held on to me with a death grip, even after the temblor passed. It only lasted like a minute in total, (well at least the part that I was awake for).

The second temblor happened Sunday afternoon, we were teaching a lesson outside in the country part of our sector, usually all of the little temblors happen in the night time, but this was the strongest
that we´ve had here during the day. It was pretty cool, you could actually see all the trees moving and stuff, its almost as if the surface of the earth turns to disturbed jello, all jiggly and everything. It´s pretty cool, but no one died and it wasn´t that big. Here in Chile there are lots of temblors, but some are just stronger than others.

Oh, so other news. I got bit by some sort of bug or spider. On the bright side, doesn´t look like it was one of the poisonous ones because, well, I can still breath. But, my whole neck is red and irritated and it is spreading to my arms as well. I forgot to bring Benadryl with me to the Santiago and I won´t be returning to Los Andes and my stash of Benadryl until tomorrow night when I have my new companion. So we are just going to hope that by that time I´m still alive. I´ll let you know how that goes.

Well, I will have to let you know about my new companion next week, when I have actually met her. Ojala qué todo esté bien con ustedes!
Les Amo Muchisimo!! Cuidense mucho!

Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #57

So this week was changes and my companion had changes. My new companion is Elder Luna, he is from Oaxaca, Mexico. He has like three months in the mission or something like that, as in I'm his second companion. So this week we had a baptism which really is a miracle. His name is Bryan. His grandma is a recent convert and she pretty much like three weeks ago just started inviting every one she knows to church. So yeah that was awesome, hopefully she keeps on going. So I want to feel an earth quake, that would be super awesome. Oh so Ii am now senior companion, which I don´t really know what that means but I am. I guess it means I get to give the reports woot woot, love paper work. But oh well guess it was going to happen some time. But yeah right you all next time.

Courtney's Week #50

Well, aqui estamos. This week has been pretty good. Funny story, so here in Chile, usually your first Sunday in a new barrio they have you bare your testimony. Well, this would have been Hermana Escobar´s
first Sunday, but we had intercambios and so she was in Santiago for two days and I was here with another Hermana. The bishopric didn´t know that this other Hermana was just visiting so they introduced her
and had her bare her testimony as the new misionera. It was pretty funny, next Sunday Hermana Escobar will be saying Hello and Goodbye because she goes home Monday.

So there are 20 Hermanas in the mission right now, but I have only been compañeras with 5 of them, the others have gone home and two more go home next week.

So my sector contains two parts the first part is here in the old part of the city where all the old people live and the other part is out in the country, we pretty much use bikes everyday, but sometimes we walk
or take the microbus, just depends. If you look on lds.org on the maps, my ward is Primer Crucero, the limits start at the calle Chacabuco y Chacay, but then my sector follows Calle Larga and the
Calletera almost until you reach the next city of Esmaralda. It´s huge. Before there were two sets of Elders here, but now its just us. We have lots of work to do, but the ward is really weak and so its a
really hard to get investigators to progress because the members aren´t very nice and make really bad 1st, 2nd, and 3rd impressions. So it´s really hard to get people to feel the spirit in church--I can´t
even feel the spirit sometimes!

So that is my sector, I really love this sector there are people here that are so awesome, but I guess we just need to try a little bit harder to get the ward members to be nicer to each other and to the new comers.

Well, love you all! Cuidense!
Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #56

Well supposedly our whole little trio thing was supposed to last 2 weeks but we went to the office today and found out that he gets his new companion tomorrow. Woot Woot. So tomorrow things will be back to normal which means I can´t go to my old area anymore. So my area is city and when you get to the outskirts its more city. We just walk all day because its to dangerous and the bus drivers don´t want to go in. We don´t have bikes because someone would steal them. Its very very dead too nobody is ever walking in the streets that aren´t teenagers. I guess like four people died last week there, but yeah. The best part of my area is that our church is pretty big. It has lots of potential, most of the other churches I have been to don´t even have a hall, you have to go outside to change the rooms. But yeah the weather is pretty nice it's cold one day and hot the next it changes like crazy. But yep that is it.-

Courtney's Week #49

So, here we are. Hermana Ellsworth is going home today. So, my new companion is la Hermana Escobar from El Salvador. But, guess what, she goes home in 2 weeks! 

To answer your question, no I will not be getting a new mission president because mine changed last year just after I got here. Mission presidents serve for 3 years, so I´m good.   

I can´t really remember anything cool that happened this week. Oh, we have a super super awesome investigator called Maria Elena. She is super super awesome. Before we found her she was smoking a pack a day, but without us even talking about the word of wisdom she cut back to one or sometimes 0 per day. The only problem is that she is living together with her companion of 8 years and is married to someone else. So the soonest that she could get baptized would be in like a year. But she is super awesome.

Oh, so super sad story, we have a couple investigators that are living together but have past marriages, they have been investigating the church for about a year, but the problem is that he cannot find his former wife to get the signature for divorce. They went on a month long trip to try to find her, but they couldn´t, the government won´t give them any information or anything. They used all of the money that they saved up trying to find his former wife, but in the end they had to come back because they ran out of money. So they will probably have to wait another year before they can try again. It´s super super sad because they want to get baptized so bad, but they can´t.

Anyways this keyboard today really hurts my hands because it´s really stiff and hard to type, so I think I will end here and send you guys some fotos. 

Love you all!

Hermana Evans

 

Walker's Week #55

Hey you guys, so one of the elders in Tibas was actually called to serve in the Dominican Republic but he couldn't get his visa so he started in Costa Rica. Oh he is Costa Rican. So this week he got his visa and left yesturday. So now I am in a trio and we are working two areas until changes. Which is both good and bad, it's good because I'll be working in Tibas again. But bad because I'll be in a trio. And everything is hard in a trio. I feel bad for Courtney because really this sucks.
But better news. I will be able to teach the banana man again which is awesome. We actually are going to visit them tonight. But yeah so interviews were this week it was super awesome. My Mission President is super cool. I was completely expecting him to do something completely different but nope. So my new Mission President is from Lehi Utah I guess. That's just what my companion said because he is from Lehi but yea talk to ya next week.

Courtney's Week #48

So my companion goes home one week from today, and I still have no idea what the plan is for me, but oh well, we will see when the time comes. So this week my companion and I decided that we were tired of teaching the old people. There are a lot of old people here. The majority are just lonely and so, because they are nice they let us in, we sing them a song and say a prayer, but a lot of them either can´t hear, can´t see (at least enough to read), or just plain are stuck in their ways and can´t understand the gospel. So we decided that we needed to be a little bit more selective about the people we teach.

 

We pretty much dropped all of our investigators, took a leap of faith, and started over. Every night we planned for like an hour, we did a lot of praying, and thinking about where we should go. We didn´t find a whole lot during the week so it was a lot of just walking around in the blazing sun, but we kept at it. And during the weekend we found four really really awesome families. It was really cool, and the coolest part was that we´ve kind of stopped knocking on every door, we still do when we decide that we are going to knock a street, but how we found these families it was when we were just passing and we will stop and say I want to knock this door and Ta-Da out comes a super awesome non-old person who was waiting for us. It´s pretty cool.

 

So this week we had stake conference, it was the kind of stake conference where it is broadcast from Salt Lake to like 20 stakes or something like that. The same like they do in Utah. But it was pretty good. Elder Jensen from the presidency of the seventy, Sister Beck from the Relief Society, Elder Neil A. Anderson, and Elder L. Tom Perry spoke. It was pretty cool because they all spoke in their own Spanish except for Elder Perry, he had a translator. Things lose a lot of their meaning when they´re translated, it´s better when you hear it right from the speaker.

 

So Dad how is shut down going? How is everything going in Vernal?

 

Well, I don´t have much else to say, so I will talk to you all next week.

 

Love you,

Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #54

Hi, whats up. So this week was pretty okay. We are in the process of finding people because we really don´t have anyone. But yeah so first dad you really need to sell the car. Second its really hard to cut back on how much I´m spending when I´m not spending anything. So we have one family, there names are "the cookie man". There pretty cool, we´ve only taught them once so I don´t know that much.  But I know he works in a cookie factory. So yeah I´m sorry I really don´t have any awesome stories happening. Oh there are interviews with the President this week and we also know who will be our new mission pres. Thats going to be weird but yeah, good bye.

Courtney's Week #47

So, guess what, about two weeks ago a man contacted us in the street, he had just been in a car accident a few days earlier and was in pretty bad shape and wanted to change his life. We set up an appointment to pass by but he wasn´t there. So a few days ago we were on our way to lunch when I saw him in the street, he was totally drunk. We could see the pile of bottles that he had drunken and everything. The moment he saw us he tossed the bottle that was in his hand and asked us to "preach to him." I think at one point he was Evagelico, because he has a lot of bible knowledge, so he started talking about some bible stories and compared himself to David that fell into temptation or something. He told us that he was going to kill himself that day because he didn´t have any reason to live anymore. So we decided to walk him home so that he was sitting on the side of one of the busiest streets right in front of the liquor store. As we were walking with him to his house we were trying to help especially to get him to understand that íf he wanted to change things he had to stop drinking. He kept reverting to that it didn´t matter because he was going to kill himself because he didn´t have anyone to live for. Then all of the sudden, there was a kitten in the street, we were like "Hey, look that kitten needs you, the kitten loves you." He took the kitten, named it "Leon de Judah" and then he had a reason to live, to take care of his kitten. We saw him yesterday and now he wants to donate his house and all of his land to build a temple so that "many souls can be saved." We told him the first step in the process to donate his land would be to stop drinking and to go to church, but we will see what happens.

 

Let´s see, what else happened this week. Yesterday I gave a talk in church. I was a little bit worried because I didn´t feel very well prepared, but it went pretty well. The topic they gave me was "Jesus Crist as our Savior," pretty specific topic, right, but it went pretty well, it took a little bit of study though. The high councilman who talked right after me was given the same topic, but he just started talking about Christ-like attributes and stuff, but that´s okay. So its kind of a trend here in Chile, but all of the high councilman are recently returned missionaries. I think its their plan to keep all of the return missionaries active or something, but its a little weird.

 

So occasionally we take the microbus to travel to a different part of our sector. It´s usually 300 pesos each which is like $0.50. I paid for the way there and my companion paid for the way home, well the bus driver totally charged her 500 pesos each. She was a little bit put-out when he wouldn´t give her back her change. Anyways so the driver´s son of like 5 or 6 years old comes back and started asking us questions, Hermana Ellsworth was a little put out and so she told the kid "Go away, your dad totally ripped us off!" in English. It was pretty funny, he didn´t understand at all and kept bothering Hermana Ellsworth. She is is still really bitter about the 400 pesos she lost, which I think is funny because its only like a dollar. But there are just people who like to take advantage of foreigners.

 

So I guess that´s about all that happened this week. Today we are in Santiago! Yeah! I´m pretty excited just to be out of Los Andes. Los Andes is kind of like Roosevelt, there is nothing really to do.

 

Well, have a great week. Love you all!

Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #53

Hello, how are you. So my area is kind of special. But we did find a new family this week. Which is good, lets hope that something happens there. But yeah, so my companion is super awesome, which is good because we are pretty much walking aroung all day. So this is about the what I see every day 75 percent is girls within the age of 15 to 21, 15 percent are kids and 9 percent are drunk guys asking me for money or tying to rob us and the last 1 percent are guys. My area is bad enough that any real family that might want something to do with us would not be walking in the street. Not saying that there aren´t good families, there just saying that they would not be walking in the street. So yeah we arre trying our hardest to work with the members but its not going to change over night. But thats okay it's changing though so thats all my time good bye.

Courtney's Week #46

Hola Famila!

 

So, this week has been so awesome. So just to answer your question, my trainer actually dated this guy for two years before her mission, but when he left for his mission she started dating lots of guys and pretty much forgot about him, so he had to kind of win her back while she was in the mission, he got a job offer like in another part of the states or something but didn´t want to go without her and so he proposed while she was here in the mission and is getting married on March 10, I just got an email from her and she is happy as can be, its just super super funny.

 

So my new companion is pretty much awesome, also its kind of fun because since she is leaving in three weeks she wants to take advantage of the time that she has left here in Chile. Today we got permission to do all of our studies super early in the morning and today we are headed to Santiago to do some shopping! I´m pretty excited, even though I don´t have any money, its still super fun. But yeah, we are only going to do half of our internet here in Los Andes and then do the other half in a few hours. Oh, so I should probably get my ears checked when I get home. I´ve had three companions now that have asked me if I have troubles hearing, I might be going a little bit deaf. Hopefully not, but I guess we´ll see. It would be a little bit sad if I have to get hearing aids at the age of 22. I´m hoping that I just need to get my ears cleaned out or something.

 

My new companion is Hermana Ellsworth from Mesa, Arizona, but she actually has a lot of family in Vernal and Roosevelt. She even lived in Roosevelt for a few years. Her grandparents were actually the first temple president of the Vernal temple, so maybe you knew them dad. Alva and Jean Snow. So funny story, she started talking about the Basin drawl, I told her that I am so happy that I never developed the Basin Drawl, she immediately told me that I do have an accent that shows that I´m from there. She says that I even carry it over to my spanish!! Then she did a very well done over-exaggeration of the way that people talk in Vernal. It was super funny, but I guess I am going to have to work on getting rid of my Vernal accent a little bit.

 

Hey, guess what, my birthday is next week. I´m going to be 22! I´m actually pretty excited for my birthday, even though it means that I am getting super old! I was talking about this with Hermana Ellsworth, she is 22, and I asked her how she felt about that she told me that it makes her feel like she needs to hurry up and get married or she never will. Which I think is kind of the down part about serving a mission, by the time you come back you´re pretty much an old lady. Oh well, next week I begin my journey as an old lady.

 

So I always heard things about how strict and everything was my new companion, but I love being with her she is super super funny, and I really love being with her. She´s pretty much awesome. The only sad part is that she goes home in three weeks, I´m not sure exactly what will happen then because its in the middle of the change. Maybe I just won´t have a companion for two weeks, who knows.

 

Well, I will write a little bit more in a few hours, but love you all! Cuidense!

 

Hermana Evans

So it turns out we´re not going to go to Santiago today. My companion doesn´t have any money because her dad was confused about which account to put money in, so if we went today we would have to go again in like two weeks anyway. So instead, we´re going to go on a picnic in Calle Larga and go to Santiago in a couple weeks, but because we did all of our studies and internet and everything early we have practically the whole day ahead of us.

 

Oh, so funny story. Mom, your story about your homemaking lesson made me remember. So the young women in our ward have serious problems with modesty, but one of them is much worse than the others. So a few weeks ago, she gave a talk in sacrament meeting on...modesty. But the funniest part is, as she was giving her talk she was wearing a spaghetti strap dress with a jacket over it that was falling off her shoulders and her dress only made it to a few inches below her bottom. I was trying really really hard not to judge, but it was a pretty good talk.

 

Well, I´ve got to go, but I love you all. Let me know how everything goes with the hockey games, finals, snow, and everything.

 

Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #52

So this week was kind of lame. Me and my companion walked around all day trying to teach someone. I guess this area has some problems or something but that's okay because me and my comp are going to fix it. I hope so. I am no longer living with my last companion there is now someone training in Tibas my last area yeah so because my week was lame I don´t have anything to write, so adios.

Courtney's Week #45

Well, first off, today I will have a change of companions. Hermana Forbush only has six weeks left in her mission, but they are sending her to a different sector. She is a little bit bummed, she's the kind of person that takes a long time to adjust to new things and new places, so its a little bit lame that she has to go to a different sector with only six weeks left. Especially because her new sector is very different than here in Los Andes.

 

So I don´t really have a whole lot of time right now, we are supposed to be in the office at noon, but the next bus that leaves for Santiago from here in Los Andes doesn´t leave until noon, so needless to say we´re going to be a little late, but we decided to do at least half of our Internet during the wait because I´m a little bit afraid that I won´t get to be able to do Internet later today. My new companion, Hermana Ellsworth is known by the whole mission to be something like a robot, and she´s actually quite proud to have that title. But if we get back late from Santiago I don´t think I will have time to write more.

 

But just in case I don´t get a chance to write more, we had a baptism yesterday, Coni got baptized. It was actually kind of sad because her boyfriend Emmanuel was going to be baptized to, but last minute we found out that we couldn´t baptize him because he doesn´t live in our ward, so he was super bitter.

 

Love you all!

Hermana Evans

 

So, my new companion Hermana Ellsworth should have finished her mission today, but she somehow extended for 4 weeks. Every change is usually 6 weeks, so I have no idea what is going to happen to me during that extra two weeks. So I´m not sure if I told you guys, but my first companion and trainer here in Chile is going home today. She is leaving 6 weeks early so that she can get married in 3 weeks! Crazy! The craziest part about it is that when I was with her 8 months ago she wasn´t even writing this guy and was crazy about another guy. Well, she prayed about it and knows that this is what she needs to do, but it is still crazy.

 

So this week we spent a whole lot of time traveling. Coni, who got baptized last week lives very very far away and we had to go there everyday this last week to make sure that they were prepared for their baptism. Emmanuel was going to get baptized this last week too, but he ended up working everyday until Saturday, so we pretty much taught him all of the lessons in one day and all in just a little over an hour. They already knew everything because Coni´s family are all members, but we had to review everything to make sure that they didn´t have any doubts or anything.

 

Well, I´ve got to go. Love you all!

 

Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #51

Okay so first thing I had changes. I am just moving all over the place. Right now I have had 6 companions and 5 areas. So I have only stayed once. But today I got changed into Garabito. Which is the area right next store. I actually live in the same house and am companions with the person I lived with for 6 weeks. It's kind of wierd because I didn´t even know I had changes today until we were in the changes meeting. But I guess I m goinng to be showing my area to someone so he can train there. So yeah now all those people I had progressing I won´t baptize which is kind of depressing. But yeah I guess my area is dangerous. I don´t think so though. But yeah write you all next week.

Oh my comps name is Elder Reinoza

Courtney's Week #44

Well, I just realized as I was trying to remember the date for the subject line that I have 10 months in my mission. Yikes!

 

So anyways this week was super super Awesome. We only have 3 investigators with a baptismal date this week, but all three were in the church and they all are progressing. We also found a girl Saturday. We were just walking down the street and she was sweeping her patio, but she stopped to look at us and she just had this look on her face just begging for me to talk to her. So I went over and introduced us as missionaries and she immediately invited us into her house. That almost never happens so I asked her if she had shared with missionaries before and she told us her life story which started off with, "My family is Catholic, but I know that Catholicism isn´t true." She ran away from home a few years ago and found her dad, who her mom always said pretty much didn´t exist. Turns out her dad is a member. She started talking a little bit to the missionaries and went to church a couple times. At the time she was drinking, smoking, and doing drugs, but she stopped all of that, put her life in order and returned home to live with her mom. We taught her a quick review of "The Restoration" and really applied it to her. The Spirit was super super strong. She came with us to church the next day. We haven´t had the chance to ask her to be baptized yet, but we will. She is awesome, she fifteen but acts like she´s about 20 and is literally one of those people who have been prepared and is ready. We were a little bit worried about how her family was going to respond to her investigating the church though because they didn´t seem so excited, but she said that they talked about it that night and her family says that they will support her in her decision if this is what she really wants, but they don´t exactly want to hear the missionaries themselves. She is so awesome!!

 

We also have Coni and Emanuel, who we are going to baptize next week! Coni´s whole family are really active members, but she was kind of against the church because she was currently living in the same house as Emanuel. Coni and Emanuel have a little boy, Vicente who is three years old. A few weeks ago Coni and Emanuel showed up at church with the rest of their family. It was pretty much a miracle. We didn´t have anyone else in the Gospel Principles class so we really had the opportunity to talk with them, we found out their concerns and desires and what they really wanted. It was a little bit of a struggle to work to their needs, but they are getting baptized next week.

 

Well, this week was super super awesome. We received a lot of blessings, had a lot of super super powerful lessons, and we are really excited for the next few weeks. It is so cool to be a missionary, we have the power to change the lives of others!!

 

Love you all!

Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #50

So yeah, so this week was okay. I was on divisions 4 out of the 7 days but as you can see today is Wednesday, yep I got to go to the Temple again it was nice. But this last week we had 6 investigators in the church it was so awesome. So we have this family that I call the banana man he is a banana farmer or something like that but he always has a ton of bananas. But yeah him and his family are super awesome and want to get baptized but he is waiting to get divorced and stuff. So yeah it will probably be a while. But we have the aunt and sister of a recent convert that we are teaching and they are progressing right a long. They like the church and everything.

But yeah I don´t have much time because I wrote Pres a lot, so adios.

Courtney's Week #43

Hey, so this week was an adventure. One of the members in our ward repairs washing machines and then resells them. My companion has a lot of money saved up because she´s pretty much only eaten cereal and yogurt for all of her mission, so we asked about how much a washing machine would cost, he told us nothing and that he would just bring us one. So the next day he brought us a washing machine in the night. He tested it really fast to make sure that everything was working and then left. Well, we were so excited to use our new washing machine that we put a load in right away, and then we went to bed. Well, when we woke up the next morning there was about an inch of water on the floor in our bedroom, our study room, the kitchen, my closet, and throughout the hallway. The washing machine broke halfway through its laundry cycle and pushed all the water out the bottom and so we had water everywhere! The worst part is that we had things on the floor that got wet, the most tragic was my companion´s journal of all of her mission--it was completely soaked. Also, my backpack was on the floor with all of my proselyting stuff in it: my scriptures, an extra Book of Mormon, 3 hymnbooks, pamphlets, a notebook, and other random stuff. Well, a few weeks ago I made a homemade cover for my scriptures out of a cereal box and then I put scotch tape all around it. And so, even though the water soaked up through all of the other books that I had in my book bag, my scriptures were completely dry!! A miracle! Anyways, so we spent the whole morning cleaning up all the water and then my companion has used most of our time in the night time to blow dry and iron the pages of her journal.

 

Another thing that happened this week, my companion and I went for an appointment with a couple of our investigators who live really far. So we decided to take the bus out there instead of riding our bikes. So after we left, we had to walk on the side of the freeway until we could catch the bus. So we were walking along when a semi passed us going super fast, right after he passed us he slammed on the brakes and started fish tailing all over the road and the shoulder too. Right in front of us!! One minute later and we would have gotten hit by this semi! Crazy, right?

 

Well, other than this not really a whole lot happened this week. We´ve decided to change our focus, because we´ve decided that were using too much time traveling back and forth between the different parts of our sector. So we´ve decided to focus mainly on the area here close to the church because it is much easier to help people progress when they can get to the church easily. But for right now, we are kind of without really cool investigators.

 

Oh, so I take that back. We have this really cool couple Rosa y Esau. They have like 55 years or something like that, but they have been living together for like 10 years. The Elders that were here in this sector before found them last March, and they progressed really fast, Esau read the whole Book of Mormon and right now is reading in for the second time and is in the end of Alma. Rosa also is in the end of Alma in her reading. But because they lived together they couldn´t be baptized, and the big complication is that Esau is married to another lady and when he tried to contact her so that they could get divorced and then get married to Rosa the lady never responded. So here is the super cool part, right now they are on their way to Peru to find his old wife and plead for the signature of divorce. They will return next month because while they are up there they are going to visit family and stuff. But it was super cool, yesterday in the church Esau asked for a blessing of comfort from one of the members in the ward. They are super anxious about everything, but they really want to get baptized. I am so excited for them!! A baptismal wedding! How great!!

 

Well, I can´t really think of much else that happened this week, but I love you all! Have a great week!

Walker's Week #49

Hello people.

So this week was super awesome.

Well sort of, so me and my companion are not the best of friends. So last week the Zone Leaders came but we still had a lot of problems so this week President came. It was awesome. But this week we had started painting our house so every thing was super dirty. So President walked in and looked at everything and asked, "so you guys are painting the house huh." President is awesome. But I´m really hoping that things will get better with my companion. Right now we don´t have any investigators because, well I´m pretty sure its because we don´t have the spirit with us. But so far this week I have only been with him for four days because he is District Leader he just throws divisions all over the place and always put where there is nothing but yeah I hope it will get better.

Adios 

Courtney's Week #42

Well, to start off, Uncle Joe requests that you guys could please update the blog. Thank you so much for keeping the blog up, occasionally I get letters that mention the blog and it makes me super happy. Well, actually it just makes me super happy to get mail in general. So it finally snowed up there, crazy. For the last four months I have been telling people that at my house there is snow, but I guess I´ve just been lying to them. Oh, also, on the subject of mail and home, I received Christmas cards from the Pederson´s and the Benson´s. They are so awesome, they both tried to send them through pouch mail, but pouch mail you can´t send an envelope or anything, just a piece of paper. But they were both persistent and tried again and I got them. I´m going to try to write them little thank you notes this week, but is there anyone else who I should write a thank you note to? Also, just so you are aware when people ask, the address that you guys have is of the mission home. And the mail to there is super reliable, and so you can send things directly there and it gets to me like 2 weeks later. To send a letter to Chile I think it´s about $1.50 or something like that. So if people ask you what is the best way to send things, that is probably it.

 

So this week was pretty good. My companion and I started a purification process to help us improve all of our little falts. So we are working on that, and guess what, I am actually substantially happier. Early in the week we came home after a day full of mediocre lessons with mediocre missionaries. I was irritated with my companion, and I was discouraged, and I didn´t want to be a missionary. I realized that my whole attitude was really just because I was mad at myself because I know that I can be a better missionary than that, but there are little things that I wasn´t doing, so I was preventing myself from receiving the blessings and in turn I was also hindering our investigators, because I wasn´t worthy to have the inspiration that I needed. The thing that was the most heart-breaking for me was that in my prayers I felt like I was just talking to God rather than having a conversation with Him, and that made me feel really alone and abandoned. So, I talked to my companion about this and so we started a fast and made a list of all the things we wanted to change. We made the commitment that every day we are going to work to do all of the things in our list and evaluate between ourselves and with God all the areas where we failed from our list every day for 40 days. So now we are in this purification process, and I am muchisimo more happy and content and our lessons and everything have been improving.

 

So funny story, so the other day I was riding my bike behind my companion and a guy passed on his bike going to opposite direction. I think I said "Hola" or something but I´m not really sure, but the next thing I know,  he is riding his bike along side of me in the middle of the road and asking me questions. I immediately stopped my bike and yelled for my companion to stop too. I presented myself a missionary and everything, but then he asked me if I could have a pareja, or a partner. I told him no that we are here to focus on our purpose and stuff, so then he asked me when I finish, I told him that I still have lots of time, but he insisted that it was really short and that he could wait, I was actually a little bit worried, this guy was really persistent and he wasn´t even drunk. But my companion jumped and saved me, she told him that I have a boyfriend waiting for me back home and pretty much flat-out lied to this man in the street. Then we walked away. But the funny thing is another guy told he was in love with me half an hour later, but this guy was drunk and so it was a lot funnier. Anyways, so one of my commitments from my list of things to work on was to not get down on myself about my appearance, my companion says that perhaps God sent these two guys to try to help me out with that goal. 

 

Well, that´s pretty much all I can think of that was super cool that happened this week. But, I love you all! You guys are awesome!

Hermana Evans

Me and my new Companion

Walker's Week #48

So to start off I had an awesome experience with a drunk guy, so he didn't quite tell me he wanted to marry me or anything but it was still cool. So me and Elder Constantino were walking down the street the other day, because we were in divisions, and some drunk dude stops us and he asks us why we are here. But he didn´t want to here about god. So I told him. "okay say you have a car a super tuanis (awesome in Costa Rica) like a Ferrari, would you show this car to every one you could?" So he answered, yes.

So this is why we´re here, it to share this super awesome thing that we have with every one.

 

And then after that he started talking about how there is a reason that he walked in to us because there is a reason for everything and told us that he couldn´t leave until we told what he needed to here. So I asked if he was drinking, he answered yes, so I told him he had to stop drinking and that's all. 

 

So that is my story for this week.

 

Thanks for everything

Courtney's Week #41

Today we just got the news that we can go to the temple! The area presidency of Chile made a rule pretty much right before I got here that the missionaries could only go to the temple just before they go home with the reasoning that, "missionaries are here to do work for the living, not the dead." But, we were just informed that the rule changed and now we can go once a year! Woot woot! I am pretty excited about that, the temple has a way to give you power and I am so excited to rejuvenate my spiritual power!

 

So the past couple weeks I have been slacking a little bit, just with little things. For example: instead of popping out of my bed at 7:30, saying a quick little prayer, and hurrying over to my exercises like a good missionary, when the alarm goes off in the morning I sit there for a second, curl up in a ball to say a very long prayer that is more like a nap, then I mosie on over to wiggle my toes as my exercises. And then because my companion has the same mosying problem, usually we are not quite ready to start studies right at 9:00 and I usually get there at like 9:08 or something like that. Just little things that I have been slacking with. So the other day I was saying my prayers and I started asking for all of the help that I needed for our investigators and everything, and I felt so guilty. I realized that with all of my slackingness I felt unworthy to ask for help because I wasn´t doing my part.

 

I have been studying a lot about obedience and keeping the commandments and everything for my investigators and the key thing is that we have to do our part. God wants to bless us, because he loves us, but he can´t do it if we are not doing our part. We have to do everything that we can do and that we have the right to ask for blessings, but before that point we are unworthy to receive his help.

 

Anyways so this is my resolution this week, and I will let you know how it goes, the thing is, really missionaries are just regular people without the help of God, but being a regular person is not enough for a missionary. We need to be instruments in God´s hands. So that is my new goal.

 

Well, my computer was a little bit silly today, so I am out of time, but I love you all and I will write to you all again next week!

 

Love you!

Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #47

Okay how's it going. So about the shoes, the other ones are pretty worn out too I just don´t have a picture of them so yeah. So this week at church I met someone that was companions with Drew Long. Can´t really remember the name but yeah did Drew serve a mission in Paraguay. Just a question. So we have two really awesome families that we are teaching. But they both have problems. One of them just has to get divorced and remarried witch will take like three months. The other however has to do the same thing but she is only a citizen here because she got married but she has to obtain citizinship then get divorced then remarried. I have no idea how long that will take.

But on a better note, I can go to the Temple once every 6 months which I think is a little bit better that once every year. I have been 3 times in my mission so far, it's pretty cool, just to brag a little. Thats about it.

Courtney's Week #40

So here are a few things that I learned this week:

 

1. Riding a bike in a skirt is an art that I haven´t quite mastered yet. Oh my goodness, this whole week I have been trying to figure out a way to ride my bike without showing my underwear to the whole world, I think I have almost figured it out. The other problem, is that if you wear a skirt that is a little bit longer it gets caught in the wheel and in the brakes. I´ve decided what seems to work best is to pedal like a frog, then it seems to work out okay. But just as a little tip of advice, if you can, use pants when riding a bike.

 

2. If the bishop does not attend church, a ward does not function very well. My new ward is having this very problem, the bishop works one of those schedules where you work for 7 days and then you´re off for 4 or something like that, I still haven´t met him, but this ward is falling apart. There isn´t a Young Mens President at all, and the first counselor doesn´t do anything because I guess he was never set apart, and he can´t be set apart because he doesn´t have the Melquesidec priesthood, and he couldn´t recieve the Melquesidec priesthood because the bishop wasn´t there at the last stake conference and so he wasn´t sustained. The ward is also kind of split in two, there is kind of like a rebelion against the bishop going on, and the bishop is losing because he´s never present. It´s pretty bad.

 

3. Without members, missionary work is good for nothing. My sector has had some pretty awesome missionaries in the last few years. This sector was actually for Elders until about 3 months ago, when they put Hermanas here. The missionaries that were here in this sector did a lot of work and baptized a lot of really really great people, but, all of these people are now inactive because they didn´t have any support or friendship from the members. It is really really sad.

 

4. The church is true!!

 

Well, that´s about all I learned this week that I can think of for the moment. I actually really like my sector, it´s mostly country, we have to bike past huge vineyards to get to parts of our sector, but it is so pretty. The people in this area are mostly really old people that have lived here since the beginning of time.

 

So exciting news, I found out this week that the mom of the kids that I baptized back in August finally got baptized!! It was the family that was really poor, Larissa worked our all of her difficulties and was able to be baptized Christmas Eve! Their family is complete now!

 

Well, that´s about all for this week. Things are going great!

 

Love you all!

Hermana Evans

Larissa and Hermana Taggart, my companion from the MTC, who baptized her!

Walker's Week #46

So, first off I would like to know what I need to do to get some new shoes. These ones are not doing so good right now. I would like to get some new ones before the raining season.

So just kidding I am not in Guapulis I am in Tibas witch is where the Saprisa Stadium is. It's pretty cool, there are to big soccer teams in Costa Rica, the Liga which is from Alajuela, and Saprissa which is from San Jose. But my first area in Alajuela had the Liga Stadium in it and now I have the Saprissa Stadium in my area. But right now it is super cold. As in I am dying every night. Because we don´t have heaters so I am walking around with a jacket all day and at night I still have the jacket and every other piece of clothing I can find. But it is so cold. But my ward is super awesome as in super super awesome. But yep because I am in the city I am catching lots of buses. As in at least three every day. But yep that's about it, so write you next week.

Courtney's Week #39

Hola Familia!!

Well, as you probably noticed today is Tuesday and not Monday. This week we had cambios, but I think what happened is that Presidente wasn´t ready yet or something, because Sunday night when we should have recieved the notice of our cambios instead we were told that P-day and cambios were delayed one day. So guess what, I changed sectors and companions, and I am no longer in a trio! Woot Woot! I am back in Los Andes, it's the same city where I was about 5 months ago, but I am in a different ward. My sector has a lot of country and its really really big. We have bikes and I think we use them every day. Also, it is hotter here than it is in Santiago, I think I might die. It is so hot. I think its probably about the same as summer in Utah, but the big difference is that normally people are not outside, running or walking really fast all day. And, the houses do not have air condicioning at all. It is so hot here, I am so glad that I only have 1 summer in Chile.

So how was it to talk to Walker, did you talk through skype? Did you talk for a long time? It´s probably a really good thing that missionaries can only talk to their family 2 a year. All day I was just day-dreaming of my family and how great they are, but don´t worry I am now focused again.

Well, so my new companion´s name is Hermana Forebush, she is from Ely, Nevada. She actually finishes her mission in March, so I may be her last companion. She is actually the trainer of Hermana Taggart, my companion from the MTC. I´m pretty excited, we´re going to baptize the world together, or at least all of our humungous sector.

Well, I don´t really have much else to say. Love you all and I will talk to you next week!
Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #45

So how's it going. Today was changes and guess what, I got changed. It sucks, I just want to be in an area more than 2 changes, But now I'm back in the city. Not super excited about that but oh well. Really I don't no anything about my area because today was the first day. But because I had changes I have a new companion, his name is Elder Caceres or somthing like that. I lived with him for a month and a half when I was in Alajuela it's wierd. I´m not sure how this is going to go but lets hope for the best. But I'm in an area called Guapulis or something like that. I don't know i'll talk more next week.

Okay photos, so the one is of the catholic church but the other is of someone that was companions with Brother Rust when Brother Rust was serving a mission. His name is Miguel somthing, can't remember the last name but he is from Punteranes

Yep I met him last sunday in church and he asked me where I was from so I told him like always and he asked if I new Brother Rust so I told him yep, so if you guys could get the address and email of Brother Rust that would be awesome.

Courtney's Week #38

Skyped with Courtney for 45 minutes.

Walker's Week #44

Talked to Walker on Phone for about 2 hours for Christmas.

Courtney's Week #37

Well, it´s almost Christmas! I don´t really have a whole lot to say today and so I sent you guys a few pictures. I am so happy that everything went well with your surgery mom. I was so worried. So pathetic story, last week I was thinking about mom and her surgery and everything during personal studies, I was studying about how we can recognize the spirit in Preach my Gospel and then all of the sudden I started thinking about Dad and his high blood pressure and how he could have a stroke or something and I started bawling during studies and it scared me because I was studying about the spirit, so I thought to myself, yeah, these thoughts are from the spirit. I bawled for probably half an hour or something, my companions just thought I was overtaken by the spirit or something. It was so pathetic. So anyways we had our interviews with Presidente last week, the day of your surgery actually, and at the end of my interview he asked if there was anything else that I wanted to talk about. I told him about my whole pathetic experience and how I was worried about you mom and everything and how it was a little bit harder this week to focus on the work. He gave me a great scripture that I want to share with you all, I don´t have my English scriptures with me so you will have to look it up DyC 6:36. He encouraged me to have Christ in both parts of my brain. In the part of my brain that sees images to have a picture of Christ up there and in the part that forms words to have a conversation with God in there. This helped me a lot because with this I was able to replace all of the fear that I had and instead focus on Christ and all that he does for me, and for my family. Presidente gave me a blessing, but guess what, the majority of the blessing was for you Mom. You were blessed through me! Hee, hee that sounds funny, but he also did bless me with comfort and strength and everything and it helped a lot.

Another thing that I realized today is that I don´t need to worry for you guys, you have a whole word family watching over you. I love our ward. Say thanks to everyone for me. It really is comforting to know that even though I am half-way across the world there are people who are taking care of my family and so I don´t need to worry at all.

 So there are all sorts of fruit trees here in my sector, I´m not really sure what type of fruit they are, but they are a nice snack while walking in the street.

El dia de deportes-Sports Day for the mission-me celebrating

 Well, I am just about out of time, but I love you guys and I will talk to you all this Sunday, Christmas! I am so excited!

Much Love, Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #43

Hey whats up. So this week was okay but this next week is going to be super awesome. First, tomorrow there is a multi zone conference and it's the one for Christmas. woot woot. And then on Friday we are going to have a baptism. And then on Saturday my companion is going to the Temple with a family he baptized. So if we baptize a family President gives us permission to go to the Temple with them when they get sealed. I won't go in but this means that I will be able to buy underwear. And I kind of need it . But yep, so I don't really know what to talk to you about because I will be calling on Sunday at like 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 or 3 or 2 or 1 yep I have no idea when I am going to call. It will probably be after 5 but I don't know. So I think I have enough money to call. I'm not sure because I have a package I have to go pay to get and it costs about 1.50 every day and I don't know how long its been there because I haven't been to San Jose since last changes. But I'm going tomorrow so yep. So I went to the beach again today it was cool, I'll send you pictures when I remember to bring my little converter thing. Well good buy, I'll talk to you Sunday

Courtney's Week #36

This week was pretty good, so our investigator Maria Soledad did not get baptized this week. When we went by on Tuesday she started bible bashing with us. It was so weird because it wasn´t like her at all. She had a little booklet of notes and a magazine from the Jehovah´s witnesses and started saying all kinds of things. It was so heart-breaking to watch her, I could see that she knew it was true, but there was something that was trying to influence her otherwise. I felt almost as if I was contending directly with one of the evil spirits that Jesus cast out in the New Testament, because it wasn´t Maria Soledad. We talked about the importance of consulting God to get our answers and not anyone else and bore testimony and left. As we were leaving she asked me if I was okay or if I was just really tired. I told her that I was just really sad. She asked why and I told her it was because we loved her and that it was hard to see her not accept happiness in her life. Her countenance changed and she promised us that she wouldn´t search anymore in her magazines or listen to her friends and that she was going to ask God.

Our next lesson we decided to teach the restoration again, but it was so hard. So we´ve discovered that Jorge, her husband is mentally ill. And he was there in that occasion, it was so funny, he started talking about random things, like how an important part of being a prophet is to have money and how money buys food and so we need money. It was so funny, but not a very condusive environment to help someone regain their testimony. It was so funny, I shared Helaman 5:12, my favorite scripture in the whole world and bore my testimony on how it has helped me that if we have our testimony built in Christ we have the promise that we won´t fall. The spirit was super strong. Afterwards, we waited for a second in silence so that things could sink in. Then Jorge said, "but sometimes when it´s dark outside we fall" and things that were just really random.

Anyways so we passed by yesterday and we decided to watch the 20 minute video of the Restoration. We started to watch it, but their DVD player would freeze every so often. We were about to give up, but Maria Soledad really wanted to watch it so we would start the movie over and fast-forward to where we were. We were all praying so hard that it would just work so that we could watch this movie with her. In the end we got through the whole video and Maria Soledad was crying. She told us that now she knows that it is true. In her prayer, she apologized to God that she doubted and that now she knew that the book of mormon was true and the Joseph Smith was a prophet. It was so cool and so powerful. This whole experience has been really cool. I think that someday Maria Soledad is going to be a great leader in the church, because Satan sure has been trying very hard to block the way for her. But she is going to get baptized the 25 of December, no important what Satan says.

Well, that is pretty much all that happened this week. Oh, I cut like 5 inches off my hair. It was too dang hot and I was sick of it, so I had my companion cut it that night. It´s not the best haircut in the world, but I´m in Chile, I don´t think it really matters.

I love you all! I´m going to send pictures next week!

Hermana Evans

Walker's Week #42

Hello family, I think I figured out how I am going to talk to you guys. So I think that for 25 dollars I can call the states, so I'm going to see where I can find that. I think quite a bit of fasting will be envolved but thats okay. So we have this investigator named Bismark, he is super cool, his whole family is members but the missionaries that were trying to baptize him were pushing to hard for the baptism, and forgot about him. So he didn't like that to much and told them no. So here we are me and my companion teaching him. So pretty much we are just focusing on prayer and how he needs to ask  god. But the last time that we taught him we taught him about temples and how we can be together with our families for forever. And I promised him that god would awnser his prayer that night. It was super awesome and super spiritual. But the next time that we were suposed to visit him I was in Liberia on divisions with the Zoneleaders so my companion didn't visit. So we went buy Friday night when I got home and he was super sick and his wife didn't want to let us in. but of coarse I had to use the bathroom wink wink. So she let us in so I could use the bathroom and when I came out I taught about the priesthood and about how we can give blessings so I gave him one and we left. But he is super shy and has a super hard time trusting the misionaries because of what happened the last time. but hes supér cool.

So another investigator, our mision leader come up to us and asked us if we could baptize this person that is always at his house the problem is is that he can't here or talk. He talks through signs and he can read to. So most of the time we are writing stuff to him. It's super hard. And I have no idea what happens with him. But we are going to try and baptize him the 23, it should be super spiritual, Because our mision leader is going to baptize and conform him.

So the other day my companion was showering and a scorpian climbed up the drain. it was pretty awesome.

So we live in a house of four but the other's are eEder Southern, it is his first change in the mision and Elder Espinal who is awesome. But I need to go I hope this email was better