My Testimony of the Happy Birthday Song

Hola Familia and Amigos!

       I got my package yesterday! It was awesome! Thank you! Good Ol' Argentina doesn't have anything delicious like jelly bellies or goldfish because they don't like to import things for some reason that I can't figure out. I guess they just like super high prices? A pack of 2 snicker's bars is $5 american dollars. No idea. I loved the pictures that I got and the letter from Julia was my favorite. GOOD TIME. If you would tell her that I am, in fact having a good time, that would be great. 

       The weather is being absolutely nuts right now. Last week was one of the hottest weeks that they have ever had in August. It was like 80 something degrees when it is suppose to be the middle of winter. Now its super cold and ridiculously windy. I dont really understand. Its so windy that I regularly almost get blown over. I bet all the stray dogs are having a great time.

        Our investigators are still good, technically none are proggresing at the moment because they still won't come to church... sigh..... but its ok because nobody in our entire district had anybody in the church this week. Actually... thats really bad. But oh well. Alexis and Analisa are going to set up a date for getting married today or tomorrow and then they can get baptized! WOOO!! YAH! But I'll probably will be transfered before that can happen. I only have one good story this week, it was kind of a rough one, not gonna lie. We didn't find anybody good. I'm still happy though.  It doesn't bother me too much.

         We were walking down the street the other day and we said hi to these two guys and one said it was his birthday. So Elder Bloomfield asked him if he wanted us to sing him happy birthday (E' Bloomfield has lightened up a ton, I have corrupted him) and the guy said no. Then Elder Bloomfield asked him what his name was and he said Gabriel. Elder Bloomfield then looked at me and with our companionship telepathy, we both started to sing happy birthday to him at the same time in english. He didn't really know what to say but he thanked us for our song and laughed. After that we just left and didn't really expect anything more to come from it. Much to our suprise, two days later we were walking home at like 8 at night and this dude rolled by on his bike and yelled "Elderes!!" We walked over to him and it was Gabriel! It turns out I had actually met him once before, really breifly because he is the brother of an inactive member in our ward. He told us that he has a drinking problem and he wants help quiting so he can be a better father to his daughter. We are going to start teaching him this week and its gonna be awesome. I now have a testimony of the power of the happy birthday song.

       

Answers for Questions Time!

Food- I eat noodles... lots and lots of noodles. Usually its got this greasy sauce with beef in it, its not bad, not amazing but not bad. I also eat a lot of something called milanesa. Its just breaded and fried steak, I think, but its really delicious. Probably bad for me, but really delicious. Occasionally we have chicken too and maybe some salad. And that's pretty much all I ever eat. Argentines don't like variety in the slightest. It may sound like I'm strereotyping but Argentines would be the first to tell you that its true. They hate spicy things too. Just a tiny bit of pepper and everyone wants to die. It would be paradise for you, Mom.

Spanish - Its coming, not super fast, but its coming. I'm right on the edge of getting a lot better, I can feel it. However, I am not quite there yet.

My Companion - He has loosened up a bunch, but he still loves to work and that's fine with me. It makes the days go by faster!

Scriptures: John 14:18 or Alma 26:12, I cant decide..

Sending you copies of my letters to the president: Yah they are in spanish.. but are those supposed to have spiritual experiences in those? Mine are always just a sentence or two. Oops.

Love You All!

Elder Aybons (thats how they pronounce it here) 

Week 12...Another Week in Santa Rosa, Week 13...The Proposal

Dear Familia y Amigos

        I'm still here in Santa Rosa, not that it is much of a surprise.  Elder Webb is gone! He got transferred to a town way down south called Vierma. Where, coincidently, Elder Giliam is. Dang Vierma! Stealing all my friends! I'm getting a new compañero named Elder Bloomfield and from what I've heard he seems like a cool guy. He's not here yet, so I'm just chilling with my Mexican roomate and his new companion from El Salvador. I'm excited for my new compañero but I am now the only one in the companionship that knows anything about my area, which isnt much! Its hard because everything looks exactly the same, dirt roads, piles of scrap metal and garbage in people's yards, dogs, and dog poop. Oh well, it will be an adventure.

           My spanish is getting sssoooo much better, I actually understand people now and, for the most part, people understand me. Its nice because I actually have friends in the ward and in our zone now. Our zone is pretty cool, actually. We have chilaens, columbians, paraguy-ans, americans, an el salvadorain, a peruvian, an australian and a guy who was born in finland (his name is Axeles Medenloto, super dope, right?)

Answers to your Questions:

- I have pictures, but I have no way to send them. My camera is pretty much dead too. Can I buy a new one?

- I cant print nothin

- My investigators are good, the dad didn't come to church sunday. That's ok, nobody comes to church.

- the corner of Chaco and miseones, its the big building complex

- My divisions with Elder Rodriguez was the longest day of my life, we just walked around annoying people who didnt want to talk

- Weather here doesnt make sense, its really hot, then its super cold.. I dont understand

- I sleep on pday or go play something with the other elders and buy stuff.

- I have one friend from another zone at the ccm in my zone here, so thats nice. I email Hermana's Romerel and Wooley sometimes

: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY PADRES!

LOVE

Elder Evans

Week 13...The Proposal

Dear Family and Friends,

        I have decided to make the subjest line of my emails more interesting, hence the interesting subject today. I have a new companion now, Elder Bloomfield. He is a great guy but my goodness, is he serious. He has the the personality of a 2X4, but a 2X4 that I like. He also is the hardest working individual I have ever meant which means.. I have to be a hard working missionary too. Last Thursday he had a bad fever and he decided that the only way it could be cured was by working twice as hard as we had been. The only thing I dont like about him is that he doesn't like to visit members, which is my favorite thing to do, because he feels that it doesnt have a purpose.
      I am tired. I have never been so tired in my life. I fall asleep every time we stop moving for more than two minutes. 

      I have been here for 2 months and I still haven't baptized anyone yet, but its ok, we've got some dope investigators. The only problem is that 3 of the families we are teaching, are not married... because in Argentina getting married is a fat pain in the butt, so the people just say they are married and they never do it legally. I guess just one day they wake up and say "hey honey, we are married, k?" and then just go on with their lives. So the other day we were teaching our investigators, Alexis and Analisa, and we commited them to baptism. Then Elder Bloomfield said "but to be baptized you have to be legally married" and then he looked to ALexis and said " are you willing to get married?" and Alexis said that he was. Then I, because you are always supposed confirm commitments with everyone there, turned to Analisa and said "Will you get married?" and she said yes. So, in a nutshell, I proposed to a girl and she said yes. And my companion proposed to a man...

       Fine, due to popular request, here is a dope spiritual experience. Last week, when I was still with Elder Webb, we were walking on the road and I said "I would kill someone to just get an investigator who actually understands what we are teaching." So we decided to knock on the door of a lady that nicely said hi to us on the street (that doesnt happen very often). She opened the door and said "oh come in! come in!" but we couldn't because she was alone in her house. She said "wait one second" and she ran inside her house and ran back out with her jacket on and said "Ready." So Elder Webb and I looked at each other and communicated telepathically (good companions can do this) "this lady is awesome!" After we talked to her a little bit, we found out that she had once talked to missionaries before but told them that she wasnt interested because she was jehovahs witness or something and they just gave her a pamphlet on the restoration. Then, a year later , she had cancer in her throat (6 months ago) and had to be in the hospital for 7 days to get it removed. For whatever reason, she accidently brought the pamphlet with her and because she didnt have a lot to do she read it. Then she decided to read it every night before she went to bed and kept it under her pillow because she loved how she felt when she read it. Then one thing lead to another and we are teaching her now.  She

wants to get baptized! 

       Thats all you get, 

           Love, 

             Elder Evans

Week 11

Dearest Familia y Amigos

            It has been a very crazy week in Argentina! and guess what!? I went on divisions again! And was the elder normal?! Of Course Not!! He was some guy from Bolivia who didn't like to say anything to me but, "Elder Eevvvvvaaaaannnns....... Elder Evvvvvvvaaaannnnnsss es me amigo.." Over and over again. He took 3 naps for a grand total of 3 1/2 hours when I was with him. We are not even supposed to take a 20 minute nap! Even better, I found out that tomorrow I will probably be on divisions with the Zone Leader that loves to put me out of my comfort zone and thinks that I am not trying hard enough. But if there is one thing that I have learned so far in this mission, is to have no fear when talking to someone. So I'll just tell the elder what I think about him... I'm Kidding of course. Maybe.

               In sadder news, Elder Andersen, the elder from the mtc and who has been in my zone here, went home friday. I actually saw him every week at our district/zone meetings and he wasnt doing so well. He never helped his companion teach and pretty much never said anything to anyone in spanish. He and his latin companion could not get along too, which was sad because his companion is awesome. In a weird way, I will miss the big guy.

              We're still meeting very interesting people here, the other day we were talking to a lady and she said that she really needed help and peace. So we asked her what was bothering her and she said people were physically hurting her. So then we got all worried and asked her who was hurting her and she said she didn't know, thats why she needed help. (yes I know that was a giant run-on-sentance) Then we realized that she was crazy. We also taught a homosexual man yesterday who has two kids. He is awesome and loves what we taught him.

            We have two good families we are teachng right now that are great. I'm really starting to actually understand people now. I dont get every word but I get the gist. Now I just need to get better at speaking. I almost hope that my next companion is Latin so that I am forced to speak more spanish.
            

     Love Elder Evans

Week 10....Another Week in Paradise

Dear Padres y amigos

       Its finally starting to calm down a bit for me in the fabulous country that is Argentina. I'm starting to get into the routine and thats kind of nice. I am starting to understand the people a lot more, except for the ones with no teeth, which is far too many. I am actually contributing to lessons now, before I just prayed and bore my testimony and now I actually teach stuff.

       Now that I have a little less to talk about, I actually can answer your questions and stuff. 

1. I don't know what my favorite scripture is, I'll think of one this week.

2. My apartment: It's a three bedroom, 1 bath apartment with a little kitchen and laundry room. The living room is a good size and we dont have couches or nothin', just padded metal chairs that we stole from the church. Its nice but super dirty. However everything here is dirty, so its not abnormal. I have to wear shoes constantly or I will get some crazy foot fungal disease and grow an extra leg or something (which is not necessarily a bad thing). I miss carpet and walking around barefoot.

     The laundry situation kind of sucks, we dont actually have a washing machine, its just a glorified plastic barrel that turns the clothes in water. Then we put the clothes in this spiny thing that spins super fast to get the extra water out. So essentially together it makes a crapy washing machine. I never realized how much I could miss something that washes clothes! And heaven forbid that anybody in Argentina has a dryer. Not even the rich have dryers, they'll drive an audi and still hang their clothes to dry.

3. I do door approaches sometimes, but I really suck at them and I prefer to just talk to people on the street.      

4. Our Investigators are good but wont freaking come to church. Argentines are the laziest people on earth.

5. Im having lots of fun, its just a little hard every once and a while.

6. Tell Michael to email me

7. Its real cold and windy

8. Yah put some pictures on that package.  Also, I have heard that packages from Canada come a lot faster and easier, so thats something to think about.

The Argentines still continue to crack me up. On Thursday, I saw two drunk guys crash on their motor scooter at 7 o'clock at night. Nothing like a drunken Thursday night joy ride to undwind a bit. People still dont know where I am from, I'm just some alien who speaks bad spanish. I am the only red head I have seen since I arrived, but its cool cause little kids are fascinated by it and my blue eyes, those don't really happen here either. It 'twas a good week though I'm not complaining!
 

Love,

Elder Evans

Week 8 & 9

¡Hola Familia y Amigos! 

        Dang Germany, beating my country. Apparently it was a pretty good game, although I wouldnt know, I couldn´t watch it. Argentine people are nuts. Anytime Argentina scores a goal or gets scored on, you know. The entire city rumbles with screaming, car horns, and drums. After Argentina beat the netherlands in the semi-finals. the town went nuts. The entire town ran, biked, drove, and probably drunkenly stumbled to the center of town to rabidly scream at each other in beautiful chaotic harmony. Man, I love these people.

            My spanish is going very well. They say I speak very well for the amount of time I´ve been here, which is super awesome. Unfortunately it is a gift and a curse because when they think I can speak well, they think I can understand well, which I most certainly cannot. I still just hear "Shama shavar esha shamalama shim-sham-flam-wam shamtastic shimy sham" (trying saying that out loud.) I am fairly certain that these people go out of their way to find words with the "sh" sound in it. The sad thing is that I can understand the native missionaries from other countries, just not the one I'm in. Oh well, I'll get it eventually. 

            Right now we have 4 really promising investigators. A 24 year old girl named Yohanna (pronounced SHow-ana, I know, I don't understand either) and this awesome family. I helped teach a bunch in lessons and in contacting but I rarely understand what they say back to me, unless it is a short sentance. 

             Here, they don't love Americans a ton, they call us Shonkies (Yankies.) The mentality here is that America just goes around and bomb stuff we don't like, which isn´t entirely false, I guess. Luckily for me, nobody thinks I'm from the states. I've been asked if I'm from the netherlands, belguim and a couple days ago, after the semi-finals game, some people drove by and started yelling "down with england!" at me in spanish, so that's pretty funny. They really hate England, because of the whole falkland war thing. Yesterday after the game, people kept saying "son alemanies?" (are you germans?) and then we´d wave our blue ties and say no. That was fun. 

           My zone is pretty cool but I'm not really a huge fan of the zone leaders. They're kind of over enthusiastic. For whatever reason, the Elders in my zone find it necessary to constantly put their arms around  me. Everytime I walk in to a meeting within seconds some Elder has got their arm around me saying "Elder! Coma Esta!? Todo Bien!?" like I'm a five year old. We're even all pretty much the same age. I think I'm going to put a tazer on my shoulder. Then it will be "Oh elder, coma estahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!" then I will laugh triumphantly but say nothing because I still can't speak spanish.

            Every thing is good here. I like it but it sure is ugly.

Mom and Dad:

Foods good, but not that good

I still can´t speak spanish

Packages go to the main office in Bahia

I can't really send pictures because I dont have enough time to load them.

The wards super nice and I like them all

I also might spend a little bit of money soon to buy me an argentine jersey

Could you get megan to get Mr. Mason's email for me?

Jackets fine

Love

Elder Evans

I can't remember if I told you but I got head-butted by a blind dog trying to bite me the other day. It was super funny.

Love

Me

Dear Familia,

        Another week in the beautiful paradise that is Santa Rosa. I saw a bunch of adorable puppies eating half of a cat yesterday. It doesn't get much better than this! It's been a weird week, they've sent me on divisions with everyone and their mother. I've been with both of the zone leaders, one I love to death and the other I can't stand, then some chiliaen from my district and a Elder Chandler from Las Vegas. My divisions with the zone leader I'm not a huge fan of, felt like forever. He believes the only reason that I can't speak spanish yet is because I'm not trying hard enoguh. So in lessons, he kept putting me in super weird positions without any kind of warning and then he wouldn't help get out of them. Luckily, I prayed for relief and Heavenly Father sent some in the form of hidden cheese (he is lactose intolerant). We were eating lunch with some members and I thought the noodles had butter all over them but it was tons of cheese, so needless to say I died. However, I didn't have to work with Elder Rodriguez for the rest of the day because I was dying. I regret nothing.

         One of the other Elders I was put with was so awkward it was funny. He has been on his mission for over 6 months now, but he can barely speak spanish. So then people think that he is brand new. Besides this, he is really bad with people. Every house we went to goes like this:

(imagine with lots of awkward spaces)

Elder C: Hola, Coma esta? (how are you)

Person: Hola... bien... (well)

E.C.: Todo bien? (everything is well?)

Person: ugh... si...

E.C: Somos missionarios ...( blah blah, something no one can understand)

Person: Como? (what)

E.C: Como? 

Person: Como?

E.C: Que? (what also)

Door Slams.

It was pretty funny but it may have been the longest day of my life.

       I've actually started contacting now and I understand what they are saying most of the time, unless they say more than a sentence, in which case I am usually doomed. The other day we gave a little lesson to Sadam Hussein look alike and it was nice. The best part about our sadam hussien look alike is that he speaks the most awful spanish ever. It sounds like a mixture of yelling, crying, growling, and someone messing with the volume control. Elder Webb says that even Argentines have a hard time understanding him. 

        I'm having a grand ol' time here! Its hard but I'm fine with it. We teach lessons every day but lately all of our investigators have just started ignoring us and won't answer their doors or talk to us. Elder Webb says Argentines are quite lazy and from what I've seen, I agree. So then its hard to get them to commit to anything. If I had a dollar everytime we taught the first lesson, Id be a rich man. 

Mom: I show our family picture to all the members and they think you and dad are super young. Then they don't believe me when I tell them how old you actually are (32, right?) So way to go, you are angering and impressing women on a different continent. Also packages take like 2 months to get here, so if you want to send one every once in a while, that be great. 

Dad: You would die here. I have never seen such awful teeth in all my life. More than half of the people have missing teeth or just straight black teeth. So then it makes it million times harder to understand what the heck they are saying. They don't care though, as long as they have their scooters and mullets, they are good.

Megan: One of the other Elders, a mexican, saw a picture of you and said you were pretty. After I beat him to a pulp, I told him you would appreciate the compliment.

Sam: Did you send these children a message or something! Because every kid here want to beat me up. I've been punched, kicked, bitten, stabbed, shot, scratched, and tackled so many times already and I feel like you are behind this....

Love,

Elder Evans

Week 7...arrived in Argentina!

Hola Familia y Amigos!

          I´m in Argentina right now, thats super crazy. At this very moment I am sitting between an argentine teenager who keeps trying to pop a pimple on his arm and my companion, Elder Webb, in some cyber cafe in downtown Santa Rosa. I am currently assigned to serve in Barrio 3 of Santa Rosa, which is some minor city in the middle of no where in the north west of my mission. This is definetly a different country. I would like to describe Santo Rosa as a cross between mexico, a little bit of europe, and a large poop. Not that I don´t love it here, the people are awesome and I´m having a great time but mmmaannn this place is very very ugly. Argentines here have a lot of standards but infrastructure is not one of them. The houses are just cement boxes and and the insides are have no rhyme or reason to their decorating. I like to think that when they want to spruce up the room, they think "This (insert random decoration here) is nice, I think it is beautiful. I am going to put this next to twenty other unrelated beautiful things on this cupboard in a unorganized pile, or maybe I will hang it on the wall in a wierd place. That would look nice." The people are very intersesting here and this is one of the poorest, if not the poorest part of my mission. (The kid sitting next to me just started yelling at his video game.) The people live in pretty much squalor, but then they go and buy a flat screen tv, I have no idea how that works. Despite all of this, I love it here and the guachos (look it up on google images) are so cool.

              My companion, Elder Webb, is the bomb. He calls me "Hijo" which means son. He is from gilbert arizona and has about a year of his mission done. Luckily he is fluent in spanish because I am not. It turns out that we learned a mexican spanish at the mtc, which would be fine but here they speak a lot differently. In other spanish countries, the letters Y and LL make a ja sound, but here they make a "sh" sound. You wouldn´t think that makes much of a difference, but oh, it does. When people talk, I hear "aSHo aoSHo aSHo SH SH SH SH!" Its not spanish, I swear. I manage to understand what they are saying when talking about gospel things, but other than that, I get nothing. Luckily Elder Webb helps me out a ton. So far I have testified to a couple people about what we´re saying and also prayed a whole ton, but next week, I am going to start helping teach lessons.

               Its not really dangerous here, we´re almost always home by 9. The only thing we have to watch for is chorros (no, not the delicous treat) who are just drunks who sit on the corner and drink and occasionaly break into houses, but they never really give us trouble, just swear at us a bit. The crazy part is the amount of dogs they have here, every single house has a terrifiying dog in front of it to keep out the chorros. On top of that, these dogs aren´t spayed or nuetered so the amount of strays is ridicoulous. If I had a dollar for every time I have been barked at so far, I´d be very rich. Some times the strays like to follow us around and then we form a pack until they get chased away by the other dogs whose territories we walk in.

          

 I ran our of time becuase I thought we had more than an hour! Sorry!

I love you all and I will wçdo better next monday

 

Love Elder Evans,

 

p.s. Mom the packages do work, so maybe try to send something as a test, like jelly bellies and sour patch kids haha

Week 6...last email from the United States

¿Que tal mi familia?

ESTOY LISTO SALIR pero, no quiero salir tampoco. ¿Por que es español muy difícil? Yo no se. I am soooo sick of the CCM, you have no idea. I just want to get it over with and head out to Argentina, but at the same time I really don´t want to leave my safe little bubble. Oh well. 

       This week has been pretty boring. The only cool thing is that on Tuesday, almost the entire 12 apostles and 1st presidency were here. I got to see Elders Bednar, Ballard, Nelson, Anderson, Oaks, and Cristofferson and the seven presidents of the quorums of the seventies all in the same room! Elder Cristofferson talked at our devotional and it was super good. I can´t actually really remember what he talked about, but I remember I liked it. I don't know if I told you but we sing in the choir every week and this week I was shown on the big screen like 5 times. So all those apostles and every missionary in every other MTC saw my beautiful face.

       Remember my roommate Elder Andersen? I've got a great story about him. Elder Andersen likes to be self righteous and loves to tell Elder Giliam and I that we need to act more like missionaries. He tells on us to the branch president for every little thing.  So we have some friends from another zone that we really like (one of them I'm going to probably room with at BYU-I) and they love to mess with us. We had just come home from class for the night and Elder Andersen got into the shower. Right after he got in the elders from the other zone came in and we were talking. Then one of the elders decided to scare elder andersen, so he banged on the bathroom door really loud. We then heard "WHAT THE "bleep" ARE YOU DOING!" screaming from Andersen. Needless to say, Elder Giliam, the other elders, and I ran out the door to their apartment across the street. We were laughing so very hard. We then looked out window and saw Elder Andersen across the street, through the window, barricading the door with couches. Finally, when we went back to the room we pushed open the door and he was sitting there with the iron (yes, the hot one that makes clothes straight), waiting for us. He started yelling. So then I got mad and started going into my sarcastic super, mean way like Dad did with that guy at the airport shuttle in France.  Not my proudest moment though. He got super mad and left because I was making fun of him. Then the next day he just pretended like it never happened What a crazy kid. I promise everybody else at the CCM is pretty normal though. 

         I'm so excited to get out of here, I want to eat something different then the same thing every week. I'm also excited to call, that will be nice. Also, Mom, I used a pay phone so I'm pretty sure you can't call me back. And, yes I got the package, thank you! but I may need to buy a better jacket when I get there. The one we got doesn't seem very warm. If you could make sure I have about 250 on my card that would be fantastic, I just want to be sure I have a lot when I travel. I will get charged $100 for my second suitcase but the mission president will reimburse me when I get there.

        Tell Grandma thank you for the cookies, I loved them and so did my zone!

Also tell Sarah for the cookies and goldfish, I had a real hankering for some of that cheddar gold. I also love the clay Argentina flag. As soon as I can find something to tie it to, I will!

Don´t Cry for me Argentina

Con mucha amor,

Elder Evans