Week 18, pray for my brakes!!!

Dear Family and friends!

I had a good week, despite the cold. A lot of our appointments fell through this week which was very frustrating and makes diligence and hope more difficult, but I’m happy. I’m happy because I have so many things to be thankful for. I get to serve a mission for 2 full years. I’m privileged to learn Spanish during that time which many people wish they could do. I want to be fluent with it (meaning Dominican Spanish...which is very unique) by the end of my mission which I think is possible (only with lots of work). I am thankful that I get to serve in Lawrence, and get to learn how to cook interesting things like tostones and mangu. I get to have a great mission president, who I happen to have a lot of love and respect for. I get to exercise every morning and go to sleep every night (I’m not thankful for waking up!) I get to eat often (too often) and bike off some of the calories. We have a great set of members here in the ward and they are very kind to us. I get to see all kinds of miracles every day. Most importantly, I get to be closer to my Savior through His work.

I thought I’d let you know that I got hit by a car. I’m ok, no need to panic, but it happened to be a pretty big miracle. The driver asked to meet with us and the passenger was a less active that got baptized 7 months ago one state over and had moved into Lawrence (I don’t think it was a coincidence that she hit me on my bike). Like I said, I’m fine, but the front wheel of my bike died instantly, my rear brakes bled to death and died in the hospital the next day. I was able to put a new rim on the front and as for brakes…well…let’s hope I don’t get hit by another car! The front ones kinda work, but not very well, and I had to take the back ones off all together, because they were hitting the wheel as it rotated.

Sorry, it’s a short note this time! Hope all is well with everyone!

With Lots of Love,

--
-Elder Matthew D. Evans

Week 16 and 17

Dear Mom,

Thank you for writing me so consistantly. I’m always so excited to see an envolope in the mailbox. I keep every letter that I get from everyone and plan on making a book for them all once I get home. I can’t remember if I told you that I switched how I memorize scriptures. I made a spreadsheet that has squares numberd one through thirty and each block has 13 slots, ever day I add a scripture to the block that matches the day of the month and this is probably really boring for you to read…anyways, I’m memorizeing lots of scriptures in spanish and am excited about it. Another thing I’m excited about is learning how to be like Christ (I’m serious). You know how I love to be organized about everthing though…and…in Preach My Gospel, Ch. 6 at the very last page theres an activity to answer a bunch of questions on different Christ-Like attributes, and I’m going to make a spreadsheet and fill in my response each week(or transfer, I havn’t decided) to help me focus on changing throughout all of my mission. I feel as though I should first focus my efforts on patients, I’ve been very frustrated latly with the lack of obedience among missionary’s, it’s like “why are you here?” I need to be careful though and loving and not start any contentions. I’m loving my personal study time. I’ve been keeping a study journal and have learned so much more. I’ve also decided that my mini size scriptures are the way to go. I’m waiting on some covers, but I’ve put my big ones on the shelf, I never use them.

Something really cool happened at Church today! We had one of our investigators come whom I never thought would come to Church. We were teaching his girlfriend and her two children, but he was never interested in what we had to share, he was almost always drunk and would leave after we showed up. His girlfriend said he was getting very angry and was yelling at her often…needless to say, we didn’t focus on him, we focused on her. But one day he walked up to us while we were on the couch and said pointing to the couch, “I think I need to…” and that’s it, he’d just say that and point, so I thought he wanted us to move but he says, “no I think I need to…” and Elder Morales said in his thick guatomalen accentm, “do you want to meet with us?” and he started to cry, he told us his very sad life story starting with adoption and then foster homes eventualy jail, when he tried to look for his family he just found his mother was into hard drugs and the rest of his family was splintered and had there own problems, then he started talking about his problem with anger and finaly he said the magic words, “I want to change.” BOOM!!! I pulled out a Book of Mormon and tried to think of what the perfect scripture could be(usualy I can think of one on the spot) but I couldn’t think straight, it was like the Lord or the Adversary was blocking my thoughts, so I said a silent prayer to find the perfect scripture for this man at this time and it was like a light turned on. I turned to mosiah 5:2 and had him read it and find what made the people change, he started to cry and said it was the spirit. I gave my testimony of change and the atonement of Jesus Christ and enjoyed the sweet moment of the spirit teaching us all a valuble lesson on repentance. We’ve since gone back and he has been a perfect investigator. The questions he ask’s are the textbook examples of the questions our message answers. He's so commited right now, I really hope it sticks. I’m really excited to be a missionary!

I love you very much,

--
-Elder Matthew D. Evans

Week 15

Week 15

Dear Family and Friends,

Did you take the opportunity to watch General Conference? I loved watching it in the chapel, but nothing compares to sitting with grandpa and Uncle Steve (and Connie of course) in at Grandpa’s in Oregon and watching conference with those people I love and respect. Plus, afterwards we get to eat some of Melissa’s pies and I would get a chance to see uncle Kirk and go to the priesthood session with him. It would always set me up for my next six months of “conference talks study” (the most important study in the church!) It was my favorite holiday! That is one down side to being a missionary; I can’t listen to conference talks while I’m on my bike.L Another down side is that we cannot go to the temple until our last week in the mission.

I want to talk about my week but all I can think about is conference, it’s still fresh in my mind. I was thinking about it while I was running and forgot to review all the scriptures I’m trying to memorize. I’m so thankful for the sacrifices President Monson and the other general authorities make. They have so much to do in their lives, yet they take the time every six months to help us come closer to Christ as families and individuals. We are so indebted to them! They invite us to repent and receive more faith, hope and charity. Every conference (and especially this one) I leave with a mixed feeling from the Spirit. I feel edified, and enjoy the new understanding I receive, but also a little bad because that understanding is often focused on how I fall short of the Savior’s expectation for me, yet happy because I can improve and repent. I’ve learned to love repentance. Progression is sometimes hard, but it’s worth it. Just like in Elder Christopherson’s talk about the man who suffered through the winter and only remembered the sweet morning when he finally arrived at his camp.

Sometimes I think that I’m making big sacrifices as a missionary, such as not being able to spend time with you and not being able to take a day off or even sleep. But then I think of how much more difficult it is for my mission president, President Wilkey. He has taken two P-days since he’s come to the mission over a year ago (and they were short). We also had the privilege of a hearing a seventy at zone conference, Elder Grow, and I could quickly tell that Seventy’s have it even worse. Then I think of the life of an apostle, everybody wanting guidance from you as a representative of Jesus Christ, never getting a moment to yourself because you’ve given your life to the Savior and His Church on the earth today. When I think about President Monson my head just about explodes. Either he has a twin, or he’s a prophet of God, so much to do and never enough time, it gets stressful. Although I can understand how much the Lord would help him. When I was feeling stressed the Lord put me at the right place at the right time to be an influence for good in His name, and I realized I don’t need to worry about it at all. The Savior has it all under control; my stress was just a manifestation of my lack of faith. Since then I’ve been much more tranquil in the missionary lifestyle.

Well, I’ve completed my first in field transfer and have already started my second. My companion and I will stay in the same area together, but the threesome that was with us has been broken, and one of the Lawrance missionaries is being moved one city over (because he broke his wrist in a bike crash and needs to be in a car area, but also needs to stay close enough to his doctor) the area he is going to is in our district and we share a chapel, so we will see him often. It will be nice though having one less elder in that apartment (mornings are crazy!). I love you very much and am excited to see you again in a little more than 20 months.

Elder Matthew D. Evans

Week 14

Week 14

Dear Family,

Well, not much is changing for me; they days and weeks are all pretty similar. Not exactly the same, like they were in the MTC, but very similar. We’ve been doing a lot of biking in the rain, and my planner got wet and the covers tore off. I switched out the covers of a new planner and put tape all over them to protect it from the rain. I think I’ll do that each time, because your planner is so important, they call it “your girlfriend” and it’s so true, it would take so much work to get all that information back. My exercise has started to take too much time, I can’t do all the things I need to do in the morning. I want to work out, but I need hours to do all I want to do, not just thirty minutes. So I cut it down to running, one set of pull-ups and one set of pushups, but I might start doing an ab workout too, idk.

One thing that’s really cool that I just started doing yesterday is a system to memorize a scripture a day, but with retention. I wanted to do it at the start of my mission, but it takes a lot of time and I didn’t think it really helped me with my purpose, but then I realized I can memorize Spanish scriptures during language study time and that would totally help me with my purpose. The reason I want to do it so much is because I’ve been told that missionaries that do that end up with practically photographic memory by the end of their mission. What you do is start a scripture on say 9/26/2011, then you would review each day that week. Then you review it again every 26^th of every month for a year. And by then you should have it down perfectly. So the system builds up, you have your 7 scriptures from that week (one new one, and 6 review) plus potentially 12 others from the previous year, so up to 18 for review and on new one. I’m told it takes a lot of time, so I won’t be able to do it all during my language study time because I have other things I need to learn during that time, but I can finish it up during breakfast lunch dinner and while I’m getting ready for bed. I’m pretty excited about it right now, but maybe after a transfer I’ll just be sick of it.

The weather here is still (and always) awful. It’s not hot, but I still sweat all day on my bike. It can even be cold and I’ll get all sweaty. I told the bishop that the weather here isn’t very great and he laughed and said, “Well, you know what they say, if you don’t like the weather in New England, just wait a minute.” He’s a funny guy; I really like him and his wife. It’s so true though, it can do a lot of things in one day, rain, sun, wind, overcast, pouring rain, light drizzle, more sun, etc. but always sweaty, which is making me get lots of juicy pimples!

Also, we get fed like mad. Almost every day has like 3 dinners. Some from members and some from investigators. Everyone wants to feed the missionaries and they get hurt if you don’t eat a ton, so I’ve been packing on a winter coat. Another thing I learned is that peanut butter and jelly does not do anything to fill you up, but will make you very fat.

This is the last week of the transfer. I’m surprised at how fast it went by. Compared to the MTC I’m going like the speed of light. I do regret not appreciating the MTC. I could have made it so much better, but I can’t go back. If I had known that I wouldn’t have any time at all ever even on p-day to do the things that you can do in the MTC I would have treated it differently. Also, I wish I had adapted to an 8 hour a night sleep schedule before I came out here, so I could enjoy everything more. This week I fell asleep in church…woops…I think I’ll get used to it this upcoming transfer, but I don’t think I’ll feel rested for another six months. We’ll see. I love and miss you, keep watching movies because I can’t.

Love You Tons!!!

Elder Matthew D. Evans