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