Oh How Beautiful To My Eyes!!!!!

July 20, 2015

Hola familia!!!

Wow! Rain in San Diego in July? That's awesome! It's like you guys are in Chile or something... haha!!!

 

This week just flew right by but it was a great one! First we started the week off with a great miracle. All our appointments were on Tuesday night. So, my companion and I were walking around outside, it was freezing and no one was home. No menos activos, investigadores, or future investigadores! We just got to a point where we had an hour left before we had to be back in our apartment, and we had no clue where we should be. We just wanted to teach! So we were like well we could go contact this neighborhood of houses where we don't have anyone. (We tried contacting there before but hadn't had any luck and we didn't want to walk all the way over there to have no luck again and have it be a waste of time), so we decided to pray about it and see where God needed us to be.  So we prayed and then we just stood there and thought and I just then had the thought that I should look at my agenda  book and see what we had planned for that time of night. We had planned to pass by a future guy who lived in the other direction so we went looking for his street. We couldn't find it so then we looked again at the agenda and decided to go find another future investigor that we had planned for (which took us to another neighborhood) but they weren't home either so we decided to just contact the house next door with a light. A very nice lady answered and we were able to put an appointment with her for another day. So by this point we only had about 15 minutes before it was time to head home so we contacted another house with lights. As we were 'yelling' outside a car pulls up, which is always kinda awkward.... but the guy was really nice. Then his wife came out and we explained to them who we were and what we do and she says, ' oh you talk about God! I love talking about God! It makes me feel so good! Come in!!' So we go in, teach really quick about the Book of Mormon, clear up some untrue thoughts they had about the church, say a closing prayer and the couple became new investigadores! It was crazy! Like literally we had prayed to be able to find someone to teach and God gave us 2! BUT, He sent us on a little goose chase in the other area, which led us to another future lady, so we could arrive just in time to find the couple together! The timing could not have been more perfect! Such a great, great miracle!

 

Then another day of the same, no one being home, so we were just street contacting and I contacted this girl and she was like wait, I´m looking for a church to go to, can I go to your church?? She didn´t end up living in our sector but we gave her the direction of the church and told her she was always welcome. It was just awesome because after a lot of rejection it was just great to see that someone actually cared about God in their life. Also it was nice to be on the other side of the invitation for church and have someone asking US if she could go, instead of the other way around!

 

This week we also had our zone conference with our new mission president and his wife. They are so awesome! It was a lot different from Pres. Kahnlein but not bad different or good different, just different. He´s a convert to the church and was just over all the seminary and institute and he is an awesome teacher. He just gets so excited about it all. He talked about turning principles of the gospel into values in our life, and how to do it. He said first you have to know the principle or be familiar with it, then you have to apply it or live it, so then you can feel it and it becomes a part of who you are. I really liked that. 

 

Also... funny story. We were walking down the street and there was a dad who was trying to calm his little girl in their yard as we were passing. I happened to have my hair in a braid and he goes, 'look honey, the princess from frozen! I haven´t seen that movie but I´ve seen a picture of the princess with the blonde hair and EVERYONE here tells me I look like her! haha. Also on Sunday a little girl tapped me on the shoulder from behind and gave me a sticker with the frozen girl on it!  hahah!  So those are the highlights of the week....

 

Yes, the rumor is true, turns out this will be my last email home. How weird is that???? I mean unless President Monson receives the revelation that girls can have the option to extend for the full 2 years (He´s still got a week to receive that, so fingers crossed!) 

 

One of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon has come to be Mosiah 18. I just love how the people after listening to the teaching of Alma clap their hands with joy due to their great joy and desire to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized and how thousands are baptized there in the waters of Mormon. (I wish people reacted the same here).... But the part I love is verse 30 where it says 'how beautiful the waters of Mormon are to those who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer'. It makes me think, what are my waters of Mormon like? Well mine is actually really large. In one part there´s lots of yellow and green countryside with small dirt passages and there happens to grow the most delicious tomatoes and lots of avocados. In the other part, it´s filled with steep hills and the houses are supported up by tall skinny posts. And, as you climb those hills, just as you think you are about to die of exhaustion, you turn around and there is a sparkling view of the sea. There also happens to be lots of fleas and lots of dogs, but... the bread is always delicious!!! And oh, how beautiful it all is to my eyes for HERE I´ve come to the knowledge of my Redeemer. Mission Viña del Mar is my waters of Mormon!

 

The mission has not only been the best decision of my life, but for my life. It still hasn´t hit me that it´s winding down. For all I know, I'm just going to stay a missionary in Chile for the rest of my life. (haha I bet you´d love that mom ;) ) I know there will come a time though, very soon, where I´m just going to cry. Really hard. But really, you know, I´m ok with it ending. I just have this sense of peace about it.  I feel I´m exactly where I should be at this point in my life. I get that life has to go on and that the purpose of this life is to progress to become more like God and you just can´t reach your full purpose in the mission. I´m so grateful for all I've learned and for the goals and perspective I now have. I´m excited to be able to put it all in practice for the rest of my life.

 

I can never begin to express what it means to me to be a missionary of Jesus Christ.  And while I love, love, love being a missionary, I´m even more grateful to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ because that doesn´t have an 18 month time stamp. I´m so grateful for the promises and covenants that I´ve made with God and Jesus Christ in my baptism and in the temple for I know those are eternal and are what bind my heart to my Heavenly Father and my Savior. I know that Christ's church was restored through Joseph Smith and is true. It´s true! It´s so true! I cannot emphasize it enough. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know that the heavens are not closed, but there are blessings being poured out of them every day, every minute, to those that love God and do His will. I know and put 100 percent of my confidence in the promise at the end of the Book of Mormon. Any person, where ever they are can pray and ask God if that book is true and if they do it sincerely, they WILL receive an answer. To know that book is true is to know that the gospel of Jesus Christ HAS been restored and is here on the Earth today. I have seen so many people receive that answer. I myself have received my own answer. I have worn my badge with the name of Jesus Christ over my heart for sufficient time that even when they take it off of me, it will be engraved there in my heart forever. I love my Savior. He lives. 

I love you guys so much. I can´t express my love and appreciation for your support and sacrifice for me to be here and have this wonderful experience. Thank you! and.... see you soon, I guess? haha weird! 

Con todo el amor en mi corazón, 

HERMANA EVANS

Do You Guys Ever Get Sad???

July 13, 2015

 

 

Hola!! ¿Que tal? ¿Que pasa? ¿Como estai? So somehow the week just flew by and I am sitting here in this cyber again! I dont´ even know how that happens. Somehow 6 days fit into a blink of an eye now. I don´t really understand that. 

 

We had a great week. Especially because we found people to teach this week that aren´t adolescent boys!!!!!!!!!!! YES!

 

So at the beginning of the week we found Pricilia, who is just amazing! She lives with her boyfriend, but none the less AMAZING!!! We had a SUPER como comenzar with her! Como comenzar is like the first lesson you have with someone where you explain your purpose, what we teach, and usually give them the Book of Mormon with the challenge to read a little and then pray. But in her 'co-co' we literally taught something from every single lesson! She just had so many questions that moved the conversation along in a way that it all just flowed together and she learned a lot! The best part was when she says, " I just don't like other religions that decide to put their own rules on people and don´t just leave it with God´s rules, like there´s this one religion that I heard that doesn´t let the people drink coffee! Can you believe that?!"  hahahaha and then she stopped and looked at us and was like wait that´s not you guys is it? And we were like yes! That´s us! But then we taught the word of wisdom really quickly and simply and she says, ' oh well that totally makes sense.'  haha it was great. We invited her to be baptized and she said, ' no I´m just not ready but maybe in the future.

 

Then we went back and visited her the next day and she said she had called her boyfriend after we had left and told him about the visit and he wants us to come by when he´s home (he works 12 days away from the house and then is home for 12 days) and she also said, 'it was really cool, after you guys left, there was this peaceful feeling that stayed in the house. I really like when you guys come.' We told her that peaceful feeling is the spirit!! And that´s what you feel when something is directly from God and how you can know something is true! And she said, ' oh that´s so cool.'  Then we taught her the plan of salvation and she just loved it and wants to go to the celestial kingdom. I mean who wouldn´t want to go there right? We tried inviting her to be baptized again but she still wouldn´t accept a date. AH!... It was weird she went off about how she thinks reincarnation is a thing and we were like BUT THE PLAN! Look at the plan! And she says, ' oh right'.... I really don´t know how we managed to walk out of there without her accepting a baptismal date.. but she´s not married for the time being so I guess it´s ok, but I´m really excited about her! She´s just so awesome!

 

Then we were teaching another one of our investigdores that we found a few weeks back named Yorma. And we taught her about the restoration of the gospel and at the end we shared our testimonies of the Book of Mormon and afterward it was so cute she just goes, ¨Do you guys ever feel sad? Like do you feel pains and sorrows?¨And we said, well yeah of course! We´re still human. And she was like oh well it´s just one of those things you have to ask because you guys just radiate this happiness and this confidence that I just thought you guys don´t even feel sad. It was really humbling having someone tells us that. And it´s just proof that the gospel is what will bring any person that truly lives it true happiness. Because obviously we feel lots of sadness. We get rejected every day, people tell us to go take a long walk off a short pier all the time. They give us a wrong address. They aren´t there for the appointments they don´t read the Book of Mormon, the place that sells the best completos is always closed when we decide to eat one..... Like lots of sad things. But the gospel can give us a perspective that reaches WAY beyond the disappointment of the moment. That outweighs the pains and sorrows of living in a very imperfect and unfair world. The gospel not only tells us that it´s all going to be ok in the end but it gives us the tools and experiences we need to let those bad moments and hard times make us become better and stronger people. In the best of times and the worst of times we have an anchor of faith and a surety of hope, that we have a Savior who knows us and loves us. We know why we are here and where we are going. We have scriptures full of faithful people who have a lot of problems and what they did to overcome them. We have prayer which is always available, 24/7. We have the Holy Ghost that gives us a peace that just tells us it´ll be ok. So for that, we can feel sad but sadness is not something that will define us. It something that helps us appreciate all the good that there is. I´m so grateful for the gospel and I´m so grateful for the true happiness that it fills my life everyday.

 

The other day we also had an interesting experience. We found a menos activo de mucho tiempo and we asked him if he still had his Book of Mormon. He goes off on a rant about how only the Bible is the word of God and how the Book of Mormon is a dead book. I don't know what happened but it felt really good how I was able to control the wrath I felt in my heart when he said libro muerto and use it to calmly but firmly tell him that the Book of Mormon is not a dead book. In fact it is filled with a living and real promise that we can read it and then ask God if it is a true book. And how God always will keep is promises and always respond to his children that truly search for answers and then I quoted the scripture in the Bible that, ask and you will receive, knock and it will be answered. And how I knew that promise is true and it is a living book because I have read it and prayed and asked God. And his face changed and he accepted the Book of Mormon and said that he would read it when seconds before he was totally hating on the book. It´s so cool to see the spirit work his magic and soften people´s hearts. I really hope that he will read it and pray about it like he said he would because I know that he can receive an answer that will change his life and only make sweeter everything he´s read in the Bible and loves about Jesus.

 

Last Sunday, as a country of Chile we all did a fast for rain because well we need it REALLY bad. The area presidency asked that all members fast specifically for rain here. I´m more in the north now and so here it´s especially harder for it to rain. I was actually way happy that I got to spend the Winter here because I´m not down for rain as a missionary. But last Sunday we fasted for rain. And yesterday it rained! The ayuno worked!!! But this is the best part... It started raining hard when Sacrament meeting started. Then a member drove us to lunch so we didn´t have to walk in the rain and get really wet. Right as lunch ended, it stopped raining so we could walk around and stay dry. Then as we came in for the night, it started raining again really hard. It´s like God not only answered the fervent prayers and fasts of the Chileans but was also mindful of our missionary schedule! SO COOL.!!!!!!!!!

 

Ok one last story before my time runs out... We found a family this week! a couple (AND THEY ARE MARRIED!!!) and they have 3 little girls. We taught them lesson 1 and I´ve never seen someone so excited to receive a Book of Mormon as the husband was! It was awesome and they accepted a baptismal date for the 25th! But then they didn´t come to church because it was cold and rainy-ish so that date fell through.... But then we read with them yesterday in the Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 31 and talked about why baptism is important for the family and they loved it!  They accepted another baptismal date for in August. But it´s so cool to be able to teach a couple together! You can just see that they want the very best for their daughters and they are willing to read and pray and look for answers. The husband works all during the week so we can only teach them on weekends but I really hope they read the Book of Mormon this week and pray and can recognize the spirit telling them it´s true so they can be an eternal family!!!!!!! 

 

Well that´s all that time allows for this week but I know that good things are about to happen here in Sindempart. I know that the spirit is preparing people to receive the gospel and I know that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that His authority was restored and exists and is here in this church. I know that God listens to our fasts and prayers and is always there to help and comfort.

 

Con todo el amor en mi corazon, 

HErmana Evans

Chile Campeon De America

July 6, 2015

 

Hola familia!!!

I hope my email finds you guys well. This week just flew by so I can barely remember what happened.

 

This was our first week with our new mission president, President Diaz. I haven´t met him yet but I´m excited to!

 

This past weekend was full of weird days for us haha. On Saturday we had a wedding in our church. A couple that the elders are teaching got married on Saturday so the husband could get baptized on Sunday! So I was asked to play piano for the wedding. It made me laugh, the songs that the bride wanted to be played were öh esta todo bien¨ (All is Well (?) The classic pioneer hymn), I Stand All Amazed, and Nearer My God To Thee. The pioneer one just was random but I mean it´s her day right? So that was fun. It´s weird seeing a civil marriage. It makes me a little sad hearing it because I know that there is so much more when we get married in the temple, but that´s their goal so that´s awesome!

 

ALSO Saturday was the fourth of July!!! YAY AMERICA!! And I probably celebrated it in the most un-American way ever because Saturday was also the finals of the American Cup and Chile was playing against Argentina in the FINALS! Chile is not the best soccer team so everyone was way pumped that they made it all the way to the finals. AND our new president of the mission, being the true blooded Chilean that he is, gave us permission to watch it in the house of one of  the ward leaders so we got to go! And CHILE WON!!!!!! It was crazy! It came back to a goal off in overtime and we won 3-2! The first time in history that Chile has won the Copa America! But then we had to keep working for the last hour of the day and everyone was in the streets making as much noise as possible and celebrating. I wanted to invite someone to be baptized right on the spot because they were all so happy that I was sure that they would say yes to anything but my plan unfortunately didn´t work out....

 

The work here in Sindempart keeps on going. It´s slow here though.. The sector that we have is HUGE. I think it might be my biggest yet so we lose time walking and there is not always people in the street to contact. Our main investigadors are 10 year old boys whose mom´s aren´t ready to give permission for them to get baptized. We find great people but then they are never home again. I´m trying SO hard to find people to get baptized before I leave but it seems the Lord might have different plans. It´s like everything is perfect on paper but it just isn´t working out in reality. Don´t get me wrong, I´m definitely not discouraged. We work hard and do all we can so I sleep well at night. It´s just sad because I want these people so bad to get baptized because it´s going to help them and I see them know that it´s true and that they have even received answers!

 

It was way cute though, ok so cute may not be the right word .... so we have an investigador Diego who´s 23 years old. He has come to church 6 times but is scared of commitment. Anyway we´d left him because he wasn´t progressing but we stopped by this week to see how he was doing. Turns out he´s been reading the Book of Mormon everyday and praying on his own to find answers. His question is not if the Book of Mormon is true or if José Smith is a prophet but it´s that he takes pills everyday to help him control his temper and calm him down and he wants to know if it's against the word of wisdom to take marijuana instead of his pills. hahaha it made me smile because he was like I just want to find where it says that it´s ok. We explained the word of wisdom better to him though (thank goodness he never came across the scripture in Alma that talks about the good quality of herbs that helped heal their illnesses...) BUT Diego was using the Book of Mormon as a source of answers AND he´s quit smoking AND he said that he´s seen a difference in his health. AH! Real life blessings right there for being obedient. But he won´t accept a baptism date. We  have an awesomely spiritual lesson planned so I really hope he´ll be able to recognize the spirit and have a change of heart. He´s a good kid, the gospel will help him be even better.

 

Yesterday in testimony meeting at church, a little boy in our ward got up and bore his testimony. It was the basic cute little kid testimony and then he said something that caught my attention. He said how he loved everyone in the ward and that he was willing to give his life for them. Wow, that hit me. This 10 year old was willing to give his life for the people in his ward. I thought how many people would be that willing? And I thought of One. One who was that willing. One that actually did give His life for every single one of us. Because he loves us that much. Because He knew that giving anything less than His life would have made any thing we tried to do or sacrifice meaningless. What willingness. What sacrifice. 

Then we had an awesome lesson in our gospel principles class about sacrifice. They were talking about the qualities of the lamb that they would sacrifice in olden times. How they had to wait until it was an adult and fat and it couldn´t have any stains and all that. The teacher made the point that all that took TIME because it had to be PREPARED: That was part of the reason Jesus got so mad at the people selling animals for sacrifices in the temple. Because people would go and buy the lamb and sacrifice it, skipping the whole time and preparation part of the sacrifice, losing that whole part. The Lord requires of us our time and preparation. It´s through the time we take and sacrifice that we become changed and that we can become better. It´s the time that makes it a true sacrifice. It was a good lesson to hear while we were fasting.

 

Well that was basically the highlights of this week. I´m really excited for this coming week to find people (preferably that don´t need their mom´s permission to get baptized..) and miracles. I know that they are there, waiting for us! 

 

Hope you all have a great week!!  Love you!

 

con todo el amor en mi corazon, 

Hermana

Convinced or Converted???

June 29, 2015

 

Hellloooo my family!!! 

 

This week was awesome. I really do like my new area. It´s super big so we walk a lot but it´s really tranquilo. It´s super quiet and chill. Except when Chile is playing in the Copa America (American Cup?) But I´m pretty sure the whole country is going crazy so it´s fine. Chile plays tonight so keep us in your prayers that we will find SOMEONE who´s not into futbol and will let us into their warm home. I have high faith that we WILL find someone of gold tonight. CHI CHI CHI LE LE LE VIVA CHILE! 

 

This week in a lunch we had with a member she said something really interesting that´s been dancing around in my head. As missionaries we are always teaching right now about the Dia de Reposo or Sabbath Day. So the scripture we shared after lunch with this Hermana was about keeping the Sabbath day holy. She´s been a member for like 30 years now and raised her children in the church and she is one of the most faithful members here in Sindempart. And she goes ¨You know what? What I´ve seen in my years in the church is just that most people are just convinced while only a few are really converted. That a lot of people like the church and the teachings and how it´s all about the family but then something happens, I don´t know, they get offended or it´s a cold Sunday morning or who knows what, and suddenly all that seemed so nice and pretty isn´t what is the most important in their life. It´s a side note". She said if we  really are converted we´re going to sacrifice and we´re going to do all we can to put Jesus Christ and the truth first. I really liked what she said. It made me think am I really converted or just convinced? Do I get up and go to church every Sunday because I´m a missionary and it´s just part of the schedule or because I really want to go to church and participate in the sacrament and keep the Sabbath day holy? Do I keep the convenient commandments and make exceptions for the others or do I truly obey out of the love I have for God and for my Savior? Do I like being obedient? Or is it an annoyance?  Am I like the people of King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon and really don´t have the desire to do bad, but to do good continually? Or is there something that I shouldn´t do but still do? Am I only convinced or am I converted? What´s the difference? I think it all comes down to our testimony. Do we have a surety, a firm conviction that THIS is the church of Jesus Christ? That God speaks to us now in this time and day? Have we read and prayed about the Book of Mormon until we got an answer? Do we hold tight to the spiritual experiences we´ve had? Do our actions reflect our love for God? Being converted to the gospel does not mean having a perfect knowledge or living a perfect life. It does not mean standing up at church and bearing a general conference worthy testimony. It does not mean having perfect family home evenings and understanding all of the scriptures. It does not even mean filling the spirit really strong all the time. Being converted is simply doing the little things constantly. Reading our scriptures, saying our prayers and going to church. It means striving to be obedient and keeping our covenants. It means becoming really good at repenting really fast. It means living gratefully. If we just do the little things we can cross over the border from being a convicted member to being a converted member so that we too can stand alongside the people of King Benjamin with the disposition to do good continually.....

 

I am also really grateful for the opportunity that I have to play piano in our ward. It´s weird how few people here know how to play piano, but there is always a piano in every church. So now I´m the new pianist and one thing I love about playing the piano is I get to sit in front of everyone so I can see who comes to church and who doesn´t without like awkwardly craning my neck in every direction to see if an investigador or someone came in late. So yesterday I was looking out at everyone during the sacrament and was looking for all our investigadores and street contacts that told us that they were sí o sí going to come. I got over a long time ago the street contacts not coming but I still get a little bummed when the good investigadors say they are going to come and then don´t. So yesterday as I was scanning the congregation I wasn´t seeing anyone. And then I noticed Ali. Ali, is one of our investigadors. He is 10 years old and usually he comes with his friend Nicolas, one of our other investigadores but yesterday he came by himself. I don´t know why but it filled my heart with so much joy to see him there. He was sitting on his little chair (there´s not benches in the church) alone, with his worn tennis shoes dangling a little above the ground. His hair was nicely combed and he had a cute little button up denim shirt and his soft cover Book of Mormon rested on his lap with his Jesus card sticking out the top marking the chapter he was reading. I noticed that there was a little, but good bit, of white between the dark cover and the Jesus card, meaning that he had been reading it. I just thought that was SO COOL. Lately I´ve been kinda stressed because our investigadors are all kids here. We´ve even fasted to find adult investigadors. But seeing Ali there at church alone just warmed my heart and the part in the bible when Christ invites the children to come to Him came to my mind. Is he just convinced or is he becoming converted? Time will tell but until then I´m just really grateful for the humble example of those dangling feet and combed hair.

 

So something funny that happened this week...... we found this new Mexican food place in our sector!! It´s been a longggg time since I've eaten Mexican food. So I ordered a chicken burrito and my companion ordered a chicken quesadilla. We take it to go and get home and unwrap it and it was exactly the same thing, but folded differently! hahaha we got a good laugh out of that. Chileans... Gotta love them.

 

Well that´s about it for this week! I love you all and hope you have a great week!!

 

Con todo el amor en mi corazon,
Hermana Evans

Samantha's new Mission President and his wife

Samantha's Mission President and his wife
saying good bye. They served for 3 years.