The Best Dinner I`ve Ever Had in My Life

I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas! On Tuesday we had our mission Christmas conference and allllll the missionaries (about 200) in our mission came. It was suuuper awesome to see all the missionaries that I knew before like my original mission dad Elder Bianco! I`ll make sure to send a bunch of pictures. On Wednesday we had the opportunity to sing at the building site of the Concepcion, Chile Temple. We were part of a Christmas presentation held by the stake and there were a ton of people who come. Twas a fun time! Then came Christmas. We had Christmas dinner at the house of a family in our ward. We ate steak and cheese-infused chicken haha I don't know any other way to describe it but it was probably the best dinner I've ever had in my life haha. Fun fact! Everyone is South America opens their presents and stuff the night of the 24th not Christmas day.

Friday was awesome because I got to Skype with my awesome family! I also got to talk with my awesome sister so that was great! After that, we had a Christmas activity with 4 other zones and we played a bunch of futbol and I got to play Elder Kindgsford in ping pong!(we played a lot when we were in the MTC). Needless to say we didn't have a ton of time to work this week but I`m excited to get back to work this week. Carlos is still struggling a bit with the word of wisdom, dang coffee. We just started teaching Micaela but she already knows everything haha. Jin is being a bum and not coming to church but we`re gonna fix that. And Diego is progressing nicely, but its a bit hard cause he`s only 11 and he is suuuper crazy haha. But all is welll! I hope everyone has a fantastic week and a happy New Year! 

Elder Evelo

 

 

Reuniting with CCM District

 

Elders Evelo, Santos, Bianco, and Love

 

Carlos with Mission President

 

Elders Bianco, Evelo, Love, Santos, and two Hermans

 

Elder Evelo with Elder Bianco

 

Concepcion Temple Site

 

Elder Evelo with Ximena Llanos Arévalo who will be leaving on her mission soon

 

People gathering at Temple site for celebration

 

My poor son is starving!!!

 

Desert Also!

 

Skyping with Hermana Evelo who is in Spain

 

Skyping with parents who were in Las Vegas

 

 

 

Chile Concepcion Mission Picture

Carlos is in the group of missionaries who are on the right hand side who are standing in chairs. He is the second from the left with his head a little crooked.

 

 

We Made Pizza

Merry almost Christmas! This week has been pretty crazy with Christmas coming up. Elder Ovalle and I decided to make pizza for our district so we got up super early to make the dough and stuff and it was sooooooo good. I want Elder Ovalle to be my companion forever just for his cooking hahaha. We´ve had hardly any time this week because we had a ton of service activities and our Zone (Andalien) and 2 other zones had to practice singing for this Chirstmas presentation at the Stake Center and it took alllll of our time this week, but the presentation was pretty cool. We get to do it again this Wednesday at the building site of the new temple here in Conce! Woooo! Im pretty stoked for that. My talk went pretty okay! I didnt screw anything up that bad and 1 member said I did good hahaha. We have bunch of Christmas things this week so we wont have much time either. The Christmas conference for the mission is tomorrow and I´ll get to see everone I know! But Elder Bianco is coming to Andalien to work with me today! That´s my original mission dad for those of you who dont know. It should be an awesome week! I hope everyone has a fantastic week and a MERRY CHIRSTMAS!

Elder Evelo

20 Pounds of Sushi

Hey people! I hope everyone had a fantastic week! This week was wayyyyy better for me. I getting back into missionay mode and I`m not as unconfortable as before. This week was full over Noche de Hogars and for every single one Elder Ovalle made sushi. Not gonna lie, i think I`ve eaten at least 20 pounds of  sushi this week haha. We`re havinf more tomorrow too! No doubt I will be fat when you see me again haha.

My goal for this week is to get to know the members more. We visit a lot of them pretty regularly but I`ve always just talked a little bit and then let Elder Ovalle do the rest. But I want to be able see them at church or something and just start talking with them ya know? 

So we had the primary program this past Sunday and it was pretty awesome. Especially when the son of the stake president got up to give a "mini" talk. He talked for at least 8 minutes with out pausing and he was quoting scripures from memory and everything. It was legit better than any talk I`ve ever given haha. He`s definitely gonna be a general authority or something haha.

Speaking of talks, I have to give a talk in sacrament meeting next week... yayyyyyy. But it`ll be awesome haha. Anyways, I`m so grateful to be here as misionary doing this great work! 

I hope everyone has a great week! 

Elder Evelo

 

 

Carlos' area

 

Sushi

 

Carlos' companion, "The Chef"

 

 

Walking the streets of Andalein

 

 

So Great to be Back in Chile

So here I am again! It´s so great to be back in Chile with all my mission friends and to be a missionary! Getting here was pretty interesting because I had a couple problems with my passport/ visa at the Santiago airport so I had to wait and wait while the PDI (Chilean FBI) asked me questions and stuff. It wasn't a big deal at first but after I missed my flight to Concè it began to be a problem. I ended up waiting the for 8 hours haha. Luckily I ran into a member there who was waiting for another missionary and he called my mission president and got me another flight to Concè. So after I got to Concè I met my companion Elder Ovalle and we went directly to our area. I'm in Andalien which is about 20 minutes from the mission office in Concè. The ward here is the absolute best and I love visiting all the members. My companion is from Santiago Chile and he`s hilarious haha. He is also a master chef so I`m eating pretty good hahaha. My Spanish is wayyyyy better than is was before and I have no problem understanding people! We had a lesson with one of our investigators (named Carlos!) last night and I'm pretty sure I spoke perfect Spanish and we could definitely feel the spirit. It was pretty awesome! Anyways, I`m soooooo happy to be back where I'm supposed to be, sharing this wonderful gospel with everyone! I hope everyone is doing well where ever you are! 

Elder Evelo  

I Have Returned

Just Pictures

No Blog entry this week, just pictures.

 

Some pictures of their home/chapel

 

A pair of well worn shoes 

Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Another super busy week here so sorry if this email/post sounds rushed! Tuesday we had a mini cambio and I went to Tomé to work with Elder Jaen (one of our Zone leaders) for the day. I was all ready to teach a whole bunch in Tomé but we told me in our district class that we have a big service activity. And I didn't pack any clothes for service... So I had to borrow some clothes from Elder Hoopes (our other Zone leader) and he`s pretty tell so I looked like a was wearing a dress haha but that's okay! So did the service activity and it killed our day because we finished around 7:30. After that we went to have a Noche de Hogar with a menos activos family and we recorded their testimonies and put them on Facebook! Hey everyone at home! You should do that!! It`s a great way to share the gospel with your friends!

Wednesday we had another mini cambio but just in Quirihue. I went with Elder Love again woooooooooo! It was a pretty good day but when we were in a lesson with Hna. Alicia we heard some loud crying and the next thing we know Hna. Erna is running up to the house and telling us to come with her. So her brother Sergio, one of our investigators, had fallen and hit his head, and seemed to be unconscious on the floor in her house. So we called the hospital and Hermano Miguel and I tried to get Sergio to wake up. It was a super scary 10 minutes but he woke up and started talking to us. He went to the hospital and nothing major was wrong and he was able to go home the next day with only a huge bump on his forehead.

Saturday we traveled to Chillàn to hear Elder Dallin H. Oaks speak to the missions of Chile. All the 300+ missionaries in our mission met there to listen. It was a little rough at first cause it was being broadcasted from Santiago through a Skype-like program and the signal wasn't the greatest. We weren't able to hear anybody through it, so we all the missionaries started to pray so that we could be able to hear from the apostle. And almost immediately 5 minutes later the signal was perfect and we were able to hear all of Elder Oaks`talk. I love prayer so much! It was also really awesome to see all of the missionaries that I haven't seen in awhile at the conference.

Sunday morning was pretty bad. We were getting the house/church ready for people to come and we were calling each of our investigators to reminds them about church. It was my turn to call so i called Hna Pilar first. Just a reminder that Hna Pilar has a baptismal date for this Saturday and she is super excited about. But when I asked her about church and she told me that she wasn't going to come and that she doesn't want to get baptized anymore. She didn't tell me why, just that she doesn't want to meet with us anymore. I felt really bad the rest of the day. It`s hard to teach someone and to have them progress so well, and then they just reject you. 

But that night we went to Hermana Erna`s house to have a Noche de Hogar with them but it turned out to be a mini birthday party for me! Yayyyy! It was pretty fun and it definitely helped me calm down from what happened in the morning, especially when I got my face stuffed in a cake haha. 

I hope everyone back home is doing great! I love and miss everyone! Have a great week!

Elder Evelo

 

That´s right I contacted her!

Oh man there is so much to write about this week! I wish I had more time to talk about everything but I'll try my best with the time I got. So Tuesday Elder Bianco and I starting teaching Sergio who is the brother of Hermana Erna who is one of the strongest members here in Quirihue. He is super receptive but he has a problem with smoking. He is determined to quit and he has made great progress but he still smoke 2 or 3 cigarettes a week. But I have faith that he will be able to have the strength to quit and receive the blessing from baptism. 

On Wednesday I had a small mini cambio with Elder Love because Elder Bianco had to do a baptism interview with an investigator of the other Elders cause he´s district leader. So I was super nervous that i was going to have to do all of the talking in our contacts and in the lessons cause Elder Love is still super new. But surprisingly we were able to do some awesome contacts and when Elder Love had trouble I was able to back him up. Then time come to teach a lesson to Hermana Pilar. I was even more nervous about that cause she is an actual investigator and I didn't wont to screw things up. But once again I was able to speak no problem during the lesson and include Elder Love too. It was such a good feeling to be able to do that and it makes me feel sooooo much better about everything. 

So speaking of Hermana Pilar...she has been doing good and is kinda progressing, but she wont come to church. She says that she wants to but she always seems to have a problem come up every Sunday. 

Friday we had a Zone conference with the Penco zone in Penco. There was this awesome activity that we did were a companionship was chosen to go out and try to find someone to come and have a lesson with another companionship. So Elder Santos and Elder Love were chosen to go find someone and they were given 20 minutes. After about 20 minutes and they weren't back Elder Bianco and i decided to pray for them. After a couple minutes of praying we looked up and saw that every other missionary in the room was on their knees praying too. And about 1 minute and 20 seconds later Elder Santos and Elder Love walk in with an older lady. It was so awesome to so how our faith could help them  find someone. And then two Hermanas were chosen to teach her and I swear everyone was crying. So much spiriiiiiiittttt!! I loved it so much! 

Saturday was an awesome day for Elder Bianco and I. We were able to find 2 more investigators! Octavio who is the husband of Hermana Pilar and Julia who is a girl that I contacted in the street! That´s right I  contacted her! Haha. I really believe that both of them will be able to progress super bien. It´s great cause Elder Bianco and I are starting to work with more unity and i feel more and more like a real missionary everyday.

I hope everyone has a great week! I miss you all so much!

Elder Evelo

 

Carlos finally received the package we sent. It arrived 7 days before his birthday.

 

A letter from Raelee

 

Picture of Carlos and his zone

General Conference

Happy Easter everyone! So to start off this weekly summery I wanna say how much i love missionary work. I'm absolutely loving my time here and I've realized it so much more this week with Easter and remembering the resurrection of Jesus Christ and conference and everything! 

So Wednesday we had a Zone class and we talked about a new initiative that the church is starting with all the missionaries. I'm sure that the missionaries back home have this too, but it`s called "Gracias a que èl vive". It`s kinda like the "He is the gift" thing that went down during Christmas. I focuses not only on the life of Jesus Christ but the fact that He resurrected and lives today. The video for this is suuuuuper awesome and I'm so glad that the church has made this. I've seen so much success with this in this week alone. Our contacts are more solid and we are able to find people more easily. I cant wait to see how the rest of the month turns out. 

So our investigator Hermana Pilar is màs o menos. She is receiving us well and has a great desire to learn, but she can never come to church because of her husband. And cant get baptized unless she has more than three attendances to church. We are trying to work with her about her problems with Sundays. Her husband was always against us teaching her and he really didn't like the church. But we talked to her husband yesterday and he is content with her getting baptized and he even agreed to taking a couple lessons with us! He literally changed in a week and I'm beyond amazed. I hope that he will also accept the gospel in his life like his wife.

General Conference was super awesome like always. We had a member bring a projector and computer to our house/church to show conference for all of the members. Our awesome neighbor let us have the password to their Wi-Fi so that we could set that up haha. But Elder Love and I had another laptop setup in our room so that we could watch it in English haha. We had some internet connection problems at times but we were able to fix it and we saw most of conference haha. I cant wait for the Liahona to come out so that i can read the talks that we missed. 

I have a little favor to ask from you people back home. I don't know if it made world news or not, but in Northern Chile there was a huge storm and the rivers overflowed into the cities and almost all the homes and building were either destroyed or are beneath a river of mud water. There are tons of people with out homes and food and water. So it would be awesome if you guys prayed for them and stuff.

I hope every one is doing great and that you guys have an awesome week! 

Elder Evelo