Elder Kannon Evans

Dearest people that can eat meat during the week of easter,

Yeah I just found out that Catholics dont eat meat, only fish, during easter. You can see just how much knowledge of other religions I had before the mission. 

Weeeeelllllllllllll... This week was quite grand if I should say. We went out and worked, just like every other day. Found a few people. Aaaaaaaannnnnddddd moved the baptism of Mariano till next week. We talked with the bishop and he suggested that he be baptized inbetween conferences this next sunday so that he doesnt have to wait two weeks to be confirmed, cause you know, Satan and such. But Its okay! Mariano is still has his mind decided about being baptized and is really excited to see general conference on Sunday!

Hablando sobre tal.. I invite you all to spiritually prepare yourselves for general conference this next week. Think of questions that you need answers to. What do you need help with? How can you do it? I promise you all that as you ponder and pray about these things, God will answer you through the words of the prophets. 

I love you all. And so does He. :)

Elder Evans

Statue from the boca stadium that we had to take advantage of.

Our investigator/one of my best friends Mariano

7 baptisms in the ward last week

Wilson and Jessies kids :)

Aguante Red Sox

How am I almost halfway?

Sister Alex Solomon:

Well this week has been pretty jam packed with stuff so once again, I'm just jumping in!

We still have no investigators and we are starting to get desperate. We had a zone blitz where a bunch of missionaries came into our area to help us find people and we got like 3 return appointments that have all since fallen through. We even tried (gasp!) tracting this week! We have been trying to knock all the doors in our apartment complex and some interesting things happened...I finally had my first run in with some Jehovah's Witnesses! We knocked on this guys door and introduced ourselves and he was like, "oh well, sisters, would you like to meet the brothers?" He then opened the door wider and we could see two guys in white shirts and ties sitting on the couch holding copies of The Watchtower. Long story short: they tried to convert us, we invited them to the Mesa Easter pageant, they forced us to watch a video, we tried to show them ours, their bible has a completely different meaning, and the whole situation was a hot mess so I just bore my testimony and left. It was awesome!

I went on an exchange with one of the sisters I live with in her area. She has a CRAZY area. It's all people who live way up in Black Canyon City and none of them have all of their teeth. It was also awesome! We met this one guy (an active member) who told us all about how all of the Muslims are going to hell and Jesus will destroy them at the second coming. He also told us how Satan literally has a dwelling place with a giant throne on the earth. It's someplace in Germany or Turkey and they discovered it the year Hitler was born, apparently. He was a pretty interesting guy, to say the least. I kind of just wanted to hang out with him all day.

Later on in the exchange, we had the opportunity to teach the Restoration to one of the other sisters' investigators. It has been a while since I taught it so I was really excited. The other sister said this lady was unclear about whether or not she would be baptized and that she wouldn't answer them when they asked. Well, I got in there and the other sister wouldn't say ANYTHING even when I let awkward silences happen and kept staring at her. SO I taught the lesson by myself and answered the lady's questions. It was super spiritual and I honestly felt like it was one of the best investigator lessons I've ever taught. At the end, she said she wanted to be baptized and she agreed to April 9th! Afterwards, as we walked away the other sister turned to me and was like, "soooo, thanks for getting me a baptism..." It doesn't count for me at all but it was a good experience and I loved it! #worthit

On Saturday, we were biking to a member's house and we went to go take a shortcut through the wash near our apartment. As we were turning from the sidewalk to the gravel, Sister Mudrow's bike totally slid out from underneath her and she skidded across the gravel pretty hard. I could see a scratch on her leg so I was just like oh are you okay? But then she started getting up and there was SO much blood running down her leg and foot. She fell so I took off her shoe and put her sock to her leg before I saw much else. We didn't think it was that bad but then we took her to Urgent Care and we were there for like 7 hours. She has this gaping hole in her ankle that they couldn't suture. She also sprained her ankle. Anyway, so she's not allowed to bike or walk for the next week so we are trying to figure out how to still be missionaries...we set up some lessons over Skype though! It'll be interesting! I gotta say though, my comp had a smile on her face the whole time and she said this is not going to ruin the last 3 weeks of her mission. When she can bike again next week, she still has to take it easy so we are going to borrow a tandem bike from one of our members. I'm stoked.

She's hiding the main injury....but I had to include this picture because of all the blood splatters.

That night, after icing my comp's foot all day and stuff, I was sitting there on the couch with my hair up and messy and crumbs all over my skirt when there was this banging knock on the door. I opened it slowly to see this cute Easter basket sitting on the doorstep and there were weird flashed of light like someone was taking pictures. (Sister Gunderson: "is that lightning?!") I assumed it was someone from one of our wards and I didn't want to be in someone's pictures so I hid inside for a minute but then I heard, "WE LOVE YOU, SISTER SOLOMON!" Haha I was so shocked when I looked down the stairs and saw Aunt Julie, Aunt Melissa, Meg, and a couple other kiddos running away saying, "we don't want to break any rules!" I didn't know what to do so I just looked at my companion and she said, "What are you doing?! Go give them hugs!" Haha so I ran down the stairs and gave them all hugs (including Uncle Wayne, I just didn't see him earlier). I'm pretty sure I broke all the rules but it was so good to see them! It was so quick that it kind of felt like I made it up afterward. But hey, thanks for making my week/month/year!!

Overall, good things happened and it was an awesome week. We are doing our best to not get down about our lack of investigators and to see this injury as an opportunity to build relationships with our Ward members when we constantly ask them for rides!

I hope all is well and have a great week!

LOVES

Elder Kannon Evans

Howdy!

Well this email will be short and sweet. 

Wilson and Jessie were married and baptized this week! It was an awesome day. We had 7 baptisms from 3 pairs of missionaries. And also mariano will be baptized this week. Overall we had 8 confirmations on sunday.

Also we had our last interviews with president ayre. He will be leaving in June. Awesome president and ill miss him.

like I said, short and sweet, cause i have no time to write. Love you all!

Elder Evans

Sister Alex Solomon:

This one is gonna be long so I'm just gonna jump in!

We had mission tour this week where a member of the quorum of the seventy came to our mission and gave us a bunch of training with his wife. This time it was Elder Mervyn B. Arnold. Honestly, I had never heard of him but I looked up some of his talks and articles in gospel library and they're great! Anyway, he is SUPER intense. Like, seriously, i've never been more motivated to be obedient than I was right after listening to him speak. He talked a lot about finding new investigators and planning a completely different way than we had ever planned. It was awesome and I learned so much! It was nice to receive definitive direction from him because he would always say things like, "NEVER do this..." or "ALWAYS do this..." He cleared a lot of things up for me.

The sisters had an extra meeting with Elder Arnold's wife where she talked a lot about confidence. It was so hilarious. She was talking about how the most beautiful thing any girl can wear is a smile and she said, "As long as you have a smile, everyone will think you are beautiful, even if you have a giant unicorn zit on your forehead!" HAHA just imagine a general authority's sweet little tiny wife saying that to a bunch of missionaries.

I spoke in sacrament this Sunday! I was asked to speak on 'how sticking to the basics of the gospel strengthens our testimony of Christ'. I got to speak for about 20 minutes which was great and I used a lot of President Uctdorf's talk' "Of Things that Matter Most" from the October 2010 general conference. I think I rambled a lot but it seemed to go over well.

Our Ward held a rodeo this weekend! It was mostly for the kids but they had tons of food and games and everything. I got SO sunburned, so that part was kind of awful. But, we got to wear pants and the members of the Ward made the missionaries do every single activity including (but not limited to) a three-legged race, an egg toss, tug of war, chasing down and putting pants on a goat, pulling a ribbon off of a running steer's tail, and trying to catch a greased pig. It was AWESOME. I will have to find some pictures for you. I didn't want to run and get dirty because of the clothes I was wearing but then someone said, "oh is the Montana girl afraid to chase a goat? Welcome to Arizona, the REAL west". So then, I chased the goat and helped to tackle it.

It was a pretty fun week but I am so so so tired. I actually took a nap for the first time on my mission right after the rodeo. It was great! But yeah, I've been in this area for like 3 weeks now and we still have no investigators. We have contacted almost every single person in our area book and nothing is happening. We made a goal of being EXACTLY obedient and working until the last minute every day this week and we just can't seem to find anybody. I am having a good time being with Sister Mudrow and biking but morale has been a little low these past few days. Oh well, we are just gonna keep on keepin' on and doing our best.

I have a new challenge for you all! YAY. So I found out that if you download the app 'Deseret Bookshelf' you get like 8 free books or something. One of them is The Power of Everyday Missionaries by Clayton Christensen. I LOVE this book and have read it probably 4 or 5 times since I got it for Christmas. I challenge everyone who is able to download it and read it. What's stopping you? It's free! Seriously, it will help all of you to understand how you can do missionary work better and will make a huge difference.

LOVES

P.s. I ate a nectarine for the first time this week. It was weird.

Elder Kannon Evans

Dearest people that dont know the beauty of Argentine Coca Cola..

How goes it? Good? Okay good. 

Well! This week has been a spectacular one. And this next one will be even greater because first of all, WILSON AND JESSIE GET MARRIED TOMORROW! YES! We have been working with this family for 3 months now and after 3 marriage turns, help from the ward, tears, stress, and prayer for this family, they are finally going to be married and baptized! Whoop whoop! My former companion Elder Kelly from "fabulous" Las vegas nevada will be coming for the ceremony. We also have Diego, who is a 19 year old kid that we found a while back that wants to turn his life around. We are helping him with his repentance process and will be baptized this saturday as well :) Then we also have our golden investigator Mariano that will be baptized the following week :) God has placed so many people in our path, and in the path of the other missionaries of parque patricios. This saturday the ward will be having 7 baptisms. SEVEN. And the next week 2 more! God blesses his children, and im incredibly happy to be able to know and help these people come unto Christ. 

Well that was our week. Thank you for all of your support and prayers. Love you all :)

Elder Evans

Ps. I went to the villa 1-11-14 again. And it was awesome. 

Mom, I need new shoes.

Ward activity. Latinos make me feel super tall.

Big Fat Lunchbox

These are photos from our event last weekend at Keyser Creek arena just outside of town. It was a calf sorting event and was fun to watch everybody on their horses. We even had three little girls that road all day and would ride their horses right up to the window to order bottled water. 

Ride Through window

Elder Kannon Evans

Dearest people that live where soccer is basically nonexistent,

How goes it? Hope all is well :) 

Well.. this week has been pretty interesting. Stressful, but interesting and full of blessings :) 

First of all, we had a miracle happen this week! We were walking down the street and a man stopped us. He said "are you the people that talk about God?". And I said "yup". And then he invited us over to his house, talked to him about the restoration, and invited him to be baptized. he will be baptized the 27th :) It was super random but DEFINITELY one of the biggest miracles ive seen here on my mission. So hopefully all goes well :)

We are also preparing 3 others towards baptism. 2 of them will be getting married next week :) 

Things are going good down here in Buenos Aires. Loving every minute. :) Thank you for all that you do. Know that I love you and youre in my prayers. Stay awesome

Elder Evans

Pic: When you go ham preaching the word of God and your scriptures break in two. 

Don't worry, I'm keeping my clothes on...

Sister Alex Solomon:

It has been another good week! I'm still loving my area but am beginning to realize just how dead it is for now. No investigators in a small Ward with mostly inactive members. We made almost 100 phone calls this week trying to get lessons with people and we scheduled one! Woohoo! Haha, one lesson is super exciting! Pretty much, we have just been biking everywhere trying to find people. (I'm still looking for an odometer so I can have massive bragging rights when I tell people how much I bike) I'm still just exhausted all the time and can't believe how fast time is starting to move. I am excited for this Ward though because it has so much potential. President Griffin has told me that I have "the best bishop in the mission" and I completely believe him. The leadership in this Ward is so on board with missionary work, it's amazing.

As far as the work goes, we got yelled at by inactive members a few times this week and got called some nasty names so that was pretty cool. People are either way nice about it or just don't answer their doors here so it was nice to get a normal what-you-would-expect-from-a-mission reaction a couple times. In good news though....the CRAZY Capshaw family finally got baptized! I was able to go to my old area for the day to be there! It was awesome even though I showed up and Sister Moss told me I was bearing my testimony in front of everyone like 2 minutes before it happened and this one lady gave like a 237 minute talk on the Holy Ghost. It was great though and I didn't realize how happy I was until I saw John baptizing Iris and Eva and I thought I was going to cry. They are so unbelievably weird but I love them a lot and I'm super proud of them!

"Iris wanted one with just me."

Things are going well with my companion still. She is a fast biker, which I love, and she is just so happy all the time, it's contagious. Our roommates in our apartment do well with each other but sometimes Sister Mudrow and I get a little frustrated with them because neither of them have ever been away from home with roommates before so we pretty much do all of the cleaning and organizing and stuff. They kind of don't do anything at home so we are working on that with them...

Fun facts: my awesome bishop here has a brother who lives in Logandale! He said he is a firefighter in Vegas so I was like, "ummm, I GUARANTEE my family knows him." I don't know his name but the Bishop's last name is Raban. Does anyone know any Rabans there?

Also, I found out this week that there is a nudist colony in my area! Haha! It's RIGHT next to the church building and we are not allowed to proselyte there, as per orders from the mission president. However, my companion was able to skype teach someone there once. Hmmm, that would be interesting. We'll see if that happens again, I guess!

The sign from the nudist colony in our area....
it's legit and is right next to our church building. 

I'm gonna go ahead and assume the church was there first....

LOVES

Imma get back in shape! 🚲

Sister Alex Solomon:

Oh my gosh there is so much to tell you that I really have no idea where to begin! Well, it was transfers this week and I finally got transferred from my first area. I was really sad because I loved my wards so much but I didn't go far! Our zone consists of the Glendale North Stake in Glendale and the Deer Valley Stake in North Phoenix. I transferred from Glendale North to Deer Valley so I'm not far at all and I still get to be with all of my same missionary friends in this zone. I currently hold the record for the longest in this zone now! 

Anyway, my new companion's name is Sister Mudrow (moo-droh) and she is awesome! She is from Magna, Utah and she finishes her mission this transfer. It's super great to be with her because she is really chill and is just happy all the time. Plus, she's a great teacher and we are "equal senior companions" so it's nice to not have to have the responsibility of teaching and being a perfect example all of the time. I can trust that if I lose my words in a lesson, I can just look at her and she will expertly move on. She can do the same with me too so it works out nicely. Since she goes home soon, President Griffin told me last week, "I want you to really get to know the area before she leaves because you'll be leading and maybe training again next transfer." He didn't give me a specific time but I think I'll be in this area for around 6 months.

So, my new Ward. Yes, that's right, WARD. As in, one Ward!! My whole mission, I have covered multiple wards at a time (one containing 800+ people) and I felt like I was going crazy! But now I get to focus on one Ward and really get to know the members. It's called the North Valley Ward. I'm so excited! Because we have only one Ward, Sister Mudrow and I are on bikes full time! Our roommates have a car for when we go shopping and stuff but we just bike all the time. I was really scared for it because I've had a bike my whole mission so I could bike when I wanted but I always had the option of a car. I actually really love biking though! Our Ward doesn't have any investigators right now so we are focusing on finding and me getting to know the members. It's great because we get to talk to people on the street more and if no one talked to us during the day, at least we biked like 15 miles right? Every night, I fall into bed completely exhausted and I never know how I'm going to get up the next day but I love it. It makes me feel like I'm actually a hardworking missionary.  I think I want to get an odometer for my bike so I can keep track of my mileage.

Other interesting things:

~The Capshaws are still getting baptized on the 5th and I get to go back to visit!

~I got bit by a hedgehog this week...it drew blood and now I think I have rodent powers.

~I had the bloodiest steak I've ever seen at dinner this week and it was actually pretty awesome...aside from all the mooing. Yeah, that's how rare it was.

~I love my new apartment except I'm sleeping in the tiny office (we have 1 bedroom, 1 bath, and 4 missionaries) and it's sort of dangerous because there is an In-N-Out Burger RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET. ❤️

#burgersfordays

It's all good and I'm excited for this transfer!

LOVES

P.s. I forgot to tell you mom but all of our missions got extended so I will be coming home on January 31st of next year. WOOT.