Our priorities in life

Here is a picture with me, Elder Peña and President and Sister Willard!

And a picture of the Familia Jaro. They have been waiting almost 8 years to get baptized due to problems with their papers and birth documents and stuff like that, it´s just a terror here in Bolivia this kind of thing, but we are going to baptize them soon!!! They are so great :) (so their problem is that they can´t get legally married.) 

haha in photos they don´t smile. They are a pretty happy people. Just not for photos - it is a cultural thing. :D They´re people just like us. Just little cultural differences. 

My companion is the same age as Wade. April of 1996. Wade can, and should be a missionary. Elder Peña is great. He is already a great great teacher and so excited to work. No 18 year old has the excuse of saying that he doesn´t think he´s ready. I have seen otherwise. :)

The best ways to relieve stress in our lives is to apply the principles of the Gospel in your life. Would you say that God and the Gospel are number 1 in your life right now? Because when they are, the Prophets and Apostles have promised us that the unneeded things will just start to drop out. We always have to keep the end in mind. What are we doing right now to secure our spot in the Celestial Kingdom. Are we investing in heavenly, or earthly things? Alma 34 would be a good chapter perhaps to study :) ¨Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and the rest shall be added.¨Just trust in the Lord. Ask from Him what HE wants in your life, and then follow it. :) I know that so much stress is NOT a good thing. It will only make things harder. I´ve learned that one! I´ve lost almost all my stress since I started my mission.

I starting serving the lord with all my heart and he took from me the things I didn´t need :) I certainty can´t tell what you should do, but I can strongly urge you to use the right principles! :) That´s the key to all our problems. This did just come to mind though. The priorities in life should be set up in this way. 1. The Lord 2. Our spouse 3. Our family 4. whatever is left. Have a good week. :)

Love,

Elder Evenson

trainer and zone/district leader all at once!

 I´ve got some cool news for you guys this week :)

 

Well if I can get my connector to work i´ll send a picture, but I have a new companion! His name is Elder Peña, from Lima, Peru. He has a total of 4 days in the misión now, so I´m training! Haha it´s a big responsibility; the new missionaries don´t know anything! :D hmm looks like I can´t send a picture this week. I am still in Camiri and all the missionaries are new, except for me. Two new missionaries, and the other trainer only has 4 months in the mission. Soooo that also means that here I am the district/zone leader of Camiri. That is also a huge responsibility! haha I have to manange all the money and all the problems and do all the training hahaha I was so stressed out the first couple days :D But I´m better now. So I´ll now get to go to all the leadership conferences with President (way excited for that!) So for me I´m just working my tail off everyday. Being a trainer is really different as well because you have to take everything at a different pace or level for the new missionaries. They are so full of faith! :D But we are also finding a ton of families to teach here as well. We are being so very blessed. :)

 

Ahh I know how you feel though Mom. :D I don´t have a minute of personal time anymore. I used to be able to study Liahonas or the scriptures or write more in my journal or maybe cook something, but now I have nada. haha I´m just working and working and working. However I´m really happy :) I know there isn´t a better work in the world!

 

Also if you could send this to the Lerwills for me: I met an Elder named Elder Peterson who got here this last week, and just happens to be from Driggs! He said that Bailey was his seminary mom :) He seemed pretty excited to be here! I don´t remember where he went though. The LDS world is pretty small! :D haha

 

Yes, we went to Santa Cruz for the new transfers and to pick up our new companions! It was a fairly large group, 27 new missionaries. We had a big meeting where we were introduced to our new companions. I found a moment to talk with him because he was the only Elder from Idaho :D

 

I´ll do my best. I sure am learning a lot! :) But I keep getting your emails late! I just got this one from 45 minutes ago! And I´m out of time :( I love you so much, write me a bunch before I get on! Love you!

an exciting week!

Well we had a very exciting week! We finally rescued a sister named Flora Vasquez. We are so happy and feel very great about the work we did with her. She is an older women, 70 and she is now so active that she walked all the way from her house on the day of Penaton (it´s just a holiday of the country. I think they have about 150 different holidays here :D haha there´s always something)! (She lives quite far away too) She lives by herself, and has felt so much love from our visits with many different members of the branch. She is an active visiting teacher and is now bringing other less-actives to church! She has plans to go to the temple in December with the rest of the branch and to bring the name of her grandmother. :) 

Being able to serve Flora really helped me learn about the needs of the widows in the church. They are so lonely :( They just want someone to talk to. haha I think she cried in half the lessons we had with her, but we really love her a lot. She´s still kicking though! She visits her families every week as a visiting teacher. ahhh yeah also the Day of Penaton was a day where nobody could use their cars in all of Bolivia. The police were out all morning to enforce it :D so all the members had to walk to church. and we had to walk for all the lessons. haha

We are currently working with lots of less-actives. We have about 4 other people we are planning on rescuing in the next month. We also have one investigator who is progressing very well towards baptism! His name is Alfredo Chumacero. He is a university student who never went to church growing up. We have had contact with him for quite some time, but nothing really solid until last week, We taught about baptism, and we knelt together and he offered a prayer to Heavenly Father, asking if he should be baptized. After he finished, we sat and just listened to the Spirit. Alfredo said that he felt like this was the path he should follow with his life. It was such a powerful lesson! He came to all of church yesterday, and is going to go to a service activity with us on Tuesday. So we´re pretty excited! The next transfers will also be this week. I´ve been with Elder Villegas now 2 transfers, and we are going to open about 25 new areas in the mission due to a huge group that´s entering. We´ll see what happens!

About the picture:

Those were the branches of Camiri and Vallegrande. To the left are the elders with me, the next two were in vallegrande with me before, so we´re good friends. In front is president Willard, his wife, and three of their daughters. So everyone of the kids of President Willard have served missions or are about to.Two of those daughters have finished their missions, one in the Phillipines and one in chile and the other is going to Ecuador in a couple months. I haven´t met their only son, but he served as well. Their family is incredible!! They are all so strong in the gospel. And their testimonies are incredible. What a family!!

7 investigators!!!

I ate a milkshake for breakfast :D not super healthy I know haha :D A powdery substance blended with frozen milk. haha not a healthy version with the actual fruit, however on occasion we do eat that.

Ok so for the news of the week, we worked really really hard this week and saw some great success! We had 7 investigators go the church, 5 for the first time. So we were pretty excited for that. We had an unusually high number of lessons for the week and saw some good progress. Hard work always pays off. And I also realized that working just a bit harder can make a big difference and it really doesn´t require all that much more effort on our part. It´s so much about the energy and excitement we have. Also making good goals to help us stretch to our potential. There is also so much power in a testimony. Declaring the things you know to be true. The Spirit can testify so strongly with a heartfelt and true testimony. I´m learning and growing so much. I have so many experiences everyday here in Bolivia as a missionary that I would probably almost never have there in Idaho. I do love being a missionary though. I could be one forever and be happy :)

Hahaha that kills me that Brandon killed the raccoon right before the bishopric meeting :D And wow! Our house is so beautiful! I almost forgot :D I love Idaho :) Looks like a ton of fun.

There is a quote in my scriptures from President Ezra Taft Benson that says something like this, ¨When obedience ceases to be an irritant, but becomes our quest, it is in that moment that God endows us with His power.¨ Pretty cool huh? I sure like that quote :) It´s all in the attitude.

Too bad for Mckade though. I´m sure his coaches have something important to teach him with that position. It´s kind of like a calling, perhaps we don´t always feel like we´re the best person for the job, or it might not be the most exciting, but there is always something important to learn. Perhaps there´re just testing how well Mckade will respond and still work as part of the team with all his heart. Hard to believe he´s in high school now! And wade´s going to finish it!

We take lots of buses here in Camiri. And lots of taxis. We´re always running late for lessons because we always want to teach too much. It´s so hard to factor in all the time it takes to travel between lessons!! We do also walk a lot. But that´s all. We take at least one bus everyday. Some days 5 or 6 times :D.