Elder Evans in Birmingham: 1 Elder Evans 2

CHAPTER 2

Elder Evans continues his journey through the MTC- Studying, learning, and teaching never seem to stop- Friday in Manchester was discouraging as people didnt want to hear the message of Elder Evans and his companion- Elder Evans continues to press forward anxiously waiting to leave MTC

1 Well this week was a little bit calmer than the last! The MTC is just a lot of repeating itself over and over! It's been good though. Tuesday after I sent off my first email we were able to go do an endowment session at the temple. That temple was beautiful! It was different than the other temples that I have been in! And the temple is a lot smaller than it looks in pictures! It was really good, and it was kinda fun being in a temple where everyone has a British accent! We also walked into Chorley on Tuesday and I bought myself a bunch of curly wurlys, which is my favorite English candy that I have had so far! I was glad to have those!

2 Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday were just normal days in the MTC! We spend all day studying and role playing and learning! I'll write out the schedule so that you guys can have a little idea of what we do in the MTC!

6:30 wake up/shower

7:15 breakfast

8:00 personal study

9:00 companion study or teach fake investigators

10:30 get ready for physical acivity/ physical activity

11:30 shower change clothes again

12:15 lunch

1:00 class with teacher

3:00 study time or teaching fake investigators

4:30 class with teacher

5:15 dinner

6:00 class with teacher

8:00 study time or teach fake investigators

9:00 go up to bed and write in journal

9:30-10:30 Go to sleep

3 And the it starts all over again. It's stressful, but I understand why they want us to do it. It's been interesting here. I'm really close with my district and we are all really good friends. They all keep me laughing and smiling, so I'm glad that I have every single one of them. I wouldn't be surviving here if I didn't have my district. They have me on the floor laughing sometimes. That makes it easier to be here and not to get sad.

4 Friday was a different day though, on Friday we were able to drive into Manchester to practice proselyting! We drove right into the middle of the city and we all got off the bus in Piccadilly garden square! All 60 of us were given pass along cards, lesson pamphlets, and book of Mormons. We were told to go proselyting and hand out as much of this stuff as possible. (They did give us more instruction than that, but you get the idea) At first it was so hard, and so discouraging. We all eventually learned to just laugh when they said no. We approached every person we could see. We all learned that British people are not the kindest people in the world. We were told to go back to America, we were told we were fake, people cussed at us, and laughed at us, and honestly, it ended up being one of the most fun things I've done since I have been in England. It was cool to see such a big city. The part that was hardest for me, wasn't when they said no to us, or when they called us names. The hard part was when they would flat out ignore us like we didn't even exist. All I wanted them to do was just respond to me and tell me to go away, or to even cuss at me. But at least 20% of the people we talked to, just flat out ignored us and pretended like we didn't exist. And that was hard!

5 It's weird because the people didn't even know what they were saying no to. We were literally there to bring them ETERNAL JOY AND HAPPINESS. Yet they were telling us that they weren't interested! Who doesn't want eternal joy and happiness?! I don't know, but it was frustrating a little bit. Our teacher just told us to flip it around on them. When they said they weren't interested, just ask them what they weren't interested in, that usually caused the person to listen for 15 seconds longer, And then they told us to go back to america! Haha that was interesting, and it makes me nervous to get into the field. But im gonna continue to press forward so that i can teach the people of England! It was weird though, all the kids from europe were able to hand out like 10 book of Mormons each! Yet all of the American kids combined were only able to hand out like 6! Guess it's true, British people do not like Americans! Overall it was an interesting day.

6 Other than that, nothing really new that I haven't already told you! If you guys have any questions for me about the Mtc or about England! Go ahead and just email me! I'd love to hear from all of you! Thank you guys so much for all the prayers! I have needed every single one, and I have felt them over the last couple days! It really means a lot to have such a huge support group back at home cheering me on! I am not gonna lie I really have been struggling here! But your prayers and emails of advice have helped me so so so much! I love and miss you all! I can't wait to hear from everyone! Only one more week in the MTC and then I will be leaving Chorley and headed for Birmingham! This Thursday we get to go look at church historical sites all morning! So I will send plenty of photos of that next week!

7 Funny moment of the week: so on Wednesday, we were having a lesson talking about how you can literally relate anything to the gospel. We were all assigned a random thing (sports, candy, war) and we were told that we had to get up infront of a fake investigator and relate that thing to the gospel, as if we were talking about that thing as something the investigator enjoyed. We all prepared and we worked really hard to make That relate to the gospel. Everything everyone said was very well crafted and the investigator enjoyed it. And then Elder Anderson gets up, and his topic was sports. He says to the investigator "do you like sports?" without even giving the investigator half a second to answer he said "I like sports" and the investigator was super confused because he didn't let her answer his question. And that was pretty much all he said. I know it probably doesn't sound very funny over email, but we were all laughing harder than we ever have in our lives. Elder Reeder and one other missiomary had to leave the room, because they couldn't stop laughing. It was just so funny because we all worked so hard to create these well crafted analogies, and the best he could come up with was "do you like sports? I like sports"

8 Elder Anderson always keeps us laughing so hard. He is the most awkward kid I have ever met, but he definitely knows how to make us laugh. I have a few other really really funny stories of Elder Anderson, but writing it over email doesn't do it justice, so I guess you'll just have to wait till I'm home to hear those stories (and he's he knows I'm putting this in my email)

9 Well I love you all! I hope I didn't ramble on and bore you to death with my stories!

Talk to you all soon!

-Elder Eric Evans