Elder Evans in Birmingham: Week 2 in the Field

Hello everyone!
This week hasn't been too eventful. There have been tons of fireworks and stuff lately because apparently there is some huge celebration on the 5th of November. Fireworks scare us so bad because they sound like gunshots here. The buildings are so close together it just echoes and it always scares me. I am still getting settled into the area and getting to know the members and investigators. I love the members here sooo much. They take care of the missionaries, we have dinner appointments almost every night. And I love it! It has really made it so that I have a chance to try a lot of the English foods! I love English food! Everyone told me before I left that English food was gross and flavorless, but you guys lied! English food is actually really good. Pretty much all I eat is either gravy or curry with every single meal. I'm not complaining though, it's delicious. I also love being in the area I am in because we are away from the big cities and the people out here are waaayyyy nicer than they are in the cities. Although not many people are willing to listen to what we have to say, at least they are nice and tell us they respect what we are doing.

Like I mentioned last week we spend most of our time knocking on doors. I bet you we knock close to 1000 doors a week, I'm not sure though, I loose track every 20 or so and so I just have to guess. It gets so exciting when we are actually able to talk to someone. I have found that we knock doors all day long and no one wants to talk to us. But then the second we have somewhere else to be, we find someone who wants to talk and then we end up being 20 minutes late to what we had planned. That's okay though. I love every chance that we get to teach.

On Saturday afternoon we were able to do a district finding activity in Wolverhampton city centre. My district has 6 members in it. Me and Elder McKenzie, Elder Lauener and Elder Allen, and the two zone leaders elders Gilbert and O`hare. They are all awesome! So anyways we went to Wolverhampton city centre with a whiteboard and we wrote a question on it that said "What made you smile today?" And we had so so so many people who were willing to write on it. It was awesome! Elder McKenzie was very happy because one of the people we talked to wrote "Elder McKenzie made me smile today." He has been bragging about it since. None of us were even able to stay in our companionship to teach because there were so many people to talk to. I really had fun doing that! Plus after it was over we got doughnuts and those were really good. I have a picture of the whiteboard attached to this email so be sure to look at that.

This week really hasn't been much more than that! I am still having problems with my anxiety and It still is continually getting worse and worse every day. It takes everything I have to get myself out of bed in the morning, but some how (with the help of all the prayers and support I get from all of you) I manage to get out of bed and continue on. I have spent the last week and a half consulting with the mission president and his wife and we were finally able to get a doctor's appointment scheduled to see what I can do to get this awful anxiety to go away. Like I said last week, I'm not gonna hide how I am feeling, and right now it feels impossible. But some how I am still able to continue pressing forward. And I know that I definitely wouldn't be able to do that without you guys. So thank you. If you have any questions feel free to email me! I love getting to talk to as many people as possible so please send me an email! I know it might be a little weird that I talk about such personal stuff in this email. But before I left on my mission, no one told me that it could get THIS hard. I knew a mission would be hard, but I never imagined it to be as hard as it is for me right now. I came on my mission completely unprepared for the fact that a mission might be this hard. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from going on a mission. I just don't want people to come on a mission completely clueless to the fact that something like this might happen on a mission. Everyone is different though, some of you might leave on a mission and it will be the easiest thing you have ever done! But long story short, I don't want to leave anyone in the dark. So moral of the story, missions can be really really hard! Prepare yourselves! Thank you all for everything! I really have felt your prayers! Please continue to pray for me! I have spent a LOT of time on my knees myself! I love you all so much!

Love,
Elder Eric Evans