Oi or should I say Hola from Indiana

Oi!  Or should I say Hola!

Yep, President Collins threw me a curveball and assigned me Spanish speaking!  Adios Portuguese, at least for now.

I guess that's the biggest news this week.  It's been a crazy week with a new mission and a new language and new companions and delayed flights and so much more so hopefully I can tell you everything. 

The day we flew out was kind of crazy.  Since our flight was delayed so much in SLC we missed our connector in Phoneix, so US Airways felt bad and gave us a free tour of all the country's airports!  Haha not really, but we flew from Phoneix to DC and then to Indianopolis, and all our flights were delayed by an hour or so, and by the time we got to the mission home is was like 2 am, so that was definitely a long 24 hours.  Being late also kind of threw off all the orientation, so we were mostly just thrown into the work right after we got here.  I got to talk with President Collins a bit, but time was short and everything was so rushed, and before I knew it I was trying to teach the gospel in Spanish.  It's been quite the adventure.  I'm serving on the east side of Indianopolis, which is more run down then the west side, but the people are really nice and pretty receptive to the gospel.  Since we are Spanish speakers, tracting is kind of different because we don't knock all the houses.  I guess their are some tell tale signs of Hispanics which include cleaning supplies on the porch, Christmas lights up year round, minivans, and a couple other indicators.  Pretty much we guess what houses/trailer homes are hispanic and knock.  The formula is pretty effective, but everyone once in a while we get some English speakers, and we teach them if they let us and then hand them off to the English missionaries.  It's kind of funny because we're looking for people I don't know how to talk to.  It's been great though, and Hispanics are awesome.  We're in a Spanish branch with four other missionaries and have a ton of investigators, but it's so hard to teach them because they work like crazy and since we're only in certain areas on certain days schedules don't match and appointments fall through all the time.  The other struggle is that we can't teach women unless a man is there, and a lot of times the husband is off working late and there are a lot of single moms that want to be taught, but we just can't teach them.  But despite all that we have a ton of investigators, and a lot of people working towards baptism. It's tough because I can hardly participate in the lessons, but I love talking as much as I can, and even though I hardly know the people here, I already love them, which is really cool.  Further confirmation this is the Lord's work.

I'm in a trio again, same with all the other visa waiters.  Our visa's can come at any time, so they put us in Trio's just in case.  Elder Cozzens is my trainer, and he's a great guy and a great missionary.  He's so hardworking and so humble, and really leads by example.  My other companion, Elder Paxman, is a newbie as well.  Both of us are picking up the language decently fast, but I just have to remember to be patient, and I'm trying to keep up with Portuguese too which is a challenge because when I talk I kind of default to Portuguese, and since I don't know it that well it just sounds like really bad Spanish, so pretty much I'm speaking a weird mix of Spanish, Portuguese and English, "Sportugish" as I like to call it.  Life is good though, and it's mostly a blast out here! 

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

E-mail me!

They changed the missionary email policy so I can email any friends and family.  I'd love to hear from any and all!  evan.mcdaniel@myldsmail.net

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Missionary Friends

Me and one of my best friends, Jordan Christensen. He's been in the MTC for two weeks and is getting ready to go to Denmark

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

The District 2

Final District pic with our teachers, Brother Rosemore and Brother Paulich

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

The tale of two missions

Indianapolis and Campinas

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Last Update from the MTC

Today's the last day here in the MTC!  Tomorrow morning I fly to Indianapolis where I will serve in the Indiana, Indianopolis mission until my visa comes! This morning was my last class and the rest of the day is dedicated to laundry and packing.  We leave at 4 AM tomorrow morning, so I'm pretty pumped!

Tuesday Elder Scott came for devotional and he gave an amazing talk on prayer, and how important it is to have a two way conversation.  My favorite part of the his talk was the last his last line.  "I know Christ lives because I know him."  Prayer really is an opportunity to develop a relationship with God, and my purpose as a missionary is to help others develop that relationship for themselves.  I'm not out here to baptize a ton of people, or to hand out a ton of Book of Mormons.  I'm out here to help others establish and develop their own relationship with God, because once they have that relationship, they will want to follow him.  He also gave us all an apostolic blessing that we may master the language and he said some other cool things, but I don't have my notes right now.  The best part was after the closing song, he hopped back up as a missionary was coming up to say a prayer and reminded us all how much God loves us and how much he needs us.  He said that God has called us to succeed, not to fail.  It was a great devotional, and I know he is an apostle of the Lord because I felt God's love for me while he was talking.

 

The rest of the week has flown by.  Wednesday we got our reassignments.  We thought they would be online on our mission page by Wednesday afternoon, but they hadn't changed missions so we were all disappointed.  So then we went to the travel office to see if they had any information for us, but they didn't either.  But like half an hour after that another district that got in the same time as us came running in all excited saying the travel office had our reassignments in, so we all booked it down, and they just read off names and missions and we were all going crazy!  It was a blast!  The only problem is that since then our Portuguese studying has kind of gone down the drain... oh well.   A couple elders in our district left this morning for Farmington, New Mexico, and Carlsbad California.  Tomorrow a bunch of us leave for Tennessee and Indiana, and then Wednesday the rest head out to Michigan.  It's crazy that we're done here at the MTC, but I can't wait to get out to Indiana and convert all those Hoosiers! :).

 

Another fun thing on Wednesday was me and my companheiros got to do example teaching in front of all the new missionaries that come in.  It was way fun to be teach in English and actually understand what was going on, and it was fun to see all the nervous new missionaries slowly get a grasp of things in the MTC.

 

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Final Stretch in the MTC

At this time next week, I'll be out in the mission field.  Not sure where yet, but I'll be out there.  I get my reassignment either tomorrow or Thursday, and can't wait to find out where I end up.  There is still a small chance I get my visa, but not likely.  Two sisters and an elder got visa's this week, but the vast majority are getting reassigned.  I'm definitely ready to leave.  The MTC is a great place, but I'm a little tired of sitting in the same classroom all day long.  I'm ready to go out and work.  Portuguese is still a struggle, but this week our district is going all Portuguese, which is really hard, but I'll probably learn a ton.  Not much up to report, but I know this work is the Lord's work, and I'm honored to be a part of it.  I really encourage everyone out there to read and pray about the Book of Mormon.  No matter how many times you've read it, more insights and inspiration will come.  I'm so grateful for this gospel and for Jesus Christ.  I know that through his Atonement, we can accomplish anything. 

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Last week's post

Meant to send this in last week.

This week has completely flown by and I've been having a blast.  I completely agree with what Elder Anderson said in Conference, "This isn't missionary work.  This is missionary fun!"  I completely agree and hope I never lose sight of the fun admist the work.  There is definitely a lot of work involved, but the work is uplifting, even in the MTC.  The big news this week is that me and my companions were called as Zone Leaders for our branch, which doesn't mean a ton in the MTC, but I enjoy it because we get to see how all the other districts are doing every day and get to know a lot of other missionaries.  We also get to interview the District Leaders once a week which I find really inspiring because there are so many great leaders here, and it's great to hear their input and advice on leadership and missionary work.  Another thing we get to do is welcome all the new missionaries.  This is probably my favorite part, because my Portuguese sounds really good to all the newbies :).  I just let them know that they'll be a lot better than me within a couple weeks, and answer any questions they have.

I loved conference here. Sitting on the hard chairs, I think I only fell asleep for one talk which is a record.  I even stayed up during Richard G. Scott's talk which literally never happens, so that was good.  I really enjoyed all the talks, and have 4 or 5 pages of notes and can't wait to get the Ensign next month.  I can hardly pick a favorite, but I really enjoyed President Packer's talk, President Monson's talk on obedience, Elder Perry's talk on the commandments, and so many more.  Sister Dalton gave an amazing talk as well and I'm kind of sad to see her go after the huge influence she's had on a lot of my friends.  I noticed a lot of talks about families and the importance of work in the home, probably because I'm not at home anymore.  I wouldn't be suprised if you heard a lot about missionary work ;).

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

The district (minus Elder McKay (Provo)) on a temple walk.  From L to R:  Elder Berrios (North Carolina), Elder Barker (Springville), Elder Leavitt (Atlanta, Georgia), Elder Wahlstrom (Ogden), Elder Heward (Bountiful), Elder Rieman (Washington), Elder Jenkinson (Atlanta), Elder McNeil (Delaware), Elder Newman (Ogden), Elder Marr.  Front: Evan and Elder Sprague (Albuquerque).

Halfway to Brazil (or reassignment)

This week has just flown by. I can't believe I'm halfway done with the MTC. I'm so excited to get out into the field, but I'm just hoping I know how to talk once I get there. A couple Brazilian visas have come in the last few days, but there are still a ton of people getting reassigned all over the United States, from San Bernadino to Chicago to Tallahasse. A week ago I was kind of excited about getting reassigned, and it almost felt like waiting for a mission call again, but yesterday we taught a couple of lessons in Portuguese and they went really well and then one of my teachers told us a bunch of mission stories from Brazil and showed us some pictures, and now I can't wait to get there. But whatever happens, I'll just enjoy the work and serve as diligently and as happily as I can. The Portuguese department is going crazy here at the MTC. We have two teachers, Irmao Rosemore and Irmao Paulich. Brother Rosemore went to the Campinas mission and loved it and I think Brother Paulich was in Salvador, but I'm not sure. Anyways, usually the teachers stay with the same district the whole stay at the MTC, but since since many Portuguese speakers are coming in, they are scrambling to hire new teachers, and so they are taking Brother Paulich to train a new teacher with a new district. I haven't met our new teacher yet, but he's not a Portuguese speaker, so morning classes will cover the gospel instead of the language from now on.   

 

Not too much has happened this week. I've kind of gotten into a routine, and have a lot more energy than I used too. Thursday we taught at the TRC for the first time. That's where I volunteered, but for foreign languages, the volunteers don't pretend to be investigators. They just act like themselves, and we try and get to know them and teach them a quick lesson. Me and my companions got to teach an older couple who are native to Rio, and I think I understood all of one word. They spoke so fast and slurred so many words together, it was impossible to keep up. They were really nice though, and slowed down a little bit for us, but it kind of made me nervous for Brazil. I've learned so much Portuguese, but my recall is so slow, and I'm so bad at understanding others. I'm sure it will come with time, but it will definitely be a challenge.

 

I've really learned to love the gospel and am so thankful for the example of Jesus Christ.  I've learned to consider him a friend and a teacher, a brother and a guide.  I really enjoyed reading John 15 and Matthew 6 today so take a look if you have time :).  Thanks for all the love and support and letters.  Other than the Spirit and companions, letters are a missionaries best friend :)

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.