Week #5 It's my last week in the Chile CCM!

Hey guys so this is my last email from the CCM here in Santiago. I can still remember the day I sent my first email from here. It[s crazy to see how far I have come in the last few weeks. It feels like I have been here an eternity but also not at all. Its hard to explain but I love it.

A few funny stories to start off with....

1. So I do not know how I forgot to include this last week but last week, the morning of my last email, we had our first earthquake. It was at a 5.5 . And it...was....AWESOME. The natives say that if it is below 6, just sit back and enjoy. It occurred at 3 in the morning so I just laid in my bed feeling everything around me shake. It was kind of scary but really cool at the same time.

2. Ok Mom is not going to be very happy about this one. Our first day here at the CCM we learned that in the cafeteria there was free ice cream and we could have as much as we want. So my district and another English speaking district decided to put it to the test. We decided to eat 100 ice creams in one day. There is 15 of us so we all had to eat 6, give or take. Some people dropped off in the beginning of it so I had to pick up some slack as well as some other elders. In total, I ate 9 ice creams in one day. Don´t worry. I am working hard to burn it off during exercise and I feel great!

3. Ok this one is kind of embarrassing. So at the CCM, we have a full view of the temple all day. We have to walk past it a lot in order to get to class and to our apartments. I love it. It is such a spiritual environment. Anyway, I was playing with the ball on temple grounds on the way back to my apartment(not a good idea) and I lost control of the ball and it went straight into the fountain  in the middle of the courtyard.Great The ball was too far out of my reach so I had to do the only thing I could do. Get in. Imagine if you are a Chilean seeing a gringo elder wade in the fountain in the temple courtyard. Pretty ridiculous, right? Three districts saw me go in as well as a huge group of Latinos going to the temple. I decided it would be best if I told President Brady so he heard it coming from me and not some random Latino. He just laughed it off, thanked me for telling him and said Lesson Learned. And he was right

So as of late, my fellow missionaries and I have been spending a lot of time preparing for the field. For example, we were blessed Sunday night to have President Morgan and Hermana Morgan from my mission visit us for ouir Sunday night devotional. And I love the Morgans. Right when they started speaking you could see they were spiritual giants. That got me a lot more excited for the field. We also have classes everyday with the director of the CCM, Hermano Escobar. We have talked about the doctrine of Christ and the importance of setting goals. I know the field is going to be very rough at times but I can´t wait to get out there!

A lot of people have told me how much they appreciate my honesty about the mission. And I will continue to do so. We often say the mission is or will be the best two years of our lives which is true. But that does not mean it is going to be easy. But if I am going to continue being honest about the mission, I need to make something clear. Even though I may be a little more blunt than others about how things are going, please do not interpret that as me trying to express feeliongs of discouragement and frustration. While those do exist from time to time, I LOVE hte mission. Every day I can see myself becoming more and more converted unto the Lord and I can´t wait to see that occur in the people I teach here in Chile. The mission is wonderful. I am so happy and content that I decided to serve.

Love you guys

Elder Evans

This is a picture of me 30 minutes after my first haircut.  What do you think? 

Some food pictures: 

This is an empanan is just fried bread filled with stuff. This one has cheese in it. It is so good and it´s supper cheap. It is only 300 chilean pesos which is like 45 cents. 

This is an Completos.  They are little more expensive than an empanan. It is a hot dog covered in guac, mayo, tomatoes, bacon.  It's awesome!