Sister Eveland...Aso, chicken feet, lahat!

I have neglected to put any of Sister Eveland's emails up recently. I am so behind, but am going to put them all up now. Bear with me and read as you please. There are a bunch. You can also just look up the label Sister Eveland and her letters will be there as well.

To start things off for the week, how is everyone? Healthy and happy, I hope! As for now I am up to par, no weird sicknesses, despite the weird things I have eaten this week!! :) I think you all need to read LEV. 11:27...I am unclean.. Because I ate aso and they have paws... And I ate chicken intestines... Yeah I am gross I know. I should have you all guess what aso is before I tell you. The taste was actually pretty good. I may have eaten more of it if I didn't know what it was, but I did..


The weather here has been a little stormy, not TOO many rain storms but windy and over cast a lot. There has been a level one Baugio, but that is nothing, a few weeks ago it got up to a level three. To answer you question mom, there is somewhat of a raining season. Right now, until about Novemeber. Baugio season starts in September and thats when it can get bad. Typhons and all that jazz. But don't worry I am safe... at least that is what they tell me :) haha

Teaching has been rough. But it is good. I have learned so much here. There is still a lot that I don't understand about the people or the culture, but I am learning everyday. Right now I just want to teach people the importance of keeping commitments and what that word actually means. We are still working with the Cauilan Family but we are going to change their baptismal date, which is a good thing. They didn't come to church yesterday, except for Precious, the 12 year-old and her 7 year old cousin. My companion and I were so excited to see her get out of a tricee!! Sister Resendes and I had some great times this week despite the frustrations we were having with some of our investigators. We love them all and want them to understand, but it is hard for two Americans to really understand the cultural things at times. And I am having a hard enough time trying to learn the language. I am still kind of quiet in the lessons but everyday I am learning precept by precept!! I love the work, even days like yesterday when we wake up at 5:30 walk to all of our investigators to remind them to go to church, go through all of our meetings, cook lunch, study, and then walk around in circles for the next 5 hours panted because all our appointments fell through and the less-actives or other investigators we went to visit were busy or not there. It is all worth it!! Especailly yesterday because the Delos Reyes (a couple who we have dinner with every sunday) made French toast!!! They usually make us filipino food but they decided that this week would be american style, so we had french toast and dorritos.. yeah a weird mix but it was great!!

Some random things that happened:

1. we have a dead butiki on our stairs.. we don't know how it died but my companion and I have gotten some pretty funny pictures of it. (a small geko)

2. This morning I was reading the Book of Mormon and I companion had gone up stairs to get something, when all of a sudden she started screaming because there was a bird in our bedroom. Haha

3. I almost stepped on a HUGE rat the other day. I was less than two inches away and I didn't see it at first. Those things are so gross.

4. We found a new investigator this week and they have a talking bird. It looks like a crow. And it speaks Tagalog. It is hiliarious. Someday I will get it on camera and show you!

5. This isn't random but ants run this country. I also have ants crawling on me, or they are all over our apartment, the church, EVERYWHERE!!

6. My companions leg hair has out grown mine 3 times since I have been here. This is gross but I haven't shaved. Good thing my leg hair doesn't grow very fast and it is blond, and I am not in America. Here it is normal to have leg hair, it is actually preferred. WEIRD I KNOW!!

Okay for all of you that have waiting to know what Aso is.. It is DOG. yes I ate someone's pet. Right outside the kitchen door was the stream of blood to prove it.. SORRY mom.. Jason I don't think you have to worry about me coming home and trying to cook Bella or Madden! haha

Well have a great week!! I love you all, and I pray for you everyday!!!

Love,
Sister Eveland

Sister Eveland...Two months in an unfamiliar country...Wow!

I have neglected to put any of Sister Eveland's emails up recently. I am so behind, but am going to put them all up now. Bear with me and read as you please. There are a bunch. You can also just look up the label Sister Eveland and her letters will be there as well.

Time is going by so fast. The work is great. Hard at times, but if it was easy then it would not be the Lord's work.


So for those that do not know, we have to do our own laundry by hand twice a week. It usually takes between an hour and 1 1/2 hours. I am not very good at it, and Philippinos always make fun of Americans when they do their laundry... Well one of our investigators says she didn't have time to read because she had to do laundry, so we told her we would come help her. She thought it was a joke, but knew that we would still come over, she just wasn't going to let us help her. But Saturday came around and we showed up in our b-ball shorts ready to help.. She had already started and was almost done, (she actually started it on Friday so there wouldn't be very much of it) but we got to help her rinse it at least. You have to rinse it 3 times to get the soap out. It was fun to help her. Later that day as we went to our other appointments we learned we were the talk of the neighbors. They were all say that Sister Cauilan had two american labanoras that worked for free. They couldn't believe it. Gossip here spreads faster than a wildfire, not even kidding.

Well I don't have much time left, I was having too much fun chatting back and forth to Alisha.

But I love you all. I hope you have a great week! Remember that there is a Missionary in the Philippines that prays for you everyday!!

Love, Sister Eveland

Sister Eveland...First Cycle is Up

I have neglected to put any of Sister Eveland's emails up recently. I am so behind, but am going to put them all up now. Bear with me and read as you please. There are a bunch. You can also just look up the label Sister Eveland and her letters will be there as well.

So this week was once again not what we expected!! For starters we were sick. Mostly sister, so Weds we stayed in all day, and we had another sister stay with us and she was sick too. Thrusday was transfer day, WE ARE STILL TOGETHER!! We thought we would get pulled because we were the only companionship in our district that didn't have a baptism date, and they were putting Office Elders in. But tuesday when we got the transfer list we were the ONLY companionship who didn't get pulled in our district besides the APs. Shocker to us. It was funny because we were the only ones who had made sure everything was updated and made new maps for everything. haha. It is great though because now we have six more weeks to help our investigators.


One thing that I think is so funny about the culture here is that the people are so scared of the rain, that no one goes out. Well saturday we got in a tricee right as it started to pour he ended up pulling into a gas station and we had to wait 10 minutes for the rain to let up a bit before he would go again. Then Sunday when we got up it was raining, we got up an hour early again so we could re-remind everyone to come to church. Most of them used the excuse that it was raining. haha yeah no joke. We went to one family and the youngest was sick with a slight fever (everyone has fevers right now, including a lot of missionaries), so none of them were going to come to church. When we asked the oldest daughter if she could come and bring the other two siblings she said they didn't have an umbrella. We knew this wasn't true, but I followed along with it and told them that they could have my industrial size umbrella. (it really is big, but it is going to last my whole mission, unlike the umbrellas here. haha) We handed it to them and then just said that we would wait at the door for them at the church, and left. As we waited for everyone to come, we saw this little family walking in the gate of the church all under this one umbrella, it was my umbrella, they came, even the mom and the sick little boy, the other son didn't come though :( But even the members didn't come to church yesterday because of the rain.

I really am having a hard time thinking of what happended this week. Nothing too exciting. Oh actually we had a really good lesson with brother Helle. Sister turned to me for a part of the lesson and I just started talking in Tagalog, like I normally do but this time I was saying things that I haven't really said before and both my companion and Helle and Leah were looking at me like yeah, keep going. It was really funny. But I know that is the spirit working through me. The Lord's hand is in everything!!!

Well Time is up. I love you all. Thanks for everything. Have a great week, hopefully next week I will have better stories to tell!!

Love,
Sister Eveland

Sister Eveland...What a crazy week!

I have neglected to put any of Sister Eveland's emails up recently. I am so behind, but am going to put them all up now. Bear with me and read as you please. There are a bunch. You can also just look up the label Sister Eveland and her letters will be there as well.

This week was crazy!! Nothing went as we had planned. But the Lord knew what He was doing and it turned out to better than we could have hoped for.


Starting Monday though our schedule was wacked. First of all we got home late from getting everything we done on P-day and as we were getting ready to leave the neighbor girl walked in asked for our help with her english assignment, we couldn't just say no so that made us an hour late getting out the door. Our FHE plans fell through with the same family for the second time (hopefully it works for tonight). We went to our only appointment to see if they were there, but wala ( no one), and no one at our back up either. By this time it was pouring, but we decided to stop one family who have been investigators on and off for three years, they haven't been baptized because they didn't think they could get married, (BUT NOW THEY CAN!!) whenever we stopped by before they were never home. But we found out that they are home every Monday, we were able to teach them and set up an appointment for tonight. AND the husband and two daughters came to church yesterday!!!

Later that night we found out that district meeting which is usually here in Cauayan on Tuesday mornings was changed to tuesday afternoon in Ilagan because president wanted to do interviews with our zone. There went all our lessons for the afternoon. We got to teach of them in the morning before we left but it through off our fellowershippers and the rest of our lessons for that night. And we had to take the hour plus van ride each way, I am not even kidding when I say this, there were 23 people in a van at one time, no AC, yeah and they aren't even very big vans they are meant for maybe 9 people. We actually did have a really good lesson with one family (the Manaog's) we tried to set a Baptisim date with sister but she hasn't set one yet. The lesson was so good though, the spirit was really strong, AND all four kids were in the lesson and participated. THEY CAME TO CHURCH for the first time since before I got here!!!

Weds- No bayawak :( apparently they don't just go to the palangke and buy one. They shoot them themselves, out of the cauayan trees (bambo trees). You can buy at the palangke but I guess it is hard to find them for sell. They are still on the look out we hope that we will get to try it before we get transfered. all of our lessons/plans fell through this night too. But we ended up finding a less active member who usually isn't home when we have stopped by. She came to the activity on saturday but not to church, hopefully next week. Most of all fellowershippers fell through that night too because it was raining (no one works with us when it rains).

Side note-- it is funny when it is pouring and my companion and I are walking to appointments with our umbrellas just soaked, while the Philippinos are hovering under the smallest over hang or shelter they can find to wait it out because they hate the rain, they think everyone is going to sick if they walk in the rain. They always yell at us to get under covering and most of our investigators try to get us to stay at their house until it stops raining. It's actually pretty entertaining.

Thursday, again most of our lessons fell through. We didn't teach at two appointments that day because they didn't read. They are investigators that we have trying to see if we should drop. We told them that we would come back on Friday (the next day) and if they read we would share with them. We had another good lesson with Manaog, again they were all in the lesson!!

Friday, we went back to sister Evlynn and sister Angelita, not knowing if we would share with them. BUT both had read, and both were REALLY REALLY good lessons. We were not expecting to see that change in them over night. Nothing else really happened this day, except weekly planning... And we updated EVERYTHING because we have no idea what to expect on thursday with transfers because there is a possiblity we could get pulled out because of changes that need to be made in the office... We are so lost..

Saturday, we had branch FHE. President and sister Carlos came. It was actually a pretty fun night. I really like them. Later my companion and I are going to the mission home to help sister Carlos make brownies and cookies. She has to bake for all the missionaries coming in and going home this week and asked for our help. Not going to lie, there are a lot of perks to living close to the mission home. No one here has ovens so we never get baked goods. So I am excited!!

Sunday morning we got up at 5:30 again so that we could leave by 7:00 to remind our investigators to go to church.. We woke most of them up..haha Most of them said that they were coming to church. Church starts at 8:20 now and classes are first (which is a good thing), we waited outside until 15 min to nine when our first investigator showed up..after that they dragged in up to over an hour late..Okay are you ready for the best news of the week...Drum roll please....Guess how many investigators were at church?!

TWELVE!! that is the most that my companion has ever had at chruch, and that isn't counting any of their kids that who are too young or haven't sat in on the lessons!! Our efforts are paying off. The funny/odd thing is is that all of our investigators who came to chruch last week or who have been progressing didn't come. And all our investigators that we weren't sure would come actually came. We have seen a big change in a lot of investigators!

I love this work. Sorry no more time. Love you all. Thanks for you love and support!!

Love sister Eveland

Sister Eveland...Happy Belated 4th of July!!

I have neglected to put any of Sister Eveland's emails up recently. I am so behind, but am going to put them all up now. Bear with me and read as you please. There are a bunch. You can also just look up the label Sister Eveland and her letters will be there as well.

Kumusta po Kayo?


What a week. Some much happened. It was HOT like none other, but yet we still had a few good rain storms at night. Are you ready to hear all of the crazy things that happened?

1. We went to contact referrals that the APs gave us. After OYM (offering our message), teaching a brief lesson one, setting up a return appointment, and looking for the referrals we found out that it wasn't even our area, it was actually the Elder's who gave us the referrals in the first place. Yeah..So our day we were hoping to get investigators ended up be a day of getting investigators for them instead. We later did some contacting kind of by the mission home so we stopped by to get some cold water and give the referrals back to the Elders. President and sister Carlos arrived a few hours earlier so we were able to meet them and talk to them a bit. They are way nice. I am excited to get to know them better. We should have interviews in the next few days. Also Sister Villanueva came back with the baby, so we got to see her as well. The baby is SO cute!!

2. The other night we came home from our appointments and I looked in the Bathroom, next to the toilet there was a rather large spider. But when my companion looked it was gone. We didn't see it again.. until about two nights later when we standing up from saying our prayers for nightly planning and I looked up and it was on the ceiling by my companion. She didn't believe me at first. She told me I had to kill it, so I grabbed the bottle of permethern and just started spaying it. It ended up falling on the ground and I kept spraying it. It got slower, but where ever it went I just kept spaying. Finally it got in corner, it had no chance. Before it could plead one last time the poor thing was dead!! The next morning we had dead cockroaches and bugs on the floor. Permethern is some powerful stuff!

3. Okay this is what we ate.. Palaka..or in english FROG! We went to the palangke Thursday morning and for about 2.50 we got aprox. 25 frogs! Then we took them to an investigator's house to teach us how to cook them. They were actually really good. at least the legs, they really do taste like chicken. My companion told me to eat everything. This was the first time she ate it too. So I tried the stomach..Yeah not a good idea, I picked it apart and there we crickets in it.. I didn't really eat that part but my companion did. Her's was smaller than mine though and didn't really have bugs in it.

4. This week we are having an investigators mom buy Bayowa, you buy it live but you can't get it here. So she is bringing down. Oh yeah in english that is a rather large lizzard!! They sew the mouth shut so it can't bite you. So we get to see them kill and everything. I will send pictures from the start to the finish. It is really hard for two Americans to find a service project so we have started once a week finding an investigator who doesn't have a lot of money and telling that we want to try a certain food and ask if they can teach us how to make it. Then we pay for everything. It actually works out well for all of us in the end. They get a meal and we get cool pictures, experience, and fun stories.

5. BROTHER HELLE AND SISTER LEAH HAVE AGREED TO GET MARRIED!!!! They are trying to set a date. We are hoping that neither of us get transfered in 1 1/2 weeks so that they can get married in Aug and we can both be here. Because if they get married he can get baptized! We are praying for them. Even though sister was sick on sunday they still came to sacrament yesterday. We had the most investigators at church this week since I have been here. And the most RCLAs as well. We found a lot of Less actives this week and we got a good amount of them to come to church. Sacrament meeting attendance was the highest it has been in this branch since the first part of the year. The work is progressing!!!

Well this week was a good one for me. I hope it was for all of you as well. Thank you for the e-mails. p.s. Alisha I sent a letter to you, it is in the same envelope with mom and dads so they will have to get it to you. But, I did get your e-mail today. Thanks!!!

I love you all. Good luck with everything this week.

Love,
Sister Eveland

Sister Eveland...Almost a month!

I have neglected to put any of Sister Eveland's emails up recently. I am so behind, but am going to put them all up now. Bear with me and read as you please. There are a bunch. You can also just look up the label Sister Eveland and her letters will be there as well.

Time goes by so fast. Before I know it it will be avacado season..August.. haha


This week was pretty good. We were panted a little because we had meetings and it was raining pretty hard during the late afternoon. Weds we had a meeting at the church for all the new traniers and trainees. The church isn't too far, it is next to the mission home/office but it is our area. When we left our apartment at 1:00pm it was really hot and we were just planning on finding one girl after the meeting who lives down the street from the church and then we would go home and drop everything off. So we decided we should probably be safe and wouldn't need an umbrella. Well at 4:30 30 mins before the meeting was going to be over it started to POUR. My comp and I just looked at each other and started laughing because we knew we didn't have an umbrella and we were going to have to walk to find our referral. I was leading the music and the whole time I was looking out the windows of the chapel and couldn't help but laugh. By the time we found the girl we were both soaked. We literally could ring out our clothes. it was great.

Then the next day it was so hot again. And there was a brown out so when we were studying and stuff in the morning we couldn't use the fan, and I had to shower in the dark, but that is beside the point. No one had ice candy that day and our water bottles were warm within the first hour of tracting. So we decided we would go to one of the two resturants that had a generator and get a cold pineapple juice to cool down. 45 min later when we were getting ready to start our first lesson it started to rain. not just a light rain like we are used to but a pouring rain. By the end of our lesson we were screaming so that they could even hear us. As we walked to our next appointment the path that we take that is normally dry was like walking through a running stream 4 inches deep. No joke it may have been even deeper and that only after maybe 30 mins of the storm. We had to go to all of our appointments and tell them that we would come back if it stopped, because most of them have tin roofs and you can't hear unless you yell. By the time we got to the last house it started to slow down so we went back to the first and started teaching for the night. We had umbrellas but they were use less. I was able to ring my clothes out again. It was awesome though how fast the rivers were created!! haha

The work is so different here. One referral can take over 3 hours to find because all we usually get is a name and Burangay (a burangay is like a community, like sunland for example) if we are lucky we get the purok (which would be like San Juan or some where around the 16th hole) and we get to walk and walk and walk asking everyone we see if they know that person. It can take a long time. Well we got 12 referrals in one day and we get to try and contact all of them!!! It should be great fun!

President and Sister Carlos come on Weds. Sister Villanueva already left because she had the baby in Manila two weeks ago and just stayed down there. I am excited to meet them. p.s. Mom and Dad, did you guys get a letter from them my companion said her mom did.

Well I don't have anymore time. I love you all. Thanks for your support. If you find yourself with a little extra time you can write me a letter on dearelder!! OR even hand write. (hint hint) Have a great, there will be more stories next week I promise. we are already planning on eatting something. But I will leave that as a suprise for next time!!

love, Sister Eveland