Utahn Addie Evans never intended for her mission homecoming to go viral.
On July 1, Evans returned home to Utah after serving a mission in Dallas, Texas, for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When Evans exited security at the Salt Lake City International Airport, she ran toward her mother, Gigi Nemelka, and tackled her to the ground.
The moment was captured on video and, unbeknownst to Evans, her cousin, Evan Wilde, uploaded it to TikTok.
On TikTok, Wilde’s video has over 700,000 likes, 210,000 shares and 14,000 comments, including one from the Atlanta Falcons.
“People come up to me, and they’re like, ‘I saw your video. That’s my favorite thing ever,’” Evans told the Deseret News. “They’re like, ‘I laughed so hard.’ But I think that’s the best thing to hear is that (I) gave them a good laugh.”
Weeks later, it went viral again on Instagram. People sent it to Evans, asking if it was her. A few found her Instagram profile and commented on her last post announcing her mission farewell.
NFL star Myles Garrett appreciated Evans’ tackle, too, as the Deseret News previously reported. On Aug. 19, the Instagram account House of Highlights shared the video with the caption, “Got off her flight like Myles Garrett.”
Garrett, a defensive end for the Los Angeles Rams, saw and commented on the post, writing, “Near foot, near shoulder. Kept the legs driving. Excellent.”
Garnering the attention and praise of a two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year has “probably been the craziest” thing to come from the video, Evans said, though she admitted she had never heard of Garrett before.
While the viral video wasn’t part of the plan, tackling was.
The story behind the tackle seen ’round the world
Evans, who runs a dog grooming business with her cousin, didn’t play any sports in high school. Her “excellent” tackling, as Garrett described it, actually developed on her mission.
A friend and fellow missionary played rugby before her mission and taught Evans how to tackle.
“She would practice with me,” Evans said. “I guess I brought it home.”
As a missionary, Evans was allowed to call home every Monday. During those last few calls before she came home, Evans warned her mom that the tackle was coming.
“I was like, ‘Mom, is it OK if I tackle you at the airport? Is that OK?’” Evans recalled. “I think she just thought it was a joke, and she was laughing. She’s like, ‘OK, so I shouldn’t wear my high heels?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, probably not.’”
When July 1 finally arrived, Evans had butterflies and couldn’t sleep on the plane because she was too excited to see her family again.
She said it was a “50/50 chance” that she was going to go through with the tackle because “you don’t know what your nerves are going to do in that situation because you’re so excited.”
When Evans walked through the security exit, she couldn’t see her mom at first.
“I was looking around everywhere, and I couldn’t see any of my family,” she said.
Then she spotted her little sister, and her mom stepped forward, where Evans could see her. Not being able to find them at first gave Evans an adrenaline rush, she said.
“When I saw my mom, I just got excited and ran full force,” she said.
The tackle caught the 30 to 40 people there for Evans by surprise as she and her mom fell to the ground and appeared to hit their heads.
“I do remember as we were falling, I was like, ‘Oh no, her head’s going to hit the ground,’ and I was kind of stressed out about it,” she said.
Evans wasn’t injured and neither was her mom. Evans checked multiple times, including the next day, to make sure her mom’s head didn’t hurt.
“If you talk to her about it, she’ll say that it was like an angel that made sure she didn’t get hurt,” Evans said.
Life as a sister missionary
Evans spent her time as a missionary in Dallas “finding people … interested in learning more about becoming closer to (Jesus) Christ and Heavenly Father,” she said.
“When you find those people who are just willing and able to learn and are not too prideful in their ways and just humble, then that’s when you see a spark in their eye, and I would say that that’s the thing that made me the most firm in my testimony, is just people can tell this is true just from one lesson,” Evans said.
Most evenings, a family from church would sign up to feed her and her companion dinner.
“I’m so glad that they do that because it’s just like a little taste of being in a family again because you’re just with one person 24/7, so it’s good to get a little bit of family time,” she said.
Her mission taught her the importance of consistent efforts in the building and development of her testimony, she said, especially during her hourlong personal studies every day.
“A lot of times, you’ll have a personal study that day, and then you use that exact same (scripture) verse in a lesson that same day,” Evans said. “It’s just those things where it’s like that was planted there for a reason. You’re meant to study that for this person.”
Evans said she struggled on her mission like “most people do,” but she likened it to the struggles of everyday life.
“On the mission, you have to endure to the end, be faithful, and I see life as the same way,” Evans said. “It’s to just endure to the end and be faithful, but both of them, I realize, is impossible without having help or guidance.”
Just like she needed God’s help to find people to teach, get along with her companions and “just even get up that morning and have a good study,” Evans said she still needs God after coming home, especially “when life gets hard, and you need a helping hand.”
“You need God for both. For both worlds you need him,” she said.
Evans would love to return to Dallas, especially if it’s to watch Garrett and the Rams play the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium so she can meet Garrett.
But Evans has one condition.
The meeting has to be next season after the sister missionary who taught her to tackle comes home in March — because Evans said she can’t meet Garrett without her coach.