Still Exhausted!

Taylor asked me to apologize to anyone who he owes an email to. He's has been really short on time and hasn't had time to write almost anyone.

March 3, 2014
Dear friends and family,

Another week in Mexico and it is still just as crazy as week one. I’ll first start by talking about the food. I miss the food so much in the United States... half the food here is really good and half of it, well, not so much. On top of all of that, almost all of it makes you sick one way or another. I would give anything to have my mom cook me a meal, or even go out to eat with her... haha We eat corn tortillas with every meal and they are not nearly as good as flour tortillas and I am already sick of them haha...

Secondly, I miss home a lot and being here is really hard. The feelings usually pass when we leave the house and get to work but every morning is really hard and I always have thoughts of someone from home dying while I am here and how devastated I would be. One thing that really helps me, and really gets me going in the morning is a missionary atonement video we have in the house that I watch every morning. I won’t spoil it all because when Elder Herd goes to the house to hang out with you all he said he is going to bring that video to show you. But the video is really powerful and is by Elder Holland and he says, ¨Missionary work is not easy, because salvation is not a cheap experience! Salvation was never easy! How can it be easy for us when it was never ever easy for Him (Christ). If Christ can fall on his face in the middle of the night screaming Father, take this cup from me; it’s no wonder that salvation is not an easy or whimsical thing for a missionary. So when you ask, why is this so hard? Remember that you are not the first one to ask that.... someone a lot greater, and a lot better asked that a long time ago. So remember when you are having a hard day, when you are spit upon, cast out, rejected YOU ARE STANDING SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH THE BEST LIFE THIS WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN-the only pure and perfect missionary. You have every reason to stand tall knowing that the Savior and Redeemer of the world knows all about your trials and afflictions, and for a moment or two in your life, you will understand what the Savior went through for you. This keeps me going every morning and be prepared to cry because that video is so powerful!

Third, I said it last week but I’ll say it again, we work hard!! I’ve never been so exhausted in my whole life! For service this week we helped one of our investigators carry up 600 bricks 3 flights of stairs in the sun. I just about died and even though we are both still really sore, we still walk really fast, climb SO many stairs and are physically exhausted every night.

Fourth, I want to tell you about the amazing family we are teaching. There is the Mom and 8 siblings but the 8 siblings are all between the age of 30 and 50 and so they all live in different households, all right next to each other (Pretty much in the same neighborhood). We are teaching 3 of these 8 households and most of the households have one of the siblings, his or her spouse, 3-5 kids and usually a few grandkids. We are planning on Baptizing 15-20 of them on the 22 of March and as of right now we have 10 solid people from the family who are going to get baptized for sure, 5 who say yes but are kind of iffy and 5 who will be really hard, but not impossible. There are two people that I want to tell you about specifically from this family. Number one is Odylon. Odylon is the most humble, amazing, kind man I have ever met. He works 12 hours a day 6 days a week to provide for his family who he loves so much. He gives everything he makes to his family for whatever things they need or want and only has for himself about 3 outfits and the food he eats. He loves the gospel so much and every night when he gets home he reads the Book of Mormon or the Gospel Principles Manuel so he can answer all the questions in Sunday school. He gets his whole family excited to go to church every Sunday and never, ever, ever complains about anything. He is such an amazing humble man! Secondly is his daughter Judith. First off you need to understand that Mexico is so different than the USA. Kids start going to parties at the age of 12 around here and it is actually more common to have a kid at the age of 16 then not. In the family we are teaching 3 kids in one house hold are very, very rebellious and party pretty much every night till about 1-4 in the morning and are the ages of 14, 16, and 17. Judith was like this also but since we started teaching her family she has fallen in love with the gospel. She has decided to live all the rules and standards and has stopped going to parties even though all of her cousins make fun of her for it. This past Sunday on fast and testimony meeting she got up and bore her solemn testimony that she knows the church is true and that the missionaries have only been teaching her family for about four weeks but she can already see the change it is making and she loves it. She is so amazing, so strong and loves us, as missionaries. I love this family so much and I can’t wait until March 22. 

I miss you and love you all so much! I hope you are all doing well and I can’t wait to hear from you all. I miss you more than you know and I am always thinking about you!!

Much Love,

Elder Adams