Basketball Tourney (September 27, 2014)

September 27, 2014

Well this week went by so so so fast. We have been working really really hard and are going to have a lot more people at church this Sunday, we have 2 baptism dates for next month and we are hoping one of their family members would make three. The sisters here in Palmas are doing well and working really hard also. It has been such a great change so far and I love my companion. I can’t believe that I’m coming up on 11 months..... wow.... The time is flying by so so so fast. This week we also had zone conferences, and President asked my companion and I to go with him. That was a really cool experience and I love being with President so much. This experience is something I will never forget and I love my time here in the offices. Speaking of unforgettable experiences my companion and I had one today:

My companion and I went to Zócalo (the heart of Mexico City) today just to go shopping, see the sites and all of that, and then we found a huge Basketball set up in the middle of Zócalo with like 20 out door basketball courts and tons of people playing and watching. After asking around a bit we found out it was a huge National 3 on 3 Basketball Tournament for all of Mexico, there were tons of courts but there were two courts set aside just for shooting around and having fun so my companion and I went over in our white shirt and ties to shoot around. After a little while we had asked a team that was shooting around if they wanted to play, they said yea but we have 3. We told it wasn't a problem and that we would play 2 on 3. My companion and I beat them, but meanwhile another team was watching and wanted to play us after, we beat them to. Before you know it we had beaten 5 teams straight playing 2 on 3 and tons of people came over to the court where no one was originally. Everyone had phones out videoing us playing and laughing and cheering on the two white missionaries. Before you knew it the camera crew came over also to start filming us also... We won multiple games before having to go but it was so cool because after everyone came up and talked to us and treated us like we were superstars and we got to contact a few people and get some references, but overall it was such a cool experience!! 

I love this work so much, I love everything I am doing and even though I miss you all so much and even though the time is so far away, I'm going to be so sad to finish my mission and say goodbye to Mexico. The mission has made such a huge impact on the person I am and I am sure for the person I will be for the rest of my life, there is nothing better and there is no other place Id rather be.

Love,

Elder Adams

Basketball Tourney photos

Crazy Week

Just a quick update from this week:

Well the week has been super super super stressful without any sleep but was overall really good also. This week was the week of changes and my companion and I are lacking tons of sleep. Monday we had to take a missionary to the airport at 2:30 in the morning, the people who were going home kept us up talking for 3 days and today my companion and I passed out for 4 hours... I was so tired and we are beat from a heavy burdened week but it was overall really really good. The highlight of the week was when I went with a member over to the sisters area to help them out and we put someone on date for THIS SUNDAY!!! We went to an old investigator last night (Friday) and everything fell into place to put her on date for this Sunday, which means I have my first baptismal interview tonight... A little scared but I think everything will turn out alright. This past week we baptized Francisco but his wife Sara has some problems with her family that she wants to clear up before she gets baptized, so we are being patient with her and helping her along the way. The new goal is to have her be baptized within the next few weeks but to be baptized by her husband, Francisco! This best part about the story of Brenda (This Sisters investigator) was that this whole week the Sisters have been working really really really hard, the are both American and Farley new in the mission and so are having a little hard time doing EVERYTHING there-selves, but this hasn't stopped them from working hard. They have been working really really hard this whole week without a whole lot of success and every night I tell them when they call and give me their report that something good was going to come about from their hard work. One night I shared with them a scripture in D&C 82:10 which says "I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise". It was so cool to see that great promise come to pass. They went up and above this week without much success, but because they persevered they were blessed last night with that huge miracle and assuming all goes well tonight she will be getting baptized tomorrow. 

Just a few things, mom you asked me if I needed or wanted anything in my next package and if you haven't already sent it I would like some Nike Elite socks, majority black of course, because they are the only socks I have that haven't gotten wholes in them, even my nike drifits got holes, but my three elite socks are still going string and are super comfortable.

Lastly, something that I remembered this week that I thought was super funny was that all of the Latinos here love listening to Elder Holland talks and always quote him. It is so funny because they dont know any English but they can quote almost a whole talk from Elder Holland... haha it is really funny. Well, I love and miss you all, I hope you have a great week and have fun!!

Love,

Elder Adams!!

PS here is a picture from Franciscos baptism 

Crazy Week photo

District Leader, Amazing Companion and BAPTISM

September 13, 2014

Wow this week has been so wonderful!! My new companion and I are getting along so great!! Elder Bastian and I are going to be best friends!! He reminds me so much of Barnes and we have such a good time together. It is great!! Starting Monday I will be the new District Leader here in Palmas, which is pretty much the offices and the sick bay. I will have the APs in my district, my companion, all the senior couples and two sisters who have parasites (President always puts sick sisters in the district so he came keep a close eye on them as well.)

This week was really pretty much the same. We struck out with so many people and didn't get to really visit anyone except for Francisco and Sara. They are the best investigators EVER!!! They had a baby die when he was really, really young and wasn't baptized and so the pastor of the Catholic Church told them he was in hell because of them. They completely left church all together until we came along and our contact was about eternal families so they let us in. We taught them lesson 2 after finding out about their son and they loved the lesson. They read the Book of Mormon everyday and told us that their goal is to get sealed in the temple to live with their son forever. She told us "Before I was pretty much anti-Church but since I met you guys I look forward to church every Sunday, I've found the Church for me." They are the best!!!! I love them so much. They were smoking, but the day after we taught them about the Word of Wisdom they said if that's what God wants then that's what we will do, and they haven't looked back! They still have to get an interview tonight, but assuming everything goes well they should be getting baptized tomorrow. Sorry not a whole lot happened this week but the few things that did happen are really cool and exciting.

Elder Bastian and I played basketball today and we had a lot of fun. I love this work, I love what I am doing and I hope you are all staying strong and reading your scriptures. I love and miss you all so much and will be thinking about you during the 15 of September (the fourth of July for Mexico) except they pretty much celebrate it for the whole month of September. People are always going around saying VIVA VIVA MEXICO!! haha well have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Adams

Great Week (9/6/14

September 6, 2014

Hey everyone! This week has been really great. I have had such a wonderful week here in the offices as well as out in the field. First thing first, this week I got a new companion. He is being trained by my other companion until next week to be the new secretary to President. He is so awesome and I can tell we are going to get along really, really well. He is from Sacramento California and is 19. He went to one year of BYU before he left on his mission and is doesn’t have a whole lot of time in the mission. He has only been out for 2 1/2 months, but he knew a good amount of Spanish before the mission because he lived in Spain for 6 months. He is the third of 8 and so far everyone in his family has served a mission. (His mom and dad both served in Spain but different missions, His brother in Nicaragua, and his other brother in Argentina). He played high school basketball and loves a lot of the things that I love. We have been working really hard and well together and I am really excited for this next change with him (and probably one more after that). 

Today for P day we went back to the zoo and had a lot of fun, we had a huge lunch in Chapultepec Park and had a lot of fun. Elder Bastian and I order Cubanas which are HUGE sandwiches stuffed with any kind of meat you can think of (Steak, hotdog, hamburger, ham, chicken, egg, avocado and lettuce) It was really good but we didn't finish the whole thing.... haha (p.s. I’ll post a few pictures from the zoo). 

The changes will be coming up this next week, which means that we are going to have a lot of work. Changes are always fun and this week is going to fly by. The week after that we will be even more busy helping with all of the new missionaries who are going to be coming in. 

We have finally starting to have some success out in the field. We brought 9 people to church this past week for the first time: a family of 6 and a family of 3. The family of 6 are going along really well, they are really religious and like to go around to the other churches but told us they usually don't like the churches they go to because there is a lot of preaching and they don't feel "at home" but they loved church this past Sunday and want to keep going. The other family that we brought to church are even better. They are a couple with a 7 year old girl. They used to be really catholic until they had a little child who died. They stopped going to church because the Catholic church believes that he is in hell right now and they cant believe that. We taught her about the plan of salvation and have had a few other lessons. They have a date to be baptized the 14 of September. Last night we did divisions and I went over to teach them with a member, we talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ and a little about the temple, after I explained the temple and bore my testimony about how I know I will live with my family forever again and that she could too, she started crying. She said that all she wants is to see her son again, she of course wants to live with her other children but because he died so young she wants to see him again and said she is willing to do anything to do that. I love that family so much and we have really been blessed by working so hard lately. I love you all and miss you even more, I hope everything is going well and I love to hear from you all!!

Love,

Elder Adams

Great Week photos (9/6/14)

Stressful Week (August 30, 2014)

August 30, 2014

Wow this has been a stressful week... Everything that could go wrong this week did go wrong but, after a lot of panicking and stressful nights, yesterday everything unfolded well. Due to all the things that happened this week we have had only one day to go and work out in the field but that one day we were blessed with a lot of success.

First off the stress, I was so stressed out this week. To start the week off the bank blocked the mission card that I use. Apparently we need to zero out the mission cards once a year (I had no idea) and because we hadn't zeroed out the mission card they blocked mine, told me to fix it and they would unblock it and then also told me that I needed to do the same with President’s card or this next week they would block his also. Of course this happened the week that President has been out doing interviews with all the far away zones (Atlacomulco, Zitacuaro, Toluca, and Metepec) He has been staying in a hotel with his card and all the cash he should have from the mission card, which means I wasn't able to do anything until he came back last night. Secondly we have had a TON of sick missionaries who have needed money and other such things. One of these missionaries was new and her medical card was still here in the offices. This meant that my companion and I had to take her medical card out to her in Metepec (it was a 6-7 hour round trip due to traffic) and took away a lot of time we need to be working on things here in the offices. Lastly, this week was the week to send all of the spending money, transportation money, rent money, and reimbursement money to all of the missionaries. After I send the money to all of the missionaries President has to approve it and once he approves it the money is sent to the card within 2-3 business days. The money is supposed to be in every missionaries card by Friday, but due to President being so busy he wasn't able to approve them till 11pm Wednesday Night. During all of this mayhem my companion and I were asked to each give a 25 min talk this Sunday in the English ward that I have been working on. Luckily all turned out well, I am almost done with my talk, all the money went through yesterday, After a long night yesterday I got everything figured out with my mission card and President’s mission card and everything is starting to calm down.

The one day we did have time to leave we were able to find 6 new investigators and commit 7 people to come to church. We are hoping and praying that everything turns out well this Sunday and that we start having some success again. My companion will be having his birthday tomorrow and President has told him that he is going to be going back into the field this next change after training his replacement. 

Well I know this was yet again another boring letter, we didn’t do anything but relax today for P-day and the rest of the time was either spent here in the offices crunching numbers or sleeping on a super long bus ride... haha but I can now say that I understand the saying, "It was a late night in the office". Have a great week! I love and miss you all! 

Love,

Elder Adams