November 9, 2015

November 9, 2015

Well, I’m okay and doing well, I will see you all in the airport at 2:30 but before I go home I want to tell you about the party tonight. I cant put into words the joy that I felt today to be with these 6 men that I love so much, walking the streets of Mexico just hanging out as if we were the best of friends, because we are. After 2 years us 7 have become the best of friends. Then tonight we went to the chapel in the Molinito. 5 of us served here in this area and the 2 that didn’t have converts there come too. There were about 40-50 converts there and 5 of them passed by to give their testimonies in front of us. The joy to see my converts bear their testimony and give us thanks for the gospel we brought to their lives was one of the coolest experiences of my whole life. I really can’t put into words the happiness I feel right now. Here is a photo from tonight.

PS the photos were taken after a lot of people went home. I love you all and see you Wednesday at 2:30!!! Be early!!

Love,

Elder Adams

November 9, 2015 photos

LAST email (11/2/15)

November 2, 2015

Well I never thought that this day would come.... but here it is, the last week of my mission, and my last email. I don’t know what to say or how to feel but Ill try and put into words how I feel:

First off, just to give you a run down of what’s going to happen over the next 9 days. Tomorrow I have my last Zone meeting, there in the zone meeting along with 2 other sisters that are going home, I will be giving my last testimony and then the whole zone will sing to us "God be with you till we meet again".... Directly after the zone meeting I have my last interview with President. (Normally he does it the Tuesday before we go home but there are 13 of us and so he is doing some of them this week. After on Saturday I’m going to kill, and gut a chicken that Israel and Miriam have been fattening up for my goodbye dinner Sunday. Sunday I will say goodbye to everyone and have my goodbye dinner. I will be eating something very traditional, Mole Verde made with the chicken that I’m going to kill, I am going to make the tortillas and we are going to have a great night. Monday I head off to the offices to have a P-day with people from my generation. We will go out to Zocolo and buy some things to take home. After 5 of the 7 Elders that go home with us served in El Molinito so our converts are preparing a party for us. Tuesday we will go to the temple with President and Sister Whitehead. After we will head to President house to hang out there while he does the other last interviews. We will have the "Last Supper" with President and the APs, followed by a testimony meeting. After the testimony meeting everyone going to SLC will be headed off cause we need to be at the airport at 11 that night and we are off.

To finish off my last letter I want to end with my testimony. I love the church, I love my mission and I love everything I have learned here. I have truly fallen in love with the scriptures, I have come to know who my Heavenly Father really is, and more in depth about what Christ did for me. I’ve seen miracles, MANY of them. I have seen the hand that God has had in my life and my mission, as well as the hand he has had in the lives of people I have known in these last 2 years. In these 2 years I have found a joy, a joy that I will never be able to describe, a joy in seeing the lives of people that I love change. Joy in seeing people I have taught and loved enter into the waters of baptism and make a covenant with our Heavenly Father. I have made friendships that will last a lifetime, but overall I have found my own purpose in life. I know why I am here, I know who I am, a child of god. I have learned the profundity of these simple phrase. I know what I want in my life and even more what my Heavenly Father wants for me. I love this gospel, I love my savior Jesus Christ and I am so grateful for the 2 years that he gave me to serve as his representative. I love my mission more than words can express. I love you all and I’m so excited to see you, but I will miss my mission and Mexico with all my heart. I know that Joseph Smith was the prophet of the restoration; I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and that his chruch is lead today by Thomas S Monson.

I love you all and I cant wait to see you, see you in a week.

Love,

Elder Adams

PS here are some photos from the Volcan, Ill send more in another email.

LAST photos (11/2/15)

October 26, 2015

October 26, 2015

Well this week was really frustrating.... We had 6 baptismal dates and 4 of them fell, one moved to this Sunday, and the other 3 just straight up fell. We were going to baptize a family of 5, a family that I love a lot, but the kids backed out at the last minute and no matter what we did or taught they didn’t want to be baptized.... So this week we baptized the parents, Nicolas and Norma who are incredible and I will share a little bit more about them later in the letter.

My companion and I this week had a really rough week as far as success goes. We had 11 people committed to come to church and not a single person came... We had our baptismal dates fall and honestly if we wouldn’t have baptized a great couple it would have been one of the worst weeks of my mission.

I’m still working hard and giving it all I can while I have the chance, but honestly my mind has been really distracted. I find myself thinking about home, thinking about how I only have 2 weeks left, about things after the mission, especially at night and in the morning, and in buses. One thing that I am pretty stoked about is that the Young Adults are going to have a dance here in the stake and when they found out I was coming back they planned the dance for the weekend that I will be here, so that will be pretty cool to be able to go to that dance while Im here.

Lastly to end on a good note, Id like to tell you all about Nicolas and Norma. They have been investigators for a while now and there was a point when we almost left them because they weren’t progressing, but while praying about an answer if we should leave them or not, the member that has come with us to all the lessons and loves this family had a dream that they got baptized. We took that as a sign that we should keep teaching them. About a month and a half ago Norma and Nicolas started having serious problems, Norma almost left Nicolas and that’s when he really started to change, and took the initiative in his family to follow us when before only Norma was completing with her commitments. We helped them and worked with them a lot to overcome difficulties and they were really excited for their baptism yesterday (Ill load photos if I can, but if I cant find a way to load my photos Ill send them next week). Oh also talking about that baptism after 24 months, and about 30 baptismal services where I have baptized I pulled the idiot move and forgot to take my camera out of my pocket before baptizing..... I baptized my camera with Norma and my camera is dead, but luckily the memory is okay. A member lent me his camera for my last 2 weeks so I could take photos but what idiot move..... Soy bien campeón... y bien burro.... jajaja

Well love you all and hope you a have a great week! Cant wait to see you in two weeks!!

Love,

Elder Adams 

October 26, 2015 photos

1. I learned how to make Tortillas hechas a mano

2. A sweet wolf hat Israel is gonna get me.

3. Nicolas and Norma in their baptism

4. Lean like a cholo

October 19, 2015

October 19, 2015

Well this week was a pretty crazy week.... Lets start off with the bad and work our way to the good. First off this week my companion was CRAZY sick. He had a surgery when he was 14 and they took out all but 5 cm of his Large Intestine. As you may have read from the other Elder Adams (Harrison) the food here in Mexico is REALLY spicy, full of fat, and in other words the worst thing that my companion could be eating. He has gotten sick before but never like this. He was throwing up all over the place and we had to call the doctor.... again (he has gone to the doctor multiple times) and this time the doctor told us he would call us right back but never did.... We later found out that that was because he called President and Sister Whitehead directly and told them that he shouldn’t be serving here in Mexico because ALL the food was going to make him sick. President Whitehead sent some letters to Salt Lake and they responded back saying that he needs to go serve in his own country (Costa Rica). I now have a new companion and I love him. His name is Elder Medina and he is from Puebla. He was companions with Elder Adams (the other one) and they were APs together. President wants our area to keep growing so he put him here for my last 3 weeks so I could teach him the area and so he could keep baptizing. Before getting to my area in the last 6 months the sisters had only baptized 1 person. My companions and I, even though it is a hard area, have been able to find success. My companions and I have baptized 4 people here in this area, and we have 8 baptismal dates for the next 2 weeks, and President wants that growth to keep coming because it is an area that has almost never heard of the gospel.

This week I also got pretty sick (specifically last night), but what do you expect to happen when your converts sign up for the food and give you Pig foot..... hahaha I spent the whole night last night with the two headed dragon.... For those who don’t know what that is, look it up cause I’m not gonna tell you ;) With my companion being sick I got to work with Elder Mason (a good buddy of mine and the AP) wow it’s so nice to teach with someone who also has technique and knows how to teach well. That has been my biggest difficulty training, having to do everything myself, correcting my companions. I always give my companions time to speak in lessons and I always want them to be growing, but with that they took the lessons EVERYWHERE and we didn’t progress with a lot of investigators that could have been progressing. So with Elder Mason in just a few days we got TONS of work done. We put lots of fechas, found miracles, and really helped me a ton get the area rolling. We helped two wonderful sisters get baptized this week (I’ll tell you about them later) and we put 6 baptismal dates for this week and my companion and I already had 2 for the next week. The area is growing a ton and we are finally finding success.

Lastly, to tell you a little about this family that we baptized this week: They are wonderful, their names are Pilar and Felix. It is a Mom and her daughter. Both have kids, and both of their husbands have left them. They are the most humble people I have ever taught. They really have NOTHING but their faith, and they have more than enough faith to go around. Felix is the oldest person I have ever baptized in my mission (she is almost 70) and I love this family so much.

I love you all and hope you all have a great week, please write me this week if there is anything you need, or need to know, because I only have 2 p days left.

With lots of love,

Elder Adams

October 19 photos

1. My companion in a shopping cart we found at the bodega.

2. Pilar y Felix at their baptism.

3. My companion and I after we found out he was going.

4. My companion and I saying bye to the gomez family.

October 12, 2015

October 12, 2015

Well I have four weeks left.... and honestly I don’t know what to say.... I feel so weird knowing Im going home in 4 weeks, but at the same time trying to get rid of those thoughts. I feel like it comes to my mind all the time, and I get really excited, but at the same time I know that it distracts me and that I need to endure to the end of my mission, working as hard as I can while I have the chance. I know I will miss being a missionary and my heart is so torn.... I am so excited to go home, and start the new life that waits for me and all that that involves (moving on to the next stage in my life, seeing friends again, seeing family, listening to music, the whole 9 yards). But I am so distraught with the fact that in 4 weeks I will not be a representative of Jesus Christ (as a mission, we always take his name upon us but its different), I hate the idea of not wearing this name tag over my heart ever day, and leaving this people that I have come to love so dearly (missionaries, President Whitehead, converts EVERYONE).... 

Well, enough ranting, this week we had interviews with President, it went really well. Honestly not a lot happened this week but we have a lot of people progressing, I will fill you in on them when they are baptized. I have no time now so just to explain the 2 photos:

1. My companion and I in his first interview, and my last interview...

2. Israel Gomez (one of my best friends from here). I taught him what a 5 star was.... haha

 Love you all and hope you have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Adams