E-mail 5-31-2010

Hello,
It sounds like there is plenty going on. As for me everything is great. We had zone conference this week and we received the status on our current goal. We have only 6 weeks left and there are still 55 missionaries who haven’t finished the goal. That means 55 missionaries have to have a husband and wife family baptism in the next 6 weeks or we won’t accomplish this goal. Since President Sabey has been here they have had like 6 goals or so and they have accomplished every single one of them in a miraculous way. Right now it looks almost impossible, you can imagine how hard it is to have 1 family baptism, imagine 55!! So we are in a tough situation, and all we can do now is work hard and put ourselves in a position for the Lord to do the rest. If we are obedient by all means it will happen. I am excited to see how it all turns out. We also received a new goal to begin while we are working on finishing this one. I bet you can guess what the new goal has to deal with... The World Cup. So here in Africa things will be so crazy during the world cup, and everyone will be watching. And President knows that the work will be very very slow because of that. In the past missionaries will watch the games with members or people to pass the time, so President as come up with a way to stop that. He read Alma ch. 46 to us and then he pulled out a massive Ghanaian flag. He told us that he was going to have an interview and ask every missionary in the mission to make a covenant to not watch any football(soccer) match between June 11th and July 11th. And after we made the covenant we had to sign the flag showing we were part of the covenant (our title of Liberty). So that is the first part of the goal, that no missionary will watch any football match between during the World Cup. The second part of the goal is that during the time that the football matches are being played we have to find someone, and then we have to baptize that person before September. So an example would be, USA is playing England between 4:30 and 7 o'clock. So between that time we need to get as many potential investigators, contacts, and member referrals as possible. Then we would have to teach and baptize one of the people we met during the football games. So we have a schedule of the entire tournament and the times of the games so we know when to be searching for these people. Every night we will receive a text message with who one what games, so we can follow the tournament as well, which is tight. Every night we have to report whether or not we have kept the covenant. Pretty insane uh. I mean I have only made two covenants my entire life. This is some pretty serious stuff. Now I have made three covenants. So that is the update on the mission goals. As for the week, it was sweet. We had a much better week and taught somewhere around like 40 lessons. We should be having another baptism on the 19, of this month so I’ll keep you updated on that. We have teaching our 1st counselors best friend, and we are tight with him and his family. So beginning this week, after every lesson we teach me and Elder MacKay are going to be learning how to cook different Ghanaian foods. I am pretty pumped for this. In a few months I am going to now how to cook some way good African food. On Wednesday we are making jolof rice... which is my favorite food. Our area is doing very well. We have a decent size teaching pool, and almost all of them are progressing, especially Bro. Pratts ( our first counselor) best friend, Sammy. He is so smart. We taught him the Plan of Salvation the past few visits, and he asks the deepest deepest questions. Some of them a cant even answer. so I just say" Sammy I don’t know, but I know God knows. It’s his plan; we just need to have faith". Sometimes I get stuck so I have to say something like that. But it’s been sweet I have been learning more during my teaching than during my studying. I am getting to the point now where I can focus more on the person being taught, and fitting the lesson to meet their needs. Before I was always thinking about what to say before the lesson even began. So I am doing better, but still nowhere to where Elder MacKay is at. We have been working our butts off, and now we got even more to do in order to be prepared for the upcoming baptism. We have a lot of children who haven’t been baptized, and maybe we will baptize a few investigators who will be traveling for school. So we will have a busy few weeks ahead. So... as for you guys it sounds like everything is going great. Me and Elder MacKay would love to have some of those Black Star shirts to sport around here. That would be cool. I still haven’t received a package since the one that had the conference talks. By the way those are awesome, I listen to them often. I think maybe a package or two might have gotten jacked along its journey. But I don’t know for sure, I will keep you updated. I am pretty pumped for the Jerky thing. Jack is the man!! That’s cool that Jake received is call already. It will be the best experience of his life. I sent a package home today with dads birthday and fathers day stuff, so be looking for that in the next few weeks. Well that’s about all I got to tell for this week, everything is going great. Have fun in Missouri and doing whatever crazy things you guys are up to. I love you all.

Love Elder Adams

E-mail 5-24-10

Adams Family
How’s life? Sounds like everyone is doing great. Happy 26th anniversary mom and dad! Wow you guys are old. jk School is almost out, work is starting to pick up at the office, and everyone is going a hundred miles an hour it sounds like. That is pretty flippin awesome that Keith Adams got baptized. Holy crap that is sweet. It will be so good for him. He is a good kid. I probably should have been better to him back in high school.

Well this week was pretty long it seemed to me. We didn’t teach many lessons this week, it seemed like our plans just fell through the roof everyday. We walked a lot, and it was pretty hot this week. But the work paid off. At the end of the week we got the sweetest referral ever. Our 1st counselor in the bishopric Brother Frank Pratt, referred his best friend Sammy and his family to us. They recently had a baby and even named it after our first counselor, Brother Frank Pratt. Sammy already knows some about the gospel and respects Brother Pratt more than anyone, so he has a good foundation already. We have taught him for the first time yesterday and he is one of the smartest
people I have met so far. I have a good feeling that we could have another family baptism sometime soon. Our Bishopric also has been showing a lot more trust in us lately. It is a good feeling as missionaries. We had stake Conference this week too. It was one of the sweetest things to see so many Africans together.They have such an awesome spirit about them. They have such great faith and power. The stake presidency is awesome here. Our stake President is only 42 years old, but he is one of the wisest men ive seen. He is so intune with the spirit it is ridiculous. Some of the things that were brought up over the conference weekend were pornography and marriage. He talked a lot
about pornography here, it is a big problem. It is everywhere you go and easy for children of all ages to get. It really is sad. He also talked about marriage and how they need to get married at a younger age. No one gets married here until they are like 30 plus, its ridiculous. So he basically called out all the men and instructed them to get off there butt, find a job, and get married. It was a sweet conference, there was much more but I only have so much time to email, sorry.

Today we all went to the mission home and watched conference with our zone. We watched the priesthood session, the last three talks by the first presidency. They were all sweet talks but the one on patience was awesome. "patience is actively waiting and enduring" That is so true. The key word is active. After we played a game called Mafia with president and his wife and had some carmel popcorn. It was sweet. If you know the game mafia, you can imagine how intense it got. Especially because president is a lawyer. It was lots of fun, you should play it. We have zone conference this week and we get a new goal, its gunna be tight week.

Well that’s about all I have, I will send pictures off today for sure. Last week we had some minor problems but were good now. I still haven’t received a package since the one with the conference cds. Which I love. I will be sending a package home dad in the next weeks. I have to buy some things first. Well I love you guys and take care until next week. You all rock!
Love Elder Adams

Long E-Mail 5-17-10

Fam.
Sounds like Miles did really good the first day of zone. What happened the next day? That’s just not gunna cut it, he has a name to uphold! Oh well that’s still pretty good. It makes me happy that they are making Miles speak with the high council now. That’s good it will help him a lot I’m sure. Oh thanks for making me sound good Miles I appreciate it. But you know it is all true.

I think it is a bunch of crap that you guys get to go on all of these flippin vacations. It’s called a job! Orlando would be tight place to go to and visit though. I bet it is nice that school is almost out and now, you get to have a nice long break. It was always the best feeling knowing that school was almost out.

I want to see what Cody and Whit’s place looks like. Maybe if it’s super nice I will just live with them and go to college... actually I take that back. They are still newly married. Fallon hasn’t changed much I see. Still the same old crap going on. It always seems to surprise me. Things just get crazier and crazier don’t they?

Dad you’re still busy as ever I see, but that’s a good thing. With church, work, family, and everything else I can’t even imagine. Man I remember back in the day when we would all go to those fathers and sons outings. Those were always fun, and now I am craving a tin foil dinner!! I never really appreciated those types of things when I was younger, but looking back they are some of the best memories I have ever had. It just makes me so mad that I had to come all the way to flippin Africa to realize it. To realize what is really important in life. Man I wish I could go back; I would do things so differently. My mission already has made me change so much, I can’t even imagine what it will do to me in two years. I’m scared!!

I’m looking forward to receiving some pictures, that will be sweet. I want to see what everyone looks like and what has been going on. And don’t worry I am sending mine off this week on a cd so you should be getting them soon. Tell me as soon as you do so that I can delete the ones on my memory card okay. There are some random crazy pictures, just don’t ask questions. The mission makes you do weird things. I am excited to receive all of the packages that you guys are sending. You have done well. Actually you probably are spoiling me to much. Good old Grandpa is even sending me one. Man what a good guy. Love him.

Okay so Elder MacKay has got a lot of things to do on the computer today so that means I have more time to write. So I will just tell you about this week and then maybe some cool experiences or whatever comes to mind okay. Sweet! So this week we had did a service project for our ward. We had all of our missionaries in our zone come to help as well. We were supposed to meet at 6:30 in the morning, and nobody from our ward showed up until 9:00. It is so annoying, everyone in Africa has no care for time. It is a big problem actually. Church meetings always start late and nobody shows up on time. Everyone is on African time. So that is something that we as missionaries are trying to fix, but as you see it is not going well. After our Bishop finally showed up we walked about half a mile or so to a field (more like a piece of land covered in bushes and weeds) so what we did was plant corn or maze. It was done the same way that they do it on the Joseph Smith video where you stab a stick into the ground, drop a few pieces of corn in the hole, and then cover it up with dirt. We did that for about two hours or so. It was pretty sweet experience farming like the people back in the day.

This week another one of the girls in our ward received a mission call. It was funny because the Saunders told us on Tuesday that she was going to be serving in our same mission, and then the next day when we asked her where she was going she told us that she still hadn’t received her call. I guess the mail is just so slow here that she hadn’t gotten it yet, and the mission office found out first. It is supposed to be the other way around. The missionary usually knows first. So we just messed with her and acted like we didn’t know where she was going. But on Sunday she finally received it. So now I will know at least one of the sisters in our mission, because right now I can’t name one. It would be cool to be in the same district or zone or something like that.

Transfers are today as well. Elder MacKay thinks that he is leaving because he has been in the area for so long, 9 months. So I could be getting a new companion today, and most likely he would be black because there are so many white boys in our zone. But I hear that with President Sabey you can never tell what he will do. The man only does what the spirit tells him. Anyway, I hope he stays because I love the kid. We work hard and have fun together, plus I would have to kinda take over and show my new companion everything in the area. But whatever we will see what happens. Really I don’t care anything would be tight. I’m just going with the flow.

Here is a cool story.... So Kobe and Georgina the husband and wife family that we baptized are doing so good. Kobe has a good job now and they are very happy. They are doing so well in the gospel. Right now we are teaching a family that they referred to us, which are their best friends. We are teaching Kobe’s brother who came to church this week and we are beginning to teach his father. And we're not done yet... Georgina is going to get a call in the ward sometime soon according to what we hear. I would say that is a pretty successful baptism. They are doing more missionary work than we are. Man I love them, they are so nicest people you’ll ever meet. It is the best feeling to see our people we have baptized doing so well. It makes me so happy. This work really does bring joy like no other. It’s amazing

Well that’s all the time I have. Love you guys and I will talk to you next week. Take care.

Love Elder Adams

Letter from Companion Elder MacKay

Hey this is Elder MacKay, Elder Adam’s companion! I hope all is well for you guys at home, we are just living it up here in AFRICA! Elder Adams is a fantastic missionary. He is way ahead of where I was at this point of my mission, and I don't say that cheaply. I would not say it if I did not mean it. I guess I wouldn’t tell you otherwise, but in that case I suppose I just wouldn’t email you at all. He has come with the perfect mindset of "what can I do to suffer so that I can make the lives of other people better." Not enough missionaries are like him in that way. He is here to work. He has a huge desire to learn, and even in this short three months that we've been together, I’ve seen big growth in him. We have a lot in common and get along really well-I honestly could not imagine two missionaries getting along any better than we have. We’ll talk sometimes and he'll talk about companions that his dad had from his mission that he is still friends with today. It’s just sweet cause we know that's just gunna be us one day. Anyways, I don't have much time to write, but I just wanted to send you a little love and tell you that you have done an excellent parenting job in molding him into the kid he is today! I love him and we pray for you every day!
Love, Elder MacKay

Mother's Day Phone Call

Elder Adams was able to call home Sunday afternoon. We put the home phone on speaker phone, and then used our cell phones so Tristin and Whitney could participate. It worked pretty well and we could all hear and talk to Garrett. Grandma and Grandpa also came over to listen too.

The first thing he wanted to tell us about was the baptism from the week before. Their mission has set the goal of each companionship baptizing an husband and wife or a family. They had committed to baptism a man named Kobe. His wife had been less active but started coming again and doing well. The day of the baptism he went to Accra and was not back yet. They called him and he said he was coming. They waited, at the church, but still no Kobe. Finally they left the church and headed to the beach about 10 minutes away. They had the baptismal program and then Garrett was able to baptize 2 children whose records had been lost and others. Still no Kobe. They took some pictures and then headed back to the church. Just then Kobe showed up. He changed into his white clothing and they all went back to the beach and he was baptized. As Elder Mackay said, "we witnessed a straight up miracle and accomplished the goal for our companionship!" Sister Saunder's has some great photos on her blog and I have copied them below. (Now not only am I a blog stalker, reading all the blogs of missionaries in Africa, I am also a blog thief) He said it was a great experience and "SWEET!!!"

He answered many questions we had (ok, Mom did most of the talking and asking, everyone else pretty much just listened". He had one funny comment when he said he has seen many naked people. He said, "I think I see like 25 boobs a day." To which Whitney quickly responded, "So you mean someone only had one!" We all had a good laugh. At the end of the call Grandpa and Grandma Hendrix talked too. Grandpa asked what stuff he would like in a care package. Garrett responded any kind of food and then said he had one more request too. Grandpa asked, "what?" Garrett said, "That you and Grandma are still there when I get home!" Grandpa answered, "I'll see what I can do!" (Grandpa is 89 and Grandma 82 but both still going strong"

He sounds great, does have a little of an African accent, and is loving life in Africa.


Elders Lewis, MacKay, Adams, and Hill with three of the four converts baptized in the ocean Sunday. Two of the six baptisms were children of record.



Elder Adams did the baptizing and Elder Lewis and Elder Hill were the witnesses. After a few tries Elder Adams was soon able to time the baptism perfectly between oncoming waves. Elder Adams area does not have a chapel and thus no font so they were able to do the baptism in the ocean which does not happen very often.

E-mail 5-10-10

Family,
Well I got the package with all of the fruit drinks and Gatorade today. It had all the packets and then the cds of conference. I hope that’s all cuz that is all there was. I still haven’t gotten the other package. This one took almost one month. I am pretty pumped to try the Gatorade packs and listen to conference. (Garrett asked for recipes that use eggs, bread, rice, etc.) The eggs in the frame will be good. I will do that one. Yes we have sugar. I use it plenty in my milo - chocolate Drink mix.

(I asked about what they do at night) It will get dark around like 6:30 or so I think, but im not positive. We have these rechargeable lights that are pretty bright that we use when the lights go out. They work okay. We don’t stay up that late really; we are supposed to go to bed at 10, which we usually do.

Sounds like you had a good mother’s day, but you deserve to be spoiled. It should happen more often. I think it is funny that Miles bought you roses with your money, what a nice kid. It’s the thought that counts. Dad, this jerky thing sounds pretty good. So do you get like all kinds of different flavors that I can try that would be pretty tight. I’m looking forward to that if you can get it. Sounds like the business and stuff is still moving along, which is always good.

Well I don’t have much. I played goal keeper today. Yeah, I got scored on twice, but one of them wasn’t my fault. Anyway I suck. We lost three two. I was fired from goal keeper half way through the game ha-ha. Stupid Soccer. That’s all I got. It was sweet talking to you last night. It was kinda weird at first, but it was so refreshing and good to hear from everyone. Talk to you next week. Have a good one.

Love Elder Adams

E-mails 5-3-10

Mom
I will call home around 1:00 or so your time. I bought a chip that has like 2 hours time or so. So we will see how long I talk for. I really can’t wait to talk to all of the family. The white handbook really isn’t that clear on how long either. It just says it shouldn’t to long. Okay as for the photos I have lots to send home. I will put them on a cd and send that home sometime soon, hopefully this week sometime. Sorry I just kind of keep forgetting and don’t do it at all. We got some sweet pics of our baptism this week at the beach. I won’t tell you anymore about the baptism because it was amazing, and I would rather tell you over the phone about it. I’m glad that you’re enjoying the whole grandma thing, Raegan sounds like a good little kid. I think that when I get home I will like kids a lot more because here, the kids are what always make me happy. Anytime were having a rough day we just play with some kids and that puts us back in a good mood.

You guys had quite the wind storm it sounds like then. That’s too bad. Now you guys have to fix the house up again. I remember those days. Its too bad I’m not there to help... NOT. It rained a lot here this week, we had some good storms. One night
the thunder was so loud it scared the crap out of me. It was seriously louder than a gun. Africa in crazy.

I haven’t received any packages since the one you sent with the Easter stuff. The others haven’t come; maybe I will get them today. You can send me some twizzlers. Other than that I don’t care its all good. Anyway, that’s all I am telling this week, I don’t want to ruin the phone call. I have some good stuff to share. Well I will talk to you on Sunday (I only get to say that 4 times in two years). I love you
mom. Keep up the good work, talk to you Sunday.

Love Elder Adams

DAD
WOW, your are a busy man! Sounds like you had some fun though promoting products and fishing. 42 fish in 2 days ain’t bad. Man do i miss fishing and hunting. That stuff was so fun. I think i might build me arod and reel somehow, and go fishing in
this little pond near my apartment one P Day. If I do you can put me on the cover of the Hendrix Outdoors Catalog next year ha-ha. It’s sweet that you and Paul do so much stuff together. I hope that I have some cool mission buddies when I get old.

Don’t talk to me about cooking steak!! That stuff just makes me so hungry, oh how I miss Sunday dinners and your food ha-ha. Now I just eat rice and beans. And a lot of tuna and other fish. Actually the food here is pretty good stuff, but it just doesn’t compare.

Allison’s wedding is this week. I can’t believe she is getting married finally. Sorry about the huge wind storm. Sounds like everything got pretty messed up around town. Guess Kobe(our dog) will be sleeping in your bed from now on. Just have Miles do the whole roof himself. Man too bad I wasn't there to help.

The Baptism was the best experience of my mission so far. We were so blessed and there were some tender mercies involved. I won’t tell you anymore. I want to explain over the phone it will be better. Just know it was sweet.

Well I love you father, more than you know. You’re the best dad a son
could ask for. Keep up the hard work and have some fun, you work to
hard. Love you talk to ya SUNDAYYYY.

Love ELDER ADAMS

District Meeting

This photo was taken from the blog of Elder and Sister Saunders (Office Specialists serving in the Ghana Cape Coast Mission) This is what she wrote about the photo and the Elders. District Leader, Elder Chesa (sitting in the front with his arm around Elder Adams) "Here I am with 12 of the greatest missionaries in the world! We love serving with the Elders in this mission. They are all incredible young men and women and exceptional missionaries!"