January 24,2011

The Adams Family,
Well it's been another good week. I always get really excited over Sundays and tend to not write much about what happened during the week, and just focus on church, and for the most part that will be the bulk of this weeks email too. It was a crazy Sunday. But I will try and include some of the other interesting things that happened. So Tuesday we left the apartment about 45 min before district meeting started, and we ended up being about 30 min late still. We are still trying to figure out the traveling thing in this area. It is really annoying because there is no station right next to our apartment, and we both are kind of clueless. We spend lots of time traveling. But it's always an adventure, because about 50% of the time we end up in a place we weren't trying to go haha. But anyway, on the way to district meeting the tire on our trotro literally was falling off as we were driving. So we had to abandon ship and walk the rest of the way. Don't really know why I just told you that, so moving on.

Okay so jumping all the way to Saturday. We went to meet this less-active woman that we had been trying to fix an appointment with for about 2 weeks. We had actually never met her, or so we thought. When we went there for the 4th time we learned the lady we had been trying to find was the same lady that had told us she wasn't around the 4 previous times. She made up a name and everything, but one of the people selling next to her told us her real name and so we found the Sister G. we were looking for. We were able to talk to her for a while and learned that she was brought into the church by one of our members, but that something bad had happened between them and she won't go back. So Sunday comes around and Elder Smith was talking to the Lady that had brought Sister G. to church, she is Sister R. Elder Smith was trying to get her to tell him what had happened between them, and she wouldn't really say anything. Then she just went off about how G. tried to kill her husband, and specifically about how she tried to cut of his penis in the process, and just kept on saying G. that she was an evil evil woman. Then Elder Smith couldn’t help but start laughing super hard and that was the end of the conversation. So I am not sure if we will ever try and go back to G. we are afraid she might try and take away our preisthood. She is dangerous!! Just one of the funny situations we encountered this week. We also came across a crazy man as they call him here, who kept on running up to us and screaming at us "You don’t even know Santa Claus, and you call yourselves Americans". And also that we needed to leave his country before he makes us leave and all kinds of crazy things. So in short it was an exciting week full of laughs and funny stories.

Sunday church went along perfectly normal. It went good and we had about the same number of members as the last week in attendance and maybe even a few more. Not to mention we also had 8 investigators this week which was awesome. Pretty much every single one of our progressing investigators came to church. It was so cool. On the teaching side of things we have some very good investigators and we are really enjoying our time here right now. It's a lot of fun and our efforts are really paying off. This coming transfer is going to be really sweet and we are hoping for about 5 baptisms or more if everything works out well. I feel that the Lord has really prepared the hearts of many of the people in this area and I am excited to see what happens. I wouldn't mind spending the rest of my mission here. Moree was the complete opposite, so then I would get the best of both worlds for half of my mission. So there's the week. Next week I will try and fill you in a little more about our specific investigators and how the lessons are going with them. I haven't been telling you too much about the teaching side of things.

Miles happy birthday kid!! You are getting closer and closer to your mission. Warning!!! Don't be the cool kid who thinks he is to cool to prepare for a mission the right way. You better begin now it comes faster than you think and you will be grateful you did. Hope you have a good birthday and wish you the best. Love you bro!

Well I am learning so so so much right now. Probably more in the last month than I have my whole mission. It's a lot of work, but the time is flying as we stay very busy. It's an experience of a lifetime and the Lord is really stretching me in many directions. I love you and wish you all the best this coming week. The church is so true; I know it is, it is becoming clearer to me everyday. I pray the Lord's choicest blessings to be upon you. Much love. Take Care
Love
Elder Adams

ps. I got the package with stuff from Alex and Rita today. Tell them thanks.

Mon, January 17, 2011

The Adams Family,Well another week down here in Atonsu and everything seems to be going well, pretty similar to last week. How are things there? Good I presume. Well this week we had a lot more time on our hands and were able to pretty much have a normal week. Tuesday we saw the Kiffer’s (missionary couple from Alaska) for the last time. I'm really going to miss them they were really really helpful to us. Anytime we needed something like more chairs or sacrament clothes, all we had to do was call them and in no time they would bring it to us. I hope we got everything that we need, because now we have to go and do it ourselves. The entire rest of the week all we did was contact and try and build a teaching pool so that we can get a few progressing investigators and have a baptism here in the near future. The days were long. We contacted and taught a few lessons in between each day. Our days are running from about 9:30 in the morning to about 7:00 or7:30 in the evening, and we never stop for lunch we just pick something up on the street while we are out working. It makes the days go by faster if we just stay engaged the entire time. I haven't ever gone home for lunch my entire mission and I don't plan on ever doing it. We’re more effective that way. So we get between 9 and 10 hours in each day. I will say that contacting is not the way to go. It is member referrals. We have contacted dozens of people this week and maybe only a handful we are still teaching. It's not easy, so we are going to kind of redirect our focus for the next few weeks towards the members and gain some trust by serving them and see if that brings some more referrals. Right now we are working with about 4 referrals or so and 2 or looking pretty good. Umm we were able to meet a less active family this week that was actually a referral from sister Anab. They are a whole family and they were all baptized, but now attend a different church. The fell less active because the Bishop who brought them into the church was their landlord, and then they say he kicked them out of the house. Probably because he wasn’t paying. So of course they did what all other Ghanaians do they go to other churches for money, and then join whatever church will give them money. And so now it's a money battle. Man these ones are tough battles to fight, because if they left for the money they didn't have a very strong testimony in the first place. So we'll see what happens there.

Saturday we had a sweet experience, but it totally has nothing to do with missionary life. We were out contacting and we walked through a guy’s farm and then crossed over a river by jumping rocks. One of the big boulders had a bunch of crazy marks on it that were about two feet long and one foot wide. They looked like giant footprints from some crazy dinosaur or something. They farmer told us that they all believe that is what it is, some really old fossil of a dinosaur foot. They look pretty legit but I am not sure. So we will send you the picture soon and you can decide for yourself if it could be.

Elder Smith and I also came up with a new goal to baptize a pastor of another church. Then maybe he can convert his followers. We call it the Abinadi goal. Random. Okay, now to Sunday. Sunday was good, a little down on numbers from the first week, but we had lots of visitors the first week. So I conducted this week and it was a little stressful just because the people that we assigned to speak in church didn't all show up on time. We had a youth speaker, Sis Gifty Anab who gave a wonderful 5 min talk on repentance. She is a solid beehive. Then we had a return missionary talk and he talked for about 30 min. Elder Smith was about to give the backup talk when the lady we assigned to speak walked in very late. So I announced that she would be our concluding speaker and she kinda looked at me with a "what?" look on her face acting like she wasn't ready. But After 10 sec. of staring at each other she pulled out her talk and gave a good talk on charity and love. She really thought she was going to get out of speaking haha, but she did very well. So sacrament meeting started on time and ended on time and everything went along very good with that being the only small hiccup this week. I never actually realized the things that you can see and observe while sitting up on the stand. It amazed me! You’ve got 40 year olds picking their noses like there is money inside it, laying back with their eyes closed like they are listening but really sleeping, talking about the week with the person next to them, playing with their phones, and all kinds of stuff. Haha it was really funny to see just how much people pay attention. I feel for you all serving in the Bishopric haha. Anyway we had about 15 members there for sacrament and about 25 for the whole of church, and 7 investigators, 4 of which we contacted or are teaching. Random people show up every week which is cool. So the rest of church went on smoothly. Our priesthood teacher didn't show so we had to fill in for that one but it went okay. I actually ended up teaching young women’s. Don't ask me how but there were 3 of them and they didn't want to go to relief society, and nobody wanted to teach the class, so I did what I could. It was weird, ya know just being a male haha and talking about young women. Anyway it was funny and we just went through their personal progress. Another successful Sunday, but just not quite as exciting as last week. And still no group leader so we are still in charge.

Well my companion is awesome. He is from Morgan, Utah and he knows what it means to work hard so we are enjoying and just doing work. He played football in high school and was really good so we have quite a bit in common. It makes things a lot of fun. So that is cool. Oh yeah I just wanted to add something small to end. I sat in on primary to see how it went at church and Sister Dina was teaching. Holy crap can that woman teach! She is so good with kids it is crazy. I have never in my whole life seen someone teach with such power and enthusiasm. It’s like taking Elder Holland and having him teach primary. She gets the kids to listen, to participate, and everything,. It was awesome to see. The members here really get the gospel and understand it. It is so true that the church is the same all over the world, and just seeing that passion that she had was a powerful testimony builder. Her testimony was so strong like a fire you could warm your hands over.

Great week, love you all so much and can't wait to tell you about what crazy things happen this week. Take care and know that I love you.Love Elder Adams

Answers to moms questions.....
1. How do you get around the area? We walk a lot, but our area is big so almost everyday we have to take a trotro to some farther away places in our area. 2. Do you have an oven/microwave? No we don't have anything different such as an oven. It's all the same stuff. We have a propane stove and that's it. 3. Do you have a variety of foods? Food variety is about the same. You can get cheese and stuff, but only if you spend half your monthly sub on one block of cheese. That kind of stuff is expensive, so I just eat pretty much the same things and buy the same things. And fufu is the staple food of Ghana, it’s everywhere. No changes really there. 4. Are things less or more expensive? The basics might be more expensive, but for the most part if you’re not buying the American things and stick to the Ghanaian food it’s about the same. 5. How many missionaries are in the Kumasi area? There about 30 or 35 I think but I am not really sure in 2 Zones. Hope that helps if you have anymore let me know. Love your favorite son Elder Adams

1-10-11

How are you?
Well here we go I will go ahead and just give you the low down on the whole week and fill you in. So mostly we prepared the entire week for Sunday and just tried to do all of the little things so that it would be a successful first Sunday, one that would make all of the members here want to come back the following week. The plan from the start was that we would only have a 2 hour church service because the first week we didn't want to do too much and make it a disaster. But…. we changed that. We decided that we had met with enough members in the area that had promised to come to church and we were sure that more of them would come that we hadn't ever met. We fasted and we decided that would be the best thing to do. So from there we met with some of the members that we knew were solid and trustworthy, and we began giving assignments on Tuesday for Primary, Sunday School, Relief Society, Priesthood, and all that stuff. One woman in the group named Sis Dina is amazing. She is one of those people that you can call on at anytime for anything and she will do it better than you expected. She rocks. We had her teach Primary. A man who lives across the street named Bro. Yeboah is also a strong member who was baptized about 3 years ago. He is the one with the Mercedes that drives us around sometimes. He taught Priesthood. Then there is a return missionary who just came home about 6 months ago and he is just a stud so we had him teach Sunday School. His name is Bro. Fred. Then there is a woman named Sis Anab. At first we thought that she didn't like us that much for some reason, but we asked her to teach Relief Society and she did, and she did it well. Tonight we are going to her house for FHE so it looks like she does like us after all. The speakers for sacrament meeting were me, the 2nd counselor in the Stake Pres, and then another return missionary. Oh, and Elder Smith conducted the meeting. And we also were the teachers for the gospel principles class. So that was all of the assignments for the week. We provided them the materials that were available and then wished for the best. So that was the preparation.

With the rest of our proselyting efforts this week we contacted, taught the new investigators that we have, and continued to meet with members and less-actives. It was a really really good week in that aspect of the work. We have 12 new investigators and are teaching many that are already progressing well. It is so exciting to see how fast the work is going already. Funny story. Wednesday, Prosper, our mission apartment preparation specialist, came over and brought us our new closet (dresser), and then decided that he was going to refinish it in our room while we were having our companion study. We were listening to the conference cds and by the end of one of the talks Elder Smith was pretty much gone, and when I say gone I mean high. He was in a whole different world and he couldn't stop laughing for a while. It was so funny, and then for the next few hours he felt pretty sick. It added a little bit of excitement and entertainment to the week. Friday we had interviews with President Sabey and we talked about our responsibilities with our new assignment and all that. He said that what we are doing could actually be the first time it has ever been done in the world. I doubt that, but he had never heard of it before. It isn't often that the missionaries work directly with the stake like this. The group is the stakes responsibility, but we are somehow managing it. It's cool, but crazy. Saturday we cleaned the chapel with a few of the members for about 4 hours and got everything looking perfect for Sunday before we went out proselyting.

Sunday morning came around and I am not going to lie, I was nervous. Mostly just because the success of the day was sitting on our shoulders, and at that point all we could do was pray. 10 min to 9 there was only about 9 members at church and then us, the Kiffer’s, and the assistants. We started on time and everything went smoothly. By the time sacrament finished there were about 20 members there. The only hiccup in the day came when I started speaking. It turned out that the guy we asked to speak in church didn’t show. So things were adjusted a bit and the only two speakers for sacrament meeting were me and the 2nd counselor from the stake. But it went very well and you never would have been able to tell that there was a problem. Now the crazy part. We had 2 people that we contacted during this week come to church!!!! And in all we had 5 investigators at church on Sunday. That might be the best part of the whole week, I was so stoked. We had about 10 people in our investigator class, some members, and it just went awesome. Everybody that we gave an assignment did awesome, and by the end of church we had a total of 48 members there and that was not counting us, the assistants, or the Kiffers!!!!!! So awesome. The members here are powerful and really there isn't much we needed to do, they will do it all on there own. Now the idea to do this whole thing came from Pres. Sabey, and the Stake President wasn't 100 percent sold on it, but they thought it would be okay to try. The entire Stake Presidency came into Priesthood with about 30 min left and we had one of the best lessons.( it was in English :) ) So today the Kiffer’s told us that the Stake loved what had happened and were completely sold on the whole thing now after Sunday. The Lord really makes things move when it is time, and that is what he is doing here. I have seen the hand of the Lord in this work more this week, than I think I have recognized my whole mission. Now we can focus mostly on our missionary efforts and should have a group little sometime within the next month. We poured out our hearts Sunday night to our Heavenly Father for all the blessings he brought us this week. I am gunna love it here in Atonsu.

About Kumasi. We got lost today and we showed up 1 hour late for the activity. This place is big hahaha. Well I am tired of typing so I hope that is good for the week, I love
you and hope that all is well. The church is true and this week was awesome.

Love Elder Adams

January 3, 2011

Adams Family,
Well it is 8:30pm here and its been a very busy week with lots to do. So Tuesday afternoon we jumped on a bus coming up here to Kumasi, not really knowing what we were getting into. Driving into Kumasi was crazy. Big, big houses everywhere and all kinds of stuff. Far different than Cape Coast. The couple missionaries the Keifers picked us up and drove us straight to our new area and new apartment. Just driving there was crazy. This city is huge and very hectic, just stuff going on everywhere. We live quite a ways out of town and its in a very rich area called Atonsu. When we got to our apartment it was such a weird feeling because it was so big. The chapel and apartment are really nice. The chapel has a small area for sacrament meeting where you can fit about 50 people or so, then there are 4 classrooms about the size of my old room (in America) and 2 bathrooms. It is all very nice. Then there is one room for the Branch President’s office when we get to the point where it is time to call one. It has a small waiting area outside with a couch and a nice overhang. Then the whole apartment and compound is gated with big walls and a good amount of free space inside the compound. To get into our apartment you go through another door separate from the chapel where we have a good sized room, a big, big kitchen, a bathroom and garage area. Our apartment side isn't huge but it's really nice and there are only two of us. I don't know how to explain it other than saying it is just nice, neat, clean, and new. I do miss my green walls a little bit though ha ha.

So that's the building side of things. For the whole of this week we mostly met with members that live within our area and will be transferring from the Asokwa and UST wards into our group in Atonsu. When we showed up the first day nobody told us what we were to do, they just left it up to us to figure it out. And really we still don't know a whole lot. So Wednesday morning our first day in the area we just left the apartment and walked. We walked for about 3 hours seeing the area and that kind of thing. The very first thing I said we needed to do was find a member, because then that person can show us other members and we can go from there. So for the whole of Wednesday we were on search for a member. For several hours of no luck, we began to doubt a little bit that we were not going to ever find a member that lived in this area. For some reason we walked back the way that we had come from early that morning and amazingly a women from a balcony yelled "Elders of Israel!" Immediately I knew we had found a member. She turned out to be the most powerful woman and just from meeting her we have come to learn of 20 - 30 members in the area and where many of their houses are. I feel we are going to have a good number of people at church this Sunday. So this week we met many members in our area and are getting to know them pretty well. Three live very close to us and one man with a Mercedes drives us around a lot, haha. So awesome!! I don't even feel like I am in Ghana sometimes. We have about 7 Melchizedek Priesthood holders we know are strong and active, and a good number of women that have been Relief Society Presidents or something like that. The leadership is there. I think within 3 months it will be a branch. I bet it will be that fast. We didn't have church this Sunday, we just went to another ward the UST ward.

Oh yeah I almost forgot my new companion is Elder Smith from Morgan, Utah. He is pretty cool guy, and we get along really well. He's a pretty good athlete and into sports, especially American football and wanted to play in college. He still has the greenie spirit haha pretty bad. It's pretty funny but he is really hard working and I think we will get along good. We just got finished cleaning, mopping, and doing that kind of thing at the chapel. Boy, am I tired, more tired than I have ever been on mission. We have got a lot to do and my brain hurts a little to be honest haha, but I am loving it. This is going to be a really sweet experience to see how it all goes. We did get a little time to proselyte and contact and it was so different. You have to knock on the gates. You go in and sit in a nice house on nice couches, and they offer you malt and all kinds of amazing drinks. And they are very educated and many are in the oil business or something like that. Ehh it is crazy oooo. Oh and Twi is way different to hear and speak than Fante at first. It's been a big, big change, but I am ready for it and we will see what happens. It's gunna be good, solid, hard, working fun!! This week I found myself on my knees a lot more and relying on the Lord a lot more. I felt at first that this was just way too much for me to handle, but now I am beginning to see that we don't have to do any thing amazing, just do your best and the Lord will do the rest. I think this is going to help me a lot more spiritually also. I know this work is divine and I am grateful to be engaged in it. The church is true and I am more grateful everyday to be a member of it. I love you guys and I hope all is well. Take care and may the Lord's choicest blessings be upon you all.

Love Elder Adams

ps. I could have written a 100 pages about this week, but I am tired of typing haha.