Letter to his little brother Miles Jan. 22, 2012

Miles,

Bro that is so tight that you got your call to freakin Paris, France!!!! Are you nervous to have to speak and learn French? But when you get home man you will be able to get any girl you want after you talk to her with your sexyF rench accent haha. Man so you didn't even tell me when you have to report to the MTC??? (May 30th) And you better be coming back for my homecoming man, I don't care of you have school or not son. Man I am so pumped to see you bro. Your gunna have to teach me how to get the ladie,s man I totally forgot everything and I am pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get a date with anyone. Keep working hard man and read your scripts and say your prayers everyday nothing is more important than that, not even all those cute girls running around. Alright bro waiting to hear back from you man. Take it easy.

Love Elder Adams

January 22, 2012

Hey mom,

Yeah so I am sorry that I am late with my email this week but you can't be mad at me we have been working really hard. We left early on Monday to go to Kumasi for Zone Meetings with BANTAMA SUNYANI AND DICHEMSO, and also to go on splits. We just got back from Sunyani about 15 minutes ago and it's been a long week with way to much driving, but a great one nonetheless. I even tried to find some time to email you in Kumasi but we just couldn't do it sorry. I also had what a would say was the most powerful lesson of my entire mission hands down!!!!! I will tell you about it, but let me answer some of your questions first.

First off I don't really care where we go to eat if that is the plan, all I know is that I don't want any rice, chicken, fish, bread, or eggs!!!!!!!!! I have been eating that everyday for two years. Maybe a steak and a fresh salad would be nice haha, but really anywhere is cool with me. Yeah about the invisalign retainers... me, Brown. Speech and Hair went on splits yesterday and were on the way to an appointment when we passed a nice basketball court. So we played a game to 5 points, me and Speech vs Brown and Hair. Meanwhile, my retainers which I had put in my front shirt pocket behind my tag fell out during the intense game, because they were no longer there when we got back to the apartment and that was the last time I remember having them. So now I have no retainers and my teeth will probably be crooked by the time I get home. Hey come on, I did pretty well, I almost made it 2 years. Yes, Speechly is very much like Kent and I think that is why we are so tight. Speech is flippin funny man. Yeah I totally talked to Elder Alba about that two days ago and he said that they were cousins somehow and that he knew them. It is a small world.

Okay as for garments they don't sell the drylux ones here in Ghana and those are the only ones that I personally like. So you are going to have to get me like 10 pairs of the drulux garments before i get home please. They are all mediums the ones that I have right now so you should order the same bottoms, but maybe some large tops. The medium tops are kinda small now but at the same time they still fit. Maybe just a few large ones so that I can try them. And don't get me the celestial smile ones, I want the crew neck ones. I am pretty sure I will leave all of my clothes behind because most of them are pretty worn and some other missionaries have already asked for them. Really the only ones I will bring home are the ones that I am wearing. I will just figure out what I need when I get home. I have no clue. Do I have a topic or am I free to share whatever I feel like and just tell powerful stories or what??? That would be sweet, but if I have a topic let me know. That would be sweet if Miles went through the temple right when I get back, I totally want to go to the temple that first week anyway. And he better be flying or diving back to see me and be at my homecoming!!!!! You hear me! I already picked some stuff up for the girls, I didn't forget. I already have most of the things that I want to take home, but maybe I will buy a painting or something like that and a few other things. As for the African print material give me some idea of what you want there is a whole lot to choose from. And how much do you want me to bring home?? Okay I think I have answered all of your questions so now let me tell you about our week and share with you what went down in the lesson that me and Speechly taught yesterday.

So we went to Kumasi On Monday, and on Tuesday we had a zone meeting with the Bantama zone along with their interviews with Pres, and then splits with the zone leaders in the evening. Then the same thing again with the Dichemso zone on Wednesday. Thursday morning we went up to Sunyani and had the same meeting with the Sunyani zone and then we went on splits with the Sunyani Zone Leaders from about 2 in the afternoon to the end of the day. For most of the day I went on splits with Elder Brown (my son) which was way sweet, just like old times. Those guys are doing really well up in Sunyani and have a lot of really cool powerful converts and investigators. Brown can speak the twi pretty well too, like he is way good. Kinda embarrassing cuz I suck at it but whatever, I never would get to use it as much anyway even if i could speak it because we don't proselyte as much. But I am totally jealous cuz its way cool, and Speechly is like fluent, man he is way good. For each of the zone meetings we had to instruct and we talked about becoming Christlike missionaries and how the success of a missionary and his mission is directly related to how Christlike he becomes on his mission, because a Christlike missionary will always be a successful missionary. Then we talked about how charity and love is the one Christlike attribute that encompasses on the other Christlike attributes, and how if we can possess that attribute while in the field it will help others not of our faith recognize us as reps of Jesus Christ more than anything else. Then we talked about how we can acquire the attribute of charity and love as missionaries and apply the same to our missionary efforts. It was pretty good I think and I pray it will have an affect on the Elders and give more of a drive to perfect themselves while in the field, because there is no better time and place to do it.

Okay so that is that. Now after the meeting in Sunyani I went on splits with Elder Brown for the day and it went way good and we had some good lessons and talked a little bit about mission and life. It was fun. We met back up with Elder Hair and Elder Speechly in the evening to go and teach (with all 4 of us) a very important lessons to their most powerful investigator who is really rich and also really smart (she drives a BMW). On the way to teach that women (Sis Ivey) that is when we stopped and ended up playing a small game of basketball in the dark which was a lot of fun. I totally drilled a 3 in Brown's face to win the game haha. So when we got to Sister Ivey's house we realized that it would probably be best if only two of us taught her and the other 2 Elders went to teach another man who they had set an appointment with at the same time. So I ended up staying with Elder Speechly to teach Sister Ivey about the restoration. It was hands down the most powerful lesson of my mission. But I am sorry I am going to leave you hanging because I will most likey tell the story at my homecoming. That way it will be more exciting for you to listen to it. It was a great week and I still love missionary work so much. Days like yesterday make it so worth every sacrifice and all the hard work we put in. I love you guys and hope to hear from you again in a few days. I will write my essays tomorrow morning for BYU, I promise. Okay love you

Love Elder Adams

January 16, 2012 Bakaano is my Favorite Area

Sorry I thought I had already answered your questions that you asked me. So I did receive the 2nd package with he cereal and the computer storage. It's perfect and I will be able to bring home a lot of really cool things on it. I just haven't figured out how to take Sister Shulz pictures off of her computer yet because she has a mac book and those things are crazy confusing.

So this week was a pretty good week. We were in Cape Coast the whole of the week and we were able to teach a lot of people in our area. We also went on splits one day with the Elders in Elmina which is the biggest fishing village in the entire mission. It's a pretty cool place. Splits are always fun if the Elders are working hard and have some good people to teach. As for us, we have 2 other Elders in our area now and so anyone that we start teaching that is serious we end up giving to them to teach because they only have a few investigators right now, and they are in the area everyday and can teach them on a regular basis. So we have been more of the finders these past few weeks, and we have found a few really good people. However we did have 2 really good progressing investigators that we were sure to be baptized but one of them moved to Accra on Saturday and won't be back for 2 months, but the other one came to church on Sunday it's just hard to meet him because he is a taxi driver. Like I have said before we spend almost all of our time working with the less-actives and part member families. I think I have taught 6 or 7 different part-member families in the last few months, but so far no luck in getting any of them into the waters of baptism. Some of them know a lot about the church and their biggest concern is they say the members don't really live the gospel that they proclaim to be true, so they find it hard to follow. So it seems that it has been more of my job to just plant the seeds and help them see the goodness of the church, and pray for more success in the future. But since I have been here there have been a lot of less-actives that have started to come more often. There was one girl in her early twenties who we have been visiting this week that finally came to church on Sunday and she even gave the closing prayer in sacrament meeting. I guess you could say that we are the home teachers for Bakaano Branch because the home teaching program is completely unused in our branch. But I think I can say that Bakaano has been my favorite area. I have such a close relationship with so many of the members because of how much we work with them and their family members. A lot of them found out that I am leaving soon and are planning to feed us a treat or do something special, so I have a feeling that my last week I am going to really suffer trying to eat so much food. It does have its pluses going home with the less-actives because I make them all promise me that they will come to church before I leave, and they always agree to it so we will have to see what happens haha. Yesterday was President Shulz birthday and they are out of town so we have to rush right now to get him his B-day present before he gets home from Kumasi. So I think that is about all for this week. I will try to finish typing all of those essays for BYU today if I can get time. We are going to have a super busy week this week and next week because we are having zone meetings and interviews throughout the mission so I have to go and prepare my instruction which is "go about doing good". Have a great week and I will talk to you later. Love you guys

Love Elder Adams

December 26th (Need Portable Hard Drive)

Hey good afternoon,

Sorry I forgot to ask you about something last night while we were talking. I have all of Sister Shulz pictures that she has taken since she has been in Ghana and also all of Sister Sabeys photos from her mission, which are all here on the mission computer and a lot of them are really sweet pictures that I want to take home with me, but I don’t have time to sort through thousands of pictures. I also have my own pictures that I want to take home with me that are saved onto the office computer, BUT I don’t have anything that I can store them on that has enough room to hold that many pictures. It’s like more than 20 GB I think so I was wondering if you could send me a portable hard drive or something that can hold a lot of pictures. I also have all of the original documents that the pioneers of Africa were writing to church headquarters before the church came to Ghana, they are all scanned into the computer and I want to be able to take them home. So it would be sweet if you could help me out by sending my some kind of portable hard drive with enough GB to hold all of this stuff. It was great to talk to you guys the other day. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and enjoy the rest of the holdiays. Love you guys. OHH I also still want a lot of pictures of my converts and stuff so that I can write them a letter and send them a picture before I go home. I don’t know how but is there some way that you can send me pictures of my whole mission so that I can sort through and find the ones I want. I never really thought about needing them until now.

Love Elder Adams