Christmas Letter

Friends and Family,

It's a privilege this Christmas season to be able to share with all of you a few words. My prayer is that it will encourage and lift each of you. Now, Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year. It's the best time of year because everyone is always so much happier. Everyone is in the giving spirit. Everyone puts on a nice big smile. Families gather together for the holiday season. The best Christmas music is played all around town and on the radio. Gifts are given. Gifts are received. And there is plenty of food to go around. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year. However, with all of the excitement and festivities that the holiday season brings, the true meaning of Christmas is often overlooked or forgotten, and is lost amongst the giving and receiving of presents.

My Christmas message I would like to share with all of you is simply this. Do not miss the real meaning of Christmas, but make our Savior Jesus Christ the center and focus of all we do this holiday season. Bring to life the birth, mission, and life of our Lord. That is what Christmas is all about. Growing up our family would watch the video “Luke II” together every Christmas Eve, and share with each other our testimonies following the film. I will never forget the power and influence that my parents testimonies had on me and my life on those nights before Christmas. My greatest memories aren't the gifts I received or the food that I ate. But I will always remember most those feelings that entered my heart and testimony I gained from remembering our Lord Jesus Christ in that way each Christmas Eve. We can all remember the In-Keeper mentioned in the 2nd chapter of Luke, who told Mary and Joseph there was no room in the inn, and that they had to go elsewhere. This Christmas each and every one of us is the In-Keeper, and we decide whether or not there is room enough in our lives for Jesus Christ. Let us all put Christ at the center of all we do and say this holiday season. Love him. Adore him. Admire him. And emulate him. Thank him for the greatest gift ever given to mankind. The Atonement. No greater gift can or ever will be given.

I would like now to share an experience that I cherish and love from my mission, one that has a great impact on me. One that helped me understand more fully the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the example he set for us, and how we can emulate him. Late one afternoon while proselyting were walking along a dirt road on our way to our next appointment after church, when it started to rain really hard. So we stopped and waited for sometime underneath the overhang of the nearest building. While we were waiting for the rain to stop a little 5 year old girl was running down the road, on her way home I presume. While she was running she slipped on some mud and took a hard fall right on her face. She lay in the middle of the street crying. There were a lot of people nearby but nobody would stop to help her. It was as if they didn't see her. I couldn't just stand there and watch this little girl lying in the street scratched up and crying, so I ran over to where she was and picked her up in my arms and carried her over to the building we were sitting under. I washed her face off with my tie and then wiped off the rest of her body the best I could. She was still bawling. I talked to her small in Fante and after a while I was able to cheer her up. I got her to smile and talk a little. When she was smiling again and happy and cleaned up we sent her on her way and continued on. Afterward my tie was covered in thick muddy clay and my shirt was completely covered in mud from top to bottom from carrying her in my arms. There was no white to be found. But I couldn't have been happier. I will never forget the feeling that came to me afterward. I had never felt more in my entire life what it really meant when they say; "We are the Lord's hands" "We are his servants" "We represent the Savior and do what he would do". I have never felt closer to the Savior. It was a simple and small act of kindness. But I was the Lord's hands and I was doing what he would have done.

I wanted to share this story because we need to always be on the look out for those that are struggling, not only physically, but also spiritually. It will bless your life more for helping , than it will bless the one in need. I have never been happier in my entire life and felt more joy than what I experienced after helping this little girl. How many times has the Savior picked you up, cleaned you from your cuts and wounds? How many times has he come to the rescue when there was no one else there? I encourage each of us this Christmas season to stand firm as a representative of Jesus Christ and do what he would do. A heart-felt act of service is the greatest gift you can give this Christmas, and the blessings and feelings that follow are the greatest gift we can receive. There is no better way to put Christ at the Center of this holiday season.

I share my testimony with you that Christ is the center of everything. I know that he lives and that this is his church. And that he is our Savior and Redeemer. That he truly did suffer all things that we might not suffer, if we would repent and follow him. I've come to know that more than ever this past year. Serving amongst these humble faithful people in Ghana has been the most remarkable experience of my life. I am not sure I will ever want to leave. I have come to love the people of Africa in a way I can't express. In a way similar to the way Christ loves them. I love all of you. Many of you have a special place in my heart. You have made me who I am today, and I have you to thank for that. Thank you for your prayers. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May the Lords choicest blessings be upon you.

Love, Elder Adams

December 6, 2010

Fam,
Well we had a good week once again. We did a lot of contacting this week, which isn't something we do very often. We have had a lot of baptisms lately and right now our teaching pool is pretty small and the ward isn't pumping out as many referrals as they normally do, so we seem to not have many people to teach. We contacted in the wealthier part of our area, if you can even call it that, and met some smart people that speak pretty good English. We are excited to see if any of them progress. I've only baptized 2 contacts my whole mission, but they seem ready. At church on Sunday we had 19 of my recent converts there, 6 others are fisherman and have traveled, 3 were sick, and 2 are somehow having problems and have fallen a little less active, so we have some work to do there. One is a boy who Bishop asked us to teach and baptize who had been coming to church for over one year, but as soon as we baptized him he got sick and then hasn't come since. The other one was the 1st person I ever baptized like 3 weeks into my mission, and he was baptized because his girlfriend was a member and they were going to get married. He was active and strong for a few months, and then the girl broke off the marriage and now he is less active. Can't really blame him there. That's tough. So out of everyone of my recent converts in the last 10 months all are active except two! My goal is to get them coming again before I go, then I can leave Moree in peace and feel good about what I did there.

Lately I have been studying and pondering about the spirit. Preach My Gospel chapter 4 really gives wonderful advice and instruction on how to become more acquainted with the spirit and understand it better. I've been really having some good experiences, and the spirit is really becoming apart of my everyday prayers and study. It makes all the difference in the world. Something else I did this week that I don't normally do is read my Patriarchal blessing. I haven't really studied as much as I should. . Sunday I sat down and read it before church and boy was it sweet. I had some great insights and saw some things that I had never before realized. It's packed with amazing promises and blessings if we just stay faithful. It has some powerful blessings related to my mission, and I feel that there is a lot for me still to do here in Ghana. Read yours this week. See if anything new comes to your mind.

For Christmas we will be having a party at the mission home with another zone, Fosu Zone. It should be pretty awesome, and some good food which is always exciting, not to mention the air conditioning in the mission home is a little piece of heaven. I did receive your Thanksgiving package this Friday so that was awesome. I had a lovely meal that night. I'm still to eat the pie. Can't wait for that. Sorry if I have been spending more money leately from my account. I have been kinda of buying a few more things than normal. Anyway how is school going? Are you loving school right now or what? Are you guys all ready for Christmas this year and excited. Anything new to tell me?? I haven't heard from anyone of my friends in like 3 months or so. Sounds like Miles is tearing it up on the court. Is the competition still at a pretty high level and fun to watch? Well anyway that's about all I have for this week. Ma, I love you and thanks for all that you do, the packages, the emails, the 20 dollar bill. You’re the best. I hope everything is going well for you right now. I can't wait to be able to talk on Christmas. It will be a lot of fun. Love you always.

Love Elder Adams

November 29, 2010

Well, another fine week we had. It was actually one of the sweetest of my mission in a few ways. Tuesday we went on splits with the assistants and that is always fun. You can really learn a lot from those guys who have a lot of experience. But Friday was such an awesome day. We were invited by Andrew Aikins to play in a football game at Moree Park, which is right in the center of the town. We were playing with his school teachers vs students, and we were on the teacher’s team. Our team had the sweetest uniforms ever. We had legit jerseys and team short shorts, you know soccer style, so we looked pretty legit. I must say I can't quite pull off the short shorts with my thunder thighs though. You will see some funny pics. The sweetest part was we were playing against some of our investigators, who really aren't all that serious anymore. So I beat up on them a little bit and knocked em around, but they still made me look like a fool with their mad football skills. We ended in a tie 2-2. I think we got a few contacts out of the whole thing and maybe some really good investigators. But it was by far the funnest football game ever. Right after the game the couple missionaries the Saunders came and picked us up in Moree to take us to their area. I had to do a baptismal interview for them there. Actually my first baptism interview. It turned out that the man I was interviewing, John Nketsiah., for baptism was a man that me and Elder Mackay taught maybe 8 months ago!! I was so excited and the interview was awesome, he had a very strong testimony and was so ready. He even said that me and Elder Mackay and his friends from Moree are the reason why he continued with the church when he left Moree. That was one of the neatest experiences I have had. It truly just shows that no effort is wasted and that even if we don't get to see the person baptized or if we don't continue teaching them, that the seed can still be planted. I think the Lord allowed me to be able to interview this man and gave me this experience to teach me a lesson. This experience strengthened my testimony so much. It really just opens my eyes that we can make a difference everyday, even if we don't realize it. And then to add to it I was able to conduct the baptism on Saturday in which John Nketsiah was baptized, along with 3 of our own candidates from Moree. It was a neat experience.

Sunday at church we had all of our candidates confirmed. Our ward is also making some changes and Andrew Aikins became the Young Mens President and Belinda who was confirmed, Sunday became the Relief Society secretary. It is really sweet to be able to see all of our recent converts getting serious callings. Oh and they had a primary program on Sunday. I am not going to lie but these kids made the kids back home look bad. We had 6 and 7 year old kids memorize the articles of faith and say all of them perfectly, and in English. One kid even memorized like an entire chapter from the Book of Mormon and repeated it perfectly. It was pretty impressive. All of the kids are really well mannered too when it comes to something like that. Probably because if they aren’t they will get beat, unlike back home where they will receive a biscuit to shut them up. Other than that not much that I can think of. I didn't really celebrate Thanksgiving because when we were out proselyting that day Elder Brown felt sick so I had to eat a giant bowl of rice balls and soup and fish all by myself that a member gave us, so when I got home I was to full to eat anything. It sounds like you guys had a good Thanksgiving. I am excited for Nevada, but more mad because now am not there to see it the only year that they are even good. But it is fun to rub it in Elder Browns face that BYU lost and Nevada won. That makes things better.

Well missions going pretty well right now, but I do kind of feel like I need a change. I’ve feel like I just replay the same day over and over sometimes now that I have been in the same area for so long. But at the same time it’s really sweet because I get to see how my recent converts are doing and even have cool experiences like I had this week. So it all has its ups and downs, but mostly ups. I am glad everything is going well and I look forward to hearing from you next week. I am grateful to have a family who writes me every week. I love you guys. Keep the faith and let your light so shine for all to see.

Love, Elder Adams

ps. I will write Bishop next week when I email if you guys are
wondering. And miles don't be a weenie, shoot the ball a lot. I want
at least 20 a game, come on now this is 3A were taking about, take
over now. Something random, look for a drink called Malta. I think guiness
makes it. It’s the best drink ever you should try it. Plus I want to
know if they have it in the US.

November 21, 2010

My Family,
Well this week was another good one. They all just seem to run together and every week somehow just feels like the same thing over and over again, but I guess that is because I am doing the same thing over and over again. Go Figure! The week was good teaching wise, we had about 37 lessons or so this week and some new investigators. We had zone conference this week and it was pretty insane. Here’s the down low on the Ghana Cape Coast Mission........ Okay so they opened up Suanyani a city more north past Kumasi and right now it has only 6 missionaries and a couple. There are three different "groups" that are meeting together for church right now that just started. They purchased really big apartments so that they can have church in the missionaries apartments on Sunday. And right now it is growing and there are about 70 people going to church in Suanyani, but very few are members I believe. So they are really trying to expand that area of the mission and work there and fast. The city is big like well over a million I think. Now for Kumasi. It is the same size as Accra at least pretty close to it. But Accra has 5 stakes and Kumasi only has 1 stake and there are like 40 chapels in Accra, an only 8 in Kumasi and people won’t go to church a lot in Kumasi because they have to travel so far. So what they are going to do is purchase a whole bunch of big apartments in Kumasi for missionaries and a few more in Suanyani so that they can have church in them like the others. And President is going to send a bunch of missionaries to these new areas that haven’t been opened and we are going to establish "groups" all over the place, which will then turn to branches and districts, and then to wards and stakes. It will give people many places to go to church so that they don’t have to travel so far. They have 20 areas picked already for the groups to be established and they have already purchased a few more apartments. So in the next year and years coming look out! This mission is going to blow up!!!
Now the reason why we are able to do this is because of the amount of missionaries in the mission. We have tons of wards or branches where there are 4 missionaries serving in the same ward or branch. And tests show that 2 missionaries in a ward get the same number of baptisms as 4 missionaries. They just split the baptisms. So they are going to take all of the missionaries that are 4 in a ward and put them in these new areas to start groups, and the work is going to double we hope. President Snow said " the Ghana Cape Coast Mission has the power to baptize thousands". President Sabey is taking that serious and we are striving to baptize over 2000 people in the next year. It’s not our focus, but he says if we do this and we work hard, it will happen. Now how is that for where this mission is going!! But at the same time there is still some few problems with disobedience in the mission and laziness, but things are improving. Anyway that is a shortened version of what we heard in Zone Conference. Its gunna be interesting to see.
Well here is a summary of the rest of the week. Tuesday as apart of our district meetings when we finish with the instruction side of things we take 30 min to do something "cultural". This week we went and Elder Katoa taught us how to climb palm trees. Man its fun, but not easy. My goal is to be able to climb one all the way before I go home. So every week we do a cultural activity as a district so that we can learn more about the culture and also have more unity in our district. I think it will be cool to see, our district is so awesome. This week we are making fufu from start to finish. Saturday I went on splits with Elder Mortensen to Yamoransa. It was cool to see what the work was like in a different area, but man did I miss Moree. We did a lot of contacting because the ward there doesn’t hand out referrals like Moree does. I am so grateful to serve in the Moree ward, the members are awesome. We actually ended up teaching a couple girls and a 9 year old kid who thought he was a thug haha. He had a big chain, baggy pants, nice phone, and a few bills to flash.... But when we asked him where he got the money he said that his mom gave it to him haha. He had a picture of 50 cent on his wall. He said that 50 cent is handsome, but he doesn’t like his character haha. The kid was so funny. Then at the end we met a deaf kid who was like 4. He will never be able to communicate his life because nobody can teach him sign language. He will never know his own name either. Pretty sad huh? It was my first time going on splits though, so it was pretty fun. Stake conference was Sunday. It was one of those televised ones and Elder Oaks, Sister Dibb, Elder Golden, and President Packer spoke. They talked a lot about temples and some other pretty normal church stuff, but Elder Oaks really targeted the cultural issues that are conflicting with the way the church is run. Such as the bride price that they pay when they get married. WAY TO MANY people here don't get married until middle aged because they can't pay the pride price. So they pretty much said that has to be done away with. They also talked about funerals and how we shouldn’t spend our life’s saving just to bury someone, which is something they really do here. They go into debt like crazy over funerals. But they also talked about they have really strong family ties here and praised them on a few other things. It was really sweet, and the week was a really good one.
I love you guys and I am so thankful for the examples that you are to me. Thanks for the great emails, and I hope you have a good Thanksgiving. Love you all and take care.

Love Elder Adams.

11-15-10

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My Family,
Okay so this week was pretty epic, and it has absolutely nothing to do with missionary work. It was Elder Mortensens year mark and because Elder Katoa is a Tongan we bought a huge pig for a feast. Elder Katoa killed the big with a stick and a tiny pocket knife, that guy is crazy. Then we cleaned it and gutted it, threw it on a stick and cooked it over a fire that we made behind our place. It took about three hours to cook, and the whole time we had to stand there and rotate the pig so that it cooked nicely. Then we brought it in the house and set it on the table (we even had palm leaves for the full affect to set on the table) and then we chomped for a solid hour. In all we had a lot of pineapple, a lot of yam, and stew and lots of minerals(soda pop) and the pig. It fed about 10 of us. It was so goooood!!!!!! It was the first time we have had a lot of meat so we ate until we couldn't eat anymore. It was awesome. I want to do it when I go home cuz it is so sweet!

Okay, so as for missionary related activities this week I went to the specialized leadership training where ZL and DL were instructed by President on how to improve our teaching skills and leadership abilities. We talked a lot about being a good leader and how we need to raise ourselves to a higher level of obedience and discipline, and how we need to work extra hard so that the other missionaries will have a good example to look to. The rest of the time we discussed about how to recognize and follow the spirit and how to invite someone to be baptized in the very first lesson. It was very interesting. It is actually a world wide thing that they are doing with every mission. But we learned a lot of cool and stuff and then we did some role play. Something that I never truly understood was that the spirit can guide us and lead us even when we are doing role play and practicing together. It sounds crazy but that is what the 12 have said, and when we practiced together in certain situations I was actually lead by the spirit to address a certain concern or to say something that I never would have thought of. The spirit is difficult to recognize sometimes, and it was so cool, you can actually practice learning how to recognize it. Then at the very end we went through 3 Nephi 11 together and talked about the doctrine of Christ. I never realized just how much is really in that chapter about baptism. It is interesting that the very 1st thing Christ teaches is baptism when he appears to the Nephites and it is also interesting to note that there are only 2 other times where Heavenly Father introduced his son and you heard his voice (to Joseph Smith and when Christ was baptized) One other thing that is interesting is to look and see when Christ repeats himself. If he does that it must be important. I don't know it was an interesting training, but a real eye opener. So that is just a small taste of how those training meeting go if that helps at all.

So this week we put into practice some of the things that I learned from the training. And it sure did help. We asked our investigator named Belinda Eghan that I told you about to commit to be baptized, and without any hesitation she said yes! It was the most confident I have ever heard anyone agree to be baptized. She is totally ready. I am 100 percent sure that she will be baptized in 2 weeks. We are looking forward to that. She is one of the sweetest people I have ever met. Oh and she talks in the exact same voice that Whitney always talks in, that annoying baby voice haha, totally reminded me of that the first time I heard her speak. As for the orphanages and stuff like that I really don't know. You have to understand that I am in a poor fishing village practically isolated from the entire world and I don't know anything about adoptions or AIDS. The only thing I hear about is when the fishing is good, or when it sucks, ha. But I will try and do some research this week and ask about it, I am sure I will be able to find out something. I will ask Brother Pratt in the ward, we’re tight and he would probably know. Bro Pratt has applied to go to BYU and will be going I think around the time that I come home, so you will probably get to meet him because I will definitely want to see him. Just a little heads up. Well church this week wasn't very good, we had 18 people total at sacrament meeting. We had a huge thunder storm Sat night and Sun morning so nobody came to church. It was pretty bad. I did confirm one of our recent converts on Sunday so that was sweet, his name is Jacob he’s a stud. This week is Stake conference and some of our investigators will receive that Melchizedek priesthood so that will be awesome and we also have Zone Conference tomorrow. Gunna be a good week. Well I am not sure what else to write. I know I am leaving out all kinds of things, so just go read Elder Browns blog he types really fast and he loves writing so it will have a lot more stuff I am sure. I love you all and thanks for all the emails this week. I knew if I said something you would all write. Thanks a bunch and I am glad you are all doing well. Take care until next week.
Much love,
Elder Adams

11-8-10

My Family, Well it has been an exciting week and a very good one at that. To start things of we got a new missionary in the apartment one of my MTC mates. His name is Elder Katoa and he is from Tonga. He came on his mission and he couldn't speak English at all, but now he is doing really well and can speak it well enough to hold an okay conversation. I still have a hard time understanding some words he says though. He is pretty big, but not fat, just ripped and cut out of his mind. Them Polynesians are so dang strong. He played rugby back home. And he is a pretty intimidating guy. But man all Polynesians are the happiest most exciting people to be around. Its gunna be sweet having him in the apartment. We are gunna buy some pigs, kill em, and cook them ourselves too with his help. I will let you know how that goes. I am pretty excited about that. Another interesting thing that has happened this week is I got ring worm all over my right arm and a HUGE boil also on the same arm. Last night the boil was getting painful so I poked it with a needle and a massive amount of puss came out! So sweet! If you watch the biggest zit on utube you will have an idea. Then I did the same thing this morning. But now my arm swelled up and it just looks like a have one huge arm that’s ripped ha-ha. But it doesn’t hurt anymore so its all good. It’s pretty common to get. I think it is because of how much we sweat or something I don't know. Okay now a story about one of our investigators. We are currently teaching an 18 year old girl who is really powerful Belinda Eghan and she has some uncles who are members. She has been coming to church the past 3 weeks and she is solid. Okay now Wednesday morning we picked a car to go to Moree from our apartment In the trotro we met a man from Accra who was a member, and he was also going to Moree. He was all excited when he met us, which we didn't understand cuz he was a member. He said he was going to paint his family house and then dedicate it. He told us he was praying to find the missionaries on the way so that they could help him to do it. Okay so we bought that. When we got to Moree junction we picked another taxi and then we drove together to his family house. To our surprise we pulled right up to the house that Belinda lives in with her old grandmother. I thought at first maybe it was just her uncle, but when I asked Belinda if he was just just glared at me and said that she hated him. Right then I knew we had gotten ourselves in a pickle. We followed the man into the house and immediately the guy started pushing the old woman and threw her out the front door. But the old lady wasn't gunna give up that easy. She came back and again the guy shoved her really hard and threw her out again and locked the door. Meanwhile Belinda was just staring at us through the window. It was the most awkward feeling ever. So then the guy called the cops to come, and that is when we decided we needed to leave. So we said we had an appointment and we bailed before we got involved. So the story is.... The guy owns the house according to him, and lets them stay there, and according to Belinda they own half of the house. So now she might be mad at us, but we met her afterward and everything seems to be okay. Haha it was crazy, our investigator thought that we came to kick her out on the street. And the guy we went with from Accra wasn't what I would call a kind Latter-Day Saint. So there is a small story for ya. Now the home teaching is going well. They showed me a sheet on Sunday and all of our recent converts have home teachers, and most of them have home teaching assignments along with the members. So we are making progress and hopefully before I go we have a good program up and running, at least that is my home. We are taking a lot more of our time going with people to home teach and taking the various church leaders out on splits with us. Things are looking good. As far as teaching in church we don't really have to ever stand up and correct any false doctrine or anything like that. The leaders pretty much understand how everything works. Home teaching is kind of the only thing we have ever helped a lot with. Sunday we watched conference in church. The tapes from Salt Lake finally came in. So we watched conference for about 5 hours and finished Saturday and then some of Sunday I think. Overall my favorite was Elder Gong. I don't know why but I really liked that guy and his talk. He seems way awesome. But other than that it was really really good. President Monson might be getting a little old, he was a little off on his jokes this time around I thought haha, but he gave some good talks. I really want you to send me the conference on cd so that I can listen to it and follow along in the Liahona. It is really sweet that way. Our recent converts are all doing really well. I think out of all the people I have baptized only 1 is less active, and that is because his girlfriend who is a member dumped him and now he won’t come back because she is there. It’s too bad, but the rest are doing really good. Andrew Aikins is going to be put in the Elders Quorum right after he receives the Melchizedek Priesthood in 2 weeks. He has only been baptized for 1 month about and he was interpreting what the Apostles we saying in conference into Fante in church. Man I know I talk about that guy all the time but he really is just awesome. It is still fishing season in Moree so a lot of our recent-converts have traveled for fishing. I think right now we are getting a little over 100 poeple at church a week, but after fishing sometimes we can get as many as 140 or 150. Right now our teaching pool is pretty small because we have been having baptisms and working on other things more than normal, so this past week we worked on finding some new investigators. We met a man named Kofi Akwon and he is an interesting character. He invited is into his house and he had teachings of the prophet for almost every prophet, Book of Mormon, D & C, Gospel Principles, and all kinds of stuff. He said that his religion is called Yoga! Whatever that means. He seems to know a lot so it should be fun teaching him, but I am not to sure how he will accept it. I hope he takes it well. Other than him and Belinda we are teaching a carpenter, a random woman, and then a few students that Andrew Aikins teaches. So things are a little slow but we are still making progress okay. Today we just got done playing basketball for our P Day. The court was okay, wooden hoops, really sucky rims and puddles all over the court because it rained this morning. But it was a lot of fun. It was only the second time that I have played on my mission. And boy do I suck!!! I can't imagine how sucky I will be by the time I go home haha. But it was fun. Well that about raps things up for the week. Another gone and they keep going faster. Well I really don't know what you should send me for Christmas because really I don't need anything but here are a few ideas. Something I do want is MOTAB cds with Christmas music, anything that isn't church songs, but it has to be MOTAB, mission rule. Stationary for letters and some more stamps I am almost out. Church Dvds like I said before. They are really good for baptisms and family home evening but they don't have any to really buy here that I want. Scripture Markers. The ones I brought are finished. Mapleline or whatever. It is good to make syrup for pancakes. I want a really good but small camera case that I can latch onto my belt to proselyte with, but my camera is still doing okay so I don;t really need a new one. Im out of vitamins. And some hydroxycut because I am so fat. haha jk I think that is really all I can come up with. Well it sounds like you are all doing really well and all is good. Haven’t heard from Tris or Whit for a while how are they? China sounds pretty sweet! That’s a really cool story about the temple blocks being built by them. It is a stepping stool that’s for sure. Well it is nice to hear how you are doing and all. I am doing great and just trying to enjoy everyday of my mission no matter what happens. And so far I love it and I have had a blast. The people here are so awesome. I have truly fallen in love with the people and it just makes the work that much better. I know that the church is true, and it has been such a testimony builder to witness it in a far away land and see that it is just the same. It is the Lords kingdom. And I am so thankful to be apart of it and sharing it with the African People. I love mom, dad, miles, whit, tris, derek, and cody. And that’s not in any particular order. Take care and I look forward to hearing from you again next week. Elder Adams

November 1, 2010

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(I just posted Garrett's last 3 letters)
Adams Family,

Sorry the power just went out in town as I was about to send my email to you. So because I am limited on time this will be relatively short. But it was a great week. We just received transfer news and I am staying in good ol Moree for another 6 weeks. I am still companions with Elder Brown which I am super excited about. The past while has been a blast. And the new Elder that is coming to my apartment to join Elder Mortensen is a Tongan Elder, and he is my MT, his name is Elder Katoa and he is the coolest dude ever. I am so stoked that I am staying just because of that, but also for many other reasons.

Well this week we had the privilege of also being with a seventy named Elder Ahadgi. Crazy how things worked out for both Jeff and me in the same week. What’s even crazier is we met while we were proselyting. He is over the Nigerian area. He is the contractor on the new chapel and we were able to meet with him late one night at the chapel sight and we ended up talking for about an hour and 15 min. I didn’t even know who he was when I first saw him. It was one of the sweetest experiences I have had. We seriously talked about everything from where the next temple in Africa will be, to his conversion story. He even gave us a little doctrine. He told us to read 1 Nephi 1 and compare the story of Lehi to the story of Joseph Smith and then see the comparisons of how God calls prophets to restore his gospel. It was sweet you should try it too. Elder Ahadgi is one of the nicest men I have ever met in my life and it was a night I will never forget.

This week we also went farming way out in the bush and were able to see a white mans house who is a huge drug trafficker of cocaine. But unfortunately we didn't get to see the cocaine fields or anything like that. But I know that man will never be caught because it is in the middle of absolutely no where. We also had a baptism this week and it went well. We had to do it at the beach which was fun because the whole town of Yamornasa has been out of water the past 3 days. That's a whole other story. We baptized a 21 year old man who is dating one of our strongest members. He is a real stud and he owns his own barber shop and cuts our hair every week. It’s pretty sweet too because they cut it all African like with straight edges and stuff haha. But anyway he has a very powerful testimony and when the ZL interviewed him they said you don’t have to worry about this guy, he will never fall away from the church. But he is the only guy that we baptized this week.

Now to the water. Our area has been out of water since Friday. We have been fetching water from one of the couple missionaries in our town who had a special supply. Man I tell you if I had to fetch water to take a shower or to wash the dishes everyday of my life I wouldn't only be the strongest man alive but the most humble too, because it really makes you realize how much we have. So we ran out of water last night and had no drinking water or water to go to the bathroom or shower or anything. It’s been a fun past few days, but they just fixed the water line a few hours ago so we should be back to normal.

Dad I got the email and it was very helpful and it will surely bless the ward if they get their home teaching going well. I feel like that might be why I am still in Moree, because the lord still has things that he wants me to do there, I KNOW he does. So I am excited to be here for the next 6 weeks and continue to serve in the area. Man this next transfer is going to be sweet and I can’t wait. I am really excited for Jefferey (Hendrix) to be heading off so soon. I can’t wait to be able to hear how he does. It truly will be the greatest blessing and learning experience we can ever have as young men. Well it’s been a fun adventure the past week and I’m sure we will have more to tell next week. I know that the church is true. I love you all and I can’t wait to hear from you next week. Oh, and Dad I will remember that you said you would take me to China!!!! I also got the package this week with the cards so thank you very much and the package was really sweet and we watched the Priesthood session of conference today, it’s the only part we have seen so far. It was really good.

Love Elder Adams