Sorry I have been slacking, there are 3 new posts today.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Adams Family,
This week was an awesome week, we had a lot going on and we had a lot of fun at the same time. But of course we worked hard. On Tuesday we were privileged to hear from Elder Sitati and his wife at zone conference. I thought he would be kind of the type that would lecture us and all, but it was the complete opposite. He was super nice and was very soft spoken, and didn't lecture us at all. Guess I should have expected that he is a Seventy. He is a pretty tall and thick guy too. Didn't expect that either. But the conference was sweet. He taught us about the Fall and the Atonement. It was really, really good. Then after we ate lunch he taught us all about how to plan effectively in our weekly planning sessions and we tried it this week and it really worked pretty well. It didn't make much of a difference in the work but I know it will overtime. We also received our new mission goal. We have almost completed the previous one, to baptize someone that we found during a football match. There are a few more missionaries left, but it seems to be going well. Our new mission goal is to baptize someone that is a referral from a recent convert, and to help a recent convert go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead for at least one person. I am really excited for this goal, we get to learn more about temple work and also get to strengthen our recent converts a lot. It will be sweet.

Well the rest of the week we pretty much spent all of our time with our investigators helping them to prepare for baptism and going through the baptism interviews and all that fun stuff. It was a really good week. We baptized 5 of the 6 that we had planned to baptize. One women we couldn't baptize because, well it was that time of month, that’s all I’m going to say. So her baptism will be next week and it will probably be just her. The baptism at the beach this time was more crazy that the first time that I did mine. The waves were huge and they kept on knocking us over and making the kids really scared. We had a lot of child of records to baptize and it was probably the most horrifying experience of their lives. Africans for the most part hate the water. And especially when they are 8 years old. Yeah, so their baptism will never be forgotten at least. They will at least always remember it. So we baptized two young kids 12 and 13 who have been coming to church for like 3 years. I was really iffy about it just because they are so young, but they have been coming for a really long time. And they do have a testimony, or they would have stopped a long time ago. We baptized a boy about 16 and another boy about 17. They are both really powerful and one is the brother of the two boys on missions from our ward. And then we baptized another boy who was about 17. At lot of younger kids. But they say that that is a good thing and should be a focus because it will help the church to grow and be much more powerful in the future when they all grow up in the church and become leaders. It is sweet because Moree is full of kids that are powerful. Baptisms at the beach are sweet, but I really would rather do it at the chapel because it is a lot more spiritual. But it is fun.

Something random now is that I have really come to think that Sunday is my favorite day of the week on my mission because I love going to church and seeing who comes and what investigators show up. The service is in Fante and I never really know what is going on there so I have a lot of time to think and read whatever I want from the scriptures and stuff. I also love the children. I have like four little girls in the ward that love me and they always want to sit with me and I just draw with them in my notebook and stuff like that. I don't know, it is just a lot of fun. And it is always fun to go to church in the wooden school house. Nothing can compare.

Well I want to tell you small about the most golden investigator ever. A man named Andrew Aikens. He has been prepared for the gospel. He is a 28 year old teacher. We started teaching him a few weeks ago. He has read all of first Nephi, accepted every commitment, came to church, came to the baptism, asks all kinds of good questions, and is the sweetest person to teach. We have focused a lot of our teaching with him towards prayer, and now he is so powerful. After every lesson he is the one that always says we need to pray and he immediately kneels down and waits for us to kneel, and then he gives the most powerful prayers. You can just tell that he is speaking to God. It isn't big fancy words or anything, but it is just straight from the heart. He is golden. He is definitely the most enjoyable person to teach, ever. We could tell that he wasn't the most religious person when we met him but now he just knows it’s the truth. Man its sweet. He was a Catholic and never that active, but you can just see that he has found what he is looking for now. Well, that’s really about all for the week. Transfers were today and there were a lot of changes and people going all over the place, but me and Elder Brown are the same and I am going to be in Moree for 9 months at least. And I can say that I am glad, because I absolutely love it.

Okay now to your questions that I never answer. I want blank index cards please. I don't want a new camera I will just keep the one I have, it still works okay and I might as well just use it till it dies. The church building isn't coming all that fast. I bet it will take like 6 months or more. There will be a font in it, there is in every chapel in Ghana. The temple trip is in 3 weeks and I am so freakin excited. It will be two zones together I think but I’m not sure. And yes we do cut each others hair. I cut mine Saturday on a 1 and I look bald right now. The heat is coming and soon it will be miserable! I love you all so much and I am so grateful for all that you do for me and the wonderful examples that you are. I know that the church is true and that I am so grateful to be a member of the true church. The blessings are for all eternity. Keep the faith and know that I love you all so much. Take care until next week. Much love
Elder Adams

9/13/2010

The Adams Family,

Well this week was pretty dang good. The Lord is really blessing us and the work in Moree is really improving. We are having another baptism on Sunday, we have 4 more candidates that are ready for baptism. We moved the baptism up a week early because transfers are coming next week and Elder Brown really wants to have a baptism at the beach, in case he gets transferred or something like that happens. It worked out nicely because our baptism candidates are ready anyway. So Sunday we are having another baptism at the beach after church. It should be a lot of fun and a good experience especially for Elder Brown. We have a new investigator that is just a stud and he is accepting everything. His name is Andrew Akens. He has already about finished reading first Nephi. It is the first person I have really taught who is smart that has progressed. I mean I have only taught like 3 people my whole mission who can read. We always look forward to teaching him. It’s a lot of fun.

Oh the new training meetings are for DL ZL and gunna be trainers. So I didn’t go to the training. We just had a short meeting with President over the obedience issue. But for district meeting they went over it all for us and we are doing a lot of things that will improve the work so much. It puts a big emphasis on helping the people to learn how to pray and receive answers to their prayers. It also talks a lot about preparing people for baptism in the very first lesson. Missionaries often shy away from baptism and mentioning it because they are scared that they will scare off the person from investigating. But they have said that it is our purpose and that we need to start our discussions and first few by explaining that we are helping them to prepare for baptism. It is really sweet and we have already seen it work with Andrew Akens. I’m excited for the future training meetings. They really show us how to do the work more effectively.

Well my B Day was pretty awesome. The Saunders brought me over a nice big cake with chocolate frosting the morning of my B Day, which she made with the powdered sugar you sent me. So that came in handy. I actually just gave it to her because she wanted it for something else, and then two months later she made me a cake with it. Pretty good investment. The Saunders always do stuff for me that’s so unexpected. They are pretty much awesome. The couple missionaries we have are so sweet. They also brought me over my packages from you at the same time. So we opened that. Wow you sent some dang good stuff. The mp3 player is already sitting in the mission home. Sorry, we are only allowed to have cd players now with the whole obedience issue. So it will be a nice treat for the plain ride home. I’m not gunna lie I was pretty disappointed, that thing was sweet. So I hope it didn’t cost too much. We actually had an unique personal and companion study that morning. We had a nice one on one tournament with the apartment. Nerf basketball gets pretty intense. We played for like an hour. The evening of my birthday the Pratt’s cooked us a fat African feast. We had fufu and light soup with chicken and fish, we had a bunch of jolof rice, we had banana cakes, somehow the same as banana bread, and then a whole crate of mineral, and some more fried chicken. I have honestly never eaten that much food in my life. They taught us the Polynesian rock. When you are eating you rock back and forth and it moves the food down and it digests faster, and then you can eat like ten times more food. Well we did just that and the rest of the night I couldn't function. But it was so gooooodd!!

So Saturday night we made the rice crispies. Those were so good. We had like 7 missionaries over after the baptism on Saturday and we all ate them. The Africans really loved em. You did well, the b day package was pretty dang good! Thank you, thank you, thank you. It was the best birthday I have had in my life. Who would’a thought.

Oh yeah I almost forgot. Tomorrow we are having another mission conference and we get to hear from Joseph Satati or whatever his name is, the African member of the seventy from Kenya. It should be pretty bomb so I will probably be mentioning that in my email next week. Well everything is going along so great. I’m loving my area more and more and I really love teaching together with Elder Brown. My son is doing really well. I am so thankful for such a loving and caring family. You guys are the best. Even thousands of miles away you still come through. I love you! I love you! I love you! The church is true and I am so thankful for this opportunity to help the work go forward. Keep the commandments and love everyone around you.

Love you guys,

Elder Adams

Just for future reference.......
Things that would be very useful.
1. Index Cards
2. Short black ankle socks
3. A weighted speed training jump rope

That’s all I can think of.
That’s All :)

Monday, September 6, 2010

Thank you thank you,
Thank you for all of the birthday wishes. Love you all. Well this week was a good one. We had our baptism and all went pretty well, except one of the candidates went to sea for fishing the day of the baptism so we will have to catch him next baptism. But we baptized and confirmed our 4 candidates and everything went really well. The only scary part was the husband to one of the women being baptized, he was like 5 feet tall 100 pounds and she was like 5 feet 7 in tall and weighed 300 pounds. He couldn't pull her up out of the water in his attempt to baptize her and she took a nice swim about 4 times before she was baptized. But none the less she was baptized and the baptism was a great success. We had 4 other companionships join our baptism. It was sweet. We are already preparing for our next baptism that will be on the 26th of Sept. |Well as you heard from the letter that you received in the mail the mission had a little pep talk on obedience. President was very serious and there is a lot of stupid disobedience going on right now. Lots of missionaries were watching movies and using ipods and stuff like crazy. It is really stupid the things that some of the missionaries do. But yeah president is really cracking down which is good because it would only continue to get worse if he didn't put a stop to it. This week we went on splits with the assistants which was a lot of fun because I got to go with Elder Hill who was my zone leader in the Cape Cost Zone for half of my mission. Oh and I am in the Yamoransa District which is the name of the town that I live in. But it was really fun because he speaks Fante fluently and it was really cool to listen and watch him teach in Fante. Makes me want to learn it bad. but It ain’t coming all that easy. Something that was really really crazy and sad happened the other night when I was sleeping at about 3 in the morning. I was awakened to a women beating her son right outside my window. She was either whipping him or smacking him super super hard, and she did it over and over for about 45 min straight and the kid just cried and screamed at the top of his lungs. The lady was cursing and yelling at him. I wanted to go and just put and end to it, but that’s not our business that we are supposed to do. But it was really hard to sit there and listen to it over and over. It was a serious beating. I didn't get any sleep that night. It is just really eye opening to see how pampered and how lucky we are to have the life we live. Thank you for that. I have been taking my doxy every night right before I go to sleep lately and I have had the craziest nightmares ever!!! Like one night I woke up and was just freaking out because I thought there was a bunch of Africans surrounding me with AK 47’s and they were like going to kill me and all this stuff. hahaha that doxy stuff does crazy crazy things. I was actually like sitting up and everything before I realized it was a dream. I thought you might get a kick out of that. It was actually pretty sweet. I started writing down my dreams right when I wake up because some of them are so funny and insane. And hopefully maybe I will have a few spiritual things that I can record too during my mission. Well, I got Whit's package this week, and I loved the shirt and tie. They were both so sweet. Elder Brown hates Utah so it is that much better. It was an awesome birthday package, you rock. I received Alex’s too. She hooked me up fat with all kinds of sweet stuff, so thanks to her too. She rocks. I haven't gotten the others yet but I’m sure they will come. Well Bro. Pratt and his wife are going to cook me dinner for my birthday, which I am looking forward to. They are cooking fried rice, chicken, fufu, banana bread, and all kinds of good stuff for me. I do have to go to the atm for the 1st time on my mission because I dropped 40 cedis just on my b day dinner. But it will be worth it :) I think you should go to PF Changs in Reno and then tell me if it is really as good as they say, because that might be the first place that I go when I get home. Just a heads up. I freakin love rice now! Well I love you all and thanks again for all that you have done for me in the 20 years that I have been alive. If I could I wouldn’t do it any other way. You are all the greatest family anyone could ask for and I love you all so much. The church is true and I know that it is what brings true happiness to our live. Keep the faith.

Love Elder Adams

Elder Adams' birthday is Friday, Sept. 10th!!
Email or write him, I'm sure he would love to hear from you!

e-mail 8-30-10

Mema Wo Ache,

Wow this week did go by really really fast. Well let's get straight to it. This week was a lot of busy work because we have a baptism coming up on Saturday where we are baptizing 5 of our investigators. This baptism should be sweet because we are baptizing another one of the brothers of the two twins who have gone on missions. So now all 4 brothers will be members. We were even working with their mother and she was progressing, until we found out that her husband has 4 wives. And we aren't supposed to encourage families to split even if they are polygamist. So there’s nothing we can really do there. There really isn't anything to spectacular to tell. This week was pretty routine, but it was still a good week. The highlight for me this week was my personal study time. I have been writing down President Holland’s talk that he gave to the mission the day before I entered the field. I was pretty mad that I didn't get to listen to him, so I have taken the recording from the conference that Elder Mackay took and I am putting the whole talk on paper. His talk is 32 pages long!! But it is 32 pages of genius and deep doctrine! I am almost finished with it and when I get done I'm going to be studying that thing papa! I have also been reading the Book of Mormon a lot and trying to memorize the passages of scripture that we use to teach with the most. I swear there is something wrong with my brain because the part that you use for memorization isn't working! haha it really just doesn't work. Something that came to mind pertaining to what you mentioned about your talk dad is this. President Sabey taught us one day that the law of consecration is something that hasn't been done away with, and it will always be around. Everyone who wants to can live the law of consecration for their whole life. Obviously tithing and fast offerings are among. But it can be as simple as sharing your sugar with your neighbor or anything like that. In everything we do we can live the law of consecration to its fullest if we want to. That's something I have learned on my mission. A while ago we decided that we would live it in our apartment. It's actually gone really well. Occasionally it gets a little out of hand when someone receives a package from home with all the best candy and foods, but it's all fun and games haha.

Like I mentioned last week the mission has also taken a big change. We now have Training meetings for all of the leadership positions that missionaries hold in the mission. The first one was this week. On Saturday President taught us a few things about callings and positions in the church. First he said that we are to never aspire for leadership positions in the church. It causes a lot of personal and other problems when we do. 2nd he taught us that we don't speculate in the church. We should never talk about who is going to become what and all of that because it also causes major problems, especially in the mission. President is afraid that now with these training meetings, the missionaries who aren't invited to attend because they are not holding a leadership position, will be offended and that the ones who are invited will think that they are better than everyone else. So that is why this 1st training meeting took place. President is a wise man.

Well that about sums up the week all right there. We just had a good week of good ole proselyting and teaching. Dad on a diet? That is sweet! The older you get the younger you feel, well isn't that nice. I hope that business begins to pick up and that those new products that you are getting are hot buyers. Mom sorry that your in school haha, I don't have to go to school for two years so you can just remember that every time you get sick of it! Miles why didn't you play football this year they are 3A you could have dominated? I haven't received any packages lately, but I’m sure that it is on it's way so no worries. I'm pretty excited for my birthday on my mission, were gunna have an African feast with lots of fufu and light soup! So good! I'm working on sending pictures home, I want to have 400 pictures, and right now I am at 370 so its coming soon. Sorry, I know I really suck at the picture thing. I am pretty stoked that Jeff is going to Atlanta, Georgia for his mission, that's the best news I have heard my whole mission!!!!

Well, I love you all so so much and I always look forward to hearing from you each week. You are the greatest. I will be looking forward to next week and hopefully you have some sweet things to share with me and me with you. Alright enough already. Love you.
Love Elder Adams

Baby named after me and Elder Mackay!

Good Morning,
Well mom it sounds like you had a greatttttt week!! Mine was a little different it actually didn't "suck" it was actually really really sweet. We got to do a lot of stuff this week that we usually don't get to do very often. On Tuesday we had a way sweet Zone Conference. The Saunders and the Sabey’s had their families in town so at Zone Conference it was really cool to be able to hear from them and their different missions and all that. Then we had a sweet talk from President Sabey about free agency and the fall and the atonement. Man does that guy know some deep stuff. He taught us some deep doctrine and we had a sweet discussion. I thought you might like this. He even told us about how to be good parents and he named three different categories that parents fall under. He said there is the "Drill Sergeant, the Helicopter, and the Consultant". The drill sergeant is the parent who makes the kid do it his way and no other way, or else be punished. The Helicopter is the parent who hovers over the kid until he makes a mistake and then swoops down and fixes everything, and then goes right back to hovering over the kid waiting for him to mess up again. And the consultant is the one who teaches the kid and explains to him the consequences of our actions and what might happen, and then lets the kid have is free agency to make the right decision and learn. He said that the consultant is the one he wants us to be. Which one are you????? Haha

So zone conference was sweet. Wednesday we found out that they are starting the construction on the new chapel in Moree and that we could be of some help by clearing the land with the ward. I can't even begin to tell you the excitement in the Moree ward right now over getting a new chapel. It will be the nicest building in Moree, and the members were asked to help build it so many of them and some of our investigators will be getting jobs and stuff which is sweet. It will take only 5 months to complete and they will be working 24/6. So Wednesday we went on splits with the new ZL that we just got in Cape Coast from Kumasi and we went and cut down weeds with our cutlasses (sword or knife like a machete) for a few hours. I played some golf with a rusty rake and they helped in causing some blisters. Then the next day we went back and did it again and chopped the crap out of a tree with the cutlasses. By the end of Thursday I had so many blisters on my hands it was ridiculous. I counted like 10. But it was a lot of fun. It was nice to have a break from proselyting. Then on Saturday they had this huge Africa service project day where we went with our wards to hospitals and cleaned up the yards and painted and that kind of thing. We even got to wear the Mormon Helping Hands jerseys that they gave out. It was pretty sweet. Thank goodness for the weekend it gave my hands some time to heal. I need to work on getting African hands and not whimpey white people hands.

Kobe and Georgina had a baby and they named it Mackay Adams Abakah. Thought that was pretty sweet. I might even be asked to bless him in church. It’s so sweet to see our new investigators doing well. Well that about sums up the week. We are having a baptism on the 4th of Sept and there will be 5 people being baptized and we are planning to have even more than that in the near future which should be sweet. Everything is going strong. Elder Brown is doing well. He even scored his first goal in soccer today and we won the tournament so he is sitting high on the mountain right now, might take him a while to come down haha. We are getting along great he is a sweet dude. Oh I almost forgot they are starting a new training thing world wide in the missionary work where anyone who is in a leadership position gets to go to these training meetings all the time. But interviews and ZC have been moved to only every 13 weeks now. So we will see how that change goes. I didn’t have much time to study this week with all these crazy things going on so this is all that I came up with this morning for your talk. Pres Heber J Grant. "if the people will pay their tithes and offerings they will not only be blessed in their material affairs but they will be abundantly blessed with increased outpouring of the spirit of the Lord" This is part of the promise the Lord made through his servant Malachi. The Lord will not only open the windows of heaven and pour down spiritual blessings, but he will also preserve our fruits and vegetables, the labor of our hands, from destruction as well. Malachi 3: 8-12 Concerning our fast offerings, President Marion G Romney said "one of the most important things the Lord has told us to do is to be liberal in our payments of fast offerings. I would like you to know that there are great rewards for doing so- both spiritual and temporal. The Lord says that the efficacy of our prayers depends upon our liberality to the poor". Elder Adams "put yourself in the position of those that are in great need of fast offerings. Think about how fast offerings would affect you and your family if you were in that kind of a situation, and if that doesn’t help you pay a generous fast offering and all that you can pay then something is wrong, and you need to take a step back and look at yourself in the mirror" that’s my own personal advice. That’s all I got so maybe you can use something there. Anyway that is all for this week. I love you all so much and can’t wait to hear back from you again next week. Take care and help the work move forward. I pray for you all everyday and love you more than you know.

Love Elder Adams

e-mail 8-16-10

Adams Family,
Well this sucks! I just typed a whole email and when i was going to send it the thing was erased! So now I don’t have very much time to email, so this weeks email will be short. Sorry

Well this week was a good week. We had some good lessons with our investigators. We taught Francis Mensah about baptism and he didn't agree at all with infant baptism and a few other things. He is a very smart man and uses his own intelligence rather than looking to God for answers so things are going to take a long time with him. I read a talk this week by Orson F. Whitney titled Built Upon The Rock. In his talk he explains how Christ’s church is different than ever other church under the sun because Christ’s church runs directly off of revelation from Jesus Christ himself. If the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does something it is because Christ himself has so commanded. It talks a lot about how we don't do things today because the Jews were commanded to do it in the bible, but we do things because it has been revealed through a prophet. You should look up the talk it is sweet. Anyway I told that all to Francis in one form or another and told him that it will be impossible to accept these things unless he receives his answer through prayer. The human mind can't determine truth, but God can through heart felt prayer. He then told us that he had decided to be an investigator of the church until Dec 2011 haha. He's a character. We had another investigator named Erick Gordon who had an answer to his prayers through, what else, a dream. He had a dream that he was in a pool of water or a big tub thing, which of course I interpreted to be a baptismal font. Then he had another dream that he was standing in our church service a member of the church. He wanted me to interpret it for him, so of course we used it to our advantage and told him that he has been told he needs to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. So he will be baptized in the next three weeks. He is a real humble dude.

Now church yesterday was very interesting. We had 9 investigators at church which was sweet. But the funniest thing happened. I sat next to someone from the stake in church and observed him while he was taking notes about the Moree Ward. He made a few notes about the ward on his paper of things that we needed to improve on, and some other notes, but nothing serious. Then the craziest woman in our ward, like she is insane in the head, got up at the end of sacrament to give the closing prayer. Her prayer lasted like 8 minutes long and that is not an exaggeration. And she was shouting at the top of her lungs. Think of all those crazy churches that think they speak in tongues and they just stand there and shout as loud as they can while praying so that everyone can hear them. That is exactly what she did. It was so bad. All of Moree could hear. Then after about 5 min in the whole ward started laughing, including me I couldn’t help it. Then I looked at the stake rep and he just shook his head and walked out, haha. It was bad, but it was hillarious. Bishop Otoo was so mad!
Well anyway the week was a good one, but nothing real special other than that I feel impressed to share. Thanks for all the emails every week it is nice to hear how everything is going back home. Everyone is busy and only getting busier. I love you and remember you in my prayers many times a day. Thanks for all the advice and support. Take care until next week and I can’t wait to hear from you again.
Love Elder Adams
ps. I am working on some photos to send home but I am using Elder Browns camera so it will take small time. I will send photos in a few weeks.