Elder Adamson's Letter 9/30/2013

Zone Conference in Murcia with the Cartagena, Alicante and Murcia Zones.

Hello!!!  here´s the week!

Monday, we just chilled in the piso for most of our free time and didn´t do a lot, but later that night when we finished we went to visit ... and we watched the Restoration video with him, which wasn´t originally our plan, but it worked out well.  After the video we talked about how he felt and he  told us that he felt really good and different than you usually did and we explained to him that what he was feeling was the Spirit.  After that we committed him to be baptized on the 12th of October.  Our first fecha! Now he just needs to come to church... haha   After that we went to Hermana ...´s house and talked to her about how we can help her with her two hijos because they area both menos activos.  One of them is ... who I helped call the USA for his car part.  Then she asked us for a blessing so I did the anointing and Elder Galarza did the sealing.

Tuesday we visited ... again and of course we had to start off with a few songs.  And shared a message from Alma 5 I think it was.  Then we went to the house of the familia S... and they´re awesome people.  We had a dinner cita with them and they are SUPER friendly and loving.  They also have a son on a mission right now in Barcelona and he was in the CCM with me.  After we ate, we had a little testimony meeting about our conversion stories and it was really cool.  Very strong members.

Wednesday, we ate lunch with the O... and that was lots of fun too.  Our Bishop is a very humble and loving man and I´m glad I´m serving in his ward.  After I shared a message about having faith and how it can give us a sure foundation (Ether 12:4, 2 Nefi 17:13).  Right after that, we went to P...´s house to teach ...  We taught our first lesson on the Restoration and I LOVED it.  I wish we could do it more, but for now we just need to keep looking for people to teach.  ... is a great kid, and he always has really good questions.  After our lesson we walked to the Capilla with ... where we were supposed to have another cita with a future investigator named ..., but she´s super floja and I don´t think she really wants to hear from us.  Then we were going to help with English classes and teach ..., but the missionaries who had the teaching material never showed up so that fell through.  Kind of frustrating, but I think we won a little more of ...´s trust while we were with him at the Capilla.  After that we took him to the bus stop and he took a bus back home and we went home too.

Thursday, we had another cita with the bishop and brought him a box of chocolates to tell him that we are his missionaries and that we´re here to help him with whatever he needs ( a recommendation  from President Deere that is super cool).  That day, we also got together with the other missionaries and made brownies for our Super Noche de Brownies (ward activity).  Later that night we visited Alberto and talked about ward mission plan dealios. 

Friday, we had the Super Noche de Brownies, which was planned as a missionary opportunity for the members, but the only person to bring a non member was the bishop.  The activity was really fun and we got to know the members better through it as well.  Our members are awesome and super nice, but we really need to get the spirit of sharing the gospel going here. But, there are a few members here also that share the gospel ALWAYS, which is awesome.

Saturday, we went to another baptism of a member in our ward named ....  The other Elders taught him and he is a ROCK.  He always shows up early for meetings and always wants to participate.  He was super prepared to receive the Gospel.  Then we had a correlation meeting with the lider misional and the obispo to try and get the members more involved in the work.  That afternoon, we visited .... again and taught him from 2 Nefi 31 17-21.  I think we´ve just about got him to come to church, but he´s still got a few excuses up his sleeve.  We´re working on it.  Later that day we saw a few miracles.  The past 3 weeks we´ve tried to visit old investigators with no luck, but this day was awesome.  We got to visit ... and her son who hadn´t talked to the missionaries in 5 years.  They seemed to be super receptive and it was really comfortable to talk him them.  I think they trust us and will let us keep coming.  Her son especially seems to be interested.  After teaching them a lesson 0, we went to visit another former investigator in the same building who lives with ... (Menos Activo)  he wasn´t there, but another guy that lives there was. His lame is ... and he is quite possibly the nicest man I´ve met since being here.  As soon as we told him who we were he invited us right in and we talked about religion.  He is muslim, which could complicate things a little, but I´m pretty sure we can teach him since he´s from Morocco.  (there are a lot of weird rules about that)  He was very accepting of out thoughts and even invited us back.  3 new investigators in like an hour and a half!  Great day for us and an answer to prayers.

Sunday, church was a good time and we got invited to a few more members houses to eat and what not, and then we went to work in Barrio de Progresso and talked to a homeless man from Bulgaria named ....  he was super nice and let me play his guitar for a minute.  He wasn´t asking us for money or anything, but he´s in a tough situation, but Elder Galarza wants to try and help him.  Not sure how yet, but we´ll see.  Then we went and found where one of our future investigators lives, but we didn´t go in because he told us he was a little drunk over the intercom.. haha.  Then we visited Hermana F... again and she had a friend and her friends mother there.  We just wanted to share a little message, but things got a little awkward and the mother and daughter argued a little about religion because the daughter is LDS and her mother is Catholic.  Pretty awkward, but Elder G shared a good scripture about how we learn by the Spirit and not by contention.  Super cool.  Then we had a prayer for the mother and her son to know if the church was true, so maybe we´ll be able to talk with them again soon.

Today, for P day we hiked to this Christ statue that is super cool.  I´ll attach some pictures of it.  Around it, there are a lot of little catacombs with nothing in them, which was weird, but in the pictures you´ll see the statue.  We hiked up to the feet of the statue and let me tell ya, it´s super high.  There is a stone spiral stair case that you take to get to the top and it´s pitch black in there.  Really fun day though.

That´s it for this week!

Love you!

Elder Adamson

Elders Adamson and Galarza

Elder Adamson's Letter 9/23/2013

Hello Family!!  here´s my week.

Last Monday for P day we got kebabs, which are super weird and kind of sketchy looking but they´re really good.  They have this rotating hunk of mystery meat that is next to a thing that looks like a big space heater and they shave parts of it off with a little saw and put it in a little burrito type deal with other things.  It´s really good, but it´s tasty.  Maybe you can google it.  We didn´t do much that day other than that chill with the other Elders and Hermanas, but it was a fun day.  Later that day we went to Barrio del Progresso with no luck which made for kind of a discouraging night.

Tuesday was super weird.  We visited ... and ... again, and that went pretty well.  This time he recorded us singing on us camera and then we shared a message with him after. I think he´s slowly understanding what he´s missing out on by not coming to church.  Later that night, this guy started talking with us and telling us all these weird experiences that he had with his friends.  He was talking about how he thought Satan was stronger than God, which is 100% false, and he seemed to be pretty troubled.  We took his number down and everything so we could give him a blessing of comfort, but when we went to meet him, he  

didn´t show up and hasn't answered our calls or anything since, so most likely he was just messing with us, because his stories were pretty out there.

Wednesday was a pretty rough day, and like every other day this week, we weren´t able to meet with ...  We really need to teach him more but he´s a pretty busy kid and he plays soccer all the time.  He´s interested though and we need to find a time to meet with him.  We didn´t get in a single door that day until like 9:45 and it was the house of the ward mission leader.  But his brother who is less active was there, so we got in a little lesson there.

Thursday was Elder Galarza´s B day so we celebrated after a meeting and got Kebabs for lunch.  Later that night we tried to meet with ... again, but he wasn´t home so we went to Los Garres (a pueblo) where we met with a member named ....       She´s a super friendly lady and has infinite desires to share the gospel.  We went around to her neighbors and didn´t really have much luck, because it seemed like she´s talked to all of them already and they´re comfortable with where they are right now.  She´s given out so many BOMS to people there.

Friday, P... told us he would come to church with his abuela (grandmother) and we were excited about that.  Didn´t have very much luck this day either.  We tried visiting some old investigators with no luck, but we got in with some members and made another prayer list with them.  Later we found some young folks outside and told them about our English classes that we teach and invited them.  They live in the other Elders zone, though.  Pretty much everyone we´ve contacted, with a few exceptions is from the other Elders area, or they gave us a fake address.  One of the ones we thought was golden flat out lied to us about his number and address and pretended to be super interested.  I hate that.  I also found out I only had 4 euros on my card this night.. haha.  not because I spend a ton, but because we have to pay a lot for the buses and I had to buy some things for the piso.  I need to do reimbursements for them quick.  

Saturday, we went to the capilla for a baptism and it was really cool to see.  The lady that was baptized found the missionaries and told them she wanted to be baptized. A miracle for them for sure.  After that there was a little relief society activity that we went to and they fed us empanadas and everything, so I wasn´t complaining.  We visited R... that night and shared Alma 34 with him, which is super strong for menos activos.  Hopefully he´s picking up what we´re putting down.  We visited the stake patriarch and his wife that night as well and made another prayer list with them.  Super nice people and they´re house is really nice and expensive looking.

Yesterday, P... couldn´t make it to church because he had soccer.  I was hoping to see him there.  After sacrament meeting G... told us that her husband  doesn´t really want us to come teach anymore, so we´re down to one investigator now, and it´s P....  I got super frustrated yesterday because the spanish portion of my brain just turned off for a while and I couldn´t even think. haha  I had a dolor de cabeza pretty much all day.  After church we went to the house of J... and S. (who is going to serve her mission in SLC).  J... is a really good cook and made some MEAN lasagna.  A... and P. both joined us for dinner and we made yet another prayer list with them.  So basically we´re doing a lot of praying for these people right now. ha ha  It´s not problem though, because we already pray a lot during the day as missionaries.  After we shared our message J. took us to a neighbor´s house to give her a blessing which was a surprise to all of us. Elder Galarza wanted me to do the anointing, but I had no idea how to say all those words in spanish (such as anoint, consecrated, afflicted)  So A... did it instead and Elder Galarza gave the blessing.  Now I need to study up on those words so   I´ll be ready next time. :)

That´s the week for ya.   Hopefully this week it will start picking up.  I read D&C 6 this morning which gave me some ánimo, Go read the last 4 verses of it.  Super fuertes.

• How is the apartment--did you get a microwave to cook with?
•     No, we don´t have a microwave, but we found out this week that our oven actually does work. You just have to turn 3 knobs to turn it on...
• How have you done with your food preparation this week?
•      This week we ate a lot of things with rice, like scrambled eggs and chicken.  We also threw in a freezer pizza since we can work the oven now.
• How has your introduction with the branch moving along?
•      We´re in a ward, but it´s going well.  Starting to build relationships with the members so hopefully the referrals will start coming soon.  We have hardly any right now.
• Have you met other missionaries that you have found a connection with?
•        Elder Allsop from my MTC district is in my zone so I see him at least once a week in the capilla. That´s a fun time.  Also our DL, Elder Webb is a really funny, and nice guy.  I like all the Elders I´ve met here so far.
• Do you have regular contact with the mission home?
•     Not really, but we get to write a letter to the President every week and he gives us advice and everything.  I love that.

Well, that´s it for today.  Glad to hear that the fam is having fun together WITHOUT me. ;)

Can´t wait to hear from you again next week.

LOVE YOU

Elder Adamson

Elder Adamson's Letter 9/16/2013

Time to tell you about my week!  Elder Galarza and I are starting to get a little more settled in here now and we don´t have to use a map everywhere we go now.  Here´s the week for ya.

For P day last week we met at the Capilla with some of the other missionaries in the zone and played soccer there for a little while and the Hermanas made cake and stuff for us.  We also got to watch Sons of Provo, which I had never seen until now, but   it´s lots of fun to watch with a bunch of other Mormon missionaries. haha.  Later, when P day was over we went and visited a woman named Paquita who wants us to try and reactivate a couple of her sons and also get her grandson, Pablo to come to church.  She's a really nice lady and she is concerned for her family.

Tuesday it rained for a lot of the day and in the morning we worked on our area map, which is a lot of work, but helps us to know where to go when someone bails on us.  We´re still not done with it.  I made pasta for lunch because there are only so many things we can eat.  We don´t have a microwave or an oven as of now, so we have to heat everything on the stove.  We´re making it work so far, though.  After mediodia we met with a member named Emilio to go visit a menos activo we set an appointment with.  She wasn't home, so Emilio went home and we just tried to contact more menos activos.  We visited a man named Rodolfo.  He LOVES music and has about 5 million speakers and CDs in his house, along with a lot of other really weird stuff.  He plays the guitar, and I got to play a little bit. I didn't know how much I missed mine until I played his. After that we shared a message with him about praying, reading the scriptures and attending church, and he seemed to be pretty receptive to it.  I think he´s just a little too lazy right now to do all that, but we´ll work with him.

Wednesday, Alberto, The mission leader, came with us to visit some menos activos, but we didn´t get in a single door for like 2 or 3 hours.  When we went to leave, his car wouldn´t start, so we said a little prayer, and pushed it UP a hill and then it started and all was well.  Alberto is awesome.  He´s just a little guy and he´s only like 23.  He´s really funny, has a high voice, and bumps the EFY music while we drive from place to place.  We got some good street contacts that day though.  There are SO many people here from Ecuador so Elder G can relate to them really well in the first few seconds of the conversation.

Thursday we had a lunch cita with the Atienza family.  They´re really nice people as well and after we ate with them, we made a list of people we could all pray for during the week, and then when we come back in a week and see who is ready to hear about the gospel or ready for us to teach them.  Elder Galarza says its a super good way to get references and we´ve been praying for them every morning and night.  Later that day we met with another member named Hermana Finny and it was a pretty weird time.  While we were sitting in her house she was telling us about some dogs she used to have and handed us a box.  We opened it expecting to see photos or something but in the box were the dogs ashes.   Then she handed us the ashes from another dog.  She´s a really nice lady though and I really do mean that.  She´s very sweet and welcoming when we come and her son is menos activo so we´ll try to work with him,.  That day was kind of discouraging because we still didn´t have ANY investigators. It´s super hard to find them right now, but that night we said a prayer that we´d be able to find some.

Friday we had a district meeting which was pretty fun.  My district is awesome and Elder Webb, the district leader has a native for his first companion as well, so he knows how it is.  He calls so I can talk to someone in English every once in a while.  After that we had a lunch cita with Paquita and met 2 of her sons (menos activos) and THEN we got to teach Pablo, her nieto, the lesson 0 which is kind of like a ¨this is what were here for¨and a ¨get to know you lesson¨. He´s a really awesome kid and he wants to be baptized!  Hopefully we can get him baptized and maybe even his mom who isn´t a member.  Later we helped Antonio (MA), son of hermana Finny, call the USA to work out a problem he had with a car part that he ordered and didn´t come. For the first time in a while, I really felt super useful because I was talking to someone in English and they could understand me and I could understand them. haha  We got the problem all worked out and then he took us back to his neighborhood so we could work again. After that we went to the house of Angeles, who is not a member, but has a son on a mission.  NEW INVESTIGATOR.  We´re going to visit her more this week.  She has like 3 kids that are members, but she isn´t..  yet.  She talked super fast and doesn´t know any English, so I just smiled and nodded pretty much the whole time.  Lots of little miracles in the mission field.

Saturday, we did a contacting activity with some members.  I got paired with Emilio who has a super Spanish accent because   he´s Murciano and doesn´t know any English...  We got to talk to quite a few people but only got a good future reference from one person.  It was fun though.  Emilio is a stud and he helps the missionaries out a ton.  I like him a lot.  In the afternoon, we went to visit Rodolfo again and he had his friend Jaime(also MA) there as well.  It was kind of like a stake out for us, because he had the guitar out and lots of cds and lyrics printed off.  He wants us to learn this song somehow before we go back.  He asked me to sing a song, so I played Danny Boy for him.  He didn´t understand any of it, but he liked it I think.  It felt good to sing again.  After all the music fiasco was over we taught them about the 10 virgins and how we have to fill our lamps by doing the 3 things we talked about in the last visit.  They both have their reasons for not going to church, Jaime got offended by someone, and I think Rodolfo is just a little lazy, but I think we did pretty well with the lesson.  We´ll see how the next one goes.  Rodolfo will probably have a full Spanish band set up in there when we come back... ;)  On the way home, we couldn't  go the usual way, because right now Murcia is celebrating something.  Virgin Mary, maybe, but there was a huge parade with lots of people in medieval clothing.  We made it home through a different way with out a map.  I kind of know where I am now, more or less. haha

Sunday, was good and the bishop shared a very powerful message about the members helping the missionaries.  I really hope that means we´ll be getting some more help, because we could use it. Later we had a visit with Genny and her husband Juan Jose.  She is a member, but he isn´t.  He´s met with missionaries before, but Genny wants to try again.  While we were there teaching lesson zero, at the end Genny bore a really powerful testimony in front of  her husband and about eternal families.  I really hope that got to him, because   he´s a really good man and he needs the gospel.  Later that night we visited the Atienzas again because none of the other people we were going to visit were home.

The church is like 5 minutes from our house, we probably have like 60ish active members right now.  Our area is  pretty big, but kind of far away from where we live, so we have to take a lot of buses.  it´s good though!  Not really sure about the ward council yet, or the district, but I´ll let you know if I learn some specifics.  haha

That´s the week for ya!  Really good one, but I hope to report an even better one next week.  

Talk to you next week!  Love you!

Elder Adamson

Elder Adamson travels to Murcia

Elder Galarza and Elder Adamson are on their way to Murcia

Well, I´m in my area now for real!!  This week has been so weird but super exciting.

In Fuengirola, we had to stay an extra day there because we are the missionaries that were going far and it took a little longer for us to get some things done, but to make a long story short, I stayed in a hotel called El Cid and I stayed in a Disney Princess themed room.  I would attach a picture of it but unfortunately I left my camera in the piso.  Anyway, so I don´t know if you´ve looked at the mission blog or not, but there should be a picture of me and my companion on there.  His name is Elder Galarza and he´s a pretty little guy.  He looks a little ticked in the picture, but he´s a pretty happy fellow.  He was born in Ecuador and honestly speaks hardly any English.  I got a little worried when someone had to translate what President Deere was saying for him in the meeting.  He has lived in Spain for 11 years and is a recent convert.  He was baptized just two years ago, but he knows so much about the gospel.  So far, we´ve been able to communicate fine though.   He´s only been in the field for 3 months and now he´s training me.  Our area is Murcia which is a city in the east side of Spain.  We´re also opening a new area which is pretty weird because we don´t really have progressing investigators yet, but  Elder Galarza knows what he´s doing.  I just follow him like a little duckling.  We have a super cool district and ward though.  Our ward has 2 pairs of Elders and a pair of Hermanas.  The past few days we´ve just been meeting all the members and trying to find a base of people we can teach like menos activos and old investigators.  On one of the nights we got super off track on a bus and I had no idea where the heck we were, but we found our way to the members house.  When we visit members I just kind of sit and try to focus my entire brain on understanding what the people are saying to me and Elder Galarza. They also REALLY like to call on me for prayers.  The people here are pretty hard to understand, especially the native spaniards.  They drop the endings on pretty much every word so I have to fill in the blanks in my head which is kinda tough.  Elder Galarza speaks really clearly though.  Thanks heavens.  On our first day here, we went on splits with Elder Webb and Clark so we could establish ourselves a little.  Elder Clark and I went to visit people but had no luck.  I learned a lot just from talking to him though.  He´s only been out about 7 weeks, but he knows a lot, so hopefully I´ll be there by 7 weeks.  We haven´t taught any investigators yet because there is a lot to do when you open an area at the start, but hopefully this week we can start doing some teaching.

Yesterday at church was quite the experience.  During sacrament meeting the bishop had all the new missionaries bear their testimonies.  The people were very nice and welcoming to me which was great.  They told me I had a good accent which was a little confidence booster.  Some missionaries here are really good at the language, but they don't use the accent, which doesn't really make sense to me.  After church, we headed home and did our weekly planning session because we didn't get a chance to do it earlier this week.

Our piso is new (missionaries haven´t lived there before) so we don´t have a lot of things, but it´s a nice little place.  Our kitchen is kind of like a little hallway, but we have a dishwasher and what not.  We don´t have a microwave or iron though, which is kind of a bummer. It´s nice that we have our own place now though, beats the MTC rooms for sure.  We´ve been eating things like tortilla de patata which is a spanish dish.  kind of like a thick omelet with potatoes and onions.  Dad would love it. I also tried Horchata for the first time at the Bishop's house.  It was weird.  Kind of refreshing but, at the same time tasted a little like dirt.  

I think that´s a pretty good summary of the week.  It´s really scatter brained because I forgot to bring my journal to the internet cafe...  Also my camera.  I´ll send some pics next week.  

I´m sure I left a ton of stuff out, but just list a bunch of questions about what you want to know.  I have an hour and a half of internet time now, so I'm not really in a hurry anymore.  Emails are probably the best way to reach me now, but letters are good too!.  I´m not really sure of what our address is yet and I´ll tell you when I am, but for now letters can be sent to the mission home in Fuengirola.  You have the address in my call packet and it´s also on my facebook.  Also, don´t sent packages to the piso, because I think I have to be there to sign for them and it´s a complicated thing.  I´m not asking for a package, but if you send one, send it to the mission office.

Love you family!!!  I´ll talk to you again next week!

Elder Adamson

This is the room Elder Adamson stayed in while waiting to go to his area.

In Malaga at last!

Sister Deere, the Mission President's wife said it was a Tsunami!!! 31 missionaries arrived by train.

6 by plane

Hello, family!!  We just arrived in Malaga a few hours ago.  This morning we got up at 4:40 AM to say goodbye to the missionaries going to Barcelona and then we had all our things cleaned up and left the CCM at about 6:30 for the train station.  We got on our train with the help of the maestros and we departed at 7:35 for Malaga.  The train ride was about 2 and half hours long and we arrived in the Malaga train station.  When we got all our things off of the train we were greeted by the Assistants and also the Deere's!!  We were all so excited to meet them and they are the nicest people ever.  When we got done with all that we grabbed some clothes for the night out of our bags and put our bags in some lockers at the train station so we can pick them up when we get to our area.  After that we walked to the capilla and we've just been here getting a little orientation about what to do with residency and credit cards and what not.  A little stressful, but we'll figure it out sometime. I also had my interview with President Deere and I love him already.  I can already tell he is such an inspired man and I'm excited to work with him.  I think later today we're going to the mission home and staying at a hotel over night and then we get our companions tomorrow or the next day. Anyway, this is just another short "I'm not dead" email, but I love you and I'm excited to tell you about my area and what it's like wherever I'm going.  by the way, Malaga is much more beautiful than Madrid.  No competition.  This is the place for me.  Cant wait to be a "real" missionary!!

Elder Adamson

MALAGA tomorrow!!

Hey family!!  I just have a couple minutes to send a short email and I just wanted to get a quick hello in today.  I can´t even believe I´m going to MÁLAGA tomorrow.  It´s so weird that I´m actually heading out to the field now.  I´m so so so so so so so SO excited, but a little nervous as well.  All I can think about is getting off the train and going to the mission home to meet President Deere and my new companion for the first time.  On the other hand, the MTC has been quite a roller coaster of emotions but I´ve loved just about every second of it.  I´ve made so many good friends here and learned a ton from the testimonies of my teachers and leaders.  I still feel like I know about 1% of what I need to know about how to be a good missionary, but I´m sure the field will be quite the refiner´s fire.  Anyway, I don´t want to take up all the other missionaries time because the entire MTC has to write within a 2 hour block and that doesn´t equate to much for each person.  Everyone is anxious to get on the computer behind me.  Thanks for all the love and I´m excited to let you know about the first week or few days in the field.  I´m not sure when my P day will be but I´ve heard Monday, so I´m not positive if that´s the right or not.  I´ll let you know.

Elder Adamson

P.S.  Check out 1 Peter 4:12-14 because it´s super good and a good inspiration for when there´s opposition to the church.  When there´s opposition that doesn´t make the church any less true.  I love the gospel and can´t wait to start spreading it down south!  Love you!

Elder Adamson's District and Teachers in Madrid

Elders who shared a room with Elder Adamson at the MTC