Elder Adamson's Letter 7/28/2014

Oh my goodness gracious.  That was a fast year.

This was a pretty crazy week, but it´s been a lot of fun and we´ve had some good success.

Last Monday, we went to Chiclana to play soccer with the Elders there.  We played during mediodía so it was SUPER hot outside, but we had a good time.  After, we headed home and had a Noche de Hogar that night with the Guttenberger family and a girl who is investigating in Cádiz and it was really good.  They are super good as member missionaries.  After, we had a little BBQ on their patio with some really good food, but there were tons of mosquitoes outside.  It´s seriously like a biblical plague here this week with the mosquitoes.  If you stand still for like 30 seconds you´re surrounded in a cloud of them

Tuesday, we had district meeting in the morning and then afterward, we had an intercambio with the Cádiz Elders and Elder Queirolo came with me to San Fernando.  We walked around for almost the entire afternoon, but ended it off with a great cita with a man we met an elevator last week named Sergio.  We almost           didn´t get in his house, but right before we about to go, we asked one more time if we could come in and share a little message with him, and he let us come in.  We met his wife named Eva as well, who is "atheist", or so she thinks.  I´ve found that most people who claim to be atheist really do believe that there is something out there.  Sergio likes to study religion and seems to be a little more believing. Anyway, we had a good lesson 0 with them and set a cita to come back.

Wednesday morning, we switched back with our companions and went home to eat.  Elder Buttars and I (mostly him) made some curry meatballs with cous cous and it was pretty good.  After mediodia, we headed out to English class and then later in the night we had a little visit with one of our members named Anxus and it was really good.  She´s been having a bit of a hard time right now with her family, but she´s working through all of it.

Thursday after weekly planning, we found a Peruvian guy that lives here and we stopped to talk to him and his two kids for a little while and got to teach a little and he gave us his address afterwards, so we´ll see how things go with him.  We were also able to meet with a less active woman named Conchi and we talked about coming to church and she didn´t really sound to ready to come back, and her daughter looks like she´s giving her a good amount of opposition too, so we made some goals with her to come back.

Friday, we had lunch with the Bishop and met with a few former investigators and got some referrals for Sevilla that we passed over there.  We were also able to meet with a less active named José, but nothing else really excited to report for that day.

Saturday was LOOOOOONG.  We had one appointment in the morning with Luis who is a recent convert and had a good little lesson about the restoration with him, but the rest of the day was a lot of walking.  We didn´t find anybody at home and all the members were at a BBQ in Chiclana, so that was it for Saturday.

Sunday was one of the busiest days of my mission.  We had our day scheduled out with citas for every hour  with members after church and to make a long story short,  I'll cut to the chase.  We had already been to 2 citas with members, and we were good on time, but we were in another cita with a family of talkers.  They are members that live here, but go to Cádiz so we wanted to meet them because they live in our area.  We were already running a little late, and we finally got to cut the lesson off, say goodbye and head out and we were really far from the next cita we had, so we started running there.  While we were on our way, Brother Guttenberger called us and told us to come to his house really quick to drop off a Book of Mormon to his daughters friends, so we stopped there and had a really fast lesson on our way to the next cita.  When we got out of there, we literally ran the entire way to the next cita and as soon as we got there, I had to report numbers to the zone leaders.  Pretty stressful day, but it went by super fast.

Sometimes it can be frustrating to find people who are apathetic about the gospel, but what we can be glad about is that we can find the answers that we need.  If we feel like we don´t have the answers sometimes,        it´s because we haven´t searched, or knocked enough (2 Nephi 32:4).  But WE CAN KNOW.  Our Father will make known all the things to us that He knows we really need.  Our Heavenly Father knows how to give good gifts unto those who ask him.

Love you!

Have a great week!

Elder Adamson

Beware of the Dog!!

Elder Adamson's Letter 7/21/2014

Improving the Island!!!!!

¡Hola a todos! Ha sido una semana muy buena y he podido aprender muchas cosas nuevas para ayudarme ser un mejor misionero.

(Hello everyone!  It has been a very good week and I have learned many new things to help me be a better missionary!)  

Last Monday was pretty crazy.  Elder Buttars and I headed down to the mall in the morning to buy some new pants because both of us are in dire need of some that aren´t super faded or have holes in them, so I bought a pair (that´s the charge that´s on the credit card) because the ones I usually wear are getting pretty gross.  Right after we went there, we had to go pick up Elder Ward at the train station because his companion went to Fuengirola for residency.  Right after that, I also found out that I was going to a District Leader Training that I didn´t know about the next day. ha ha   So we went and printed off my tickets and spent the rest of P day at home.  Unfortunately, we went the entire afternoon without a cita.  That happens sometimes, but we had a good time with Elder Ward.

Tuesday, I got a bag ready and we headed off for the train station again and I headed for Fuengirola.  When we got there, the office elders picked us up and took us to the mission home and Hermana Deere had some Café Rio pork ready for us.  I made sure to get a second serving, because it´s been a while since I´ve eaten some good tex mex.  Later we had our training meetings with President and the AP´s and it was really awesome.  We talked a lot about intercambio and how they should be learning experiences instead of just a habit we do every transfer.  We also talked a lot about following the Spirit and                                 it´s promptings which i´m really trying to get better at right now.  President also told us that we will MOST LIKELY be getting iPads at the end of this year or beginning of next year, so we´ll see.  Maybe I´ll be one of the first iPad missionaries in the Spain Málaga mission.  After all our meetings were over, we slept over at the office Elders piso.

A quick trip to Fuengirola  for some on the job training and a wonderful meal made by Hermana Deere

Wednesday, we started with our meetings again in the morning and finished off and we headed for the train station in Málaga.  Me and a few of my other missionary pals (Elder Lucero, Elder Baker...)  went to eat at Taco Bell because there aren´t very many of those puppies here.  Then we hopped back on the train and I headed back to San Fernando.  I got home safe and sound and Elder Buttars and I headed over to the Capilla for our English class and then had an amazing cita with a less active member named Vanesa.  We had the amazing opportunity to go with President Morales.  He is a spiritual GIANT.  Easily one of the most Christ-like people I´ve ever seen.  We had a little lesson about the atonement with them and it went really well.  President Morales helped to find all of her concerns and doubts so that we could help her to come back to church.  The Spirit was definitely super strong.  Vanesa´s husband isn´t a member and he´s pretty agnostic, but we´re going to try and see if we can get him ready to accept the gospel. 

Thursday was pretty uneventful.  We did weekly planning in the morning, and I made some Brazilian croquettes that Natalia taught me how to make.  That whole afternoon, we went without any citas and we came home pretty tired, but we did talk to a few nice people in the street that might become new investigators, so that was good.

Friday, we did intercambios with the Zone Leaders and I went with Elder Webb to Jerez.  We had a really good time, but for some reason, all our set citas failed us. ha ha  I think I may have been a bit of a bad luck charm that night.  Later that night we got to attend a funeral of a woman in their ward.  She had a Catholic burial, but she wanted to have a Mormon funeral, so they did a service in the Capilla.  The Hermanas were going to do a music number and they invited me to join with them and make a little trio and Elder Webb played the piano.  We sang the words of the hymn "Yo Sé que Vive mi Señor" to the tune of "Savior Redeemer of my Soul" because it doesn´t exist in Spanish, and it turned out really well.  The Spirit was very strong in the meeting  and all the family members, whether they were members of the church or not, really appreciated it.  Awesome experience.

Saturday, we headed back home to San Fernando.  When I got back, we had a ward activity with a Feria theme, because it was Feria this week here.  it was lots of fun and they had a talent show, and with 5 minutes notice they told us we had to get up and do something American....  I could not think of a single American thing to do up on a stage in front of like 80 Spanish people.  So, I borrowed someone´s guitar and me and Elder Buttars played Called to Serve in English with the version that Rachel and I played just before I left.  When I got up I said " Well, they told us we were doing this about 10 minutes ago, so we´re going to sing called to serve in English, and you get what you get.  It´s what we´ve got" Got the crowd nice and warmed up.. ha ha it turned out alright.

Sunday, after church we were able to meet with a couple of less active members who are wanting to go to the temple, so we talked to them about setting goals and then taught a little bit about why we go to the temple.  We´re going to see how we can help them start coming back to church, and then get them off to the temple.

This week has been a little slow because it has been Feria here and everyone is either there, or at the beach, but it´s been a really good week for me and I´ve learned a lot.  We don´t have a lot of work right now, but we´ve got faith that it will come if we keep working hard and doing our part.

Congrats on being  the Grand Marshall dad!  That´s pretty awesome.  I was wondering when it was going to be your turn to do that. ha ha

Love and miss you tons!!

Love, Elder Adamson

This is Elder Adamson's MTC Teacher from his time in Madrid.  She is on the far right in a Flamenco dress.  She lives in San Fernando.

Elder Adamson's Letter 7/14/2014

Hello Family and Friends!!!  Here´s what I did this week.

Last Monday we had a pretty chill P day and Elder Buttars and I just stuck around here in San Fernando.  Nothing too exciting, but it was a good break.  We made some good lunch and later that night we headed out to meet with a man who is less active and has been living on the street.  We had a meeting with him in the capilla and we are going to help him stop smoking and drinking, because that is really the source of all his problems right now.  We don´t know that much about him for now, but he seems to be sincere in his desire to quit.  Later we passed by another less active member named Conchi and she was really nice even though her daughter didn´t want us to come in, she let us in and we had a really good lesson about repentance with her.  We´ve been visiting all the people on our ward list this week and we´ve almost made it through the whole thing.  We´re hoping that it will help us find a few more new investigators as well.

Tuesday, we had our district meeting in the morning and talked all about how to use Family History in missionary work.  It´s something I have about zero experience with in the mission, so I´m hoping I can figure out how to use it more effectively in this next little while.  After that, we went to go eat with a young couple named José and Maricarmen.  Their power went out right before they were going to make lunch for us, so they ended up going to a pizza place near by and bringing some home for us.  ha ha  It was a fun cita, though.  After that we headed over to see a family we contacted on the street named Ana and Alfonso and their 3 little kids with the Guttenberger family from our ward.  It was a really good visit and they had a lot of questions but Ana and Alfonso are practicing Catholics  and they pretty much told us they were comfortable where they were and called us later in the week and told us that they didn´t want us to come back anymore, which is unfortunate, but it happens.  Later that night we got in with a menos activa named Maricarmen and we talked about her testimony and she claimed that the church was true for her when she was 14 but not anymore.  Kind of a silly comment.  She´s really nice though and let´s us in, so we´ll see what we can do with her.

Wednesday was a great day.  We visited with one of the recent converts in our area named Irene and talked about family history with her and helped her to set up an account.  Later, we went and ate with the Barquín family  and had a good time there.  I´m not used to eating with so many members, but here we do it almost every day.  We also met with a menos activo named Enrique for the first time today.  The recession here has really effected him and his family and he really wants to come back to church and knows what he needs to do, but he has to work on Sundays.

Thursday, we had a really loooong but a really good weekly planning.  Last week the AP´s taught us how to plan more effectively and it helped us out a lot.  We also had an Elder with us named Elder Thia because his comp had to go to Málaga for the day.  We did a lot of walking and didn´t have much luck, but at the end of the day we got in with a few menos activos named JuanJo and Pat.  We talked with them a little bit about why they don´t come to church and they didn´t budge very much.  They just wanted to talk about the problems they had and not talk about why it´s important to go to church.  It´s really hard to work with people who       don´t want to be worked with.

Friday, we had lunch with the Bishop, had out correlation meeting and then stopped by to visit the             Elder´s Quorum president to talk to him about a few people we could visit.  Other than that we did a lot of walking that day and had to take Elder Thia back to the train station in the afternoon.

Saturday was just about the same and we went to eat with Chano and Milagros again, and then later in the night we went to see Maricarmen (less active) and we brought her a Book of Mormon because she lost her old one.  She has a testimony, she just needs to find it again.  Weekends are pretty tough here, because EVERYONE and their dog goes to the beach.  When we talk to someone in their door and try to set a cita to come back, they tell us "Weeeellll,  I´m not really sure when you can come back..... The thing is, summer is pretty complicated because we go to the beach a lot...."  ha ha  Beach time is sacred here.

On Sunday, we come to church to see that José (menos activo living on the street) showed up at church and has been doing good with his goals to stop drinking, which was good to see!  After church, we went to eat with Nicolas and then went to see a member named Francisco to ask for some references and got some pretty good information from him about part member families and less actives we can work with.

As you can probably tell, we´re pretty low on investigators this week, so we´re passing by a lot of members and menos activos. We´re pretty much starting from zero right now because we´ve lost contact with our good investigators that we had, but that´s alright, because who 

doesn't like a good scavenger hunt?? :)

This week Elder Buttars and I have been visiting a lot of people and we´ve heard a lot of funny things from people and I´ve been joking about writing a book on the mission called " How to not leave the Church"  There are so many different reasons that people stop believing in God and "lose" the faith, and I think a big one is that we let our doubts get in the way of our faith.  Like President Uchtdorf said, "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith".  If we truly remember all the times God has answered our prayers, and all the times the Savior has stretched out His merciful arm to us, we would have unshakable faith.(3 Nephi 9:13,14)           That´s the truth.  We need to remember how we received our testimonies and writing them down is a big part of that.

What do you use for transportation now you have been transferred?  Do you use bikes at all or just on p-days?         We´re still walking.  There are no biking areas in our mission.  We rented those bikes from a shop.

Now that you have been out almost a year what has been the hardest thing for you as a missionary?
     Being patient with myself, I think.  I always feel like I don´t know enough and that I´m not learning fast enough, but when I look back I really can see how far I´ve come.  

 

 Are you serving in a leadership position?

     yes, I´m District Leader right now.

  Greatest take a way from Zone Conference.

      Seeing people 2 times in white and helping them not only get to baptism but to the temple.

  Are you celebrating the 24th of July?

       Yes.  Our zone has the goal of setting 28 baptismal dates for the 24th

Mom, I do feel pretty good walking back to the piso after a long day.  Getting in bed feels SO good, but I have no problem with getting up for a new day.

Love you all so much and hope you have a great week!  Thanks for sending all the pictures, Mom, and Dad!

Elder Adamson's Letter 7/7/2014

Hello Everyone!  This has been a really awesome week with a lot of cool changes in the mission.  Here it is!

On Monday, we went to Cádiz and it was super awesome.  We rented some bikes so we could get around the city really fast and we got to see a couple castles and the cathedral there from the outside.

Elder Adamson and Elder Buttars

 Cathedral Cádiz

We got some lunch there and then headed back home.  In the afternoon all of our plans fell through but we still had a good fun day.

Tuesday we had our first district meeting as the Cádiz/San Fernando district and it went well.  I´m the only new missionary in the district so it was a little weird directing, but we had a really good meeting.  We            didn´t have too much luck with our plans on this day either and we just kind of blew right through back up plan after back up plan.  We ended off the night at a members house.  Their names are Jacinto and Amparo and they made us a huge dinner after the lesson which I am not used to at all.  Most days I don´t even eat dinner because we´re out in the street.  That´s going to be a rough change coming back to the States.

Wednesday was another day of quite a bit of walking and a fair share of running from place to place.  We went to eat lunch at the Guttenberger´s house (They´re Spanish but have a German last name) and had some Salmorejo which is a pretty typical Andaluz dish.  It´s like an appetizer and it´s basically like a strong tomato soup but you eat it cold.  It´s really good though.   Later we went and visited a member named Manoli and we talked a little about her daughter who left the church a while ago.  We´re trying to find as many part member families and less actives as we can right now so we can get the work going well.  After that we SPRINTED to the capilla because we were late for our English class,  We´re teaching a man named Eduardo and he´s actually serious about learning English and has a plan made for us to follow and everything.  A little bit stressful but at least he´s there to learn.

Thursday after we had our weekly planning, we passed by our investigator Jonathan and he´s kind of going downhill a little, but we´re still involving him a lot and taking members with us to our appointments that we do have, but he seems to be avoiding us.  Later that night we went to go meet a boy named Ivan who just got back from studying in England.  He´s about 16 and he´s a MAQUINA. (machine)  Both of his parents have been inactive for about 20 years, but he is very active in the church and has a really strong testimony.  We´ll be recruiting him a lot this summer. :)

Friday we left home at about 6 am and headed for Sevilla for Zone Conference.  It felt pretty weird because we passed through Dos Hermanas on the train and I was just there like a week ago.  The Conference was awesome and the focus was on "Dos Veces en Blanco" (two times in white) .  Presdient Deere told us all about how we should be seeing every person we talk to in white, but not only one time, but two.  That means we need to see them not only at the baptismal font, but in the doors of the temple.  And not just one time at the temple, but many many times for all of their ancestors.  That´s our new vision in the mission and we´re going to be incorporating a lot more family history in the work here as well.

lunchtime at zone conference

Saturday, we were looking for some less active members and we happened to knock the door of a Romanian couple and they let us right in.  When we asked the dad (Mario) if he knew who Jesus Christ was he said no...  not sure if that was because of the language or if he really didn´t know, because he said he was baptized and I think the Orthodox church is pretty big there in Romania.  Anyway, we got a few new investigators there and they seem to be nice people.  Afterward, we went to eat lunch with a man named Brailio and had some really good Paella.  Later that night we went to see some members who go to church in Cádiz named Mari and Bille and they are the nicest people ever.  Bille literally looks like the grandpa from the movie UP and they always make us food when we go over there.  

Sunday was great at church, but unfortunately, we couldn´t get any investigators there.  We talked to Stake President Morales about coming to some citas with us this week to see some part member families and he was more than happy to do so.  He´s a really awesome guy and everyone just loves him.  I love him and I´ve only talked to him for like 2 minutes.

Now in the mission we are making a big focus on the temple.  The missionary work we are doing here as full time missionaries is part of the same work of Salvation that we do in the temples.  We can all help in that way and experience the blessings that come from helping those who can´t help themselves and being like the Savior.

Also the suit jacket you saw in the picture I sent last week is the work of my own hands.  I sewed that puppy in there by hand with a little free time I had.   The running of the bulls is no where close to me.  That´s in Pamplona which is about as far North as it gets.

Have a great week!  Love you!

Elder Adamson

Farewell Dos Hermanas

Sweet Friendships never to be forgotten.