Elder Adamson's Letter 3/30/2015

Hello everyone!  This has been one of the greatest weeks of my mission so far.  Here´s how it went.

Last P-day it was Hermano Pedro´s birthday (AKA Grandpa Pete).  He´s one of our favorite members here in Granada and he comes out to work with us all the time.  We threw a little birthday party for him in the capilla and had a good time.  He turned 58 years old. The Hermanas made lunch for everyone.  I attached a picture of the party.

This week we were able to find a new investigator named Ana.  She is from Granada and told us that about 30 years ago when she was a young girl she almost got baptized with her best friend but decided not to in the end.  She welcomed us to her home and we shared a little bit about our message with her.  The more we talked, the more she opened up and she just really wants to know who God is and what he wants with her.  Her father died about a month ago which has been hard for her. A member named Vicente came along with us and bore his testimony  We felt the Spirit very strong in that lesson and we set a baptismal date with her for the 25th of April. 

On Tuesday, we went to Málaga for zone conference.  We talked a lot about focusing on our purpose and how to help members to fulfil their missionary purpose. 

 All five of my last companions were at zone conference so we got a picture of us together.  

On our way home from zone conference we called Adrían so we could meet with him and ask him how his fast went.  He didn´t have very much time to meet, but we got together at the capilla for just a little while.  We sat down, started with a prayer and asked him how his fast went.  He told us all about it and that all of his doubts were cleared up, and then he said "I think that God told Adamson that we should do this super prayer because it really helped me to clear everything up".  In the last lesson we had with him we explained that fasting was like a "super prayer".  After Adrián finished the fast everything was clear for him and he knew that he needed to be baptized. We did a pre-interview with him and saw that he was very ready to be baptized this weekend.  I was very very humbled on that night as we knelt down to pray with him.  The Lord placed Adrián in our path and He used us as instruments to help Adrián enter into a covenant with Him.  I am so grateful for my calling.  I know that God loves every one of His children and he seeks to lead us to Salvation.  Adrián was baptized on Saturday by the father of his girlfriend, Alex.  He was so repentant and a little emotional even just before the baptism started while he was changing into his white clothes.  I had the opportunity to confirm him yesterday at church.  After he was baptized Adrián could feel the Spirit so strongly and bore his strong, growing testimony with tears in his eyes.  That was one of the sweetest experiences of my whole life.  Adrián has entered into the door that leads to eternal life. 

Love you and have a great week! 

Elder Adamson 

Elder Adamson's Letter 3/23/2015

Hello Everyone!

 Spring time is here and it's finally warming up here in Granada. 

This has been another week of traveling and tomorrow we´re going to Málaga for a Zone Conference. Other than traveling to Jaén this has been a pretty normal week. 

I got to do another intercambio with Elder Buttars and we traveled to Jaén and back so I could pick him up and drop off Elder Christiansen.  I had a great time with Elder Buttars.  We had a really good intercambio and it was fun to get to catch up with him again. 

We've been working with a few Nigerians this week named Joel, Sunny, and James. We've kind of lost contact with Joel and Sunny which is sad because they had baptismal dates, but James is still going really well.  He came to church on Sunday for the first time so we were very happy about that.  He´s struggling with some family problems right now and I hope we can help him out with the gospel. 

Adrián is still doing very well and we´re hoping that he´ll get baptized this weekend.  We´re still not positive if it will be this weekend or not because he still has a problem with one of the commandments, but he knows what he needs to do.  We did a fast with him this weekend so that he could receive an answer from God that his decision to be baptized was right and so that he would be able to feel the truthfulness of how the commandments bless us.  We´re going to call him this afternoon to do a little follow up to see how things went.  We´re praying for him.

This week we received a referral from the bishop of a family who lives out in a pueblo called Dúrcal that's about 20 minutes away.  I´m not sure how he got in contact with them but we went out to meet them and they were really nice people.  They belong the the New Apostolic Church which I had never heard of before and they are VERY believing.  We didn't get to talk with them for too long but they are great people with a lot of problems and trials.  We hope to meet with them again this week. 

Things are going well here in the zone.  Elder Christiansen and I got off to a bit of a slow start because we are trying to adjust the area a little bit because there will most likely be changes coming soon here in Granada.  Things are starting to pick up a little more here, though. 

That's about it for the week.  Hope things are going well back at home! I love you! 

Love, 

Elder Adamson 

Elder Adamson's Letter 3/16/2015

Hello everyone!  This has been a great week.  We just got back from the Alhambra.  We went for P-day today and it was soooooo awesome. I´ll send some pictures home of it.  It´s one of the most incredible things   I've ever seen.  It´s got tons of really cool history and the art inside of it is unbelievable.  It´s all so intricate.  

This week we started off with a really good Concilio in Málaga.  It´s always nice to get to see all of my good friends from the mission there.  While we were talking about what the mission needed we decided that we need to help the mission to focus on finding new investigators more and hitting the standards of excellence, so we challenged all the companionships in the mission to hit the standard of 5 new investigators in one week before March ends.  I got to spend a lot of time with Elder Farrell and that was lots of fun.

This week we got to see Adrián at Juani´s house.  He´s doing really well.  He´s had a bit of a hard time with one of the commandments but he knows      it's what he needs to do.  He´s just got to try it out so he knows   it's what´s good for him.  He´s so humble and he listens very well to everything we say to him.  I´m sure   he'll be able to get over this little speed bump.  He´s still excited to be baptized on the 28th.  We´re praying hard for him this week.

This week there was another concert in the church and the city people from Granada came.  We actually got to talk about the Book of Mormon with a few of the people in the choir, so that was cool.  After it was over we had to clean everything up and move the benches back.  Elder Christiansen moved a bench out of the chapel, and it was one of the long ones that goes in the middle section of the chapel.  It was really heavy but we got everything done super fast so we could get home on time.

Things are going really well in our ward.  We´ve got a lot of new members that are doing really well and a lot of less active members who are returning.  On Saturday there was a wedding reception for Miguel and Bea who are a recently reactived less active member and a recent convert.  There´s lots of work to be done here and I love working here.  I´m starting to wonder if I'm going to finish my mission here or if I´ll be sent to somewhere else.  I asked President about it in interviews and he didn´t really know either. We´ll see.

I´m starting to feel my mission getting close to it´s end.  I know that I´ve got a lot more to learn and do before I get home so I´ve decided to give it all to the Lord in these last few months.  I love this work and I love my Savior who has called me to do it.  I will always cherish these experiences that I´m having right now and there is literally no place I´d rather be.

Love and miss you!

Elder Adamson

Elder Adamson's Letter 3/9/2015

Hello everyone!  

This week was transfer week and Elder Metcalf had to leave on Sunday afternoon, so I stayed with the other Granada Elders for about 3 days while I waited for Elder Christiansen to come.  I had a good time with them and got to know Elder Quinn and Pomazón a lot more.  On Wednesday, Elder Christiansen got here.  He is a GREAT missionary.  He´s been in the mission for one transfer less than me and he´s also from Texas.  He is super funny and he´s really really smart.  I´m pretty sure he was the Valedictorian of his high school.  He went to one year of BYU before coming on the mission.  I´m super excited to be his companion.  He´s already great.  Also, he´s from Fort worth Texas.  Two Texans in a row!

This week one of the biggest highlights was that we got to meet with Adrián in Juani´s house.  They live in the same pueblo so it was a lot easier for Adrián to meet there.  Juani was a great member present and he even offered to take Adrián to church on Sunday.  Adrián is doing really well and he´s progressing well towards his baptismal date on the 28th of March.

We´ve got a bit of a shortage of investigators but the few that we do have are doing really well.  We set another fecha with a man named James from Nigeria.  He's a really good guy and told us that he's never been baptized and he would like to be.  He still hasn´t been able  to come to church yet, though so we´ll see how things go with him.

This week in church was really good.  We had Noemí and Victor, and Thaynara all come for the first time in a while.  They are a little less active right now but we´re working with them,  I also got to give a talk in church this week.  I spoke about the atonement and missionary work and how the experiences that we have with the Savior move us to want to share the gospel with other people.  It turned out well, I think.  That is what really drives people to share the gospel.  I shared the story about Elder Bednar's two little boys that he shared in the last general conference.

Today we're going to head out to Málaga for Concilio so I've gotta head out now.  I´ll let you know how it went next week.

Love you and hope you have a great week!

Elder Adamson

a cool car

and a cool new companion!!!!

Elder Adamson's Letter 3/2/2015

Another great week in Granada! Here's the highlights

Last week we were able to meet with the boyfriend and a girl is coming back to church with her dad and two younger sisters who were baptized last week.  His name is Adrián and he's 22 years old.  We had a couple really good lessons with him this week and we set a baptismal date with him for the 28 of March in the first lesson.  He has already come to church like 3 or 4 times and he is really interested in learning more about the Church.

We also had an activity this week where we played a little futbol and basketball with some non members and we invited Adrián and some Mak.  They both came and we had lots of fun.  I was pretty rusty playing basketball.. ha ha

This week we traveled to Almería to do a baptismal interview.  It was a pretty long drive, but it was worth it.  It´s about 2 hours away from Granada.  That same day, we came back to Granada and had our interviews with President and they were great.

This week we found out about the transfers in the zone.  On Friday night we got a call from President Deere.  My companion, Elder Metcalf has been assigned to be the new assistant to the president.  We found out on Friday and he left Sunday afternoon so he got out of here pretty quick without much time to say goodbye.  Elder Metcalf has done some great work here in Granada and he´s been an amazing companion.  I´ve learned lots with him and he´ll be a great assistant.  Right now I´m with the other two Elders here in Granada, Elder Pomazón and Elder Quinn until Wednesday when my new companion gets here.  His name is Elder Christiansen and he´s coming from Alicante.  He has been in the mission for a transfer less that I have and I replaced him when he left San Fernando.  I don´t really know him, but I´ve heard some great things about him.

That's about all the highlights for this week.  The mission is going great.  Sometimes these little changes get me out of my comfort zone, but that´s really what I need. The things that I've learned on the mission are priceless.  We watched the Joseph Smith movie the other day and there is a part in Joseph Smith History when he says "I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it".  I can say the same thing about my testimony of Christ.  I know He lives and I will never, nor will I ever be able to deny it.  The Spirit has engraven that in me, and the same thing is available to every humble seeker of truth.

Hope you´re all having a great week!  Love you!

Elder Adamson

A gift from another Elder