Email 3-11-13 Elder Adams is an Uncle!

Hello. That’s one good looking baby. Glad to hear the little miracle is finally here. Bout time! He’s a real looker too. That super hero pic is way legit. I love the one of Whitney trying her hardest to smile as well haha Ii don’t blame her though. Having a baby doesn’t sound like it would feel all too good. That’s why moms are the best (they give birth so us dudes don’t have too :)  jkjkjk) and the other 400 bajillion other sacrifices they make. Love you momma.  You da best. Stay awesome. I bet your loving teaching and helping Whit with all the mother thing ya’ll do. I know how you are with Raegen and Greyson so I’m sure he will be real spoiled as well. (like i was... bien sur)  Life as a child is the best. Sucks growing up! 

Feels real nice to be an uncle again! I feel old. Its crazy how fast the family is growing. Its crazy how fast time flies as a human... especially as a missionary. He looks like a real stud!   Kid is gonna be a boss I can already see it.  What a blessing that little boy has to be born into the church! He’s gonna have a real good life.  Cody and Whit are a couple of studs.  Il est un garçon avec beaucoup de chance!  Just like me. Whitney will be one good momma... because she has had the best example of a mother to teach her! Lucky.  Same with me and Garrett when that day of fatherhood comes (your a pretty hawt example yourself pops!)

Good to hear that Tiger is back on Track #1fan. And sounds like Jimmer is doing work regardless of his  idiot coach. Cut the kid a break. #PutTheWhitBoyInDude. Love him. Oh yeah... do you remember that huge guy, Chris Miles, that played for BYU when Jimmer was like a rookie or so? I do. And I forgot to tell you that he lived here in St Brieuc for the last 5 months or so. I never got to meet him because he moved out the day before I moved in. The missionaries taught with him a lot and they went to one of his pro games. Bummer I missed out. But that’s alright. #LifeGoesOn. Everyone in the ward loved him and his wife too. They are always talking about him. They moved back to the USA because his wife was having a baby and they spoke zero French. #FrenchRocks

Enough of that nonsense. About the week. Well it wasn’t the best. But tha’ts alright! Its when times get tough that the lord has things to teach us. And that’s just what happened. I learned a lot. I learned that the scriptures are there to comfort us and to "uncomfort" us! They are obviously there to give us joy, peace, knowledge, and to teach us of that essential purpose here on the big round earth BUT it never really hit that they are there to scare me a little... to let me know that there is more I can be doing!   #AlwaysMoreToDoY’all!   Heavenly Father doesn’t want us to get to comfortable... so he randomly threw passages all throughout the scriptures to humble us and let us know that we are not that super hero that we all think we are sometimes!  I’m not saying we can’t all be superheroes  #YouCan... but sometimes he wants us to step down from our little pedestal and really think things through. Really ponder why we are here and what’s going to bring us real joy. Helping ourselves is not nearly as important as helping others! We need to work hard to answer our own prayers... BUT WE NEED TO WORK HARDER TO ANSWER OTHERS PRAYERS!   "Lose yourself and you will find yourself."   Truest statement ever said!   Life is about preparing to meet God (Alma 34:32) and we don’t do that by simply preparing ourselves... and ourselves only.   We help to prepare ourselves by preparing others!  People rock! Loving people and helping people isn’t always the most convenient in our little human lives.... but it is where we will find the most joy!   And who wants to live a life not full of joy?   #NotMeNotAnyone. There’s my little sermon. Don’t forget it! Go big or go home.

Scrip of the week - (I’m trying to memorize one every week in French... spelling and all... pray for me haha) #PracticePracticePractice

 "Car ce n'est pas un esprit de timidité que Dieu nous a donné... mais un esprit de la force, d'amour, et de sagesse."    2 Corinthians 1:7

SOOOOOOOO TRUEEEE. 

Bises. Bon Semaine. Je vous aime.

Elder Adamz

PS  Oh yeah. And it is so COLDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD. Coldest day of the mish right now. Almost froze on our way hear. Look up the temp?

E-mail 3-4-13

Yo. Sounds like a good week back home. Lots is goin on. That’s cool that Cameron is going to the Philippines!  Is that the same mish as Ryne Wood?   Probably not but that would be cool. There are like a gazillion missions over there I think. That’s neat that Whitney’s  littlle bébé will be here soon!  Try not to spoil him too much.  Pretty crazy that both of my sisters have kids. Maybe Garrett will add to that before I get back?  Haha probably not unless he gets to work fast.

Oh yeah I forgot about the post cards I sent. Brother Banks is a member in our ward. Every time we go there he makes us send post cards. He is probably the most legit person I have ever met in my life.  The man really knows how to live!  He is hilarious, very hard working, and loves helping the missionaries!  My goal in life is to be like him when I’m 70. He can barely walk (played rugby his whole life) but he still serves the Lord and has fun doing it. He’s an Englishman living in France. His French is legit (Not the best but he tries his hardest).  The island thing was a joke.  He collects post cards so he just picks random ones for us.  I have no idea where it’s actually at. Look it up?

Well this week was awesome like always. Little miracles happen every week. The Lord is always blessing us!  The blind man I used to always talk about kinda fell off the face of the planet.  I think something happened with his family (not sure they like us) and they think we are taking advantage of him or something (my guess... he is blind so i can see where there coming from) so we kinda left him alone for a while. I tried calling him for weeks but finally gave up.  We decided yesterday that we would go knock on his door for the last time to make sure that we at least give him one last chance before we let him go forever haha.  He actually answered!  We had an amazing RDV with him. The spirit was there. So hopefully we can get him back on the straight and narrow!  We have another RDV with him this week. 

We have also found a new ami named  JP who lives in a villa not to far from St Brieuc. Jean Pierre is way to legit. He is from Congo, Africa.  We have been teaching him for a couple of weeks now. T he spirit is always so strong every time we visit with him. We have just finished teaching the plan of salvation. He was lovin it!  At the end we talked a lot about baptism. He said he will be baptized when he knows what we are telling him is true.  I can’t wait till the spirit tells him!   Just a matter of days I believe.  The man is a spiritual giant.  He says he believes that L'église de Jésus-Christ des Saint des Derniers Jours is the true church because of the way we (the missionaries) live our lives (i may or may not have blushed a little) haha.  He said that we wouldn’t have left our families and our country to come all the way to France if our message wasn’t true. He got it right ehh!  Smart man.  We just have  to get him to the church!!  We will this next Sunday.   Oh and he loves the Book of Mormon. GOLDEN. 

Life is the best. Every week I learn so much. This week I learned a lot about the importance of being overwhelmed or nervous sometimes (Elder Adams never was the best at controlling his nerves). I have felt this way many times on my mission. Mais c'est bon!  Its time likes these that the Lord is letting me know he is my rock!   He will always be there for me if I am humble and worthy of his aide.   So it shouldn’t be surprising that sometimes I feel that missionary work is soooo hard.  The thought that "I’m not sure I can do it"  is actually proof that I understand the significance of being a priesthood holder... or being a servant of the Lord. Its proof that I know I can’t do it alone!  My call and responsibility are to hard and to important to be doing it all by myself!   That’s why the Lord gives us companions and that’s why he gives us all the silly rules... so that he can help us!  Its amazing the things you can learn on a mission. Things I know I would never learn elsewhere. Thanks for yalls examples!   #ForeverGratefull. L'église est vrai. N'oubliez pas d'accord! Bon semaine. Je t'aime. 

Bises

Elder Adamz

E-Mail 2-25-13

Yellow!  How are you? Hope yallz week was good. Mine was a real treat... like always. Life is always good on the mish. Not sure I have had a bad week yet. (but bad days... they happen haha). My new colleague is legit. His name is Elder Davis from Washington state. He lives in a place called snohomish just north of Seattle I believe. It’s actually the same place that Elder Lavering is from (my comp in the MTC) and they know each other a little. Small world ehh. Not sure where he went to school. A community college where he played baseball I think he said. I could ask him which college because he’s sitting right next to me but I don’t wanna bother him. The first time you can email your family from France is kinda a big deal!   So I’ll just let him do his thing.  Its always nice to have a comp who understands the necessity of sports in life eh!  I hate baseball but I can forgive him for that.  And no Elder Davis is a 19 year old missionary. I didn’t quite luck out with getting one of them new 18 year olds. C'est la vie.  Life as a trainer is a little bit different but not really because Elder Davis already knows his stuff. He is definitely way farther  ahead than I was when I entered the wonderful world as a missionary in France.  Kids got game. 

I’m glad to hear your excited about me driving in France haha. I have gotten a lot better though. Thanks for your prayers. I have only killed the car once since Elder Davis has been here!  He has been some good luck. We drive on the same side of the road here as in America so that’s not too weird. The only problem is that when I can’t completely understand what the signs are telling me haha.  I pretty much got them all down now so don’t worry. The roads here are a lot more narrow so that takes a little getting used to. Everything is smaller here in France.  EVERYTHING (cars, roads, people, food portions, clothes, number of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.... haha I could go on forever... but of course I still LOVE it).  Back to driving.  I can’t remember the name of the car but it is very nice. I’m sure it would work a lot better if it was an automatique mais c'est la vie.  Gas here is about 6 dollars a gallon haha, how much is gas in good ole America these days?  Probably not that high ehh.  Pay a little extra tithing in the future... the France Paris mission could use it haha.  And to answer your last question... I’m not sure how many miles we can drive... but we get 1000 kilometers every two weeks I think it is?  Not really sure. I’m still a rookie with la voiture.

That’s pretty crazy that they’re making 58 more missions in 23 countries. Hopefully nothing happens to the mission here!  I’m guessing we would’ve heard by now if something was going down. That’s sweet that y’all had a special broadcast from Salt Lake City.  C'est dommage que Raegen and Greyson were with you... so hard to learn with little ones everywhere (happens to me all the time here... kids love me... even if I can’t speak their language very well haha). Oh yeah and Whitney is having a baby in like 14 days. That’s pretty neat!  Thats gonna be one dang good lookin kid.  Just sayin.  Well I think that’s all from France. Sorry I didn’t add any spiritual experiences. Next week! Bon semaine.  Que Dieu vous benisse!  Au revoir.

Bises

Elder Adams

E-mail 2-18-13

Hello. This week was a real treat like always. Miracles are everyyywherreee. It just took me 19 years to open my eyes to figure it out!  This last Wednesday was a day of nothing but finding!  From 10am to 9 at night. (with little meals in between bien sur)   And the Lyon mission joined us as well!  That means that close to 400 missionaries were out and about for 11 hours all day Wednesday throughout all of France, half of Belgium and Luxembourg.  What a sight that would’ve been from above!   #powerfull.   Oh and each companionships prayed every thirty minutes so that we would know where to be lead and what to say.  We had the specific assignment to pray for all of the other 400 missionaries.  Prayer is so powerful!   I could literally feel all of the other missionaries prayers for me and Elder Schultz and it really motivated and pushed us to work harder then we ever have before. We knocked and we knocked on doors and almost nobody was home!  I don’t know why everybody decided to not be home #annoying but that’s okay... we kept knocking anyway.  About the third person that actually opened the door was interested!   We gave her a Book of Mormon, testified about what it can do to a person’s life, set up a return RDV and got out of there.  Short and sweet.  Our first miracle came so quickly!   I remember after walking out of the ladies door me and Schultz looked at each other with huge smiles and we quickly gave thanks to the Lord for allowing us to help his lost sheep!   Angels were with us!   And right after that quick prayer we just kept a knocking.   For the rest of the day (6 hours)  we got in no doors!   Normally when that happens Elder Adams gets grumpy and wants to fight the Frenchies but the spirit of the Lord wouldn’t let me.  I just smiled and kept on frappin them portes.  That was the second miracle.   Nobody was interested but nobody was getting us down!   We know that what we are doing is true and it needs to be done.  And the Lord wants it done his way... with a good attitude and on his time table!   The Lord was just leading us to those who were not ready so that we could greaten our chances of finding those who are ready! Such a good Wednesday!   Inoubliable! 

Oh yeah and transfer news... Elder Schultz will be leaving to La Rochelle and I will be staying in good ole St Brieuc.  Gonna miss him but that’s okay.  He will do work là bas. He is a stud missionary.  I will be training this next transfer!   I get to pick up my new colleague Wednesday morning!   That will be a good time.   All I hear is how hard training is but I can’t wait to do it!   Hard things are the best. And I will continue as the district leader.  Another awesome calling.  Life can’t get much better then right now.  Life is gonna get a little more difficult that’s for sure but I’m excited for whatever lies ahead.  Life rocks!  Have a good week.  Oh yeah and I got to go to the beach yesterday with my Branch President.  I will be sure to send pics.   It was super cool.  Oh wait I’m not done yet.  One more paragraph.

Elder Adams can drive a stick shift now!  Well kinda. I have almost killed us about 10 times but our Father in Heaven is watching us closely (very very closely).   Saturday morning me and Elder Schultz took a 2.5 hour bus to Vannes to pick up the car from the Elders over there.   Elder Price gave me a 10 minutes lesson and then he left!   I had to figure out how to drive the car  2.5 hours all the way back to St Brieuc.   That was fun. Driving a stick is sooooo hard.  I’m getting better though.   The Branch President gave me a little instruction yesterday.   Well with that said... pray for Elder Adams to drive better!   Bon semaine!

Oh and I’m not sure what to tell you about the Pope.  Peepz were shocked.   That’s  all I know.   C'est pas grave. 

Bisessssss,

Elder Adamz