Week 58 in Paraguay Change 10 Week 2 Christmas Day

Dear Family, Sorry I don't have any time to write because we are going to San Lorenzo right now, I loved talking to everyone on the phone, Love you all so much! Elder Adamson V

Week 57 in Paraguay Change 10 Week 1

I'm not going to be writing such a long email this week, because I will be talking to you next week,the Christmas call! I can't believe it's already time to make the phone call, time has gone by so fast recently, I remember hitting a year like it was yesterday. This week honestly hasn't been too eventful, it has been a little more relaxing though, which is really nice, so I feel a lot more rested after all the craziness of the past few weeks. The car still isn't back, the shop here is taking a really long time and they won't give us a specific date, we should hopefully have it before Christmas, but honestly I don't know if we will. The damage really wasn't even that bad, I don't know what is taking them so long since it has been in the shop over two weeks now. It happened right before change week. I can still drive and I have driven a lot since the accident, but since we don't have the car we have been using a lot of taxis also, next week I am supposed to go to San Lorenzo though on Christmas and I don't know how that is going to work if we don't have a car, so hopefully we get it back soon. Anyway, that is about all I'm going to write for today, I'm saving all the good stories for next week, I love you all sooooo much, Elder Adamson V

Car Crash The Other Car

Car Crash Mission Car

Week 56 in Paraguay Change 9 Week 7 Car Crash

So it is pretty ironic that you said that this hasn’t been too exciting of a week, because I could probably write you a novel about all the things that happened this last week. It is by far probably one of the most eventful weeks of my time in the office, and maybe my mission, and I have been by far more tired this week than any other week in my mission. That I can easily say. All of it started Friday night.

So if you remember from my last letter we didn’t get much of a P-day last week and so I didn’t really get to write very much. It was kind of funny because you wrote me about how Scott had got into a car wreck and I had planned in my mind what I was going to write about how crazy Paraguayan driving is but how there are never wrecks because everyone is always paying attention and they know what is going on around them. Now don’t get upset or worried about this, but justo Saturday night I got in a car wreck. It really wasn’t that bad. It was 9:15 at night and I was going down a back road trying to get to the super market so we could have food for the week (and by the way, I still haven’t got to go to the super market) so as I'm driving the road turns into pavement, but it’s still a back road no one usually uses. I look over to the left to this other paved road that leads out to the main road thinking about if it would be smarter to go that way to be able to park better in the super market, then I decide against it and look over to the right to see if anyone was coming, not really thinking anyone would be since we were on this back road. There was a truck crossing the street, so I slammed on the brakes and ended up hitting him right in the very back of his bed behind the back wheels. By the time I hit him I wasn’t going very fast so the damage wasn’t too bad and everyone involved in the wreck were perfectly fine, not even a scratch, which I guess is the most important part. After I hit him the truck just kept going. I stopped, put the caution lights on and got out of the car right away and called my President. He made sure no one was hurt and then asked where the other car was, I told him he had driven off and I didn’t know. He asked me if the car would make it to the church (which was just 2 blocks away) and I told him the motor was fine there weren’t any problems with the car running and he told me to drive there so he could see the car. So we waited there a little longer to see if the other guy would come back; while we were waiting two police officers drove by on a moto and pointed at us and yelled something in Guaraní and then just took off, so we waited a little longer and then went over to the church.

Once we got to the church the police were already there waiting for us, so I parked the car in the parking lot and went over to talk to the officer, the first thing he asked was if I knew why he was there. I told him because we had just crashed the car and asked him where the other car was, he told me the other car went two blocks away from the crash then told the police that we hit him and then ran from the scene, which obviously isn’t what happened, if the truck talked to the cops two blocks away from where the crash happened, so I explained that to the officer and told him that we just wanted to fix everything the right way, so he told us he would call the lady that talked to them and tell her to come to the church. I went back to the car to talk to President and then the police officer calls me back over and tells me that the lady had already left and the best thing I could do was to go to the police station to write a police report before she writes one stating that we hit the car and ran, and maybe we would even be able to find her there. So President loaded my companion and I up into his car and took us straight to the police station. The truck I had hit was already there, so we just went in. It was kind of funny, there was an older women there with a younger guy sitting at the desk writing a police report as we walked up and everyone just seemed really confused, with the kind of expression like we wanted to contact them or something in their work because we were missionaries, when we got up to them I shook their hands and told them I was the one that hit their car and it was like a light bulb turned on. Anyway, the people turned out to be really nice, it was a mom with her son, this is the funny part of the story, the son was the one driving and here in Paraguay you can’t get your driver’s license until you are 18 (a rule very commonly broken, but since these people were wealthy and well educated they actually kept this rule) so this son had just got a brand new car two days ago with his driver’s license on his 18th birthday and I hit him. Anyway, the son went to the American school here so both him and his mom spoke perfect English, and the son actually knew the sons of the old mission president, President Wade, that went to school with him and played on the basketball team. So I hit an 18 year old that had been driving for two days in a brand new car his parents had given him.

The worst part of the story is that this last week was change week. The way the van is built if you hit the front of the car it isn’t going to do anything to the engine because the engine is inside, but the radiator is still in the front of the car, so in the accident I punctured the radiator. So Monday we had to take the car into the shop during the busiest of all office weeks. We still don’t have it back because they started working on it Tuesday to get an estimate, because the church wanted us to get an estimate before we let them start. Then Wednesday was Dec 8, the day of the Virgin of Ca’acupe, the biggest of all Paraguayan holidays, so nothing was open. We got the estimate on Thursday and they started working on the car on Friday, so we won’t get the car back until at least the end of next week, and likely longer because we’re in Paraguay. So we had a problem with not having a car, so we ended up borrowing the south mission’s car, trading them for our President’s car, which ended up giving us a lot more work having to share the car with President and pick him up and go places. I really picked the absolute worst time to get into a wreck. The other thing was, when I got in the wreck, obviously I didn’t really think it was all my fault, I accepted it was partially my fault, but I didn’t run any stop signs or anything and we were both on paved roads, so I kind of just accepted it was more of a lack of traffic signals fault. Then I was telling the story to a few members that asked about it so they asked me where it happened and I told them and then they just started telling me how much of my fault it really was. This member family is about as close to American you can get while still being Paraguayan, they all speak perfect English, they all drive, and they have a really big house. I was trying to explain to them that the road of the other guy had a speed bump about a half a block before the place where I hit him and he should have yielded to me, but they told me that the other road has the right of way, it was actually pretty funny how the conversation turned out. Since then I have gone back to the intersection and seen cars go by and it is pretty obvious now that I did not have the right of way, and I take full blame for the accident, but there still aren’t any signs, people just know from driving there so much, and that was the first time I had ever driven that road.

So anyway, that was probably the biggest thing of the week. I made it five and a half months driving in Paraguay before I got into an accident, and the funny thing is it came at the time when I very least expected to get into an accident, and at the time when I was very least paying attention, which I guess is why the accident happened. But, just by my job description as Secretary in the office, I really have to drive. When I go to Immigrations and things I go by myself with new missionaries or other missionaries that don’t have permission to drive because all the other office Elders have other things to do. It was really awkward this week having to drive sometimes with even President in the car, it was like I lost his trust or something and it was a terrible feeling. I really don’t think anything has changed, but it’s like my own conscience puts it there or something. So anyway, that little incident Saturday night made the whole rest of the week really complicated. But I am still driving just as much, I have decided now though that whenever my replacement comes, which should be in 2 ½ weeks, he will be driving everywhere the second he gets his license and I will stop.

Anyway, I didn’t think I would write so much just about the crash, it was kind of a big deal for this week though. We had so much to do with changes and we didn’t have a car, I feel like everything just piled up and finally fell on this week, and it feels really good now to know it’s all over. I think the thing that ended up giving us the most work was the fact that the change day fell right on the biggest Paraguayan holiday there is, so some people couldn’t travel and nothing was open to buy things or go places, so we had to schedule everything out perfectly to do everything we were going to do on Wednesday, which is the big day, on Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday, knowing that those 3 days already had a lot of necessary things. Then on top of that this change was the change where we started to implement all the changes that Elder Foster presented to President, so we had to plan for all those changes, in the process opening up new areas and white washing a lot of other areas. There was a lot of planning to do, and all last week was really busy too, so most of the planning was done about a day in advance, and now I am so tired. Right now I am going home to sleep and I’m positive next week will be a lot less hectic and I will have a lot of time to get caught up and work tons in the area, which is really all I want to do now because we have barely got anything these last two weeks. Anyway, I need to go now, but I love you all sooooo much, and really don’t worry at all about anything, I’m great and I am happily waiting for the package, love you, Elder Adamson V

P.S. I sent a picture of each car after the wreck and a picture of my zone with Elder Foster so you wouldn't have to just see pictures of the wreck, I love you!

Week 55 in Paraguay Change 9 Week 6

First I have to start by apologizing because this is probably going to be a very short email. This whole week has probably been the least I have worked outside of the office since I got to the office. It seems like every single day there was something going on to keep us in the office, including today. All day we have been doing office work, and because of that this letter probably won’t be very long. I’ve been up since 4:30am this morning because all the Nivacle Indians came from Filidelfia in the Chaco to go to the temple. We had to direct them all to interviews and get name tags for all of them so we knew why they were there. There were over 100 of them and only about 10 spoke Spanish, the rest all spoke Nivacle, this different Indian language, not even close to Guaraní. It was a lot of work trying to get them all to the right places. The story about the Nivacle Indians is actually really interesting. I don’t know if you were watching BYU TV in between conferences sessions or not, because they did a whole documentary on the Nivacle Indians. We were watching it on the internet so it had to have been a documentary broadcasted to everyone. The first missionaries that when out there baptized the Cacique, or the chief of the Indians and he had all of the them get baptized, so it is a little Mormon nation of Indians, literally every Nivacle Indian out there is a member. The church even built a city out there and called it Abundancia, or Bountiful in Spanish, for them to all to live. They live more than 8 hours away from the temple, so about 2 times a year they do these big temple trips to have them all come and be sealed together and things like that. nyway, that pretty much consumed my day, as well as the fact that President started this huge project of sending a personal letter to every potential future missionary in the Districts, 1300 letters, and we have been folding them and stuffing them because they have to be done by Monday. Every other free second I have I’m working on my training program for the whoever the new secretary is going to be. On top of that next week is change week (I don’t know what happened, but the weeks on your letters are one off, I think probably last change we moved so the change was only 5 weeks, so this change was actually 7) so we have been working like crazy to get everything done for that, and on top of that change week falls on the biggest Paraguayan holiday, December 8, the day of the virgin of Ca’acupe, so nothing will be open and there will be no buses on the day changes are supposed to be, so we have to change all the plans because of that; and on top of that, it is the beginning of the month so we have to get everything ready for Presidents Personal Priesthood Interviews with the stake Presidents and turn in all the numbers and reports for last month. So needless to say there is a lot to do. Well, that is about all I have time for, sorry for the short letter, but I will write a nice long one next week, I love you all soooooooooooooooooooooo much, Elder Adamson V

P.S. Thank you so much for the eggnog recipe! I’m so excited for Christmas!

Week 54 in Paraguay Change 9 Week 5

So another week has gone by in the greatest mission on earth, and President’s plans are pushing forward. The biggest thing Elder Foster told President to do with the mission from now on to get the baptisms back up is to teach the rising generation correct principles quickly, pretty much to have great trainers. He told President that being a trainer should be the highest calling in the mission, more so than zone leader, and only excellent missionaries should ever be trainers. So this last week we had a lot of special changes all involving zone leaders so they can all train when the new missionaries come in December. There are going to be 9 new Elders and every single one of them will have a trainer that was a zone leader this last change. We worked a lot with that this week, and it looks like it is really going to help the mission, its logical, trainers really do affect the way a missionary turns out.

Other good news, finally for the very first time yesterday President talked about me getting a replacement, I had been waiting for that day for the longest time. He came up to me while I was at my computer and asked, “Elder Adamson, how long to do think it will take you to train a replacement?” Then I showed him this new training program I was making to speed up the training process, and, in indirect terms, he pretty much told me the day I would leave the office would be January 19th, which means probably the 29th of December my replacement will come into the office and I’ll have 3 weeks to train him. I can’t believe I have already been here in the office for 5 months. Time has gone by so fast. President wants me to finish my training program by the end of next week to be able to make a final decision on how long I will have to train and when I’ll be leaving the office, so I’m going to be working really hard this week to make it as detailed as possible. It already is pretty detailed, I already have 51 pages with hyperlinks and things and I’m only on week 2 responsibilities of a 6 week change. It’s a really cool document, I made it so it has all of these cool links, so you’re reading what you need to do and you think, “I don’t know how to do that” and the words are actually a link, so you click the thing you don’t know how to do and it takes you right to the page that explains how to do it, then on the bottom of the page it has a link right back to the page you were on, it’s really nifty, and really helpful. Anyway, so that’s my big project for right now, I like to call it the “If I do this really well I might get out of the office sooner” project, so I’m working really hard on it. With all this crazy stuff going down in the mission, who knows, maybe I’ll be training when January comes, the way it looks right now, and by what the assistants have told me, when I do leave I will either train or be a zone leader, honestly I’d rather train, but we´ll see what happens, it kind of looks like President from now on wants people to be zone leaders before they train, but you never know.

So, I don’t really have tons of time to write, and honestly I don’t really know what to say, other than the changes happening in the mission it has been a pretty normal and boring week, Thanksgiving wasn’t really anything special, everyone kind of forgot and then at the end of the day Elder Dailey and I went to Burger King to get Thanksgiving dinner, which turned out to be not such a great idea because we ended up eating around 10 PM and it didn’t sit very well the next day. I’m glad everything went well for Becky performing in the Forgotten Carols, I wish I could have been there. It would be wonderful to be in some snow too, Christmas really makes me miss snow. It is so hot here right now, 95, but it even feels hotter, and it technically isn’t even summer yet. I have this little side bar on my computer with the weather here and the weather in Spokane right next to each other and sometimes I like to put them in Celsius because it makes it look like it’s so cold there.

Anyway, as for P-day, our dueños finally came over today with a metal guy and a carpenter to fix the damage that was done when the house was robbed, so our house is pretty safe now. The construction here is so funny, how unprofessionally professionals do their work. Last week they came over to get all the measurements of the front door to make the piece we needed during the week and they came to install it and all the measurements were wrong, it was funny and they had to drill through the metal and make new holes. Then after that we all went to Cocodrilo, that gym we go to, to play some soccer. There was this guy there practicing that plays professionally here. He was born in Costa Rica, but grew up in Miami, so we just spoke together in English the whole time and we had him play with us, he just dribbled right around all of us the whole game, but it was still really fun. I think Cocodrilo is really doing me good, I was worried when I came into the office that I would gain weight sitting down all the time, but I’ve actually lost about 6 pounds and toned out a lot more just by going to this gym an hour every morning, I attached a picture to see if it reminds you of anything, but yeah, I love going to the gym in the morning.

Anyway, I’m about out of time, I love you all so much, hope you all have a great week and enjoy the Christmas Season with snow, because you never know, next year you could be celebrating Christmas in 100 degree weather, enjoy it while it lasts, I love you all, Elder Adamson V

Week 53 in Paraguay Elder Foster and the Zone

Week 53 in Paraguay Change 9 Week 4

This week passed by so fast, I have no idea what happened to it, it’s like we were just leaving church to go home and eat 10 minutes ago and now it’s already the end of P-day again. It is amazing how fast the time goes by. The week probably went by so fast though because of how much work there was, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday Elder Foster was here for zone conferences. I’m glad I was able to be in the office during the experience, we didn’t get to have a meeting with him or anything, but we definitely got a little more time to talk to him, chat with him as an office. It was really interesting the whole experience with him here and I really was able to learn a whole lot of things, one thing really stuck out, and one thing I didn’t even really acknowledge before, is how greatly important it is for the learner in a teaching situation to have the spirit as well, it doesn’t matter how full of the spirit the teacher is, even if it is a seventy, like Elder Foster, if the learners didn’t come prepared to learn.

It was amazing the difference of the spirit felt from the Monday meeting to the Tuesday meeting, we office Elders were even able to talk to Elder Foster a little bit about it. It was amazing how the same people can teach the same thing to different audiences and there be such a difference in the spirit. On Monday, to say the least, there was not much respect among the missionaries to the fact that there was a General Authority present at the meeting. It seemed almost as if the missionaries came that first day more to socialize with mission buddies they hadn’t seen in a long time than to really learn from the things being taught. That message was quite evident, much more then I think Elder Foster and President would have liked. On Tuesday it was just like night and day, the spirit in the room was so strong and we were able to learn and apply the things being taught. It was a lot of fun to see the difference. It was really a great experience to meet Elder Foster. If you don’t know who he is or don’t remember, he gave a great talk about mothers in the April conference of this year, I would invite everyone to go to lds.org and look for it because it really was a great talk. We didn’t even really notice who he was and then after he left we found the talk and remembered how much we had liked it when we heard it back in April. Anyway, so conferences were pretty much life Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we had to set up, help with lunch, help missionaries, everything, so we didn’t really get to go out and work much those days, actually on Wednesday we had all the people from far away areas here and we had to drive them to the terminal and everything, so we didn’t get to work at all that day.

Anyway, so then after that Thursday rolls around, when President got to the office he called in his assistants and they were in there together in a meeting for over 3 hours, so all of us office Elders were sitting out in the office just thinking about what kind of interesting stuff could have been going on in there and the plans they could have been concocting, then they came out just in time for lunch and President told us he wanted to have a super confidential meeting with everyone, which has never happened ever, at least since I’ve been in the office, and I’ve been here longer than anyone else now, so we thought something really big was happening or something. President shared with us many things he had learned about mission organization from Elder Foster and thoughts he had of some changes which could be implemented. It was so very interesting and I felt privileged to be part of this special meeting.

Since then, really since the beginning of this week, we have been having great things happening in our area, all of our past investigators have just kind of petered out, including Laura’s family, who we still visit every once in a while, but they aren’t really progressing at all, it is so hard to not try and just teach them more and more though, because of how close we have got to them and how much they have come to mean to us, but the more we get out in our area the better things get and people literally are just coming out of nowhere. We had a man show up at the church and ask when we have church, so we got his number and just taught him yesterday for the first time and put a baptismal date with him. He has a family too that we haven’t met yet we are hoping he will bring to church tomorrow, but if not we will meet them after. We have been getting into a lot of houses and finding receptive people, it is so interesting because I really felt like we have just contacted everywhere. I have been in this area longer than any of my other areas and now there are things just popping out I hadn’t seen before. It is awesome because we have really been struggling to get things going these last couple weeks. Yesterday it was 7:00pm and we only had one lesson and one new investigator, so we put a goal to both do ten contacts and finish the night with one more lesson and one more new investigator, at 9:05pm we both had done 14 contacts and hadn’t been received by a single person. So we were thinking about just going home and then I asked my companion to just contact this one last house, so we did and the lady came out and it started like she was just going turn out like all the other contacts we had done, but we started to solve some of her doubts and testify to her right there at the front gate and after about 5-10 minutes of talking and discussing things at the gate she let us in. We sat on her porch and taught her and two of her daughters, met her husband and had a great lesson and in the end we left them with 2 copies of the Book of Mormon and they seemed really excited to read. They can’t go to church tomorrow because they are traveling this weekend, but they said we could come back on Monday when they get back and they would go to church with us the next week. We have had so many things just like that happen to us lately, just miracle after miracle this last week, we even got into this super nice house, nicer than the average house in the states, with nice couches and a huge flat screen TV and everything, and taught a great lesson to a 16 year old guy that by the end of the lesson accepted an invitation to be baptized. Hopefully all the work can turn into people in church tomorrow, right now we should have one man in church for sure, and hopefully we can get a few more than that though.

So all in all it has been a great and really spiritually uplifting week, I hope everyone is doing great and everyone has a great Thanksgiving.

Oh, I almost forgot my biggest news, after that meeting with President on Thursday we broke out the Christmas decorations and went crazy, it was so much fun, and I even got to put the star on the tree, I pretty much did everything though, being the one that was the most eager and into doing it, but I had help, so we are all ready for Christmas here, only 5 more weeks! I love you all sooo much, Elder Adamson V

Week 52 in Paraguay Change 9 Week 3

So it has been another great week here in Paraguay, we have really shifted into Christmas mode here in the office too, we actually just finished watching Mr. Kruger’s Christmas and right now as I am writing you we are listening to Bing Crosby’s Christmas music, the season is approaching!

As for the tree here, it still isn’t up, I was so close to getting it up on Thursday so we would put it up the same day. I explained everything to President and his wife about how the family always puts up the Christmas tree on Veteran’s day and Sister Madariaga got really excited, I went with her and Elder Morrill to the Centro of Asunción and went Christmas shopping and everything to have it all ready on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday we were talking about where we were going to put the tree in the office and everything and I guess President didn’t realize when we would be putting up the tree or something and he wasn’t very excited about it because we have a General Authority coming next week for our zone conferences. The general authority is Elder Foster, he’s the second counselor in the Area Presidency here. Wednesday night Sister Madariaga called me and asked me if it would be okay to wait until he leaves to put up Christmas decorations and put up some Thanksgiving decorations instead, so of course I told her it was fine, though I was kind of sad about it. Now we have some Thanksgiving decorations up in the office, but next Thursday it is all going up, so I don’t have to wait too long. I realized today too that I still have the Christmas tree you sent me from last year so tonight when we get back to the house I’m going to set that one up on my desk at home. So anyway, we are all getting really excited for Christmas to come, it is going to be a really fun Christmas too because it falls on our P-day, which mean Christmas Eve falls on P-day Eve, which sometimes is just as great or better than P-day, so we’ll get to call our families, play games, go out to eat where ever we want, and just relax for a while on Christmas, and then the next week New Year is also on P-day, and New Year’s Eve on P-day Eve. So the point is there are a lot of really cool things happening in the near future, but to be completely honest this last week was pretty uneventful.

The only real interesting thing we have been doing is listening to John Bytheway talks. Elder Payne’s birthday was on Wednesday and he got a whole pack of John Bytheway on CD and we have been listening to it in the office, in the car, at home, everywhere. They actually are really good and they have a lot of interesting facts. He gives this one talk called “No Brainers” where he talks about the Commandments and how they really are no-brainers when we learn about the consequences that come from them. It was really cool to talk about because it covered all of Lesson 4 out of Preach My Gospel and gave a lot of explanation of consequences and blessing of the commandments, more specifically focused on the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity.... He did a very good job with the way that he presented the consequences and it was a very interesting and enjoyable talk. An interesting statistic that we heard today, the average household in the US, in 2003 when the talk was given, had the TV on in their house 7 ½ hours a day, and according to a study done, every 10 years the allowed use of profanity on the networks CBS, NBC, and FOX doubled and was projected to be at 17 times per hour by the year 2006. It is kind of crazy the world we live in sometimes. Anyway, I don’t know where I was going to go with those statistics, they were just interesting.

Something else I noticed today, I don’t know why this happens, but while we were playing soccer today, I noticed that if I’m playing soccer but I’m not trying very hard and I lose I don’t really care very much, but if I’m playing all out as hard as I can and I still lose, I get really upset, I don’t know why, and I tried to apply it to some gospel principles, so I’ll try to express the best I can what I was thinking this morning. I was thinking that if we are doing the very best we can, we should feel good no matter what the outcome, but really honestly I have been noticing, mostly in soccer, but I can kind of apply it to other things too, that when I do the best I can and I fail, I get really upset, and this is what I came up with. Most of the time I get upset it is because I feel like I was doing it all alone, and the thing I was trying to accomplish I couldn’t do on my own, first the soccer application, I start trying as hard as I can, and maybe the other members on the team aren’t trying very hard, they don’t care as much about the outcome, so I just start trying to defend 3 people at once and dribble all the way down and score, which works sometimes, but not as many times as it doesn’t, and I start to get frustrated and upset because I am trying to do something by myself that physically can’t be done without the help of someone else, my teammates. So now, the spiritual application, I feel like sometimes we get a little caught up on the end that we have in mind and we forget to seek the divine intervention we need to complete certain tasks, taking them all on our own and failing. Even though we are trying the best we can we just can’t overcome habits, or finish projects, or complete with worthy goals, and so we get frustrated and upset, but the only real reason we failed in the first place is because we left out our key teammate, our eternal friend, who is Jesus Christ. Anyway, just a cool little thought I thought of today, I’ll try to apply it a little to not get as frustrated when I lose soccer games, and hopefully it can help a few of you also, who knows.

I’m really looking forward to Christmas and talking to everyone again, I love you all soooo much, Elder Adamson V


PS If you can figure out a way to send eggnog, please send some, love you!

Week 51 in Paraguay Change 9 Week 2

So today was the first real relaxed P-day I have had in a long time, and I think my phone only rang about twice today, so that is really nice. Today was a great day, we started off with our studies like normal and then at 10am we went to Cocodrilo, this gym we have memberships at. I don’t know if I had mentioned that before. There is this nice gym really close to our house here so we asked our President if we could start going there and he said yes. It is so nice, we go every morning at
6:00am and workout, lifting and stuff, until 6:30am, then we go upstairs to this soccer gym they have and play soccer until 7:00am when we have to go home. It has gotten me in really good shape, hopefully I won’t lose it all again once I get back out into the field. So today, we went to the gym at 10am and played soccer solid until about 1:30pm, it was awesome, really tiring but awesome. It has been so much fun being able to play soccer so much here, I think I’m getting better too. I guess we’ll really see that one once I get home. Anyway, after that we went home, all took showers, and then took a nice little nap until about 3:00pm, got ready to leave and ate lunch and now we are just kind of finishing off the day with emails and things in the office. The Assistants have a baptism today, so they are steady working on that, the rest of us are at the computers. Anyway, work this week has been really hard, we had another sick Elder in the office so one of us had to stay with him all week, so we were pretty much working 3 areas with 2 companionships, and to make it worse those 3 areas used to be 4 areas, but one was just recently closed. Our areas are a lot bigger now, on top of that Elder Payne had to send in all the baptismal records for October 2 days earlier than usual, so we were in the office pretty late all week to begin with, so the area hasn’t really even seen too much of missionaries lately. We found this really great new investigator last Sunday too, and I really wanted to be able to meet with her this week, but we haven’t been able to stop by her house when she was home and she hasn’t picked up the phone the few times I’ve tried to call. Hopefully we can get a hold of her today and maybe by some miracle she will get to church tomorrow. Things with Laura’s family haven’t been too great lately either, the last time we went over there we were trying to figure a lot of things out, I really just wanted to get a feeling for where they were at spiritually with prayer and receiving answers, and then she told us she doesn’t think Joseph Smith could have been a true prophet because of what happened with polygamy. She always tells us that she goes on the internet to learn more about the church, but as much as it had sounded she was only going to Mormon.org to get information, but it really sounded like she got a hold of some anti literature or something. It has really caused me though to look a whole lot into the subject, I had no idea how much of it was explained in Doctrine and Covenants, and it has actually strengthened my testimony a lot about the subject studying about it and why it had to happen, today I did a study pretty much to answer the questions that she has about it all, I mean I was able to answer them with her, but I felt really bad about it because I didn’t have anything in scripture to back me up, so I studied a lot about it today and found some really good things I think might help her. I really think there is something a little more than that behind it all though, she doesn’t believe in the apostasy, she can’t believe the fact that no one had the authority for such a long time if the apostles left and passed on the authority to baptize to people, she is kind of offended by the whole temple ceremony and how we make covenants we can’t talk about, she always says that if Jesus loves us so much, why would the covenants be such a secret, but the amazing part behind all of it is that she is constantly reading and praying to know if it is true. She has read almost the whole Book of Mormon, parts of the Doctrine and Covenants, all of Our Heritage, most of the teachings of the prophet Wilford Woodruff, and a lot of the teachings of the prophet Spencer W Kimball, and she tells us every day she is praying to know if the things they say are true, but she kind of already can’t believe that they are. Fatima has been doing better, she told us the other day that she thought the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but that was before the whole polygamy lesson happened, hopefully that didn’t shake her at all, but she tells us she just doesn’t feel the need to be baptized yet. It is really nice to teach them because they really understand what we are teaching, but they just can’t say yet they know it’s true. I think we have basically decided that we are just going to go over there to teach and help Laura stay active for a while, and really focus on her instead of getting the rest baptized, and hopefully she will be able to help the rest of the family that’s not there. Anyway that is about it for now, we are going to have to leave now, I love you all so much! Thank you for all the emails, love you tons, Elder Adamson V

Week 50 in Paraguay, Change 9 Week 1

First of all, it is funny you were talking about the weather, because some crazy stuff just happened yesterday and today. So yesterday during the day it got up to 102degrees here with some high humidity. You are exactly right about the wall that you hit, you walk out the door into a blaze. It was just super super hot and humid yesterday. Remember what that means from New York, there was a thunder storm to follow. It started around 7 PM last night while we were out working. It was some of the strongest wind I have experienced here, and to make it all worse I had the car last night and was driving. There was even hail, which really doesn’t make any sense, but I promise there was. It got super windy and all the lightning started from far off, then as it got closer there was some loud thunder, then some really heavy rain, a true tropical storm. I was driving around 7:45PM to pick everyone up for a meeting we had with the ward mission leader and all the power went out. There wasn’t a single street light. Tree branches were falling onto the road. I’m driving on empedrado, which is cobblestone kind of, I think I sent pictures, and the currents on the roads are carrying giant empedrado rocks that just lined up at the intersections. It was so dark out, the lights aren’t too great on the car either. It was an adventure. All the traffic lights were out so the intersections were kind of fun too. I’m alright, we made it out alive and had a really good meeting with our ward mission leader.
The rain finished today, we just finished playing soccer out in the rain. That was a lot of fun, some Paraguayans were here at the church cleaning and they all just huddled up under this little tin roof stand thing and watched us play. Paraguayans just freeze when it rains. If it were to rain straight for a week here, the economy of Paraguay would crash or something because no one would leave their house to work. Anyway, that is the weather update, we are right at the beginning of spring and it was already up over 100 yesterday. I’m probably going to get out of the air conditioning we enjoy, in the mission office, right in the middle of summer in January. We’ll see how things go.

Your question about my fingers which I mentioned in a letter a few weeks ago, my finger is doing a lot better, it is still a little sore but it isn’t swollen anymore and I almost have full movement now. It doesn’t bother me at all when I type, which is the most important thing.

Did this week turn out to be a little quieter? Not at all, it actually was really packed, all of the changes happened last week, but the people that were going home still had to go home this week and there were 20 of them so I had a lot to do with helping them get everything all squared away with being legal and then getting all 20missionaries onto planes. Some at ridiculous times of the night. On Wednesday night I had to get up at 1:45am and go to the airport because of a miscommunication ending up in the wrong ticket being bought. We got back home at about 3:15am and went to bed until 4:45am, when we once again had to go to the airport to drop two more missionaries, then at 9:00am we started taking everyone else to the airport. One’s plane left at 11:00am and another 14 missionaries had planes leave at noon, then we went again at 4:00pm to drop off the last one. After that we went out to work in our areas. When I got home, I was out within about 5 minutes and didn’t even move until 6:30am the next morning. It was a lot of fun though, I really am grateful for what I am able to do, there are a lot of really useful things I am learning in the office. I mean I took 15 people all at the same time to the airport and had all their documents they needed ready with immigration forms filled out and I got everyone through without any problems. It really is a big blessing to be able to have a position where I can learn all these things that really could help out a lot getting a job later in life and just getting through life. I still would rather be out in the field, but I’ll get my chance, 2 more months in the mission office.

Have you had an opportunity to get out in your area? Honestly, not really, we got a little bit more time in the area than last week, but it still wasn’t nearly as much as I would have liked. Next week we should be able to do a whole lot more in the area now that everything has settled down. I really just want to get out there and really get it going, we have been having a lot of success lately with less active members, but the investigator pool right now is really shallow, we should be filling it up now in the coming weeks at the start of a new change. Last Sunday I was able to do a division with Elder Ruiz, the cartero, and we found 7 new investigators in my area, something almost impossible to do here, especially with the limited time we have, so tonight I really want to get back to the rest of those to see how they are doing. We went back to a few during the week and found out which ones were the interested ones. I want to see how many we can visit today to see if we can get a few more people in church tomorrow, because we haven’t really had anyone in church lately, just Rafael, this really old investigator that always goes to church, but won’t get baptized because his parents don’t want him to. We have tried everything with him, he’s about 40 years old so he can get baptized easy without permission, but he is really dependent on his parents because of a health issue he has and doesn’t want to go against them. So lately we just visit with him at church on Sunday and sometimes go over to see how he’s doing.

How's Laura and her family doing? Not great, they’re having all sorts of problems right now and haven’t gone back to church since Laura was baptized. I don’t understand why that happens so much here, but it is so hard to maintain new converts. She started having some hard things happen after she got baptized, which expectedly is going to happen to everyone. She talked to one of her friends that told her when he was down he read this part in Corinthians in the New Testament, so she has completely dropped studying the Book of Mormon for Bible Study. We have been trying to explain to her the importance of the Book of Mormon and how she can study both of them together, but she still just keeps with studying only the Bible. The Mom hasn’t been much of a help either, she had a long discussion with us a couple weeks ago about how she doesn’t want to come to church anymore, she told us that she hasn’t felt what she feels like she needs to feel in order to keep going to church, and the reasoning was because of sacrament meeting, she told us about how the members don’t seem like they prepare their talks at all; how the bishop doesn’t do anything during the meeting, he just sits up on the stand; about how the members are just waiting to go home when it is supposed to be the most important meeting of the day; and all sorts of stuff like that. Because of that she hasn’t felt right about continuing to go. That lesson really just made me want to cry, I feel like I have done absolutely everything for this family and they still just won’t accept it. I have come to love the family so much and I was just sure they would all get baptized, especially after Laura’s baptism. I guess I just have to be patient and work in the Lord’s time. That reminds me of a talk I was listening to the other day by Jeffrey R Holland, I actually shared it with the family last night when we were at their house teaching, he said, “Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come ’til heaven, but for those who embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. It will be alright in the end, trust God and believe in Good Things to Come.” I put that quote on the back of my plaque today and have really been thinking about it a lot lately with respect to my mission and it has really been giving me a lot more energy to go out a preach. One of the missionaries that went home this week was Elder Spencer, my brother in the mission, so I was kind of thinking about my mission family line; my dad, Elder Dennis had more than 105 baptisms in his mission; my brother, Elder Spencer had more than 110 baptisms in his mission; and me, the younger son, I’m more than halfway done with my mission and I have 8 baptisms, and out of those 8 only 2 are still completely active, and one of those active two isn’t even really my baptism. It was a girl I talked to at the MTC over the phone for a couple weeks that we introduced to the missionaries in San Antonio, Texas, and she got baptized the Wednesday before we left the MTC, I don’t know if I ever told you about that, I think I did. Anyway, what I am trying to get at is that quote has really been helping me and I really have new desires to get out and work, like there’s an energy, a drive there now I have been looking for I haven’t found in a long time, it is even helping in my workouts, I just feel really good, the baptisms will come, the blessings will come, because I am embracing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and trying to apply his atonement in my life, and as I come to truly understand what that means the more I want to share that with others, just like it says in Preach My Gospel, so I feel good.

Was I right is this now Change 9 Week 1 since you had your changes last week on Change 8 Week 5? Yes, week 1 of Change 9, that means I am past the halfway mark of my time outside the MTC, there are 16 changes in the mission, weird huh? I can’t believe how fast the time has been going lately, I have been in the office now longer than any other area, well the same as Pedro Juan, but it feels like I was in San Lorenzo twice as long as I have been here, and it is almost the opposite, weird.

How was your President's meeting with the Area Presidency? It sounds like it went really well, I haven’t had a chance to really ask him a lot about it, but it sounds like it was really nice, but really long and tiring. Elder Neil L. Andersen was the Presiding authority, they said that was a really great experience, I can just imagine 4 days of training by an apostle of the Lord, that would be amazing to be able to have the opportunity. They talked a lot about the new curriculum, the 8 lessons to more effectively use Preach My Gospel.

How is everyone doing in the Mission Office? We are all doing great, a little poor, but we get by, we are all going to go to TGI Fridays today to celebrate getting money on our cards today, one of the nice perks of being an office Elder, TGI Fridays, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and Burger King pretty much whenever we want. I guess that is why we are so poor though, all we really eat is oatmeal and eggs during the week, but that’s life, but everyone is doing great. We have a great office staff, everyone gets along really well and we all got put in at about the same time so we are all going to be together for a long time. Elder Eddington is the new assistant, funny thing he was actually just Elder Gage’s companion in Capiata, where Elder Gage went when he left the office, a great pick for the new assistant, so with a new assistant that means I am officially the oldest in the office, the next to leave, can you believe that?

We can send you some new pants at Christmas time if you want or give you some extra money to get some. Send us the size and tell us what you want. I don't know how you repair slacks? Don’t send anything yet, I’ll take some inventory of my things and find out what I can buy here and then tell you what I’ll need, I want to try to go as long as I can without getting anything new, and if I absolutely need something new I can probably buy it here, so I will probably just ask for some money on my card. Elder Burr, my zone leader, just bought some brand new shoes here close for only 60 mil and they’re really nice, that is only about 12 dollars, so I’m thinking about checking that place out, I just need stuff to last until September, I really am not planning on bringing anything home, so I’ll make use of what we have, anyway, we’re about to head out, I love you all so much, I’ll keep you updated on the situation with Laura and her family, hopefully some good things can happen this week, love you sooooo much, Elder Adamson V

Week 49 in the Mission, Change 8 Week 5, Missionary Changes a Week Early

This week was the craziest week ever. I didn’t tell you, our President is going to Buenos Aires this coming week for a seminar with the area presidency so all of the changes were this last week. All the new missionaries came on Thursday, all the missionaries had their changes on Friday. Today we sent out mattresses to the old guys going home this next week so they could live their last week in trio companionships. It was so busy, yesterday especially, the last 3 days in a row I have got up at 5:30am in the morning, left the house by 6:00am, and haven’t got back to the house until after 10:30pm when I was supposed to be in bed. That wasn’t really caused by changes though, we had 4 missionaries go home this week early, and just one going home is a lot of extra work for me. The fact that it was change week just made it worse. It made it a really sad week, the first missionary that went home was supposed to go home this next week, he went home 9 days early and wasn’t able to have an honorable mission. I have no idea what happened, but it sounded like something from before because I picked up the phone on Friday to a really frantic Stake President that wanted to talk to President about this missionary and on Monday he was on a plane. Then Monday morning as I was going to the airport with this missionary, I found out another one was going home at 6:00pm the same day, so I had to get the missionary on the plane in a hurry, get back to the office, and take this other missionary to immigrations to sign out of the country, all before 12:30 when Immigrations closes. The second missionary went home because of some issues with depression, he started having panic attacks and couldn’t work, and then he had one so bad he couldn’t feel his face or hands, so they decided it was better to send him home where there is better medication and he can recover better and be less stressed. He came to Paraguay a change(a change is six weeks) before me, so he had about 14 months in the mission. Then on Tuesday, I wasn’t able to leave the office because I had to figure out what we were going to do with all the missionaries going home. We have 20 missionaries going home next week and all of their companions got new companions on Friday, but the missionaries need to be working until Wednesday, and they all had to come yesterday to go to the temple and do all the going home things, so on Tuesday I just sat down and called every one of them to find out if the house was big enough for three people, thought about how much it would cost to send back Elders that were in areas far away, if it would just be better to have them work a week here in Asunción, things like that, so I just made phone call after phone call coordinating things. Then, Tuesday night I got the flight plans for another Elder going home, we’d had this Elder in the office for a while that had a problem with his leg and he couldn’t walk. He had been going back and forth to the hospital to figure things out so we wouldn’t have to send him home, but they weren’t able to get him better, so we sent him to Buenos Aires to get checked by the area doctor and he still didn’t get any better, so they finally decided to just send him home to get better and then he could come back out to the mission. The only sad part is they are going to reassign him to a Stateside or Canada mission, so he won’t be able to come back to Paraguay. That one was the worst one because you could tell how much he didn’t want to leave. We took some pictures in the airport before he had to go through security and he just kept on giving us hugs and talking about different things because he didn’t want to go through airport security. It was really sad, but he’ll get back out there, that was on Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon, before the airport, President got a call from another stake president, and the same thing happened as what had happened on Friday, and another missionary was on a plane on Thursday. That made the day extremely busy because all the new missionaries also got here that day. I had to take this missionary to immigrations and to the airport, and do all the normal stuff that I do for new missionaries, which honestly I still haven’t finished, but I am going to have a nice really relaxed week next week to get really caught up. Anyway, that was also a super sad experience because I always heard about this missionary and how much he would just complain about Paraguay and how much better the states were, but while I was standing in line with him at the airport we started talking about what he was going to do when he got home and I could really tell he didn’t want to go home. It was not a fun experience, and I have to take 20 more missionaries to the airport next week, but I guess at least they are going when they are supposed to, so it won’t be such a sad experience for me, just a little bit of a trunky one.
Anyway, as for your questions about the robbery, I didn’t lose any money because I haven’t taken out any money yet. At the beginning of the month I took that one missionary with the bad leg to the airport to go to Buenos Aires and he needed a visa to get into Argentina so I bought it for him with my mission money and the money hasn’t been reimbursed back onto my card yet, it should have got there by now, but I am still penny-less. Anyway, I don’t think it was just one person who robbed our house though. Everyone thinks they were just looking for things they could sell really easily without anyone really asking questions. They actually stole 3 watches, it was just a coincidence they only stole one of everything else, they really just didn’t find anything else, which is weird because they tore the house apart, literally with the door. Our mission president reimbursed all the money that was stolen, but everything else was just lost, but don’t worry, Elder Williamson in San Lorenzo gave me his watch so I had two, so I’m okay, and I mostly just use my cell phone as a watch anyway. I haven’t worn a watch my whole mission actually. The only thing I used that watch for were my exercises in the mornings.
Oh, and as for things I might need I am doing pretty good. I saved half of everything like everyone said so I still have 4-5 brand new white shirts that have still never been worn. I want to wait until I get out of the office to start using them because that is when the real wear is going to come. Same thing with the socks, except a few I had to pull out early, but they will last just fine. The only thing that is getting really thin are my pants, but I’m getting them fixed up and they should last the rest of my mission, I’m worried about the shoes though, but I’ll make it, I don’t want to really buy too much new stuff, and there are a lot of people here that can replace shoe soles, so I will be just fine.
Well, I am going to have to cut it short, this hasn’t been much of a P-day, we spent all morning driving mattresses to companionships all over the greater Asunción area and fixing random problems. I still have to fill out new temple recommends for President to sign before he leaves for Argentina, so I’m going to go, I love you all so much, have a great week! Love, Elder Adamson V

Week 48 in the Mission, Change 8 Week 4, Robbed

I’ve got a lot of really good stories this week, so get ready. First of all, Elder Payne, the records guy, and I have really got into playing amazing basketball games with all different sorts of rules in the house with this little basket and rubber ball that one of the missionaries going home left in our house a while ago. Mostly we play pig with only slam dunks, bouncing it off walls and things, and occasionally we play some one on one. Well, I got a pretty jammed finger out of it, and it really hurts to hit the backspace key, because it is the finger I use to hit it; so if the letter doesn’t sound very well thought out or well formatted, it’s because I’m just being lazy with the backspace key.
With that said, first story I’ve got is from Sunday afternoon, so we left after church and went to some members houses to eat lunch like usual, which was really good food by the way. We have a family in our ward from Utah, the dad works at the embassy here, and we ate tacos. I swear it felt like I was back home and we had the missionaries over, except I was the missionary. Anyway, that isn’t the story, so we get picked up from the lunch appointment so all of us are in the car together driving home to get out stuff from the house to go out and work, well we get to the house and the front gate and the front door are both wide open. Someone had taken a crowbar and pried our front gate open to be able to go under the electric fence we have and then pried open our front door. There were marks all over the door and all the wood from the frame was broken right off. We have this dead bolt and they broke it right through the wood, so in our door way there was just wood chips everywhere and the door was still locked. The dead bolt was still alright and we didn’t have to get it replaced, just the frame, which now has a metal plate in it, and the actual doorknob, it was completely destroyed. So anyway, this is all we see and the first thing we think is that they are still in the house, because it is 3 in the afternoon. So all 6 of us go in together and look through the rooms and everything has been gone through, all the suitcases were opened all, our clothes were all over the rooms, our drawers were all pulled completely out, our desks scattered, but the interesting part about the whole thing, they took almost nothing. It was amazing some of the things they left. We had some money sitting on a top shelf they didn’t even touch, they scattered all the books on our desks, but Elder Payne had his Ipod under a book in his room and they didn’t find it. All of us have speakers and radios out on our desks and they didn’t touch a single one. Elder Vance had his camera in his backpack, which was completely emptied, he later found his camera on the floor in his room. They opened up a pocket in a bag where Elder Morrill keeps his money and his credit cards, stole all the money but left the credit cards. The only things they took were all the money they could find, 250 mil from Elder Payne, 500 mil from Elder Morrill and about 250 mil from Elder Dailey, which all together is equal to about $200, and a few watches. The only thing that was stolen from me was that $5 watch I bought in that store where I bought my soccer shoes. Elder Dailey’s camera, Elder Ruiz’s camera charger, and Elder Vance’s Ipod were all stolen. So we got pretty lucky, but it was still pretty scary. They broke into the house between 2pm and about 3:30 pm. We asked all of our neighbors and no one saw a single thing. We live in the nicest, and I thought safest, house in the entire mission.
The next cool story is about this investigator. All this whole week President has had interviews, so he wasn’t in the office to really give us much to do. It is in the middle of the change, so I didn’t really have too much to do from just normal jobs. I decided to pass a bunch of references I had been getting over the last week. This one I got had a very confusing address and was a reference from a mission in Brazil. They had passed it to the south mission and then the south mission passed it to us because they couldn’t find it and thought it might be in our mission. So knowing all this before doing anything, I decided to just call the number and ask the lady herself. I mean the worst she could tell me is that she didn’t want missionaries to come over. So anyway, I call up the number and a woman answers, I talked to her for a little bit about her family in Brazil who were members and how they had contacted us to get in contact with her, to share with her a message about Jesus Christ. I found out her husband had recently died and she is only in her 30's. She has one son who is 2 ½ now without a father. I asked her if we could come over to her house and share a message with her and she said she would love to share with us but she isn’t really ever in her house. So, first thing I think is that she doesn’t really want to share with us, that is what they usually say when they don’t really want to share, so she asked if she could meet us somewhere, and I just kind of asked again where she lived to get a better idea of if she was even in our mission. I mean all I was trying to do was pass the reference to the appropriate missionaries, so I asked her if she knew of any chapels of ours close to her house, and she tells me the only one she knows is the one in front of Super Seis in Mburucuya, our chapel. So then I got super excited. The reference just happens to know our church, so I set everything up with her to meet in a members house to teach her. We get there and have the lesson at the members house and it was probably one of the best lessons in my entire mission, one I don’t think I will ever forget, because of how much I could literally see how the gospel would and was blessing her life. We taught about eternal families and about repentance and baptism and committed her to be baptized on the 5th of November. She is coming to church tomorrow. The only bad news, she doesn’t live in our area, she actually lives closer to a different chapel, a lot closer, but she knew this chapel because her uncle is a member and when she was really young she remembers our chapel from where he would go to church. So, at church this Sunday we are going to try to pass her off to the other Elders, but it was such a blessing to just teach her that first lesson. It was like I was immediately seeing the effects of our efforts, the change that can happen to the people we teach. Anyway, I’m really excited to see her in church tomorrow, and hopefully we can get a few more people tonight that will go tomorrow for sure. I love you all so much, can’t wait to have more good experiences to tell you next week, Elder Adamson V

Week 47 in the Mission, Change 8 Week 3, Mission Secretary

Another fast week down in the office, there was so much work this week, every single day I was doing some kind of unexpected thing. It made it a little bit of a hard week. We barely even got out into our area and its suffering for it, but it looks like the coming week should be pretty normal, anyway here is a quick little overview of the past week.

Sunday- We enjoyed a great day of General Conference, but had a little bit of a setback. Church started a lot later than usual, so we went out in the morning and just contacted people inviting all of them to come and hear a prophet. Then we came back and watched the first session of conference on our computer in the office. After that I called Laura and her family to make sure they were still all ready to attend the 5 o’clock session and they told me they were all getting ready and planning on going. We had previously told them to go to a different chapel to view conference because it wasn’t going to be shown in our church, but we got everything working in our chapel so when I called Laura and her family I told them they could just come to our chapel thinking it would be easier. Well the session began and they didn’t come, I just sat there listening with my chair in the hallway so I could see the front door just in case they were coming late. I remember just listening to what Elders L. Tom Perry and David B. Bednar spoke about and sitting and thinking how perfect the talks were for that family. They didn’t show up for the whole session so we went to their house after to see what happened, because only an hour and a half before the session they told me they were getting ready. What ended up happening is that when I told them that they could come watch conference in our chapel, they thought it wasn’t playing anymore in the other chapel and there are no buses Sunday night going to our chapel, so it would have been easier for them to just go to the other one, so they all got ready and were going to walk, but then it started raining and they realized it is a pretty long walk, and Juan had some things to do later that night and didn’t think he would get back on time, so they just stayed home. They would have went and seen conference if I hadn’t told them to come to our chapel, I just thought it would be easier for them, but I guess that is how it goes sometimes. They are going to come to regular church this Sunday, and I am going to try to get them to watch some of the talks on the internet. They know so much about the gospel, so much, it surprises me sometimes, because the mom just reads and reads, we gave them a new member packet of books and she is reading through Gospel Principles, teachings of the prophets, the little book for temple preparation, pretty much everything, but there is still just some little thing that is keeping her from getting baptized. I really think she is just afraid of change, afraid to believe that everything she has learned her whole life isn’t right. But I’m positive she has felt the spirit and in the Lord’s time it will touch her enough to let her know of a surety that she needs to get baptized.

Monday- We have a missionary here that is really sick and can’t really even walk because of it, I had to take him to the airport at 6:30 in the morning so he could fly to Buenos Aires to be checked by the area doctor and then pick him up again later that night. After dropping him off I had to drive with one missionary to the center of Immigrations downtown for him to sign in, I took everyone that needed to sign the week before, but this missionary is out in a place where there isn’t really service so I wasn’t able to get a hold of him so he ended up going separate from everyone else. He signed and we left and ran a quick errand across the city and got a call from the lawyers that he had to come back and sign something else, so we didn’t get back to the office until about one in the afternoon. By that time that day I hadn’t showered, shaved, eaten or studied the whole day. After that President also had to deal with a different missionary and had a special interview late in the afternoon with him, President had been discussing with the missionary to stay for a while now, but he decided to go home, and so Monday night I got his flight plans and had to get everything ready for his flight on Tuesday.

Tuesday- I got to the office bright and early to weigh the missionary’s bag and get him all ready for his flight, I had to go back to immigrations for him to sign out of the country, then we went to the airport and dropped him off to go back home. It was actually a really sad experience, right before he left the office to go to the airport he was able to call his family and I don’t think he realized until right then how hard going back to life early was really going to be. All he knew is that he didn’t like the mission, didn’t like his companion, and he wanted to get home. Then, when he was going home like he wanted to, he realized the environment that he was going to have to go back to wasn’t at all what he had imagined. He had been fighting some depression and things of that sort since he got to the mission in August and he had so much help here in the field, access to great mission doctors, almost 200 missionaries trying to help him, and an environment far away from the reasons he developed his problems in the first place. After his phone call home you could tell he didn’t really realize how great he really had it here, so it was actually really sad to see him go off by himself and walk into the terminal. I hope he is doing alright now and maybe he’ll be able to come back someday, decide it really was what he wanted to do, I just hope more than anything he really holds strong to his testimony, no matter how little it was, so he doesn’t let this experience become an excuse to leave the church.

Wednesday- So after I sent Elder Jensen home early, the next day Elder Rush went home early also, but this one was planned. His release date is the 27 of this month, but he had permission to go home early because he is part of the marine core and has basic training starting in less than 2 weeks. So I took him to immigrations, to go shopping for some mission memorabilia, and then he was off to the airport also. Other than that, there wasn’t too much Wednesday, the only big challenge I had was booking a hotel for President in Pedro Juan. He is there right now he is on a trip to do some training of local leaders and interview the missionaries out there, but apparently the 12th is a holiday in Brazil, so getting a hotel for him was way harder than normal. I called 4 hotels on Tuesday and only one had any rooms, except one room in this really nice hotel, and the only room open was the presidential suite, 950 mil guaranies a night, which is about $200. So I booked the suite because there was nothing else and told President on Wednesday. He told me it was too expensive and I needed to find a different room, so I spent a good part of the afternoon calling hotels. I got a hotel list in Ponta Pora, that is the city on the Brazil side, of 10 hotels and just started calling all of them one by one, not a single hotel had rooms except the very last one, but the hotel didn’t have a website, pictures, and it was only 150 mil guaranies a night, which is only about
$30. So I called up President and told him the situation and he told me to cancel the old reservation and to book the other hotel. I talked to him yesterday to see how the hotel was and he told me, “It is something to sleep on.” Moral to the story, I think I need to make a note for myself and future secretaries to book hotels well in advance, but everything turned out alright, I think.

Thursday- So Thursday was actually a pretty normal day, there wasn’t anything to outstanding, honestly thinking back I can’t really remember anything I did, which hopefully means it was just a normal day and I did everything right, hopefully.

Friday- On Friday both of the assistants and President and his wife were out of town, which means the office Elders had the whole office to themselves, which means we went over to Super Seis, the big grocery store here, and made no bake cookies in the kitchen while our chef was making us lunch. They turned out to be really good, but they ran out quick. Then just as we were getting ready to leave to work we got a phone call from a stake president in Ecuador telling us that the father of Elder Lucas, who is actually our Zone Leader right now, pasted away Thursday night. I guess he had been really sick with complications of diabetes, had already had both of his legs amputated because of it, and was already about 80 years old, but obviously it still came as a shock to Elder Lucas. So after I got the call I called up President so he could pass the bad news, and then we waited in the office so Elder Lucas could come and talk to his family. It was tough to see him have to go through that, but he is doing a lot better now. He is one of the best missionaries I know in the mission, and is actually on the little office list of potential new assistants, he is a convert to the church too, so I don’t know if his family are members, if not hopefully this can help the family come together in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Saturday- Friday afternoon we got a bunch of extra mattresses put in our house so Friday night we lined them all up in our living room and had wrestling matches to celebrate P-day eve, when we finally got to going to bed Elder Dailey and I decided to sleep outside; we set up our beds in the back yard, which has razor wire and an electric fence, so don’t worry, and camped out for the night. We woke up in the morning, got things cleaned up, and had a two on two soccer game in the backyard, ate, studied, and then came to the church to play some more soccer, three on three this time. After that we all pitched in for Elder Ruiz, the Mexican of the office, to make us fajitas and now we are writing our families. I think the original plan involved sleeping after emails, but I don’t think we’ll have time now. I still don’t know what our night will bring us, hopefully some good new investigators and lots of people that want to go to church!

Anyway, that is pretty much the week, there were a lot of ups and downs, it was actually a pretty rough week, but P-day eve and P-day have made up for it, and I don’t think there is really anything big coming up next week, so we’ll try hard to devote a lot to our areas in the coming week. I love you all sooo much, Elder Adamson V

Week 46 in Paraguay

So, as you probably can imagine, I didn’t have much of a P-day with conference and everything today. I am already loving conference, the talks have been so great and really helpful. I want to try and use of lot of the things said about prophets in my lessons, it seems like that has been a pretty big topic today, prophets and the importance of following them. I also really enjoyed President McConkie in the Sunday School, he shared a lot of good things I can apply in my teachings. He touched on a few of the things that dad wrote me about in his last letter, thanks Dad. I am really excited for the sessions tomorrow, Laura’s family will be going, hopefully it can really help them progress. They aren’t really progressing much anymore, it has been really hard actually. Estela, the mom, is starting to get frustrated during lessons, and to avoid contention it seems like we always somehow get off subject. I really honestly feel like we have done everything and they still haven’t decided to get baptized, so hopefully Conference tomorrow can really help them. There has to be some way to better teach them by the spirit so they can feel the need to be baptized. I just don’t think they have recognized that spirit yet, they definitely see that it is something good in their lives that is bringing blessings. Something else has got to happen, so we’ll see what happens, but we might have to start lightening it up a little going to their house. We have a convert there at least, so I don’t feel like it is really for nothing because Laura is still progressing, we are trying to get her to go to the temple and she seems to be getting pretty excited about it. We really do need to try and seriously start looking for more things in our area. This week we found a new family, a wife and her husband, but they weren’t at the return appointment. We’ll see how that goes, we are going to go and try and visit them before Priesthood starts, hopefully we can teach them a little today and get them to go somehow tomorrow to see some of conference.
To answer the few questions at the end of your letter, my companion is from Reno Nevada. He is a convert to the church and he is a great elder. It is so much fun being with him. We have the same amount of time in the mission. We are learning the new curriculum together and applying it in our teaching. Another thing, he is way into cars and just stoked to be able to drive. My time behind the wheel might decrease a little, but I’m alright with that, I’ve still been driving a lot. I will still have to drive for parts of my job, so I don’t miss out too much, plus it is really amusing just to see how much joy and pleasure he gets from being behind a steering wheel, so sometimes I let him drive just so I can watch.
As for the baptisms, as I already said, they didn’t go through, and the more we go over the less sure I am about if it is going to happen, we are praying specifically for them every day and I know the Lord will only bless them based on their diligence, so I am learning patience a little. I guess we do have time, Elder Dailey and I aren’t really planning on leaving the area any time soon. Anyway, I love you all so much, sorry the letter is a little short, but like I said, I didn’t really have the ideal P-day today, so I am going to have to go so we can get a few more things done before the Priesthood session starts. I love you all sooo much, enjoy the rest of conference! Elder Adamson V

Week 45 in the Mission Happy Birthday Year Mark

We have had another quick week here in the mission, with a lot of big days for me,
20th birthday, my one year mark, and I was able to go to the temple this week because conference is coming up. That was probably the highlight of my week, being able to go to the temple, it was a really awesome experience, spiritual experience. It was a lot better this time because I actually understand everything, the Spanish that is a least, the first time I went in Paraguay I understood a lot because of how often I had gone in English, so I could follow really well, but this time I was actually understanding, following the Spanish like a Spanish speaking person, not just because I can translate it into English, if that makes any sense.
That made it more enjoyable and meaningful, and at the same time it was Thursday, which was the same day I finished a year of my mission, so I was able to make it a kind of “rendimiento” with my Heavenly Father, everyone that speaks Spanish will understand that, well, maybe not, because I heard it has a different meaning here. I really can’t find an English word that does it justice, the word means an evaluation of performance, or a report, here the people use it to say a testing week, if they have to rendir, it means they have to take a test, but anyway, I’m getting off topic. The whole time in the temple I was just sitting there thinking about what I had been able to accomplish my first year, really pleading for forgiveness for mistakes, and seeking an approval of what I had done well, so I thought about that through the whole session, really focusing on understanding what was being said and looking for things that could help me be better.

As I waited to pass through to the celestial room I started to really notice how much the Lord has done on my mission for me. How much he has helped me, lifted me up, and how much he has really built upon my weaknesses to make me a better person. and as I entered into the celestrial room, I just felt the most amazing peace, like I was supposed to be there, like I was being accepted into his presence. It was amazing, it was probably one of the best feelings I have felt in my life; I truly felt his grace. There are a lot of things I have done, or didn’t do, on my mission I wish I would have done differently, but that night in the temple I really understood that I don’t have to, I don’t have to go back and try and change all those little things, all I have to do is live today a better person than I was yesterday, and let His love help me grow to be better the next time, because I have been forgiven. He is the reason I have grown, I am way too human to give any credit to myself, but I know that if I were to have to go to Him right now He would accept me, because He is whom I have put my trust in.

Those moments in the Celestial Room have really made me see things in a different light, and have really made me, at the same time, want to really reach my full potential. I know I’m not perfect, but the temple shows us that we can be, if we are doing all we can. That’s a little quote from Elder Gage, he told me that in the Celestial Room, we had a really nice conversation in the Celestial Room, it was actually kind of sad, it was like when you’re with all your buddies hanging out for the last time before you have to go on some big trip and you won’t see them for a really long time. Elder Gage is definitely one of the best friends I have in the mission as of now, and I’ll probably be here in the office to drive him home in January. I really hope he goes to BYU or something, or we can get together after the mission somehow, he has helped me out more than any other companion I have had, and it’s going to take a lot for any other to help me grow more.

Anyway, so all in all I had a really great week, we have still been working really hard with the rest of Laura’s family, there is definitely something developing there, but there is just something lacking, I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m going to do the best I can to find it. We had a really good lesson this week with them reading Alma 32, we went through where they are and how they can really receive a perfect knowledge that they need to be baptized, I explained that we get the seed and we experiment on it and it will begin to grow, Heavenly Father will help our faith in Jesus Christ increase, but we have a responsibility still to act upon our faith, we can’t expect Heavenly Father to give us the perfect knowledge Himself, or we wouldn’t be using our faith. We started reading in verse 28 and we went to verse 35, but I really stopped in 34 were it says, “And now, behold, is your knowledge perfect? Yea, your knowledge is perfect in that thing, and your faith is dormant;” I asked them why they thought our faith would be dormant, then I explained that principle, how we don’t receive any testimony until after the trial of our faith, the scripture really is trying to say that because our knowledge is perfect our faith is dormant, but they understood what I was trying to say and I think the application is really what they needed, it was a really good lesson, I know they felt the Spirit in it and they accepted a date to be baptized next week, they are still a little not sure about it though, so I don’t know if it will happen, we will make sure we do all we can so they can get baptized this next week, but if not, it’ll be done in the Lord’s time.

That is pretty much all there was to the week, other than that the area has been really tough lately, we haven’t really been getting in to teach anyone new, but they will come, as long as we keep being diligent. Sorry, I didn’t answer too many of the questions in this letter, but I think you got basically the feelings for the birthday week. Tell Merrill I’m really excited for him, I did know him a little bit before we moved to New York, but not too much, but I’m sure he’ll remember me if you tell him congrats for me. Keep me updated on the other mission calls, and see how Nick is doing for me. It is funny that you mentioned him coming home because I was walking in the streets with my companion the other day and he asked me what I thought my friends from 8th grade were doing. I immediately thought of Nick and Tim, and how they were both on missions, then it hit me that Nick was either home or going home in the next week, because I had seen his parents in September at BYU when they dropped him off at the MTC, so I was right. It is so weird to think he is already a returned missionary, he might even be married before I get home...

Anyway, I love you all so much, can’t wait for General Conference, I will write you between sessions on Saturday, love you, Elder Adamson V

Laura's Baptism

Week 44 in Paraguay Office District Leader

This week was probably the most stressful week of my entire mission. There was so much to do with changes and everything I thought I was going to go crazy (sorry Dad, but that is a correct use of the word, love you Dad) Anyway, when Thursday night came I was probably the happiest man alive, it was like a huge task was completely finished, and I didn’t even mess anything up. The major downside though to the week was we didn’t get to missionary work in our area very much; Monday we only got 2 ½ hours in our areas, nothing on Tuesday or Wednesday, then about 3 hours on Thursday and then back to normal on Friday, so with all that I have only been out in the area doing missionary work this week for about 10 hours, that is less than I would normally do in one day before I came into the mission office. Good news though, every companionship in Campo Grande baptized this week, so we have 3 confirmations for church on Sunday. More news, at changes I got called to be the office District Leader, so I’m going to start doing baptismal interviews and teaching district meetings on Tuesdays. I was able to do my very first interview this last Wednesday for a baptism on Thursday, It was this investigator that has been investigating the church since before I even got to the office, and she new everything perfectly, it was the easiest interview I have ever had to do... Anyway, so we had 3 people get baptized on Tuesday, the Assistants baptized two and Elder Gage, Elder Dailey and I baptized Laura, her whole family was at the baptism and the service went super well. We just went on Thursday to see how they were doing and talked a little to Fatima, Laura’s younger sister, and she told us that before she had never really taken anything we said seriously, and when she saw Laura getting ready to be baptized and finally get baptized, she realized that is was something that could really be true and important, and told us that she is going to start really reading to know, that was what we were hoping for, that Laura getting baptized would help the rest of her family really discover the gospel on their own. Laura is awesome, she is so willing to do what God wants her to do, she is a single mom, 23 with a 4 year old son, and she is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and she told us she is going to start reading with Fatima so she can help her sister discover what she has discovered. This family has been all I can really think about lately, I want to help them so bad, and it has been some of the best experiences watching them find out for themselves and be blessed by the gospel. Juan Jose told us the other day about his conversion, the Mom is always looking things up on Mormon.org, Fatima is trying to find the answer now, and Laura is getting confirmed tomorrow. I am so grateful for the work that we are doing with this family, teaching people like them is what keeps you going and makes it all worth it.

Anyway, sorry this email is a little scrambled, we just played some soccer against the south mission and I don’t have any energy at all, it is starting to get hot again, and its only September, it is supposed to be in the 90’s here tomorrow, but anyway, I’m still hanging in there, I don’t have much time left, I hope everyone has a great week, it is going to be the last week of my first year, time is going by way too fast, CRAZY, I love you all so much, Elder Adamson V

Week 43 in Paraguay Change 7 Week 5

Another hectic week in the office, every week I get into the office and think it is going to be a little more relaxed so I can get caught up on a lot of things, and then it is just a hectic week just the same. Next week there are changes, so that definitely won't be a relaxed week, so I guess you just never get a chance to relax in the office, but that is a good thing, it is making the time go by really fast, I have almost already been here in the office just as long as I was in San Lorenzo, it felt like an eternity in San Lorenzo and I feel like I have just got here, maybe that is just a blessing from the Lord though because he knows how long I really am going to be here. Anyway, today has been a pretty crazy P-day, more like it hasn't been a P-day at all, we have been doing office work all morning and just now I've got some time to write and do some things, but anyway, I don't really have too much time to write because of that. Anyway, we are having a baptism this Tuesday! I am so excited, we are baptizing Laura, one of the girls from this family we are teaching. The rest of the family still wants to wait a little while, but I had probably one of the best lessons in all of my mission with them a few days ago, it really just made all of it worth it, I don't really even know what happened in the lesson, but I felt different, really accomplished, like I was really doing absolutely everything I could for someone, and they were actually understanding and learning and willing to change. It put everything into perspective, seeing all of them happy for literally eternity, and seeing how I stood right in the middle of it, it was really one of the best moments in my entire mission, something I will never forget. It was also probably one of the hardest moments of my mission too, because I bore my testimony and everything, and they really understood, and Laura told us she wanted to get baptized with Juan Jose, her brother who had already decided he wanted to get baptized but has never gone to church. In the kindest way possible we had to tell him that he couldn't get baptized yet until he goes to church a few times, I have never had someone tell me they wanted to get baptized on a specific date and had to tell them no, and I really hope I never have to again, but it was a very good lesson and he understands a lot better what he has to do to be able to be baptized, and he honestly wants to so he will get baptized, just not on Tuesday. Hopefully Laura's baptism will help out the whole family, the whole family is going to go and hopefully the experience will help them all decide that it is the right thing to do. They are such great people and I feel honored to be the missionary to teach them, they really have made my whole mission worth it, and I hope through my teaching they can feel that importance that I place in them. Anyway, sorry to cut things a little short, but I really don't have too much time, I just want you all to know I love you so much and I am so grateful for the calling that I have, I am coming to appreciate it more and more everyday. I love you all so much, Elder Adamson V

Week 42 in Paraguay Change 7 Week 4

So this week was a week of changes, there is a whole new office staff now! Elder Payne and Elder Daily came into the office and started working on Tuesday, you know what that means, I am the oldest office Elder other than the assistants with time in the office and in the mission, how crazy is that! Elder Daily and I did come together though, so I guess I can’t really say I have more time than him in the mission, but now that I think about it, I do think I got off the plane before him...

Anyway, Elder Decker, the old records guy, left on Tuesday and is a Zone Leader now in Limpio, he only trained Elder Payne for one day and Elder Payne has been working like crazy ever since. Elder Gage on the other hand is training Elder Dailey for two and a half weeks, so we still get to have some fun before he leaves the office. Elder Dailey is a great guy, the last three days in a row Elder Gage couldn’t come with us into our area because of divisions and things, so Elder Dailey and I have been teaching together already for a while now. He has a lot of stories and we get along great, we kind of teach a little differently, but that always happens with new companions, we’ll figure that out really quick. The office has been pretty hectic lately. The new mission President is still trying to get everything up to date and make sure everything works really efficiently. He is all about efficiency, which is giving us a lot of work now, but I think in the long run it’ll give the office Elders a lot less work. They will start working in their areas a lot earlier in the day, I think once the office staff that is in the office now gets out, President will change it so it so office elders will get out into to their teaching and finding areas sooner in the day. I’ve had tons of assignments lately just proof-reading things, loading things into this new system President has made, and going over computer files to see how we can put everything into this system to make it easier and work faster. It has been a lot of work, but it really makes the time go by so fast, I can’t believe it is September already, I’ve been in the office for over two months now and I feel like I just got here. Oh, and originally President had told me I would be in the office for 6-8 months, but he is making it sound now that everyone will leave the office once they have been in the office for 6 months, which would put me out of the office right at the new year, so who knows, maybe I’ll be getting out of here a lot sooner than I had thought before, I won’t get my hopes up though, just in case, I’d rather leave thinking I was going to stay than stay thinking I was going to leave, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, so a lot of good things have been happening lately, usually it is really hard to find new investigators in our area, but lately we haven’t been doing too many contacts and investigators are just coming out of nowhere. We went back to this old investigator this week, this really old lady that can hardly move, but has a really big family, just to see if we might be able to teach her daughter a little more because she had seemed kind of interested, but instead we met the ladies grandson that has 15 years, and he was really humble and really awesome, we had a really good lesson one with him and said a prayer on our knees with him before we left, we are going to be going back to him tonight, we’ll see what happens. Then after that we got another new going back to an old investigator, then another off of a contact, then another in a contact. The last one we got last night is a professional soccer player here in Paraguay and was super nice and humble, but I think it is going to be hard to get him to go to church because of his career, plus he told us that he has a girlfriend and because of his career he doesn’t get to see her much so he goes to her house on the weekends, but he really wants to learn and hopefully that is enough to change his life.

Our family has been doing really well too, they didn’t go to church last week, I think because of the mom, but this week we were able to teach them how to mark scriptures and pray to receive answers and I think that has really been helping them to discover the truth of the gospel. Thanks for the help, with why they didn’t like church, but I think the problem was more of the opposite, the church is definitely reverent, so reverent you could fall asleep sometimes, the average age of our ward is probably around 45-50, and our investigators that went are 19 and 23 and they thought the meeting was boring, there were a few members that went up to give their talks and just read from the Liahona, so it is understandable for their first time there, but we went over a few things with them the last couple weeks to try and help them get more out of the meeting so it isn’t as boring. I just keep praying they’ll decide to come back though, we put a baptismal date with them for the 14th, but every time we go over there the mom tells us to have patience with them, and the son just got a new job where he has to work on Sunday and he doesn’t even have any attendance yet, so we’ll see what really happens, but I am going to make sure they get baptized before I leave the office at least, we are trying to push for them to get baptized before Elder Gage leaves, but I don’t know if it is going to work out that way, but we are praying for them and they are definitely progressing, we just have to get them more excited about committing to go to church every Sunday.

I will try to do some epic things this week to make the letter even more awesome than usual. Spiritual thought of the day, something I thought about during studies, we were looking over good quotes from the last mission President and his wife and one that his wife used to always say was, “If you want to be great, go to Alma 48” that’s the chapter that talks about how if all men would and ever would be like Moroni, Hell would have no power. I thought of how Mormon was writing that part and I wondered, maybe Mormon named his son Moroni because he was writing this part and he wanted to name his son after the example of Captain Moroni, just a thought, I wanted to look at the dates to maybe see if it was possible, tell me what you think, also I was thinking in Guaraní, which is an ancient American language, when you put “i” on the end of a word it means the same thing but little, and Moron was a named from Jerusalem right, maybe Moroni just means little Moron, or like the son of Moron, maybe that is where the name came from, just interesting thoughts I had today.



P.S. About the letter you got, I didn’t type it, the President’s wife did, but I did create a Word Document out of it with Mail Merge fields so I could Merge the names of all the Elders, I printed it, matched the pictures, and put them in the envelopes, but I didn’t write it, only proof read it, love you all again! ¡Rohayhu che familiakuéra! (I love you my family)