Week 9 in Paraguay

So today I have officially been in Paraguay longer than I was in the Mission Training Center, in Provo, Utah. This is such a crazy thought to me. I can´t even believe how fast the time is going now. This last week went by super fast and we got a lot of work done. We still have so much to do for our Branch, but it is growing little by little.
I forgot to put in my last letter we finally moved into our new house. We have other missionaries living with us too, Elder Brazier and Elder Gumiel, from California and the south ite of Argentina.
This week we did a lot of divisions and we got tons of new investigators and a lot of work done. We found this one girl who has gone to church before and always reads and does everything she is asked. She may just be the last baptism Elder Dennis has on his mission. We found a few other people too that seem pretty interested, but we have been going through investigators pretty fast. It is still hard and for the 3rd week in a row now we didn´t have any investigators in church. We have been, however, reaching our goals for total attendance and this last Sunday we had 22 in church, right on track to have 40 in church by the end of the change on February 14, your anniversary! (Dad and Mom's 35th wedding anniversary) Anyway, this week I am really going to work on being one with Elder Dennis. He has been thinking a lot about going home, but we are trying to stay focused on the work.
I´ll just end with this little spiritual experience I had walking down the road the other day. So it was nightime already and the sky was super clear and right now down here you can see Orion really well so I looked up to try and find it. I found these three stars that looked like they could be Orion's belt and then I realized as I looked around it that it wasn´t Orion, just some imposter belt. I then looked around the sky again and found the real Orion and right as I was thinking about how profound this experience was and I could make a story out of this experience, a shooting star shot right through Orion, the real one. It was funny to me that if I had focused too long on the thing that seemed to be right, but really had no substance around it, I would have missed the beautiful shooting star. I know we need to focus on what matters most and make sure it is the real thing, because Satan is going to try to trick us into thinking something is good or right when it really is just an imposter belt that catches our eyes. This was a special little spiritual experience I had the other night. I hope I can start talking about some more investigators and such next week. I love you all and I am so grateful for all you do for me while I´m out here, Love Elder Adamson V

Week 8 in Paraguay

So there isn´t really a lot to say about the work this week because not really a whole lot happened, we really don´t have very many people right now and I really don´t have tons of time to write this email because so many people wrote me this week, I wrote back to everyone but Bert and Liz, I promise I´ll get you one next week, its just that I want to write back in Spanish and it takes a little bit of time with the typing because I´m not to used to it yet, but you are first on the list next week and you got a little shout out in this letter so I think that is almost even better.
Last week we had zone conference and Elder Dennis had to go into Asuncion a day early for a different conference because he is a district leader so I was with Elder Gumiel for one day. He is an Elder from the south of Argentina that is actually going home with me, so we are both kind of new and the day was super fun. Anyway, the big part of the week was zone conference, it was a super awesome experience for me and it was a lot of fun too. Because we are out of our area when we go in for zone conference it ends up being the whole day because our bus doesn´t leave back to Pedro Juan until 10pm. Zone conference ends at 4pm so we get to hang out at the office for most of the day. I got to meet my brother in the mission too, Elder Spencer, the other missionary that Elder Dennis trained. He is a pretty crazy guy, really funny and stuff. The really cool part at zone conference was just the spirit there and being able to feel the inspiration our President has. One of my great experiences on my mission was the interview I was able to have with President. I was feeling kind of bad going in because I really felt like there is more I could be doing here. I walked into the interview and President Wade just starts by saying how special I am and how many gifts and blessings I have that will help in my missionary work. He said that he was talking to his wife about how I have a maturity greater than a lot of missionaries and how I just know the importance of this work and how great of a blessing that is. Then he said there is a quote about Michael Jordan that says he was talented enough to be complacient, but he abhorred the thought of wasting his talent. I said, "That is exactly how I feel and that I have been complacient." and then he just said, "Elder, you know what you have to do don´t you," and then he explained some things to me. It was so powerful because I know how blessed I am and I really feel like I have kind of been too complacient (I don´t even know if I´m spelling that right) but I promise that I am going to start to be a little more bold, actually a lot more bold, so that this work can move forward and so that we can get the goals that we have been asked to have and blessed to be able to achieve. I love you all and I am so grateful for your help in this work. Mom the letter was exactly what I needed and I am so grateful that you are inspired to know what I need. I love this work and the time is going by too fast. Love you all and remember the Lord loves you too, Elder Ryan Adamson

Week 7 in Paraguay

So I was just writing you an awesome email and had already spent 15 minutes writing it all and the guy here closed out my computer when one of the other missionaries went to pay, so it isn´t going to be as awesome now, but I will try to make it just as good. Elder Dennis and I are still together and everything is going really well. It was a pretty slow week last week because of changes and everything going on, but we are still working pretty hard. Elder Dennis got a letter from President last week with all of the goals he has for our Rama for this next change, pretty much what he wants done before Elder Dennis goes home. He wants us to have 40 people in church, an Elder´s Quorum President and a Ward Mission leader. Just to kind of put that in perspective yesterday we had eight people in church and zero of them were investigators. Only two of them have callings and one of those two is the branch president, so we have a lot of work ahead of us, but I know if we try our best we will be able to get the goals before the end of the change. Things are already starting to look up a little in the direction we are trying to go. We have been working a lot lately with some less actives and it has been great to see them develop their trust in us and allow us to help them with their problems. Pretty much the biggest issue right now is the massive amount of gossip we have going on in the Rama. So many people just don´t want to go to church because someone offended them by talking to someone else about something or other. Others are just offended because they talked to someone about something and then other members were talking about them. There is also a problem with people living one way on Sunday and a different way during the week. So we have all these doubts and things we are trying to work with to try to get these people back to church. With our investigators, we had 4 people who were for sure going to go to church and none of them showed up. Two we know were in the hospital with relatives that are really sick, but the other two, one of which was supposed to be baptized this week, we have no idea what happened. The one girl now is going to have to be baptized next week. We figure to get the goal we are going to have to reactivate and we have to baptize about 10 new people before the end of the change. We have this one family of 7 people that seems pretty interested and really wants to listen and do what is right, but the only problem is they don´t want to commit to going to church. Their family would really help the Rama though so we are going to really try and solve their doubt this week. Pretty much though we are going to do a lot of finding this week to get some people to teach and baptize.
As for the new apartment we are going to be moving in this Thursday. I got some sweet videos of us moving in Elder Brazier and his comp Elder Gumiel, but we didn´t have any beds and things, we just bought them today and they are going to be delivered on Thursday, so we are going to move in then.
As for the rain, its raining right now, we get a lot of storms here, my companion says that it is a lot more rain than anywhere else in Paraguay. It keeps it pretty cool here. I´m actually pretty lucky because I´ll be here all summer and though it is really hot here, it is one of the coolest places in Paraguay. Can´t wait to see where I am next summer... I´m going to stay here in Pedro Juan for at least 2 more changes because when Elder Dennis goes home I have to be here to show the new missionary the area.
I´ve been pretty healthy here, luckily, all I have had was that one time I was sick. I believe the worm I had in my foot is spelled pique, but I´m not sure, it might be a Guaraní word in which case that would be a wrong spelling. I have pitures of it though I am sending home this week. I finally got all my pictures on CD´s so I´m sending home 4 CDs of pictures home this week, MTC and all up to right now, hope you enjoy it, it takes about 4 weeks for packages to get out there but I hope you enjoy it once it gets there.
The missionary Scott played basketball with from my mission was from my zone. He just went home last change and he is from Boise. His name is Elder McMurdie.

Week 6 in Paraguay Happy New Year 2010

I only have 6 minutes to write to you and a whole lot to say, I promise next weeks letter will be longer. For now I´m just going to have to answer your questions really quick and give you some good news. First off, changes were moved to Thursday instead of Wednesday because the new Elders are coming a little late so we still haven´t found anything out, but we´re pretty sure that Elder Dennis and I are going to stay out here together, tell you for sure next week though.

Your question about comments of the whole killing things, that´s just how they say it here for some reason. There´s a whole system. Because I am Elder Dennis´s first companion therefore I am his Kid, he´s my Dad. I have a brother in the mission, Elder Spencer, who I still haven´t met. Who you are born with is your father, or in other words you are born into the mission and your first companion becomes your father. The last companion you have you kills you, just an expression for your leaving the mission and going home. I don´t know where all the jargon came from, I didn´t make it up.

Christmas and New Years were both awesome, I have some great pictures from both of them. We should be moving into a different apartment this week, we´ll be living with two other missionaries there too, and they´re awesome so it should be fun. There are still people doing our wash, that´s how they do it in the whole mission so its pretty awesome. Anyway, good news, I finally made a CD of the MTC pictures and some of the ones here. I have a lot more I didn´t get to put on anything yet, so there should be more soon, but a CD of pictures is coming for sure really soon.