WE ARE UP IN UTAH FOR CHRISTMAS AND MY BROTHER DAVID WAS STAYING WITH US IN MY PARENTS CABIN. I HAD THEM WRITE A FEW WORDS TO JAKE.

Feliz feliz Navidad

My thoughts while reading the letter:

50 years later and Uncle Dave still knows Spanish! I kid. No impressive. Close to errorless. Well done! I hope to be like him!

Oh and props to Danny and Lauren. Called it! And Zach and his BYU squeeze.

I especially enjoyed two phrases that I would have never thought would be said in the same sentence: Party at grandma´s house, and way out of control. Congratulations!

1) Where are you?
Im in Campiña, Suba, Bogota, Colombia! It´s a rockin. Quite possibly the biggest and best ward in Colombia! 250 active poderoso members. I felt like i was back in the states for a little bit with a piano on Sunday and a not-completly tone deft congragation. (p.s. i was wondering how many members are in our ward, people ask me frequently). If I haven’t mentioned before, tis only a very, I mean very select few that can sing here. Therefore, the hymns are a little rough here, but I love it. Anyways, lets talk campiña. Bogota is cold. Basically its late Utah fall right now. I really have no idea what the temperature is because they use Celsius here, and even with celcius, ha I still have no idea. all I know is I sleep with two blankets and my toes are cold most of the day. But I love it. We have a baptism and marriage of a couple this week. Fam Beroy, some allstar missionaries decided baptize the kids of the family ha like 3 between 8-12, instead of actually working and trying to get all the papers ready for there wedding. They´ve been attending church for a year, but nobody before my companion wanted to do the work to get them married, the birth and marriage system in this country is messed, its very hard to get everything ready for a marriage. Anyways, there were two families baptized the week before I came, and one this week, and were working on the papers for another family right now. Its sweet, finally get to work with families, all my investigators before were single. We basically work purely of references here. It’s the best. This past Sunday we went to church and by the end had close to the whole week filled with appointments. Oh and food is a lot better. They actually believe in serving something other then chicken rice and potatoes here. It rocks. There is salad with almost every lunch. FINALLY!

2) Do you have access to phone on Christmas day?
It´s business, it´s business time! So yeah, with much waited adeu, 11:30 utah time, 25 de December. Its on! It’s the final countdown! I´m going to call from an international phone booth. Let´s say we talk 2 hours. It´ll only be twenty bucks. I´m going to ask if I can barrow a phone and call from the apartment, would be better. I´ll email again if im going to do that so you can load up the phone card.
) Will you have access to Skype on Christmas day?
Ahh, we can probably for a little but, but don´t think its possible to do both at the same time. Hablarémos.
4) What time do you think you can call on Christmas day? (Your time)
Its 1:30 my time
5) How much do you weight now? (just thought I would throw that in)
I have no idea, like 185 kg? I´m pretty sure I´ve lost weight the past 3 months. I´ll I really know from whether I'm gaining or loosing weight is from how my belt fits. So I´ve moved two nouches down from where I was when I got here, ha if that’s any help. Everyone tells me that I look older then my photo from my farwell. Don´t know. Probably happened when I turned 20. viejo.
6) How many minutes do you have on you're calling card?
No idea! If I decide to use it, i´ll give you all the information
7) Did you or can you rent a cell phone for Christmas?
I´ll check!
8) Send us your calling card number so we can reload or you can do it and charge to credit card.
Deal!
9) Is there a number that we can call you?
Um you can try our cell phone. If I get back on I´ll send it.
10) How long can you talk, is there a limit imposed by the mission president?
I never heard anything, I think there might be a rule in the mission handbook, haha but i´ll read it after Christmas. I think 2 hrs is good.

Welp, if I forget something. We´ll talk right!!!

Love you all and I´m anticipating the chat very much so! Be ready for my horrible English!

e. adams

Benchmarks this week

1. Finished 6 months in the mission. Wow, and based on how fast this last change went, I’ll be finished before I know it. Sacres me how fast time passes.
2. I turned 20, thus im half way to 40. Wow. Vejito.
3. I’m not going to experience my first transfer.

Thanks so much for all the love that I found in my email box this afternoon, filled with birthday salutations. I’m pretty sure I have the best family ever. I would love to send you all indvidual thank yous, but consider this like a mass text message you think is just for you!

Note: I’m sorry, I really don’t know how to talk normal in English anymore. In Spanish, many words are similar to words in English, but they are words we don´t use as often, such as, salutations. So if you feel like I talk in 1900’s English, that’s probably why.

It really is when you don’t expect change, it happens. I was pretty positive I had one more change here in Central. but, I was wrong. tomorrow, I’m Bogota bound. Its in a zone called Suba, and the name of my area is called Campiña. It was the second area of E. Moreno, my companion right now, and he said it’s a rockin area. It’s in a gamelo (rich) part of town, but the members work like crazy, thus the have a lot of baptisms there. My new companion will be E. Fernandez from Chili, ha and guess what, it´ll be his last change, meaning he´s going home in 6 weeks. Another trunkie! Woosh. I hear he’s super funny. So maybe we can active the great saying : Work hard. Play hard. WHATS UP!
It’s been a bit different/difficult for the past 8 weeks, felt like, and really was doing everything here in Central. oh well. Hopefully I can help my new companion finish his mission of strong. When I was in the MTC, E. Jefery R. Holland came and talked to us, and told us that ‘the success of your companion, should be more important to you than your own success.´ I just remember that quote this week, and i´m going to do my best to apply it for the rest of my mission. Before when my companions didn’t want to work I would just say, welp, I guess ill do it all then. I´m sure there is a better way. I’ll try to find it.

I got to talk to E. Reynoso on the phone yesterday, it was great. We had our difficult times, but we left being great, great friends. I love forming lifelong relationships.

Oh yeah, about my birthday, ha well I didn’t really remember it, thus I didn’t really tell anyone about it. Ha but one of my favorite families here found out and bought me a cake, and sang to me. It was great. Then we sang and ate more cake with the elders from pinos, when we got back to the house. I´m going to miss them all.

As a matter of fact, I’m really going to miss everything about Bucaramanga and my plentidud of great friends here. Honeslty, it feels like a home to me. Like its what I know, the streets, people, and sounds. I hope to feel the same love for my other areas to come. Today felt like those days before I left on my mission, saying good bye to the people I love, Feelings of sadness and anxiousness for the things to come. I hope to come back here on my mission. But I know that the Lord needs me in Bogota. Faith is always in the future.

I hope I was a little less missionary and a little more detailed oriented for the request my dear mom this letter!

And I’ll let you know how things go this week in Campiña. IM SURE ITS GOING TO ROCKKKK!

Love you all

L8r sk8rs.

e. adams

it seemed like there were a couple of questions about Christmas call. Honestly, the details are yet to be reviled, but next week I promise!

photos to come!

Because they know not

That adds a little bit of a twist to my exit interview with the Stake President after my mission now that it is Pres. Clayson, he served here in bogota. I believe you said that he served here, in Bucaramanga,if so, please try and find out what barrio (sector) he served in here.

Everything is going great here in central. We continue to be placed in the path of great people who are ready to here the gospel. As of lately I have found so much truth in d&c 123, which talks about my friends ‘’who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it.’’ I then find out what now is my responsibility for these people from the following versus ‘’Therefore, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven— These should then be attended to with great aearnestness.’’

I love this work. The hand of God is in my every day life. There are so many little miracles.

WE HAD SOME FAMILY THAT WANTED TO DONATE TO JAKE ON HIS MISSION THIS CHRISTMAS. HE WANTED TO TAKE THE MONEY AND HELP THE WARD MEMBERS.

Concerning the majority of us like to see where our money goes, and out of complete gratitude for the generosity, here is where the Christmas money has gone thus far…

The ward temple trip was this weekend, and due to the financial situations of many here in barrio central, quite a few well deserving people just couldn’t make it on their own. I talked with the bishop and I let him know that there was help, we made sure that no one else knew where the money was coming from. The relief society president and her husband wanted to be sealed, but the money just wasn’t there. Their daughter began to question if the help from God would come. I’m not saying that it was divine help, but I know that God puts peoples in paths to help them and sometimes answer their prayers. They got back Saturday night, and Sunday happened to be fast and testimony meeting. I listen as Sis. Moreno (relif pres.) bore pure, beautiful testimony of the blessings she had received from the temple, she testified that that Sunday, here in bucaramanga, she knew more than ever that this is the church of Christ. I knew as I looked her in the eyes as she walked back to her bench, that she had been changed, there was a grand light in her eyes and I know that only the comfort and power that is in the House of the Lord can provide that. It was followed by the rest of the members who receive the blessings of the temple. In total 5 people were able go and feel the Love of the Lord Jesus Christ more fully than ever thanks to the generosity of our family. It was the most powerful testimony meeting I have had the privilege of being in, due to the sacrifice they had made and how they were able to bring a little bit of that pure perfect love that is in the temple in to our little chapel.

I love you all.

Aloha, (elder au, who is from Hawaii, taught me today that aloha means hello, goodbye, and I love you)

E. Adams

Decorating the 25 lb watermellon

Colombia's version of decorating pumpkins

Escogidos (the elect)

If an angry stomach is part of thanksgiving, then I felt a little home here for thanksgiving day. Ha! But not worries. I´m doing sooo good! Oh and of course, what was literally a piece from home was I got the package on Thursday! THANKS IT ROCKED! I'm looking for microwave so I can enjoy the feast! Haha honestly it wasn´t till the day before that I realized that thanksgiving was coming when someone asked me `what is that big holiday you have in your country tomorrow?` I wasn´t sure at first. How quick one forgets their roots right?

Well I´d like to take some time to talk about how funny Mom is. Oh gosh. She cracked me up with her comments about the BYU football game. Oh soo good. I´ll now refer to her letter so you can get a taste of the brilliance!

´´ The weather was great I only got cold at the end of the game.
Dad and Mike said it was the worst officiated game they had ever
seen. But they have said that before (HA! SHE´S BRILLIANT!). Utah started out strong with
two field goals but BYU rallied with a field goal and a couple touch
downs. BYU lead most of the game until the last 3 or 4 minutes and
then they got a touch down and some field goals the game was tied at
20 20 with a minute left. Utah got a field goal and BYU came back to
win with a touch down. What a exciting game! I was so glad they won
because Mike would have been grouchy all night (GOLDEN!!).``



While in bed actually reading a talk by Elder Oaks, he talks about how many times, we ´have omitted the weightier matters of the law` (Matt 23:23)

I believe that when we are studying the góspel, and our mind wanders, so much of this is done by the power of the Spirit, which brings to our mind the things He wants us to know. When I was reading this article my mind wandered to when I was young and was on a handful of sports teams and was dependent on Mom for a ride. I thought about how when she was late I would think that the world was litteraly going to end if I wasn´t on time, thus I was very impatient, and often at times rude when she did, as always come. I looked back and realized that I was defiantly omitting the weightier things. I´m pretty sure nothing ever happened from me being late, I actually can´t even remember a result. But what I do remember is my impatience and rudeness. How often is this the case, that we omit the things that really matter, like how we treat others and the development of our character, for things that we think are important at the time. I know at least I do. So mom, i´m sorry for the follies of my youth, and thank all of you for your patience with me.

This week more than any, I learned that God does prepares people to be taught. I didn´t have very many lessons this week, but of the few I did I met some of the children that Heavenly Father has prepared to accept his gospel. In Spanish we call them ¨escogidos¨ (or the elect). As we began to talk about the events the Lord´s hand began to be shown, They didn´t exactly recognize it when they were talking to us, but I knew, and as missionaries we try to help them recognize that call from God. I thank Him everynight for the opportunity to be able to do that. One of the examples was of a great women named Luz Maria. She grew up Protestant, stopped attending that church. Was married and started attending the Catholic church with her Husband, but didn´t like the repetition of prayers, which she felt was contrary to exact nature of prayer. Then she went to a Evanglical church, with a big rock band and screaming and yelling. She knew she couldn´t feel the spirit in that atmosphere, she then got tired of her churches and decided that she as going to just read the bible for her shelf. Two weeks ago her daughter told her that a Church would help her feel more at peace. She then, at that moment, remembered a friend from 8 years ago that was a member and what good things that she had said about her church. She asked the people around the church to find out when it opened. She was there at that time. She felt the peace, felt the love of the members, knew the doctrine was true. It might very while be that Luz Maria won´t miss another Sunday. I know what Elder Brent Nielson said in General Conference is true. ``The need has never been greater. The field has never been whiter. You are called to go “this last time” (Jacob 5:62). There is no greater work; there is no greater call than teaching “all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19)``.

I love this work. I love this people. I love you all.

Feliz dia,

Elder Adams

dia de gracias ( day of thanks)

The golf trip sounded sweet, with an excpetion of the BYU hater (btw wheres my BYU sports corner this week?). They have a couple of Golf courses in Bogota, i´ll have to hit up a bucket of balls when i´m there.

Speaking of Snows. Is Dan married yet?

And before i forget, who is the new Stake President? Did any Apostles visit for the change?

I just realized that my birthday is pretty close. I´ll be twenty. If you do the difficult math, that´s half of 40. ¡Estoy viejo(i´m old)!

Pretty rockin´ week here in Central. We had interviews with the president, and the president did a little bit of lecturing my companion for his trunkie attributes. So needless to say, there was a lot more obediance in our companionship this week, thus a lot more blessings. The Lord blessed us with 12 new investigators this week. Outragous, we had like, six combined with the three weeks before. And to add on to that, we have 4 killer references that we recieved yesterday that we are yet to teach. So yeah, the field is white!

Four of these were the second generation of inactives members. So I don´t know if i mentioned before but in my ward we have a program where we visit all the members (the majority of which are inactive) on their birthdays and give them a little card with a scripture and a message from the bishop. Very simple, cheap, and effective. With this birthday, we didn´t have the oportunity to visit her on the day of, but when we were close yesterday we decided to pass by. It turned out that at the hour we passed by the whole family was gathering together to celeberate her birthday. Which consisted of 5 members, and 4 non-members. The family hadn´t been to church for over 20 years, the father told me that really it was very hard to transport their family to the chapel, cause at this time there was only one in all of Bucaramanga, thus it was far away, and they lost touch of the Church. The lesson went well, the spirit was there, and were heading back on wednesday. The mother, of the family, said that ´God had sent us´. The more and more i look for it, I see his Hand more in my daily life.

I hope with this evidence, along with so much more this week, my companion can learn more the importance of obidience. He has said before that, if your baptizing, and your following the ´important rules´, the others don´t really matter. How absouletly wrong he was. We don´t pick and choose the commandments were going to keep. We try our best to keep them, because we love Him who made them, and we know that if we do keep them, He will bless us abudently.

My beloved Sister Jess -
I know have been bad at getting back to your letters, but if its any bit of consilation, i get them all and love to read them. BIEN HECHO (well done) with the member missionary work. Without a doubt, the Lord place the majority of people he is preparing in the circle of relationships of the members. I share the heartache of watching people, that i love not commiting to live with the knowledge of the truth of the restored gospel.

I don´t know if the missionaries have a shared Alma 32 (faith is like a seed) with her, but if i were there i would make sure that she read it. It helped an investigator we had with the same problem. Like it says in v. 21,faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true. ´ The chapter rocked my world this past week when i read it with the prespective of missionary work, i realized that its mine, and the members responsibilty to help these new converts, that ¨know the seed is good¨ thus they were baptized, to cultivate that seed so that it can grow in to a tree and give forth fruit, which i attributed to a firm testimony or conversion, and not parish and fall away, when they are pressed up against the wall of faith, and begin to question whether that seed was really good or not. But if they have those roots in the Church of Christ, in ´a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall´ (Hel 5:12)

Jess i´m proud of your efforts in this great work. Remember the Lord´s promise to Alma and the Sons of Mosiah: Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success.

The mission has broke my heart many a times. But I find some much comfort in this promise. I know that if i´m patient in the hard times, don´t complain, when it is so easy to do, but press forward with optimsim (wow i have no idea how to spell), success will come.

Wow, enough of my district meeting-esque letter. I love you all, and am so thankful for all that you do, and have done for me.

con mucho amor,

Elder Pipa (what my security guard friend in our complex calls me, haha. Pipa means like fat stomach or a gut. To call someone gordo here is not offensive at all, so i just roll with it, and accept my chubby stomach)

mom dad,
Thanks for the packages! I´ll let you know when i get them.

jess

haha, almost forgot to answer this, im so bad. But just let me know when todd is going to call or what ever, we decide when we call. I don´t know if im going to be here in b/manga or not, so when it get closer i´ll talk to my companion about it. But no worries. probably around 2-5 in colombian time, i think it´s 3 hours ahead. Not sure. Hablaramos (We´ll talk). BTW send the kids my much love for them. miss them when i talk with the kids around here

City Park clean up

So sounds like your birthday was a hit. I love hearing all the great things Preston and Liz say, and I guess before I’m back you´ll be quoting Alaina. Life´s crazy!


So we started of our p-day off with a service project with the ward. Cleaned up this rough park by our house. Bucaramanga is loaded with parks all over the place. They are known as Cuidad Bonita, or Cuidad de Parques. (BTW, ask Bro. Clayson where he served in Bucaramanga. I could talk with some of the missionaries there and find out if ´his fruits remained´ ha don´t say that, i´m sure they´re the poderosos in the barrio)


Anyways this park we pass through is known for its population of ´Mujers de la Vida´ or as we like to call him in the states, prostitutes, and pigeons. Is that the best combination or what! Anyways, while we were cleaning we´re able to talk with the passer byers (I think that is a word in English), and loungers. We talked with some pretty sweet people, got some appointment set. Life rocks. Love productive p-days.
So I had a great week. And what was great, and what we can all do, is try my best to make it that way. I finished the other week feeling like we just weren´t doing all we could. For the past three weeks I´ve been working with trunkie central here in, central. And I felt like I wasn´t doing everything I could to stop ´the trunk´. I knew I was trying hard and doing good things, but I just wasn´t sure I had been doing my absolute best. So I really just tried to work my guts out this week. The thing is that there wasn´t really any change in our week. Not a huge spike in our numbers, they didn´t really even increase much. But I knew that I was trying my hardest and that made all the difference. So many times we don´t see the fruits of our efforts, but we know we did our best, and that’s all that matters. It was though my fastest week, and one of my happiest. It actually is the principle on how salvation is reached. “For we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” (2 Ne. 25:23.) How simple is that. It doesn´t matter who we were, what great things we did, the positions we held, but that we gave our Father that is in Heaven our best effort, our very best effort.


There was one great fruit from this week: basically an already converted investigator. So sweet. Her name is Clarasofia, and she has a good share of friends in the Church, but because of her busy Schedule, she never had the time to talk with the missionaries. We met with her for 45 minutes and were just in awe of how great her and her mom were. Then we had to leave for my English clases. Returned, and taught her for two hours. Ha. She started by asking if we could ¨please¨ teach her more about the book of mormon. Brilliant. We taught about the Restoration of the Gospel, and when we asked if she would read and pray about the book of mormon, to know if it was true, she said that she had already read it and knew that it was true, nuts, and preceded to flip to her `favorite` verse, read it, and stated ´how can this not be true, it´s beautiful´. I left being awestruck, not only by her faith, but by the process in which she obtained that faith. Oh, the power of members, and how much they can bless missionary work.

I love that that I have no idea how much time I have left here in Bucaramanga--gives me more motivation to absolutely pour out my soul.

I love you all. Les están siempre en mi corazón.

Cheers,

Elder Adams

Moms and pops-

So there are 6 elders in my district, 2 live with me. Your package to me is already a package to 6 missionaries already so whatever you see fit.

Happy 28 years and many more¡¡ (haha I can only find the upside down quotation mark). If in the end all that I learned from you guys was the love that should be shared in a marriage, that would be enough (of course there are countless other things I´ve learned). Thanks for being the best parents ever.

New companion trunkie

Mom, HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

A happy birthday before, and a happy birthday after is as close as I can come to an actually on the day happy birthday. I love you so much, and just remember that to the people of Colombia, your only 22 instead of 21. And don´t worry, in two years,
i´ll go sky diving with you!

So my new companion is Elder Moreno, he´s from Peru, and has 19 months in the mission. So he´s going to finish up here. Ha another trunkie. The last two weeks with elder Reynoso it was hard to get anything done and I thought it would change with a new companion. Wrong. Elder Moreno is a super cool, super chill, and a good missionary. But he says that he´s not trunkie he´s `tired`. Haha But no worries, hopefully I can make him un-tired. Bah, forgive me for my 5th grade English, I think every change I lower a grade in English. So only me and elder Au are still here in districto central. The rest are newbies. They sacked the two missionaries in one district and brought in a brand new missionary and his trainer. There both are ready to work, so its great having them in the house. It was hard the change before with three trunkies and me. T`was hard to have any rhythm in the morning when I looked around and they were all still dead asleep, and you know me, I am not a morning person.

Reynoso, although a little bit trunkie, was a great influence. Being 27 this December, I learned a lot of things with him I
couldn´t have with other´s because of that. I´m defiantly a better missionary because of him. And a better cook. None of the elders in my apartment know how to cook so I make breakfast everyday. Today we had hashbrowns, scrambled eggs, and French toast. Hashbrowns are going to rock the socks of latin America. I´m calling that they are the next `hamburguesa´ here. They loved them!

Things have defiantly been different here. I- because elder Moreno doesn´t know the area, plan our days and call members and schedule appointments and all that stuff. Its been a great growing experience. I don´t think I would be able to do it if I knew any less Spanish. Elder Moreno doesn´t speak a lick of English, the other missionarys in my apartment as well, so i´m loving it because I get to speak Spanish all the time. And don´t have an easy way out when I don´t know something. I´m teaching elder Moreno English, and we decided that im going to give him an exam at the end of the change, and if he passes it, dinners on me.

We set a baptismal date for the brother of Ortwin who we went to the botanical garden with. He knows he needs to be baptized the problem is that he has to work every Sunday at 9. Welp! Here comes the Sabbath day lesson and much praying that he will be able to not work Sundays or find another job.

My highlight of this week, was when Amdrely asked in a lesson this week ¨how she can do what we do, as in how can she become a missionary. We talked about It and she was pumped, then we mentioned about ward missionaries, and she again asked how she could do that. Oh the change in this girl. What a miracle, and a blessing. She told us how she decided it was easier to just stop hanging out with her friends then to try and resist the temptations of associating with them. Oh if we could all do this, Draw our line before the actual line, avoid even the appearance of evil our spiritual-selves would be a whole lot `safer`.

I love you and pray for you all,

Con todo mi amor,

e. adams

Tricky tricky Halloween

So in the hustle of yesterday being the last day for Renyoso here in Bucaramanga, I only had time to write a email to Josh. I
don´t know how often he checks that thing but let him know ones chillin there.

So it was rockin here with dulces and disfraces here for holloween. From what I understand Colombia has more influence from american culture than the other countries in South America, they love there comidas rapidas (fast food), so of course they do it big with Holloween. Christmas might even be a bigger deal here than in the United States, they do not honor the known rule that christmas decoration cannot start until after thanksgiving, our neighbors are already dusting off the Christmas lights.

So Reynoso se fue (left) this morning. Took him to the airport and now I'm solo, waiting for my new companion with a member. His name is E. Moreno, there´s two of them here in the mission so I'm not sure which one it is exactly. One is from Peru and is about 4 feet tall and the other one is from Ecuardor and has 4 months left and rumor has it that he´s trunkie central. But I´ll believe it when i see it. Cualquier bring it on. He´ll come in this night. Poucho, my favorite member who goes out with us everyday leaves on a mission tomorrow. So needless to say, its going to be a big change here for me. Lost my two biggest helpers in the mission. Snikes. Oh well, I´m excited to grow.

A member this Sunday showed me her coke stash this Sunday. Haha. The coca plant, which is the plant used to make cociane, here has been used for forever for medicine and healing purposes. They grow it in there backyard. And in her pharmacy class they learned how to make coke, that they put a very small amount in a lotion for medical purposes. Nevertheless, twas a little wierd seeing cocaine in the house of member. Haha, they are all strong members, shes actually starting here papers for her mission this week.

We had the baptism of Ortwin this week. Went very well. He got really attached to Reynoso, so it has been a sob fest for little Ortiwn the past couple of days. But he´s a tough kid. He promised he wasn´t going to miss one `holy Sunday´. He´s been through sooo much, rough rough rough. His dad, whom tried to commit suicide multiple times and was a drug addict, died in an accident last year. He lives with his mom, they were seperated for some time before the accident. His mom feels like his brothers are following the same path but we started teaching one of them and I feel we can get him baptised this change, he has a desire to change, so therefor his repentance process has already started. In our last family home evening with them his mom expressed how much Ortwin has changed in this little time, and cried and stated how she felt like ´God sent angels´ into her home. She is a wonderful woman.

I love you all so much, and subsiquently you are all in my prayers,

Con todo mi corazón,

Elder Adanz, or Adass (how my name is spelt here in colombia, haha)

Bucaramanga Botanical Gardens

Have faith and prayers will be answered

It seemed as though there were a few question´s soo i´ll start by rockin those.
Did you get Mom’s package? Does FedEx deliver to Bucaramanga?
Yeah! Got the package. It was awesome. We all dined to tasty carmel corn and starburst. I think Mom won the heart of Ortwin (our investigator that is Josh´s age who is getting baptised this Thursday) with the popcorn. Thanks so for sending a Little bit of the mother land to me. I got it Tuesday, they either send it to the house of the leaders of the zone (who are going to be in my house for the next transfer) or the leaders of the zone pick it up when they go to bogota for zone leader conference. Elder Andrews mom sent his package to his house here in Bucaramanga and he had to pay like 30 dollars extra to pick it. By the way, if I'm serving in Bogota you can send it directly to my house and it wont cost anything extra.

Do Columbians like to barter as much as the Mexicans?
Yeah they love to barter. It´s che-che (fake things) central here in Bucaramanga. I love it. They actually make pretty quality shoes and belts here for next to nothing. I once talked a guy down from 40.000 to 15.000 for a sombrero. Btw i bought a pretty sweet watch this week for $3.50. I would love to send a package back home but im pretty sure its up words of 50 bucks to send from here in the buca. But i´ll check it out. When is transfer week? Does it look like you will be in Bucaramanga for Christmas?

This is the last week of the change E. Reynoso is living on this coming Wednesday, so i´ll have a new companion here in central. Pretty close to positive I´m staying here in central for this change, but have no idea for the the change after, which is right before christmas.
Any requests for what to include in your Christmas package?

A pepper shaker (with pepper ), their pepper is ghetto here If it is posible to send a can of dr. Pepper I would feel home for Christmas. I didn´t think I would miss peanut but but I do. I forgot how much I ate it at school when I was poor – like I am now. Its probably heavy though.--- I believe josh groban has a good christmas álbum which includes some mo tab. – he speaks to me (really if you could send it through the internet sooner that would rock.)

So let me start by telling the story of a wonderful girl of 20 years of age named Andreli. So we met Andreli through our english clases. A member of the Ward brought her along. We had our first lesson with her family which included Garufa (or Mr. T, whom I mentioned in an earlier email) which was boarder line contentions with his very strong beliefs intermingled with what the Jehovah Witnesses had told him. We invited her to church the coming Sunday, which she attended. We countined to teach her. In all her timidness she never really told us of her interest in the Gospel. But she made up for it which so many others lack, in her actions. She took a taxi form her house to the chapel or a house of a member so we could teach her everytime. She accepted the invitation to be baptized and she prepared for it. She had problems with the commandments. We taught her that they were going to bless her life, if she followed them. Everything was going good until she didn´t come to church two Sundays ago. We countined to call for the following 5 days and we never got through and she never returned our calls. Finally we had a lesson this past Friday with her, we talked about her baptism that was scheduled for Saturday. She expressed how she felt unqualified for baptism, then we taught her what these qualifications truely are, she excepted and 20 minutes later at 7 in the night we had the baptismal interview, and that Saturday afternoon she was baptized.
I´m not going to lie, with not hearing from her for 5 days before her baptism I was lacking a Little bit of faith for the date that we had scheduled. But I learned, and confirmed what I had been taught is that our plans and dates that we make with sincere prayer, in reality are not our plans, but are made with divine help from Him that knows all. I learned that if we work with all our energy to reach our goals, because we have faith that our prayers will be answered. Like I learned growing up playing sports. You play until the whistle blows. Like preach my góspel teaches that we do all we can to reach our goals with respecting the agency of others. Andreli is now a confirmed member of the Church of Jesus Christ, and i have faith that this very smart girl will be a blessing to barrio central.
Soo Today we went to a garden bitanical today with the brother of Ortwin that we met this past week. Pretty sweet. Bucaramanga is known in south america as `ciudad bonita` (beautiful city) because of there many many parks.
The baptism of Ortwin is planed for this coming Thursday. I love seeing the rapid change in the people we have the opportunity to teach as they accept and keep commitments to repent and come unto Christ and their willingness to take his name upon him for ever. They are all examples to me.
I kind of just kept writing today. Sorry for my very long letter.

Thanks so much for everything and I love you all so much,

Elder Adams

Loving the Latins

OOsh. Another semana rapidismo.

So we had our Ward conference this week. It was a big deal because the branch in the north bogota, which was being ran by our bishopric for like 40 years. It became an actual branch with the calling of a new branch president. Pretty rockin. So for the past two weeks we´ve been inviting all the members and inactive because we had a goal to have 200 of the 207 members there. We actually had 207 because of investigators being there as well. So the bishop is buying us pizza this week. What´s up!
Part of the conference week was a culture session where various groups, like the primary, young women, etc, danced some rockin native Colombian dances. It was the best. Loved it. I don´t think very many people have more fun than Colombians. They´re outrageous. I think we could use some more quality entire-ward fun more up in the states. Maybe i´ll bring some in a bag. They seem to make it work with loud Colombian music and empañadas and soda, so maybe that is a possibility.

So due to the fact that we aren´t going to be receiving missionaries here in Bogota North for a while, they´re sacking 11 areas this change. Bit scary. Hope and pray its not mine. It would kill me to just peace out and leave my investigators to no one. Its very possible due to the fact that I'm new and Reynoso is leaving. But i know Who´s hands this mission is in, and have more confidence in Him than anyone in the world.

So we found this pretty rockin neighborhood this past week. Last Sunday we went out knocking doors , and we were completely stumbled on where we should contact, and did the best thing we can do when we lack wisdom, Pray. Trying our best to follow the spirit, after 30 minutes a nice mother of 3 let us in. Then I tried to test my luck yesterday (more like faith) and go there again. And with out fail, 30 minutes and the doors opened and we taught my new friend Diego and his mom. So it was my first lesson with a new investigator without Elder Reynoso so it was very different. Was a bit hard cause Diego is a firecracker and was spitting off questions. But some who, like things do when you trust in the Lord, it worked out. Both of these new friends we have follow up lessons with. OH how important it is to pray. Always. Never should we think its `not necessary to pray.

One of our investigators, Ortwin, he´s 13 and lives in our complex, was in a crazy car accident this week. He was with his mom and step dad and they were driving through a canyon and suddenly the steering wheel stopped working. And the car lost control, hit a boulder and flipped over onto the roof. He was in the back, and like always in Colombia, without a seatbelt. But with divine help, everyone came out with only a couple scratches. I´ve learned to never look at things as coincidence here in the mission. We then had the opportunity to make lunch for them, and I think the accident softened the heart of Ortwin´s mom enough to come to Church with us this weekend. Great family, and so grateful they were all alright.

Love beautiful Bucaramanga, Colombia so much. Hope you guys are all good!

Con muchismo amor,

Elder Adams

And it clicks

Cambios

Cabins. Plays. Evenings with the Symphony. Classy. If you want you can make the journey to Bucaramanga and we can keep it classy by eating in chicken heart soup with the hot sun and biyanato music (the typical music of colombia, bassically mariachi music with accordian, it rocks.) Quieren? Its great!
Congrats to the abuelos for closing on the cabin. Im absoutley positive their soul intentions for buying it was to give me and my friends a place to crash before snowboarding. Thanks so much! Ha loved the comment by Grandpa about Utah.

So yeah. 4 months. 20 left. How nuts. With E. Reynoso finishing his misión its made me think a Little bit about what it will be like to leave, what things, great things I have yet to experience. And what I'll be like when im done. I feel like I have already changed so much. No worries. Just so excited for life, and the great things to come!

It's getting harder and harder to write coherently in English, or for that matter, to talk in English. I speak English for about a 20 minutes every week. Everything else is Spanish. Its been such a blessing to be immersed in Spanish, and not being able to talk in English with my companion. Honestly my highlight of the week was that my abilities with Spanish aren’t much of a concern anymore, it finally just started to click. Its just strengthens my testimony more to know that the Lord has heard my prayers for help with this language. Not saying I KNOW Spanish, for I have so so much to learn, but its just so great to know that I can finally really know and find the needs of these people. This past week we have been preparing for the coming ward conference, so we have been in divison with members with the ward throughout the week. Twas a little nervous do to the fact that I'm always with e. reynoso who has 7 months here, but it turned out great and was a great opportunity to start to step out of the footsteps of my father (your trainer is your [dad] here) and grow. Its crazy to think that im going to have to show my new companion around in three weeks.

On Saturday we had a lesson with the son of an inactive member we had invited to the ward conference. We were teaching about the restroation and why the gospel needed to be restored. He like many people in Colombia has a little knick nac store in the front of his house. And like most he sells minutes. Its actually pretty genis, they buy contracts for all the 4 cell phone service providers with free internetwork plans, and every network starts with a different area code, so when people need to use a phone, they just tell them the area code, and they give them the corresponding cell phone. Anyways, we had just taught and and quoted Joseph Smiths first vision, seconds later the person using the phone jumps on a motor cycle with the phone and speeds off. Resulting in him having to spend 20 minutes to fix the problem and ask around to see if anyone recognized the thief. Coming back discouraged, we finished the lesson with only a fragment of the Spirit that was there. Oh how satan fights to stop people from learning and receiving the blessings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. It has seemed to me, and Im probably not alone, that so often these distractions that present them selves are when we are quoting and explaining the first vision. Satan is going to do everything in his power to inhibit people to know that Joesph Smith received an answer about which church is true, and thus inhibiting these people to receive the fruits of this vision. I know that there aren’t coincidences in missionary work, so many little miracles everyday.

I love. Miss. And pray for you all. And may we all look for how much the hand of God in our lives.

Con mucho amor,

E. Adams

Post Conference letter

Conference was soooooo good! Oh how great is revelation from God for his people! Soo I watched two sessions in Spanish and 3 in English, wish I would have watched all of them in English but I didn´t know there was an
English room! Whoops! I could understand what were saying for the most part, but because I couldn´t understand everything, I missed a lot because I was concentrating on hearing what they were saying I couldn´t really apply it and learn from it, which is the most important part. But was have the liahona! So no worries! Just gives me incentive to continue to review the
talks and apply it for the next 6 months! I think this weekend had been my biggest shock on how fast time was going because I could remember the past conference and it felt like it was yesterday. In five days i´ll have been
serving for 4 months! Soo crazy, and sooo good! Dad you talked about how that guy you work with was an AP of his mission and how happy he says he was. And based on what his life seems like, he doesn´t sound happy. I don´t know him. But the first thing I thought was that he changed from always thinking and caring about others on his mission, that brought him soo much happiness, to always thinking and caring about himself. “If any man will come after me [He said], let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose hislife for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:24–25)
Possibly what he wants is more important than what others want, or for that matter what God wants. Obedience brings us happiness, any other way we think we have happiness is just counterfeited and temporary. I loved Elder Oaks
talk on this. I don´t know who said it but ¨every problem in a marriage is from a lack of Christlike attributes¨.
Getting our investigators to conference was one of our main goals these past two weeks. We ended up with 6 which are all progressing.

Oh man. We found the perfect family this week, right before conference. There is a kid that hangs out in the court yard of our apartment complex, named carlos, we started talking to him last week and then we had a couple appointments fall through this week so we went up to visit him. Oh man. Chevere. On the way up the elevator we started talking with the lady that was in it, whom happened to be his mom, told her we were going to visit carlos, and she invited us
into her house. Soo nice. Both his parents were there for the lesson. We started talking and his dad told us about how they ´ don't have a church because there is so many and the doctrine is different in every church. So they have a Bible study night with there family once a week. We started to watch the Restoration movie, and the mother started smiling in the middle of
it and said ´I have had that question many times before, which church is true?´, sooo good. Then after the dad told us about how he had the same dream three nights in a row, and how he saw Christ and he looked very similar to what was pictured in the film, with long hair and glorified. Soo great.

We then went to Priesthood session with the Carlos the son, and as we were leaving we ran into his dad, that had just been drinking with his friends, told us how much he wants to change and stop drinking and how he feels so
weak. The next day he him and his wife came to Conference, and he said he was very impacted by it. Soo pumped to talk with them tomorrow. Soo ready. I think one of the happiest, at peace moments I have had on my mission was
as we were walking to priesthood with three of our investigators. So so happy to watch them sacrifice there time to come and hear the prophet speak. Yohonny said after that he knows Thomas S. Monson is a true prophet. And
Carlos (18) and Ortwin (he is 13 and lives in our complex too, he came to 3 sessions and by the end was taking notes, so much better than I was doing at 13!) said they would like to serve missions. What a great week.

Oh man! And I forget to mention. We had the baptism and marriage of Nancy! So happy for her! Oh goodness, great week. And many more to come! Loved when E. Burton ? talked about missionary work and how the field has never
been riper. Loved that. Oh how great it is to leave conference just wanting to be your Best self. I pray that we can all implement those words into our lives.

Sad to hear about the earthquake in the pacific! I heard about how 24
members passed away in Philippines. May our hearts and prayers be with them.

Love you all so much!

E. Adams

Colombia Grand Canyon

Conference in Spanish

So I´m pretty sure I was a tenderfoot until i was 16 so congrats josh!!!! He´s going to have his Eagle by the time he´s 15. I´m a joke. Waited until the absolute last day hahaha.
So conference is this weekend! How exciting! Hope your all as pumped as I´m! How great is that we have the opportunity to here from a prophet of the Lord. If you're looking for advice, this is the best advice you could get for the next 6 months. I started rereading last conference and was amazed how each talk resolved a concern I had. Absolutely amazing that each talk can apply to every person in the world. Ha not sure if I'm going to have to try and listen in Spanish, or if they will have headphones in English for me. Either way, i´m stoked.
So two Sundays ago, we had only one investigator at Church. So we realized that we really needed to new investigators. We have a lot right now, but a bunch just weren’t progressing. So this week we did some good ol´ knocking on doors and some earnest praying, and we taught 10 new investigators this week, and had 5 investigators at church, and three new baptismal dates! Saweet. How true is the principle of "ask and you will receive´´. So many great things can happen with sincere prayer and hard work. When I feel like I could be doing better, which is pretty much always, I´m blessed so much more than I think I deserve.
So finally the we´re having the marriage and baptism of Nancy Barbosa. Her husband was an inactive member that e. reynoso found through the happy birthday cards the bishop gives to us to reactive members. Since I've been here we´ve been working on the papers for this marriage. A divorce (he was still officially married, but they had been separated for like 10 years) , an almost separation due to a fight, and 7 weeks later, it's going down. So pumped. Nancy is so ready and anxious to be baptized.
Things are looking a lot better for the the Moralez family as well (Yohonny ). We had a good talk with Amanda, the spouse, about why they needed to get married because of the law of chastity, and invited her over the house of the relief society president to look through some clothes for her family (we had a sweet shipment from DI come into our stake, Yohonny is now rocking that old navy 4th of july shirt that our whole family took pictures in, Keep donating! Your donations go so much further then for Rich kids to buy to look like they are not rich. Yohonny changed jobs as well, which was bad news at first, then he worked things out so he´s actually making a little bit more and doesn´t have to work on Sundays. After our talk with Amanda, she said she is willing to go through with the plans for their marriage and baptism of Yohonny. Oh I pray for her to want to find out if what we are teaching her is true. I think she believes, just doesn´t want to think she does. OH how great would it be for them to be married in the temple. I can see it. They have sooo much happiness ahead of them if they just let themselves have it. Yohonny is way smart, and I can just see how the gift of the Holy Ghost would make him want to be able to support his family better and go to school and find a good steady job.

Fun new words:
Q´´hubo mano (litearly means what has happened) – what´s up man
Miercoles! (literally means Wednesday) - oh shoot!
Toque el violin (to play the violin) – third wheel it on a date.
Mono (monkey) – blonde

Hope all is well. Thanks so much for the package. And yes i´ll most likely be in Bucaramanga for Christmas. So crazy to think that i´ll only have ¾ of my mission left by that time. Oh goodness. I have so much to do! No time to waste!

Con todo de mi Corazon,

Elder Adams

6 hour bus ride for a couple pictures!

So today we went to this famous canyon about 3 hours away, i guess its supossibly the biggest canyon in South America, at least thats what the people in Bucaramanga say, Ha I wasnt to sure of that. So in the morning we decided we wanted to go somewhere touristy, so we hit up chicamocha (the cañyon). So they said it was basically the grandcanyon but, green, and in colombia. Haha i guess. So we went there having no idea what we were doing, took two buses, and 3 hours letter we were there. I guess we went on the wrong day. Haha. There was not a soul there. They have this cool tram thing that takes you down to the bottom, but that was closed, and then we got dropped and then they let us know that there last bus was coming in twenty minutes, ha which turned out to be 5. Haha good times. So basically we had time to take two pictures then peace out. Ha it was great, then another 3 hours in a hot bus ride on dirt roads. SOoo good. It was a good time, the bus ride was super pretty, and it was sweet to see more of Bucaramanga.
So I don’t know if I had told you but Santander (the state of Bucaramanga) has a deliciy of eating ants, haven’t tried them yet but they sell them everywhere. They are these giant 3-4 of an inch ants. And they put them in what looks like a six lits candy wrapper and they eat them as such. Ha I need to try them soon, I guess they are only around for a couple months. Any request back at home?
Dad you asked about the computers here. Pretty accesable we have two interent café within 3 min of our house. Its like 50 cents for an hour. The one I'm typing on has had one to many sodas spilt on it so it’s a lucha to type on it. Everything here is amazingly cheap, I love it. For example, that 3 hour bus ride was 3 dollars each way. The most legit hair cut I've ever gotten, she wipped out the straight edge raiser on the edges of my hair and everything, she's been cutting hair for 30 years. It was $ 2.50. A 10 minute taxi ride is 2 dollars. I love it. Im going to be so outraged when I return and cant buy tons of stuff for a dollar.
OH, yeah! So there are web cams in all of the cafes, and my comp said that were aloud to use skype to talk to family, so that’s pretty sweet!
So I completed my first change today. Pretty crazy. Don’t know if there are new elders, but that wouldn’t matter cause I still feel stinkin new. But Im pretty content with the way things are going, not too worried about Spanish. Have faith that it will come. I feel like I know about 70 percent of what people say, ha sometimes that 30 percent can completely change the meaning of what they are saying as I have come to know, but I'm really working to be pretty stable by the end of this change. That would be sweet. So elder Reynoso is going to finish his mission here with me. He'll have been her for 7 1-2 months when he finishes. I was worried that he was going to leave and I was going to have to some how meet the needs of peple I cant understand. I hope any pray that we can get our investigators progressing like crazy. One sweet new investigator we have is the son in law of Cecilia velez (the woman that was just baptized), the week before her baptism her daughters ex came to talk to her to see how he could get back together with her daughter. They had been separated for 3 months because of his gambling addiction. And we happened to be there when he came, we taught about repentance, and he digged it. He taught the restoration this week and the book of mormon, and he dug those. So hopefully we can get him to come to church this next week.
Btw we had that lesson with Yohonny and his girlfriend on Monday, and it went well, he really wants to get baptized, but his wife is just being stubborn. I have faith that we will be able to work out a compromise before the end of this change. I have come to learn that good things don’t come cheap. Were defiantly going to have to put some hard har d work into this, but I think it will all pay off. Yohonny has a lot of faith.

Well I must go. Tis late. Hope and Pray for you all.

Con Amor,
Elder Adams

More pics

Finally pictures!

1st Baptism

Ayy. What a week. Huge ups and huge downs. This week we had our first baptism, while I've been in the area. It was great, her name is Cecilia Velez, shes a rock. She was ready to baptised a month and half ago but the week of her baptism she fell and broke her arm. Adversity trying to stop her, but she stuck through it and was baptized this past saturday. She lives on the floor below us and is the nicest lady ever. She invited her family to the baptism and the confirmation. Ha, I had to do the baptism 3 times because her broken arm was fighting to stay above the water. but we got it. It was great. We started talking with her son-in-law this week, whom has been separted from her daughter for the last two months from gambling problems. We taught about repentence the first lesson and it went really well. I´m pumped. Nobody can deny the need for Another to lift the burdens and guilt of sin, and it can only be done through Christ. Sometimes we need to fall to understand how much we need Christ in our lives.
We also have some great new investagors, two of which are very close with great members so its sweet. One of them Andreli we met from our English Classes. Ha our first lesson was at her house and we walked up and I was positive that Mr. T was in her house. It was nuts. Turns out he´s a boxer here in Colombia, and he looks exactly like Mr. T. He was a character. He had this sweet huge poster of him with this mean face in the ring. it rocked. I wanted it.
So this week has been full of dealing with the marriages of Reynaldo and Nancy, Yohonny and Amanda. Elder Reynoso found Rey and Nancy from knocking doors. Turns out that Rey is a member, and after listening Nancy was super ready to baptized and Rey was reactived. It's been great. The only problem is dealing with their marriage. Rey first had to get divorced and so we´ve been dealing with the papers. He had to go to three cities outside of Bucaramanga to get it all figured out. But its all good now. They're ready to get married and to have the baptism this following week. I´m praying everything will stay in place. Ah and Yohonny. ayy. we´ve been in and out of marriage talk since I´ve been here. We had finally had it all figured out. Both of these families don´t have the money to pay for the papers and the wedding so the bishop and the ward are helping out. But one condition is that they need to be baptised in the same day as the wedding, cause the bishop has paid for weddings before where the people had him pay for the wedding, then peaced out and never came to the baptism. I don´t think this would be the case with Yohonny, but the bishop wants to do it this way. So the last two days have been rough working with Yohonny and Amanada. Yohonny is super strong and Amanda thinks she needs to wait tell December to be baptized, and also said she will only get baptised with Yohnny. So its been really rough dealing with this for the past two days. Then today she got mad, felt like we were pushing her, and called everything off, and Yohnny is going along with her, feels like he needs to wait for her. He came up to our room like two hours ago and told us what Amanda said and that we shouldn´t come by for now. Broke my heart. wow, haven´t felt like that really, just rejected. punched in the face. He told us ¨muchas gracias, but we cant do this right now¨. But I knew we could´nt just give up. We prayed, and we prayed, and I felt we really needed to talk with him and Amanda tonight. We talked with him again, and he said we can call when he´s at home. I hope he follows through. I cannot let him throw away what he knows is true. He loves the book of Mormon. He´s read through 2nd nephi in the past three weeks. He want´s to be baptized, but he just wont stick up to his girlfriend. He told us he was going to wait tell December to be baptised, but I know that if he isn´t baptized this month. it won´t happen. Its too much time for Satan to work and pick at him. He is truely one of the elect. So part of me feels like I did something or said something wrong. But like nephi said (i know in whom i have trusted). I know that he is with me and I have faith that his will will be done.
I hope all is well at home, love you all so much. And am so greatful for our family and what it is built upon. Nothing has been harder so far, and from what E. Reynoso said for him as well, then to keep families together. Families are central to God´s plan, thus Satan is attacking them with all he´s got.
sorry if this is short, this just happened, so to be honest my mind is elsewhere.

with love from colombia,

Elder Adams

Rise and shout the cougars are out!

Best news. Ever. Ah love BYU football.

Great to here about Dan and Lauren's engagement. Sweet! It´d be sweet to have his email. And I guess while we're at it, I lost the list of emails. So if you guys could send that to me as well that would rock.
Not gonna lie makes me a Little homesick to hear about school starting, BYU football, and you guys roaming the streets of provo. But no worries, I´m incredibly happy here, wouldn´t trade a minute for anything. Well, maybe I´d trade one minute to watch that game. Haha.
What a week! Did some marriage counseling, one of our investigators with a baptismal date bailed on us and called us liers. Tons of sweet new investiagtors. Life´s nuts! I love it. I have come to realize that I don´t live the life of a normal 19 year old. One great and hard thing is that we are so deep into the lives of the people. They confide in us with some pretty grand problems and as missionaries their problems become our problems. Their griefs become our griefs. But we are able to watch the great changes the góspel makes in their lives.
So I had a very latin american experience today in the market. There is this sweet four level open market in central de Bucaramanga, which has absolutely everything. Ah so sweet. My companion was making some crazy peruvian food and he needed mint leaves? Anyways it was tasty. This building was outragous and unclean. I love feeling like im in the middle of something where I have no idea what is going on.
By the way I did tell Morgan one thing I didn´t tell you guys. I had a sweet case of diarhiea for two weeks. But its all good now. Ha I realized it was from eating the cow intestine. Haha, I had it again yesterday, it looks like your eating a cats toungue because its got Little meaty hairy things. The misión doctor said that things that have different bacteria´s can upset your system, but you adjust to them. So i´m good to eat all the cow intestine i want.
One other thing that Santanader (the state bucaramananga is in) has is these giant friend ants. I here there actually pretty good. I´ll bring some home for you all.
I'm feeling more and more at home here. I love it so much. There is no such thing as giving pedistrians the right of way. You either move. Or are moved. Ha. Bugged me but I guess it's just become normal.
We have two baptisms this week. One is Nancy, who's is this wed. We went to see her and husband to be and her just had a humoungous fight. She said she didn´t want to get married anymore, so we, I mean elder reynoso talked them through it, and the next mourning they called and said everything was chill. Such a relief, we went home that night, after having just lost one baptismal date (miran whom called us a liers and not to come back, she had already had her baptismal interview and everything, it was crazy) and thought were going to loose another.

So overall what people thought about american´s isnt bad at all. I get called gringo all the time but its not really an ofensive term. And I kept being called mono, which means monkey, but I found out here in colombia its the Word for blonde. Ha I was walking down the street the other day and this guy was screaming out of his window `yankee go home bye bye´ over and over. It was pretty funny cause I had to get my companion to help me understand what he was saying becuause his english was bad. Haha, just fueling the fire. I should have invited him to our english classes. Oh yeah, i teach english classes here. There pretty sweet. We have two new investiagtors from them.
Yohonny Moralez is my favorite person in colombia thus far. He´s so awesome. He is the security guard in our apartment complex. He was in the equivelnt of the us army rangers here in colombia and worked in the jungle dealing with the drug and gorilla forces. So nuts. We see his family throughout the week. He has crazy Money problems, so thats been the only thing holding him back because they are trying to find the Money to get married. This guy is poderoso. I love it, he is helping the other people in his household along, sharing sciptures with them. He comes to church after just working the night shift and not having slept for over 24 hours. He shares his testimony and feelings in class about what we're talking about. Elder Reynoso said he's the strongest investiagor he´s had all missión. By the way things are going great with elder reynoso. He´s a great missionary. He knows his stuff and cares allot about the investiagors.
Ah i made a sweet list of stuff that happened this week but i left it in the house. Bummer. Oh well next time.
So the president had a rule that we couldn´t listen to music. At all. It was werid, but president Hacking said we can in this last zone conference. Its been so nice. Couldn´t figure out why they had that rule. Music is such a great tool to invite the spirit.
Oh and mom, another update. A family asked if you're my girlfriend in my picture. Ha was kind of awkward, but i thought it was great that they thought you were that young. Nice catch Dad!

Love you all! So greatful for everyone of you.

Elder Adams

p.s. please send updates of byu football. Don´t really care about any other sports. But i NEED to know.

So crazzzy! 85 degrees with a sweet breeze

112 in Phoenix! Ouch. If you were trying to make me jealous it didn´t work. Thats rough. In case you were wondering its a sunny 85 degrees here in Bucaramanga with a sweet breeze. We don´t have AC but don´t need it, we sleep with a sheet and its perfect. Elder Larson is finishing his first area (you stay no longer than 6 months, mostly, so he´ll be headed to a new area soon) and was talking about how he feels like Bucaramanga is home. He´s been here in this area, he´s a killer missionary. Love going on splits with him.
So crazy that byu is starting tomorrow. Can´t believe it. Surreal. That was year ago. Time goes by too fast. Especially here. Altough it suppose to be really slow your first two months (which i´m sure they will still speed up), but for me its gone by unbelievably fast. I´m half way though with my first change. Scares me a bit. I´ve quickly learned that there is too little time to waste any of it. Elder Reynoso is finishing up the change after this so were just going to make sure he finishes strong and I start strong. I´m super excited.
Quick answers to your Q´s.
Giron is a separate city that is close to Bucaramanga, it might boarder it I think.
There are two stakes in Bucaramanga, which have three wards I believe.
Soo I guess the only thing bad about when everything is going perfect, is that you know its going to change sometimes. Ha. Things are still going great but just had some rough series of events. Life is rough. Especially for some people, Yohonny and Orlando both have money problems, both super strong but its just hard to hear about there problems and how they really don´t have very many options. Its hard to find jobs here. Yohonny has a debt he owes and he just can´t find a way to pay it. He´s 26 and he has a kid a wife and is supporting his mother and law and his sister in law. He gets overloaded and starts to smoke and doesn´t want to come to church, but he always finds away. I know that he just needs to take the step of faith and get baptized. He has to get married first, which they are planning on doing. It just comes down to money again. We had a baptism fall though with this woman named Miran Diaz. What a week it was this week with Miran. She had here baptismal interview on Tuesday and was fine, met her on Thursday and she went off about how Joseph Smith is a false prophet and that she doesn’t agree with the nature of God. Then while I was on splits elder reynoso saw her again on Friday and straightened everything out and she was ready to be baptized. Then we stopped by on Saturday, and she had a ¨head ache¨ so she couldn´t be baptized. Pretty frustrating. We´ll see how things go this week. Defiantly one of the hardest commitments for us is to get people to keep going or coming to church. Its hard for people to put away there normal Sundays and come. But its so necessary for there conversions.
On Friday we went on interchanges with the zone leaders. I went to their area. It was defiantly different than any day in my area. The people for some reason. Not really a different social class, were just not interested. They have 3 investigators and no new members so we spent ALL day contacting, except for the last hour we had a sweet lesson with this lady. But we had like 5 other appts set up and everyone of them fell though. I´m quickly learning that people kind of just tell us what we want to here. Ha we came back to this one house, for an appt and we saw her in the corner but her dad told us she wasn´t home. I think I felt a little bit what it was like for mike to go everyday with out any lessons. I thought about how different our missions are-were, but they are both sooo great. Because this is the Lord´s work and there isn´t anything more important for me than this. It’s the best!
This Saturday we had a mini MTC in our ward. It was great, the youth came at 7 and we had a devotional and lessons and they went and visted the new members and had lunch at a members house and taught them a lesson. I hope it impacted them.
Tell grandma happy birthday!
Can´t believe about preston. I remember kindgergarden so clearly. Can´t believe he is at that age.
OH and mom, concerning your age. I have a laminated picture of our family to show to people. And all the women always call you a joven, which means youth ´que bonita´. It’s the truth.
Love you all! Pray for you all everynight! Thanks for everything!
Love Always,
Elder Adams

Colombian Fallacies -Poor people live in the mountains

1- you ride the bus to Bucaramanga alone, how did that go, I assume you got some sleep during the 9-hour ride, but sounds like you have not slept since?
The bus ride was nuts, up huge winding canyon roads that are in rough shape so i didnt sleep much, maybe an hour , then woke up and had a whole day of work ahead of me. It was crazy. I want to take the bus ride during the day (which will probably be in like 6 months) to see what it was like. Oh and i took the bus ride with elder seaton and furmanski. Theyre here in Bucaramanga.
2-Is your comp getting trunky, with only three months left? Will you most likely be in Bucaramanga until he leaves?

No he's not really trunky, he's actually pretty obedient. Some times I feel like he wants to go home. And one problem is that I guess for most of his missión he has had comps that didnt really want to work so he has just done it all by himself. So he kind of keeps me out of the loop a lot. He is a really good teacher but sometimes he just thinks that the way he does it is Best.
3-How about the money factor, what is the dollar worth in buying power?
The dollar is about two to one value. Its pretty sweet. Im paying like 50 cents to use this computer for the next hour, and taxis are like 3 bucks for 15 minute drive. Its the best.
4 -How is the internet café computers can you send any pics during your stay?
Yeah I tried to send some last week, but it didnt send, and I thought we were going to the same one which had card readers in them, so I didnt bring my card reader this time. So I guess it'll have to wait until next time. Sorry!
5- Do you walk or can you ride bikes?
We walk. Walk and walk. Ocasionally we'll take a taxi. But the streets are nuts so its too dangerous to take a taxi.
6-How many elders are in your apartment?
It was just us two, but tomorrow elder ovurson and elder larson are moving in. They are in our district, I guess the sisters are moving into theirs. Our district is actually half gringo-atized. Before this change only elder larsen was the only gringo in the area for 6 months. Im the first gringo in my Ward for 7 years. They say that by time time I'm done the misión will be half gringo. I guess I'm the very begining of phase 2 of flushing in the gringos. Before my district there were only 20.
7-Do you have a siesta during the day or is it a normal schedule?
I wish. Lunch is the big meal here and we have that with a member. Not much if at all for dinner. Ha I can already feel the spanish getting to me, was struggling for the words for the meals.
As for food, I guess I just had liver today. Ha at least I find out what I ate after I eat it. The food is pretty good. Kind getting a Little old already ha. But I just went to the store today and bought some cereal so life is good.

Its crazy how fast the time is going. Ive been hearing how much the first two months blow, but so far im really diggin em. Probably because we have such a sweet area and Ward. Our bishop really knows his stuff its great. We meet with him once a week to talk about the needs of our investigators. He really seems to care. He has this sweet program based of elder Erying's talk in confrence called [man down], so every week he takes tabs of what families weren't at church and he hands out slips to the men in priesthood to go visit those familes to let them konw they were missed this Sunday. Also he gives us these happy birthday cards to give to the members, so on their birthdays we go to their house and drop it by and share a quick message. From what I understand its had some pretty good success.
So I've already learned that one of the biggest problems here is working at getting people married. A couple of the families we have lined up for baptism, their dates keep getting pushed back because of their papers. I went on exchanges with elder Larson and taught a lady in his area that her only problem is getting married, the guy she is living with doesn’t want to (because she cant have kids, pretty sad!). she really wants to be baptized but that is her only problem. Bummer!
Elder Larsen’s area is crazy. They go up on the mountain and there are just houses built upon houses. And there is a whole mountain with no roads just stairs. Its nuts. I'll have to take a picture. Its slightly ironic that the poorest people here are pushed into the mountains while it is a desirable thing to live in the mountains in the states.
So yeah, I'm beginning to find out many fallacies concerning what I was told about Colombia. I live in central Bucaramanga and its pretty much just as dangerous and downtown phoenix. There are defiantly some spots we don’t want to go late at night, but overall its pretty safe, there are cops every where and my apartment complex has a couple armed guards. We do have running water, showers, washing machine, fridge, plumbing. Its pretty much just like the states but not hot water or a-c. both of which we don't really need.
This week we went to yohnny's birthday party. It was great, we're now teaching his sister in law and they all came to church this Sunday. Yohnny is so powerful. He had so many great in sights that he had during priesthood and shared them with the class, and one time I walked a while and was listening to him teach his sister in law it was the best! He's getting married next week then baptized that Saturday. Poderoso!
So the language is still a barrier, but I'm learning so much so fast. Its great. one great blessing of my weakness In the language is that I've learned to use the scriptures really effectively. One example of this week was when we were recommitting this sister to be baptized, I couldn’t think of how to say what I wanted to say, but then I remembered a scripture that said exactly what I wanted to say. I have learned the spirit has its own ways of working and it was sufficient right there for it to remind me of that scripture, rather than have me spit out wards I didn’t know. It has given the gift of utterance new meaning.

i miss you all so much and am more and more greatful for you all everday!

love,

elder adams

p.s. send me pictures!

President & Sister Hacking with their first group of missionaries

1st letter from Bucaramanga!

Is the language barrier as bad as you
feared? Ha, honestly, its worse than I thought it would be, It was defiantly humbling for me. Listening is probably the hardest part. Because we have been listening to gringos speak Spanish for the last two months, its very different. Ha, we had a stake conference this past Sunday and the only people I could understand where the Americans (hma. Hacking, pres. Hacking, elder nash). Haha and i´ll even say things I know are right but sometimes they won´t even understand me. This has defiantly been the hardest part: the language. Because I really just want to be able to talk to people so I can help better help invite them to Christ.
What is your area like? I´m in Bucaramanga, which is about a 9 hour bus ride north of bogota. Tuesday night we left for here at 9. My district came and picked me up. All the missionaries I talked to in bogota said Bucaramanga is el mayor(the best). Sweet weather, it’s a little hot but not unbarable, especially for someone from Arizona. And because it´s warm the people are always out in the streets. So we have a lot of opportunites to contact and meet people. The people here are vey receptive. We have a baptism this week, and 4 baptisms the following week! We have 9 new investigators this week, a bunch of which are saweeet. It´s also the biggest area in Bucaramanga, so a lot of walking! We either walk take the bus or taxi.
Your comp? my comp is great. His name is elder Reynoso, he is from a coastal city in peru. He´s a little 26 years old convert, who barely was able to serve (you can only be twenty five, he turns 27 in December) because you also have to be baptized for a year until you can come on a mission (I´m pretty sure about all this I might be wrong. We speak different languages). He studied English for three years and taught it, so his english is pretty good. Probably about where I am now in Spanish. So he has three months left, and president said in my interview we were going to stay together until he leaves. Luckily he´s not a trunkie and is obedient and loves to work, but he´s not a pharise so its sweet. He is really concentrated on teaching me so i´m learning a lot about missionary work and Spanish. Life´s sooo good.
Are you doing charades to
communicate or is it just understanding that is difficult? Yeah I defiantly have to work my way around it. I´ll listen for key words that I know and then base what I say off that. Ha I make my responses very basic because one, I don´t know how to say that much, and two, i´m not sure if its right, it gives be a bigger target to hit.
I bet they
talk really fast. Yes. Haha, yes they do.
What is the best way
for people to send letters? Is the pouch better than dear elder? They actually cancelled the pouch service soo, everything is email. Sweet! So go ahead let people they can email, I only have one hour to email, which I need to email you guys and the president, so I wont have much time, but I´m sure i´ll be able to send out a quick email within a month or to. As for packages, ha, I think you´ll have to straight up load it with the virgin Mary and Christ stickers, and write ministries (find the Spanish translation though) all over it. I heard of one elder having three or so of his packages never came, but nothing was on them, i´ve heard the sticker thing works pretty good. And yes send it to the mission home. As for letters , if someone wants to send those usually arrive. Fun fact: it cost about 50 to 100 dollars here to send a LETTER to the state so probably not going to happen. I just heard this from other missionaries, i´ll find out more.
• Yeah Mom, the relationships formed while on a mission are unbelievable. You never have any surface level – small talk relationships, we have incredible lifechanging moments together , it is really something great, we talk about questions in our souls and our relationship with God, and watch and help people change there live´s, there is nothing better for me to do on this earth. I think it was Joseph Fielding Smith who said ¨when it comes down to it, our greatest duty is to preach the Gospel¨. What a blessing it has been in my life. I can tell you that I have never been tireder, but I have never been happier! I have already in a week (feels so long but so fast), met such great people that I love so much. Ha I can´t even even understand what there saying most the time but, we already have such a great connections. One of these people is named Yohonny. So yohonny, looks more gringo than me, one of his birth parents were scandanavian, but he was raised here in Bucaramanga, by a Colombian couple, so he is full blown Colombian. He is a security guard at our building (by the way my apartment, and all the apartments in the mission are nice, I have some sweet photos, but i´ll probably only have time to send a couple of them! We live on the 7th floor out of 13, its nuts) Antonces, elder Reynoso said he has the most fervent love for the gospel out of all the investigators he has had. He is the best! We saw him this morning and he had just started reading 1st Nephi, and then when we saw him at like two he was close to finishing it. We´ve had such great lessons with him. AH I love this! Love him! We stopped by his booth (to let cars in to the garage) and talk with him. Another investigator we have that I already feel way close with is Orlando. Ha so he was the cab driver that picked me up from the bus ride from bogota, we contacted him on the way back and he happens to live right above us. We played soccer with him today and we see teach him and his family about everyday.

So my first legitimate Colombian experience was in the taxi Tuesday morning. (by the way the flight was awesome too, me and elder Burns talked with this guy for the WHOLE time about the gospel, he was great. HA my neck hurt really bad from looking over the whole time). But yeah, they are absolutely nuts! It was a literal videogame. Oh gosh, it was the best, weaving in and out of traffic, going in to the other lane. But the thing is they rock at driving. I trusted him the whole time. They have this crazy system of honking here that they use. Love it! The food its great, we get fed really well everyday. As for having crazy things already, ha I guess I have, I found out yesterday that I had cow intestines in my soup on Sunday. Haha, I guess it wasn´t to bad because I ate it all. It just tasted like really fatty meat. The streets here are the best, there is seriously one street that is three blocks long of just shoes, every store. Shoes. There is literally a store for everything, and most likely that exact same store is going to be across the street, cause they are all run by families so they just start up businesses out of their garages! Ha there are two stores by my apartment that just sell cardboard boxes. Across the street from each other. I love this country! So we had elder Nash here in Bucaramanga. He talked in stake conference then spoke in our zone conference. He was great. I wish I knew what he was saying the whole time but it’s the same spirit no matter what language! He´s in the 1st quorum of the seventy. Ha during the conference we did practiced teaching, and they made me teach cause I was new (my district who are all soo sweet) and elder nash came and listened to me and my broken Spanish, made me a bit nervous.

In closing, I pretty much spend the entire time writing this so my emails defiantly won´t be this long usually.

LOVE YOU ALL. MISS YOU. SO THANKFUL FOR YOU ALL. LIFE COULD NOT BE BETTER!

Yours truly,

Elder Adams