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.