Family and Friends,
This week has been
really good. A little more mellow, but maybe that's a good thing.
The other week I
expressed a concern to y’all about how I was living off of only sandwiches.
Well. Let me just say now I miss my sandwiches haha. We are being fed so much by
the members, and get to have lots of different food from around the world.
So those of you who know
me well, knew I was a picky eater. And I hated beans. Sadly that's just not an
option here. Over half of what is usually on my plate is some sort of bean. At
first it was hard, but now I can eat them without problems. Although I think
the members here are trying to kill me.
There is this old lady,
Sister Lopez, and we were over at her house for dinner one night. Well she set
in front of me the biggest plate of food I had ever seen in my life. Carne,
rice, beans, soup, and all of that good stuff. It was fantastic! But there was
no way I was going to be able to finish it all, or so I thought. After a while,
I told her "No puedo comer mas," And she came up to me, slapped me
hard across my face, stuck her finger in front of me, and started going off in
really fast Spanish. I'm not quite sure what she said, but it was obvious that
she wanted me to eat it all. And if it wasn't already bad enough, after I said this,
she went in the kitchen, grabbed a pot, and came and refilled the beans and
rice that I had already eaten. I have never felt so full in my life. Me and my
companion had to take a fifteen minute break after because I could not walk,
and he was struggling as well.
The food is amazing, but
there is always just so much. Oh I forgot the best part haha. So instead of
water, for a drink we had what's called "Quacker." It has the
consistency of glue, and is warm like hot chocolate. It consists of a mix of
cinnamon, passion fruit, pineapple, milk, and a few other ingredients. It
tastes super good, but it's so thick and filling. And I just wanted a glass of
water to wash all of the food down, but all I had was this thick filling
quacker. So the first week I was a little worried about not having enough to
eat. Now that I know the ward members, I have the opposite worry.
I'd just like to share a
few small miracles that happened this week. Nothing big, but it's the little
things in this life that count. So we were running late for an appointment, and
we never would have made it, but every single light turned green right when we
approached it. We didn't have to stop once, and because of that we were able to
make our appointment and actually got this investigator to come to church this
Sunday!
Another one, this same
day we here heading home and we were cutting it close, we have to be in our
house at 9. But we were supposed to turn left and my companion forgot to switch
lanes so we were stopped at the light and couldn't get over to the turn lane
because no one would let us in. Well, a fire engine came down the road and all
of the cars had to move out of the way. It turns out that we moved right into
the turn lane to get out of the way, and then we just took the turn after. It
was actually pretty funny.
Last miracle, we were
going around knocking doors. And we met a man that was prepared to hear our
message. We went in and he just started crying. We eventually found out that
his wife had died just less that twenty days ago, and he had been asking God
for a sign that he was still there. Well there we were, we showed up on his
door, and we were able to teach him the Plan of Salvation, and assure him that
he can see his wife again.
This week I got to
witness a baptism that some other Elders in our district had. The baptism was
on Saturday, and his confirmation was during church. Hector was the one who got
baptized, and he is the most solid convert I have ever seen. He had just barely
gotten baptized, but on Sunday he was talking about how we need to do member
missionary work and all of this other stuff. The Lord really prepares the way
for his children.
For a ward activity we
were able to watch “Meet the Mormons” in Spanish. A lot of people came to it
actually, and all of the missionaries form our district were there. During the
last story, where the missionary is leaving his family, all of the missionaries
were balling. It's sad sometimes. People will ask us why we left everything
behind to go do this. They don't understand. And it's true, I left so many
amazing things behind to be here. My family, my friends, my girlfriend Hannah,
and all of the other things I love. But I know I am right where I need to be,
no doubt about it.
Finally I'd just like to
say that the people here are fantastic. It's a little ironic, but the only
people who are ever mean to us are the white people. All of the Hispanics and
Black people are nice, even if they are not interested in what we have to say.
Walking around the trailer parks, basically everyone knows us now. People
constantly offer us food, drinks, and even beer haha. They're just trying to be
nice, and we actually have trouble leaving these parks on time because so many
people come out to talk to us. All is well here, the work is exhausting. But
it's all worth it.
-Elder Adams
Elder Adams and Elder Berry
