Elder Harrison Adams 3/28/16 Morehead City, NC

Family and Friends,

This week has been pretty good. We kept busy. It was a hard week, just like these past few weeks here.

Luckily all of my bug bites are now gone, aside from the mosquito bites that I'm starting to get.

We had quite a bit of success with our lessons. We were able to start teaching an investigator this week that seems really promising. The first time we ever met him we left him with a Book of Mormon. We came back and taught him the restoration. At the end he asked "Is all of this true?" So there is quite a bit of sincere desire in him. This week our investigator Alex also came to church again. He's come the past seven weeks without fail! It's exciting to watch him grow and progress.

This Easter week was really good. I'm also really excited for general conference coming up. It's like Christmas for missionaries but better!

Well, that's all for this week. I hope y’all enjoyed your Easter and enjoy this upcoming conference Sunday!

Elder Harrison Adams 3/21/16 Morehead City, NC

Dear Family and Friends,

Hello! This week has been a hard week for sure. We've been struggling to find new people to teach, as well lots of lessons cancelled on us. We don't have many people to teach right now, so we are spending lots of time knocking on doors. I like knocking on doors because I get to meet lots of different people, and get to testify often of Christ. But the hours have been long and the lessons few. 

Also this week we had the chance to do service. On Harkers Island there was a big community get together of all the churches to clean the graveyard. Sadly, only people from our church showed up, but we got a lot of work done. Although, with this warm weather we've been getting here, it also means that we got a lot of bugs. Sadly, I wore shorts, thinking about how it was going to get hot that afternoon. Well, right around this time there are bugs that look like gnats. The locals call them gnodes. They were all over the place! I have never seen so many bugs in my life! We had bug spray but that made little to no difference as I got eaten alive over the five hours we worked there. The difference between gnats and gnodes is that gnodes bite you. And when they bite you it is almost identical to a mosquito bite. They swell up, itch like crazy, and make little circular bumps underneath your skin.

After service we went and ate at a member’s house, and it was fun hearing them talk in Harkanese (the dialect of the people that live on the island). We went home, and that night I decided to total up the number of bites that I got. 138 on both of my legs, and 244 total on my whole body...Basically my whole body has swollen up and I itch like crazy. Debatable this is one of the worst experiences of my life.  Scratch that. This is the worst experience I have had my entire life. I itch from head to toe, and I feel like I'm going to go crazy before all of these bites go away. I've put on lots of itch relieving cream but so far it hasn't helped much.

Final note of the week. We had zone conference not too long ago and something really stood out to me that our mission president said. We were talking about judgement day, and our mission president related how we are probably all going to feel naked before God in that time (as did Adam and Eve in the garden). He then expressed how during that time, when we are aware of all our guilt and sin, and we will have a perfect knowledge of everything we did wrong...Jesus will come and wrap us in His robe of righteousness. Then He will say to the Father, "This one is mine." And lead you, clothed in his robe and cleansed through his blood, past the judgement of God. I've been thinking about that a lot recently coupled with the message of the resurrection around this Easter season. As Job testified, "And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." (Job 19:26) Paul taught " Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" (Acts 26:8) And finally, Jacob affirmed that "the grave must deliver up its captive bodies, and the bodies and spirits of men will be restored to one another, and it is by the power of the resurrection  of the Holy One of Israel." ( 2 Nephi 9:12) I am grateful for Jesus Christ, His ministry, His sacrifice, and His resurrection. I leave you with my testimony this Easter of His divinity and glory. 

Love,

Elder Adams

Elder Harrison Adams 3-14-16 Morehead City, NC

Family and Friends,

This week has been a really good week! So Alex with his baptism date...we still are running into legal issues but it should all be resolved fast! I'm here with Elder Gibb and we both like to work hard so we leave in the morning energized and come in at night worn out! So with Alex it is all going well, and we met someone new this week called Eric Alaniz. He's from Tabasco Mexico and is a singer. We've only taught him the Restoration and the Book of Mormon but he received it all very well. The Book of Mormon lesson we taught was the best lesson I have taught on my mission so far, and Elder Gibb said it was the best he had ever taught the Book of Mormon on his mission. Elder Gibb has been out for 14 months. He's from American Fork, and played basketball in high school.

It's starting to get really hot around here. Normal days it's around 70-80 degrees. The bugs are coming out, that's for sure. Right now I already have about ten mosquito bites. And sadly it's just going to get worse. But that's okay. And the humidity is starting to come back which is lovely..... Inside our car this week we got in and it was reading 100 degrees.

For P-day today we went to Cape Lookout. On the ferry ride over we saw wild horses on the islands and got to walk along the seashore where we saw dolphins. Then we went to the lighthouse and enjoyed the day on cape lookout.

Other than that not much has happened this week. Lots of hard work and lots of sharing the gospel!

With much love, Elder Adams

Elder Adams and Elder Gibb on ferry to Cape Lookout.

Horses on Shackleford Banks on the way to Cape Lookout.

Elder Adams on Cape Lookout.

Cape Lookout Lighthouse.

Elder Harrison Adams 3-7-16 Morehead City, NC

Well I forgot to mention in my last email that I would be getting a new companion, Elder Gibb. We have been together since last Wednesday, and we have a blast! He really likes basketball and played for American Fork on their team. Although sometimes it's not fun playing basketball with him because he just drains every shot haha. It's fun if he's on my team.

Some other....not so exciting news. Last Tuesday we found out that we had bedbugs in the apartment. And lo and behold, the ones we were caught were all full of blood. I'm just praying that it was my companion they got, not me. But Rid-a-Pest came this week and superheated our house to get rid of them. It was fun because one of the ward missionaries, Ricardo Rubio, works for Rid-a-Pest and he was the one assigned to our house. But it was a pain, because we had to remove everything from our house that would be damaged by extreme heat. We had to wash and launder all of our clothes, sheets, and every article of clothing that we had. After we had to remove all flammables, pressurized cans, and other items similar to those from our apartment. It was a day of work, that's for sure. Finally though, Friday night, we were able to unpack and put all of our things back in the apartment. The bad thing is that when we went in our apartment it was still at 96 degrees so we were sweating like hogs!

Alex had his baptismal date planned for this Saturday. He had his interview and passed. But we might need to push the baptism back a little due to some legality issues. Hopefully it all gets resolved soon and we can still have the baptism this Saturday, but if not it's okay. I know that things will work out on the Lord's time.

This week has been a little tough. We've been trying to find new people to teach so we've knocked on a lot of doors. I really like knocking on doors because that's what me and my trainer did all day long, and I haven't done it for a while. But at the same time that's usually when you meet some really rude people. Luckily we did have quite a bit of success. We met a man named Eric. He's from Mexico, and he was a Seventh Day Adventist. But the church is too far away for him to attend so he is currently looking for a new church. We taught him the restoration and the Spirit was really strong throughout the whole lesson. I can see things going well with him in the future.

Little things like that have really picked me up during the week. But nothing picks me up more than getting mail and encouragement from Hannah!

I really like it here with Elder Gibb. He just came from Nags Head and tells me a lot of cool stories about the area. Hopefully at one point in my mission I will get to serve there. The work here really is rolling forward. I know I can't do it alone. Luckily though I have a great companion and my Father in heaven that always have my back. Love you all.

-Elder Adams