Monday, November 28, 2016

Elder Harrison Adams 11/28/16 Newport News, VA

Family and Friends,

Happy late Thanksgiving! I'm grateful for each and every one of you and hope y'all had a great week! For Thanksgiving we went and ate at our branch president's house with the other Spanish Elders. As much as I love Hispanic food, I was grateful to have a traditional Thanksgiving this year. 

I'm also grateful for exchanges and the chance to learn and grow from other missionaries. This week I went on exchanges with Elder Sena Segundo. He is from Brazil and he taught me lots about Brazilian customs, culture, and even gave me some Brazilian food! We also ate at the Hernandez house yesterday. Nothing crazy. Eggs, bacon, beans, and tortillas. But after a long day that was one of the best meals I'd had in a while! 

Going along with this theme of gratefulness, the Lord has given us many things to be grateful for. This week was a pretty hard week overall with quite a few disappointments. But, every time I was discouraged or disappointed the Lord always put a tender mercy in my day to cheer me up or to give me the strength to keep going. I'm grateful for this Gospel and I know that if we live obediently then we will receive blessings. On my mission I've seen it in my life and in the lives of other people as well. I love this Gospel and I love my Savior Jesus Christ. Sorry it's a little short this week, but I love Y'all! 


Elder Adams

Elder Adams and Elder Luque

Elder Adams and Elder Haslam from our stake who returned home 11/16/16

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Elder Harrison Adams 11/21/16 Newport News, VA

Family and Friends,

Well hello! How are Y'all doing? So I'll talk a little about our week. We had to move to a new apartment that hadn't had missionaries in it for at least 8 months. So me and my new companion, Elder Claridge, get to the apartment and it was a pretty big mess! Lots of stuff lying around, no light bulbs worked, etc. Well to make it all the better, we go to use the bathroom and it got backed up for no reason. So we try to move some water from the toilet over to the shower so we can plunge it, but then we realized that our shower didn't drain! We started plunging our shower and this really gross brown water and lots of hair started coming up. After doing that for a while we finally called someone in and they were working on it the whole day and night. So we didn't have a toilet or shower for our first day in this new apartment. Luckily now we got everything squared away!

Oh also my new address is:

Elder Harrison Adams
456 F Cox Landing
Newport News, VA 23608

A little bit about my new companion. His name is Elder Claridge. He is from Mesa, Arizona. And we get along really well. He loves sports. Was a quarterback in high school, played soccer, and ran track. He also wants to be a nuclear physicist. Needless to say, we have a lot in common. Also, a fun fact about him, he knows literally everything there is to know about Star Wars! 

This week the Hernandez had a birthday party and they invited us over for food and cake. We had sopa de siete mares and it was the hottest thing I have eaten on my mission! All the Hispanics there were crying from how hot it was, so you can imagine how bad it was for a gringo like me! But it was super good. It had crab, scallops, clams, shrimp, and octopus in it. We also had some really good ceviche and pastel. 

As for this week, we've done a lot of knocking doors. Our area got shortened quite a bit and it's been hard to get people to teach. And most of the people we taught before were single woman or the husband was working during the day. Now that there are two of us we can only enter the house if there is a third male, which there rarely is during the day.

So the work has been pretty hard this week! Lots of walking. Lots of hard work. And sometimes that's what we need in life. What I've found on my mission, is that hard work can solve any problem. Whether it be a problem with a relationship, a financial problem, or a spiritual problem. If we put in our part and do all we can, then of course God is going to step in and help us out! He loves us, and would do anything to see us happy. So long as it is within His will and we do our part. I love being a missionary, and sharing the gospel. It's the best thing in the world! 

Love Y'all!

Elder Adams


Monday, November 14, 2016

Elder Harrison Adams 11/14/16 Newport News, VA

Family and Friends,

This week was a really good week! We got transfer calls this past Saturday and some weird things are going to be happening. Elder Luque is going to Greenville, Elder Armstrong is staying, and I'll be moving about 4 miles up the road to reopen Newport News C. So now instead of two companionships in the branch we will have three. I'm going to be getting Elder Claridge. Although my area is basically going to be the same, so lots of the people I've been working with I'll still be able to see! I'm grateful for that. 

This week, we put in lots of hard work. We focused especially on teaching by the Spirit and it's been amazing to see the difference. God truly knows each and everyone of us—our desires, our concerns, our needs. As we've taught with the Spirit, we've been able to answer their concerns, solve their problems, and promise them the blessings that they need. I love feeling the Spirit. There is nothing better than being an instrument in the hands of God. 
At church yesterday, I was able to see the Herrera family. They were here last year when I served in this area, and we became really good friends. They moved to Smithfield so normally they attend the ward there. But every now and then the make the journey up to visit the branch. We also had five of our investigators at church! Eva has now been for four weeks in a row, and we got the Hernandez family to come as well.

I love being a missionary! The church is true. Keep going. Keep trying. And never give up!

Love Y'all!


-Elder Adams 


Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Elder Harrison Adams 11/7/16 Newport News, VA

Family and Friends,

This week was a pretty good week. Looking back on it I can't really remember a whole lot about it. We got out and worked hard though so that was good!

Oh. Also Carlos got baptized this Saturday! It was an amazing experience. And yesterday he asked me to do the confirmation. That also was a really good experience!

Eva came to church again which was also great. She's been three weeks in a row now.

Transfers are coming to an end soon. It will be interesting to see what happens. I'm most likely to stay but we'll see! Alright. Y'All have a fantastic week! Remember, the church is true! 

Love,

Elder Adams 

Spanish Missionaries after the Mission Tour.
All but two have been Harrison's companions (two of them twice).

Elder Harrison Adams 11/1/16 Newport News, VA

Hellooooo family and friends! I have quite a few good stories this week so buckle down!

To start off. The Sister Training leaders who live in our same apartment complex have been pranking us quite a bit. So we decided we would get them back. So we all carved pumpkins, sent them on a scavenger hunt, and then at the end we threw pies in their faces and got thing with silly string. I'll include a few photos.

This week we also had our branch Halloween party. We've been getting a lot of hate from people recently that we celebrate Halloween. I've been surprised just how many people hate Halloween. But this past Thursday we had a party, and we got so many people to come. At the end I believe we had around 19 investigators at the party! It was mostly based around little kids, but everyone had a good time! 

One more story which I'm still a little bitter about. So we had just eaten at a potentials house, and we sat down to teach him a lesson. Well in the middle of the lesson it felt like I had a rock in my shoe that was digging into my toe. So I wiggled my toe a little bit, and the pain got a lot worse. At this point I jammed my toe against the side of my shoe to try and make it stop, and the pain got excruciating! So in the middle of the lesson I yanked off my shoe, looked down at my toe, and saw a needle sticking halfway into my toe! I don't know how. But one of Elder Armstrong's sewing needles somehow got into my shoe, and then later into my big toe. He says he doesn't know how it got in my shoe but I don't know if I believe him. If I go missing in the next few weeks, you know who to look for. 

Well I should probably talk about the food I ate this week. Since I seem to do it in almost every letter.  But I can't help it because the food here is so delicious! So a list of foods I ate this week. Sopes, camarones, carne asada, sopa de frijoles, pupusas, ceviche, flounder, ratones....I am in love with Hispanic food. It's the best thing ever! 

We also had a mission tour yesterday, which was why this email is coming out today. Elder Bennet came and talked to us all yesterday. And it was such a great experience. I wish Y'all could have been there to feel the spirit that was present. I know that he is a servant of God, just like I know the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are servants called of God. I love and support our church leaders.


Well that's it for this week! Y'all have a wonderful week and stay out of trouble! 

Pumpkins we carved. Left to right: Mine, Elder Armstrong's, Elder Luque's. 

Sisters after we got them. 

Halloween Party

You know you're in the right trailer park when you see this...

Elder Harrison Adams 10/24/16 Newport News, VA

Family and Friends,

This week was a good week! Although at the beginning of the week I got sick. And then Elder Armstrong caught what I had right as I was getting better. So we have had to spend a little extra time indoors which is the worst as a missionary. Back home if you were sick you could watch TV, or play a game on your phone, but as a missionary you have nothing to do other than sleep. Meanwhile your companions are bored out of their minds because they don't have anything to do either! So that was miserable. But, aside from the sickness, this week was pretty good! 

On Friday we went over to a less active members house and she showed us how to cook enchiladas and chilaquiles. Oh. I forgot! She also showed us how to cook pig head. So we ended up having enchiladas, chilaquiles, and pigs head tacos. Which were surprisingly good! Although I do not recommend watching it being cooked. Probably one of the grossest things I've seen! President Piggot and his wife also fed us this week. They just made us chicken and a salad. But Sister Piggot is one of the funniest people I know! She's from Columbia and so she speaks really clear, good Spanish. Whenever she sees us she always says "¡Hola Cabezones!" 

Another reason why this week was great was yesterday. We were finally able to have a normal meeting with just the branch! My first week here it got cancelled and the second we were combined with another ward. But finally we had a meeting with just us! There were only 40 people there, including us and little kids. And out of those 40, 5 of them were our investigators and 1 of them was an investigator of the sisters. It was great to see so many people that weren't members at church! The Hernandez family and Eva Munoz were our investigators at church. And everyone there was so nice to them and came and talked to them. They should be at church next week as well! Well, I sure am glad to me a missionary. I'm glad to be a representative of our Lord Jesus Christ. The church is true!


Alright, love Y'all!

We found some deer behind a trailer park so we had to take a photo.

I got bored while Elder Armstrong was sick, so I was doodling. 

Enchiladas and chilaquiles that we made.