Elder Harrison Adams 5/29/17 Greenville, NC

Family and friends,

We had a good week this week! The highlight was yesterday, when we had one of our investigators come to church! So originally we didn't have anyone commit to come to church so we were bummed about that. But Sunday morning we got a text from one of our investigators and she asked us what time church started. So we told her and asked if she was going to be coming, and she said "quizas vaya" or maybe I'll go. So the first hour went by and we didn't see her come in. We sit outside of the chapel to translate so we were super happy to go into the chapel after the service and see that she had come in and brought her three children! She stayed for the other two hours and her kids went to primary. One of her kids really liked it, and the other didn't. He was a little upset that our church didn't have a playground haha. But it was great. Overall she really enjoyed her experience and even committed to coming next week as well! 

Apart from that this week has been a good fulfilling one as well. Even though Elder Mickelson and I didn't see tons of personal success, we worked really hard and know that we did our part. Sometimes other peoples agency can be frustrating. However, it's also one of the greatest gifts that God has given us. God's given us agency, and with that agency we have the responsibility to make right choices and follow His gospel. Agency however, also gives us a big responsibility. As it says in Doctrine and Covenants 101:78- "That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgement." So with our agency, we know that we will be responsible for our actions. Then, let us strive a little harder to choose the right. To keep God's commandments, and to reject the natural man and his tendencies. And I promise that as we do so, we will feel a greater peace in our lives and a greater appreciation for our personal agency. Thank y'all so much for everything that you do! Have a fantastic week.

Love,

Elder Adams 

(I also forgot to say in the letter that one of our investigating families moved back to Mexico this week, we'll miss them! They're here in this first photo.)

Elder Harrison Adams 5/22/17 Greenville, NC

Family and Friends,

Hello Y'All!

This week has been overall a pretty good week! This Wednesday we had to drive to Virginia, which is four hours from where we currently are. So we drove for four hours, had a meeting up there for a little under seven hours, and then ended up driving home after that. We got home a little after 9:00 P.M. It was a long day because we sat for so long, but it was also a really good day!

This past week we also had interviews with President Weed. Let me say, I love my mission president. It's easy to see the care and love that he has for us missionaries. He and his wife are both spectacular people and I'm glad that they are leading our mission. This upcoming week we are also going to have Zone Conference. Elder Mickelson and I have a training or two to give in it, so we've been preparing lately. Hopefully it'll all go well!

Alright, so some really good things happened this week! So we taught Fernando again. Let me just say, his smile is so contagious! He's smiling all the time and it's so refreshing to meet someone so nice and so happy. We were able to teach him a little more about the Book of Mormon and testified to him about the divinity of that book. Honestly, I love the Book of Mormon. Whenever I have questions or doubts, I've always been able to fall back onto my testimony of this book. And if the Book of Mormon is true, then logically everything else is also true! 

We also taught a lady this week about the Plan of Salvation. She had lots of questions about where she came from and the purpose of this life. The Plan of Salvation really does give us such good direction and purpose in our lives! If we do the things here that we know we need to (namely: Develop faith, Repent, Be Baptized, Receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Endure to the End) then we can be confident in our salvation. I have no doubt that if we do those things, we will return and live with God after this life. I'm so grateful for this blueprint that we have and for the opportunity we have as members of the church to model our lives around this plan. And everything in this life that is wrong or unfair will be made right, through Jesus Christ and His atonement!

Well, I hope Y'All have a fantastic week! Take care!

Love,

Elder Adams 

Elder Harrison Adams 5/15/17 Greenville, NC

Family and Friends,

Hello! This week was a great week! First off I have to say happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there! And I just want to say happy Mother's Day to my mom one more time! Sorry I wasn't able to send an email at last week. I'll do a brief recap of what happened. So, two weeks ago we had our special Spanish zone conference. It was fantastic! I little stressful since Elder Mickelson and I were in charge of the whole meeting (a 6-hour meeting). But it was a really good experience and really rewarding as well. It was worth all the hard work that went into it! President and Sister Weed were a little lost during it since it was all in Spanish, but we enjoyed their presence nonetheless!

Okay so that was the main thing that happened two weeks ago. This past week was a hard one, but also rewarding! We put in lots of hard work into the area, and it didn't really seem that we saw any progress or anything come of it. However, on Sunday we were ecstatic to see one of our investigators come to church! He came with his wife who is a a member. In all this was his 5th or 6th time coming to church, and we're glad to see him continuing to progress!

This week we were also asked to teach elder's quorum. We taught lesson 8 from the Gordon B. Hinckley manual and the lesson was all about looking to Christ. The principle message that hit me from this lesson was the statement, "Do we really believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God?" "That he suffered for our sins, and atoned for our wrongs." Later in the lesson it goes on to say that if we do believe in this, then we have every reason to be happy and make the most out of our lives.

A man in our quorum made a comment saying that this was the first Mother's Day he had since his mom had passed away. He went on to say that of course it's hard to not have her in his life, and that he misses her. BUT. Because Jesus Christ is the son of God. And because He existed. This man knew that he would be with his mother again. He knew that everything unfair in this world would be made right. And he had a hope for something greater after this life.

That's one thing that I took from this lesson. Jesus Christ, knowing of His divinity and role, gives us a direction in this life. Without Him, everything we knew would be for nothing. But because He came here, because He lived, we all have our own purpose in this life. So, if ever we need direction in our lives, I know that we can think about and turn to our rock, Jesus Christ. He can give us the motivation and strength we need when we feel like giving up. Because He lived, we'll all live again. And we all have a purpose and direction in this life. I know that Jesus Christ lived, and that He lives today. I love Him, and know that He loves each and every one of us!

Love,

Elder Adams

Elder Harrison Adams 5/1/17 Greenville, NC

Family and Friends,

Sorry for not sending a big email last week! Hopefully this week will make up for it!

So recently we've been having a pretty good time here in Greenville! Things have been heating up! This week it got up to 97 degrees. And the humidity is slowly but surely creeping its way back! We've ridden bikes for a little while as well these past two weeks, so that's been a fun adventure!

We were really blessed this past week in finding new investigators. We went out and worked hard, and because of that we were really blessed! We found a new guy that we were able to teach twice, and it's the best thing in the world to teach him! He has a smile on his face all the time and his smile just lights up the world. He also has good intentions and wants to know what he needs to do in this life! It was interesting, because he is twenty years old. The same as me and Elder Mickelson.

I was reflecting a little on that and was so grateful that I have Christ's gospel in my life. Even though we have the same amount of life experience, the gospel of Jesus Christ has given me lots of direction and guidance. When I do face big problems, I know that I always have a steady compass to turn to. God, is not a God of confusion. He's a God of perfection. A God of order. So, this life doesn't have to be a guess and we don't have to live just off of preconceived notions! With the Holy Ghost, we receive actual and direct answers. Divine answers. And I'm so grateful for that in our life!

This upcoming week we have a special Spanish conference on the 5th of May. We're excited preparing for that and next week we should have some good things to report! It's the first one that the mission has ever had, and we are very excited for it!

Okay. I love Y'all! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Adams

Elder Harrison Adams' Return Flight Information

We don't know if it's a mistake or not, but the first leg of Elder Harrison Adams' return flight home is listed as First Class. What's most likely is it's a small plane and he's in "A Class".

Delta Air Lines DL 1113 Departure 01 August 09:40 AM Norfolk, (Norfolk Intl) (+) Arrival 01 August 11:25 AM Atlanta, (Hartsfield-Jackson Int) (+) Terminal: S - Terminal South Duration 01:45 (Non stop) Distance 514 Miles Booking status Confirmed Class First (A) Baggage allowance 2 Piece(s) for Harrison James Adams Delta Air Lines DL 1507

Departure

01 August 12:30 PM

Atlanta, (Hartsfield-Jackson Int) (+)

Terminal: S - Terminal South

Arrival

01 August 02:27 PM

Salt Lake City, (Salt Lake City Intl) (+)

Terminal: 2 - Terminal Unit 2

Duration

03:57 (Non stop)

Distance

1,586 Miles

Booking status

Confirmed

Class

Economy (K)

Baggage allowance

2 Piece(s) for Harrison James Adams

Elder Harrison Adams 4/17/17 Greenville, NC

Family and Friends,

Hello Y'all! There's lots to write about this week! Lots of good and bad things happened.

To start off we had to drop one of our investigators which was really hard, but necessary as well. Sometimes it's a hard and scary thing to do, but if we follow the Spirit's direction it will all work out. God has a play for each and every one of us. A few days later we also had to drive some Elders to the airport and say goodbye to them. That was also a little hard and sad.

However, even though this week had some hard things, it was chalked full of amazing things as well! We had lots of success finding new investigators and have found some really good potential in several of them.

One of the biggest highlights of the week however happened on Saturday. A while back Elder Cook had planned to visit our mission but due to an ice-storm he wasn't able to come. So he rescheduled and came back this past Saturday! We met in Portsmouth Virginia which was about a three hour drive from Greenville. Our mission president wanted us to drive up over night so we did that and stayed with some other Spanish Elders. Then Saturday morning we had a meeting, as a whole mission, with Elder Cook. It was so good and so amazing! We talked mostly about Easter and developing Christlike attributes. It was very inspiring and instructive. The Spirit that Elder Cook brought with him as well was incredible.

After the conference, we had some lunch and then had to drive all the way down to Kinston (4 hours away) for stake conference. We were running a little late but somehow made it just on time. We sang in the choir, and then got to hear from Elder Keetch and President Walker. It was really good. They talked about strengthening your marriage which of course doesn't apply to me right now, but I have some good ideas for the future now!

The next day, Sunday, we had the second session of stake conference in New Bern. About an hour and a half away from Greenville. Elder Keetch spoke to us again about the importance of service. He talked about a man that wanted to double his spirituality. He shared his plan with Elder Keetch, saying he was going to double the times he went to the temple, double his scripture study, and even go to church twice on Sunday. His hope was to double his spirituality by doubling those aspects of his worship. However, Elder Keetch told him what he thought would be the best way to double his spirituality. He said, "Instead of the time you would take to do all of those extra things, even though those are fantastic, use that time instead to perform simple acts of service." He went on to explain that of course we need the basic building blocks of scripture reading, church attendance, and temple worship. However, it's also important to remember to give service to others. That's my favorite thing about being a missionary. We have so many opportunities to serve. And I know that as we serve not only will we increase our spirituality, but we will draw closer to God and be the type of people that he would want us to be.

Well after all of those amazing events, we had one more! Since stakes out here are pretty large, Morehead City is included in our stake. So at stake conference I was able to see lots of the families from Morehead City. In specific, the Willis and Clifton family! After conference, people always bring food and have a picnic outside, and they invited us to eat with them. It sure made me miss them and Morehead City!

Alright, that's about all for this week! Y'all take care!

Love,

Elder Adams

Seeing good friends from Morehead City.

Elder Adams and Elder Mickelson.

Elder Harrison Adams 4/10/17 Greenville, NC

Family and Friends,

Hello Y'all! This week was fantastic. It was super busy, but that made it go by super fast. We were out of our area a few days for meetings and exchanges so we weren't able to work in our area as much as we would have liked, but we still got lots of good things done!

We were able to teach a few new people. Last night we met a man named Nacho, and we had a really good lesson with him. It's been interesting to see how effective it is to study and become a Preach My Gospel missionary. The more I've focused my efforts on following the council in that inspired book, we've had more success and all around people tend to listen more! I also love the fact that we have a companion to back up and expound on what we said.

I've thought a lot about President Utchdorf's talk from last general conference. We, to some degree, are all Amuleks. We have the ability and responsibility to sustain and uphold our church leaders, and to also give them advice and add to their testimony. I know that we need both Almas and Amuleks in this church. And, in many ways, we are all both!

Zone meeting this week went really good. We focused on how we can commit ourselves, so we can better commit others. Personal conversion comes first, and personal obligations. But after we found ourselves on the doctrine of Christ and on His atonement, then we have the great responsibility and privilege to help others see and accept this wonderful Gospel!

Well, I sure love Y'all! Keep up the good work, and remember, the church is true!

Love,

Elder Adams

How to find Hispanics in the United States. Rule number one, 

look for La Virgin de Guadalupe!

North Carolina Countryside.

Packages from friends are the best! :)

Deer in the Assistants' apartment.

Carolina sky.