July 15, 2009

That's pretty gross that he touched it with his bare hands. I wrote you about our bike trip we had yesterday, but I accidently deleted it so I wrote about it to mom. We had a ride down to chicago for zone conference. I'm just finishing up my entry forms for the tour de france. I think If I can stay in the lead for the first 2/3 of the course then no one will be able to catch me!!! Ha ha ha. Anyway it was good ride. I love you so much pops. You're a great dad. I never heard if you got the card that I sent you for father's day. Oh and how was your birthday, I don't think I ever wrote you anything. 

Love your Son

I only have till about 11:30 my time though because we are meeting with a guy and his two young boys that I contacted into in downtown Evanston. They all had on Barcelona soccer jerseys. He wants to meet with us, so that's where we are headed. His name is Havier, and he's leaving tonight to Florida. I will try and come back to email at around 2, 3, or 4, I don't know it's hard to say when I'll jump back online. We are going to clean our apartment today also. Hurry online.
HEy you're a little slow getting on. I'll go meet with this guy downtown and we can meet back here in an hour or two does that work.
All right I'll send it, but what do I use in the mean time. Gotta go.
I think the one here was about 80? It was an ogio at the chicago cycle store. I need to know what I'm supposed to do for a backpack for a week or so until You can
send me a new one, if I send this one that I have home. Just borrow one of my companions other ones???
Good idea, I can use the temple one, or my companion said that he has an extra one.
It went good. He took us to this little pizza place called gigio's and we ate with him and his two boys. Found out he's from Barcelona spain, but is living in Florida and visiting here because he has some property here. His boys asked us questions about our religion. They are 15 and 11, I think. I went well though. I had a good chicken salad.
Yeah on monday. So what's the plan for this backpack. And you said you just barely got the package with the shirts in it??
I hope the summer is going well for you all,First off, it says on my garments (the bottoms) that I cannot bleach them. The tops I can, but I don't think any of the tops are that bad. The bleach idea therefore will not work witht he bottoms and those are the ones that are the worst.
Next, sorry I did mess up on the scripture it's John 6:61-71. The talk went GREAT! The ward loved it. I received so many compliments, people kept saying "Great talk Elder." One lady told me it was the best missionary talk she'd heard. A lot of people just really loved it. I got a little choked up on some parts but I tried to deliver strong. I prepared part of it while I was on the stand. Elder Hicken, the former Area 70 as of May, told me that I did good,and that it was better that they waited to have me speak because then it had more impact. I felt really good that day. My companion has had a ton of flat tires lately and he had a huge rip in his tire. Sunday we were on the side of the road while he fixed his tire, he'd used up all of his patches by the end. This lady who's house we were out in front of was nice to us. Now he's bought a new tire. It's a good thing he got it fixed also because yesterday we had to bike to Zone conference in Logan Square, in chicago. The sisters have totaled their car twice and it looks like the mission is done issuing them new vehicles. This is who we normally ride with. One member calculated the ride to be about 10 miles one way, though I haven't checked. It took us about 45 minutes to get there. It was a good ride. I was ran off the road by an suv who pulled out of a line of traffic. You're biking down in that city through gaps and alongside traffic and people are insane. We also had interviews with President Doll yesterday. I beginning to feel his love, that this is where he is called to be and he cares for us. He does things a little different, he's changed a few rules and he runs zone conference a little different but I like him. Last week he actually called us and asked if there were any appointments he could come to with us. He came to one with us and taught. During this appointment we set a baptismal date for one of investigators Marquel. Then he and his wife took us to Boston Market for dinner afterwards. It was a great experience. President sent me this letter today

Reply From President

It was a great experience to be able to teach with you and Elder Gardner last week. You have a good way of explaining the gospel and of asking good questions. I hope that my experience with you was an example of the kind of teaching you do all of the time. I can see that you are also a good companion and trainer for Elder Gardner. Read keep up the good work.

We did have a baptism set up for August 1 with this 19 year old black kid. His name is Marquel, this is the date that we set when President came to teach with us. He has had a rough life, made some mistakes in his life, but he quit smoking and we set a baptismal date for him. Then the other day when we were about to bike to his house for an appointment, I called him and he said that his mom, who he just moved in with, doesn't want him talking to us anymore. He asked if he could keep the BoM though, and of course we told him sure. It's sad though that he can't meet with us or get baptised anymore. We had set this baptismal date last week. Things are going forward though. I love you mom and family. The family is so important. I'm so thankful for all that you do mom and dad. You don't know how much your sacrifices mean to me. As I get older I can't help but think that I want to continue to be you little boy. I feel like we lost time together throughout those years we fought. I love you so much all of you. You are in my prayers. I'm doing the Lords work, and when you're oout on a sunny day knocking doors testifying, that's the life, these are the good times. When you're downtown in Evanston, testifying and teaching and talking to people, it's envigoration. I love this work. I'M A MISSIONARY. It just feels good, and I want to soak it all up.

WITH Love and Gratitude,
Elder Adams

Ok, you can keep writing me right now. I just have to jump over to another sight so I can write my weekly letter to president.
Here's something else that I thought I'd write to you about.
Another miracle happened the other day. At night we were planning and I was trying to find a street on the map that I had seen during the day that I wanted to tract, but I couldn't remember the name of it. We picked another. Then during the day as we were out I saw the street again. Now I am a huge advocate for not changing the plans, because we had picked that street and maybe Father in Heaven has been preparing people on that street for us all day, waiting for us to come. Then I decided we would change plans. I felt we should have a prayer though, and I offered one for us there. I prayed that we were changing plans and asked for help. I felt that something was going to happen on this street. Sure enough it did. We met a lady that shared very personal spiritual experiences. She was also strong in her beliefs. This could have been confrontational or argumentative, but I feel that prayer came into play , and we were able to speak to her. She was kind, and said we could bring by a copy of the Book of Mormon, but we did not set up to meet again. Nonetheless I feel she was one of the reasons we were to be on that street. Then a few more houses down I spoke to a man a single Japanese man, Suji Takahashi, and he immediately let us in after I had asked if we could share our message some time. He offered us water and then had us sit down. This was unlike any lesson. We taught principles from all 4 lessons in question and answer and discussion format. He was asking some important things. At the end he asked what the one thing he could do to know. We told him read the Book of Mormon. We didn't have any copies on us, because of the shortage that we've had, but we told him we'd bring one back. We set up a return appointment with him. Yesterday we dropped off the Book of Mormon to him with our testimonies in the front cover, and few of my favorite chapters written in. I feel like this was all evidence of God's hand in directing the work, showing us where we needed to go. I'm glad I acted. I've also seen the power of prayer, and I'm glad I acted on the prompting to pray. The Lord answered us and led us to people who are waiting. It's incredible when you feel guided, it's times like these that you know that this is not mine or any other missionarie's work: It's Gods. It's a good thing that I put aside my own judgements about changing plans.
I love you too mom. Thank you for sticking with me. Families in this gospel are forever, we have that to always hold onto.
That reminds me, I forgot to tell you about this awesome vegetable stire fry I made last week. I'm a Thai chef. Some members gave us some frozen stir fry vegetables and I seasoned and soy sauced them. It was so good. It's probably one of my favorite things. Probably one of the best things I've made on my mission. I made it two nights in a row, now I'm rationing the rest of the frozen veggies.
So you've been printing off my emails. I'm wondering if I should print off all of the stuff that I've received from you guys or things like that. So I can read it all later. My mail box is getting full and I keep getting this warning and I have to delte stuff because it says mailbox almost full. I might have to go back and start deleting.
Well I certainly didn't do anything to deserve that kind of love.
you can keep emailing me. I'm just going back and forth and working out while I email you.
Thanks...anyway this transfer is going by extra fast. It's insane.
Your last message didn't come through. There's an ogio bag that i want that's different than the one that I have. It's alittle narrower and a lot nicer that's the 80 one. maybe i can just buy that one and then ogio can reimburse? i don't know. i gotta go though. love ya tons.
I am gonna spend a fortune sending home packages. ha haha