Weekly Email 10.31.22

Hello friends and family!

 Another great week has passed here in Washington! This next week is transfer week, so on Saturday night we had transfer board reveals and I found out my new companion and area. My current companion, Elder Dell is actually going home from his mission tomorrow to get knee surgery. I will miss him a lot, but it is good that he is going home to get his health taken care of. I am very grateful that he was my trainer because he was an amazing example to me and we had lots of fun times together. On a happier note, my new companion is Elder Wheeler! I'm super excited because I already know him because we came out (from the MTC) together! Also, I am staying in my same area which I am so happy about! 

This last week Elder Dell and I were blessed to put two of our friends on date for baptism! These friends accepted baptismal dates for early December! Both of their baptisms are this upcoming transfer so Elder Wheeler and I will get to work with them and help prepare them for baptism! 

So I've decided to start sharing a little spiritual message in my emails so here's today's: Spiritual message: Matthew 7:7-8, 11:

 7. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

 8. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened

11. If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

I really like these verses because I know Heavenly Father loves us all perfectly because we are His children. He will bless us with many good things in our life according to what we need!

I hope you all have a wonderful week and a Happy Halloween! 

Sincerely,

Elder Adams

Pics: (This is the only pic I took last week lol)

Oh, I just remembered, but with transfers next week, I am moving apartments! My old apartment is nicknamed " the asylum" and my new apartment is nicknamed "the penthouse" if that tells you anything haha. Not only is my new apartment two floor, has two bathrooms, and has workout equipment, it also has a washer and dryer! Also, most importantly it's CLEAN! Oh, and the hot water in the shower actually works haha. Basically it's a total upgrade and the location is way better. We are closer to the stake center, and we are right on the southern border of our area. Before we had to drive to get to our area, and now we can walk to our area which is great for finding purposes! 

October 24, 2022

Good morning Dad!

Haha no worries Dad! Yeah this p-day has been pretty great! Some of the Elders and I have went golfing this morning and the rest of the day has been pretty chill, which is good! 

The office missionaries bought me a cookie from Crumbl on my birthday which was super nice! Other than that, not a lot happened, but it was still a really great birthday! 

Elder Dell is doing as good as one could be in his situation. We are both in denial, but technically this is his last week as a missionary. Today he is going to tell the district missionaries after district council because right now I'm the only person in the mission beside him who knows. The plan for this week is to finish hard! We are going to grind this week harder than we ever have before and send Elder Dell off with a bang!

That's crazy that they change our boundaries again and that our ward is so small geographically wise! Dang that's a bummer to lose those families, especially the Fagers.) 

Gooooo Bulldogs!! It should be exciting to see if they can keep this rolling in the off-season! 

October 17, 2022

Hello friends and family!

This last week has been super great! Elder Dell’ergo and I have been blessed to see lots of success in our area lately. We both hope we can stay next transfer, but the odds of that happening are very slim. Whatever happens one of us will most likely stay, so that will be good!

Last Monday we had a zone nerf gun fight between the Yakima zone and the Selah zone. That was super fun. Also District Council that evening was a blast per usual. Our district has 6 companionships, so it's fairly decent sized. Elder Dell’ergo is our district leader and he really does a great job with our trainings. Elder Wardell and I love to tell him that he's our favorite district leader (we're both in our second transfer and have only had him for a district leader, haha). 

Tuesday was a super busy day and we were able to teach quite a few lessons. At one of our lessons with these kids that we've been teaching for a while now we found out that their cousin is a member and that we know him! He's in the YSA ward that we also work with. Now that we know he's their cousin we are going to start bringing him to their lessons!

Wednesday and Thursday were both a little slower, but still really good days. Our member dinner Wednesday night was with some of our favorite members, and they made us some amazing food! Thursday we had interviews with President Welch, which are always fun, and then for lunch we went out with the YSA Branch President and his wife. 

Friday we were able to start teaching this lady who we used to teach! She had been MIA for almost a month and then the other day we drove past her in the car. She honked at us and we waved back. Elder Dell decided to call her right after and she said we could come by that night and that she was ready to meet with us again! 

On Saturday Elder Dell and I went on an exchange with the AP’s because they are in our district and like I said, Elder Dell is the district leader. Both of our AP’s are named Elder Hansen, which is pretty cool,  so Elder Dell and I both went with Elder Hansen, haha. The exchange was super great and I learned lots during it. We had to do a little driving so while we were in the car we were jamming out to the 2023 youth theme album,‘I Can Do All Things ThroughChrist’. In our mission we can only listen to hymns, covers of hymns, and the youth albums that the church makes. Because of that this new album is very exciting news because it means we have new music to listen to, haha. 

Sunday was amazing per usual. The family ward Elder Dell and I are in took a little bit of time to warm up to us, but now they really love us! I am definitely going to miss this ward when I leave. At our YSA church meeting all of the men sang "Ye Elders of Israel". The women had sung two weeks ago so it was only fair that we sing as well. 

Overall the week was amazing and I saw God's hand in my life many times! I saw a lot of growth in myself and also in those that I am teaching! The gospel truly can change people's lives if they will let it! 

Have a wonderful week everyone!!

Elder Adams

October 10, 2022

Hello friends and family!

It looks like it has been a month since I last emailed, so rather than fill y’all in on what I have been up to the last month I'll just talk about this last week! 

So this last week has been pretty great. Elder Dell and I are still companions in the same area and the work is amazing! We work and teach together great. We have lots of friends that are progressing really well towards baptism! One of our friends, Tera, had us over to her house and fed us tacos! We had helped tear up carpeting and put in flooring for Tera during a couple of service projects and she wanted to pay us back some way. Elder Dell and I love tacos so how could we say no haha. Best part was that after we ate we had a lesson with Tera and she is so close to being ready for baptism! Our friend Sherry and her son Isaac have been coming to church with us for a while now and this last Sunday Sherry really enjoyed it!

Thursday was our zone conference in Selah. Selah, Yakima, Yakima Valley, and the Dalles zone missionaries were all there! That is half of our mission, so there were a lot of missionaries! Zone conference was super great and I learned a lot. It was also super cool because I got to see one of the Elders I came out with, Elder Larsen! Elder Larsen is super great and it was awesome being able to catch up with him. 

Also general conference was aaaaamazing!! I had so many questions answered and the spirit was so strong during all of the sessions! I honestly don't even have a favorite talk because they were all so great! I'm looking forward to going back and reading all of the talks! 

Well that's all for now! I am going to try and get back to sending these weekly! Hope you all have a great week!

Sincerely,

Elder Adams

pics:

1. Zone conference 

2. Nerf war on p-day

October 3, 2022

Letter from Mom to Cody: Is it starting to look and feel like Fall there in Yakima? It definitely is here. And wasn't General Conference A-MAZ-ING? I hope you were able to watch most of it. I can't even begin to pick a favorite. But, when President Nelson spoke at the end did it feel like he was telling us all goodbye? That is how it felt to us here, and Holli said that too. And then the entire MoTab was crying as they sang that last song. 

Loved hearing about your new apartment and the other elders that joined you there. Does it make you think about "The Best 2 Years" movie with the 4 of you there, ha ha? Glad to hear you are staying with Elder Dell for this transfer, I am sure there is much you will continue to learn from him. Just so you know, your weekly emails are being missed. It would def be helpful to write in your journal often so that you could remember stuff, but I am sure that there is some message or experience that you can share with all of us! And of course pictures are worth a thousand words, so there's that....

Have an awesome P-day and week, and enjoy this awesome month of October! Love you tons Cody - we pray for you and Elder Dell every day! 

Hi Mom! 

Yeah it is definitely starting to look like and feel like fall. The leaves are changing colors and the weather is getting cooler. The other morning it was 56 degrees when we left the apartment! I got to wear one of my quarter zips! General conference was A-MAZ- ING! I agree there were too many good talks that I couldn't pick a favorite! The one that talked about having faith in every footstep was pretty great tho! I liked when he said "our missionaries today are modern pioneers." I was like hey that's me haha. Yeah it definitely felt like a goodbye. I don't know if this is going to be the last General Conference with President Nelson, but we probably won't have many more. Yeah the entire MoTab plus you right haha. Jk jk. We will definitely see what time brings. Oh and did you see that President Nelson sat in a chair for conference? 

Yoooo I don't know why, but I didn't even think about that haha. Now it definitely does make me think of The Best Two Years haha. Yep I am super excited to stay with Elder Dell! There is definitely lots he can still teach me! Also it is super nice because our companion unity is through the roof. Yesterday during our weekly planning we were like literally reading each other's mind because the Spirit was giving us the same ideas at the same time and then we would say them out loud at the same time we were yoooo haha. It was super cool. I will see what I can do about getting pictures, and I should write an email this week. Even if its short I need to just start doing it so people know I'm alive haha. I am going to try really hard to write in my journal this week so next week's email will be aight. 

I will continue to have an awesome p-day and amazing October! Love you too Mom!

Elder Cody

Good morning Dad!

Yeah that was a super amazing conference! Conference as a missionary is super great! There were lots of great talks that I am going to have to go back and read again.

Oh yeah so investigators are called friends, and it has been like that the entire time that I've been out here, I just forget sometimes, haha. No one ever really made a point to tell me I just picked up on it because the other missionaries say friend not investigator.

So Saturday morning our zone actually watched conference at the mission home, which was awesome. Our zone is pretty goated. Our stls,zls and dls all made us eggs, hash browns and sausage! It was super great watching conference as our zone and apparently one of the APs has been working pretty hard because he fell asleep during the session and everyone started taking pictures of him. Saturday Afternoon Elder Dell and I went with the APs and another companionship of elders to the mission office and watched it there. Sunday morning we just watched on our phones at the apartment, but Sunday afternoon we watched it with Brother and Sister Atherton as well as our friend Sherry and her son Isaac. The Atherton’s are the best! We bring Sister Atherton to like all of our lessons with Sherry and she basically just teaches the whole thing, haha. 

I can't remember if I told yall this already, but the new temples district was announced for the Moses Lake temple and Yakima isn't even in it. Not really a surprise, because the drive to Moses Lake is about the same to wherever the other temple is I forgot haha. 

Yeah Jose is doing amazing! He has the priesthood and is passing the sacrament next Sunday! His girlfriend, Maya, has come to church twice and is meeting with the missionaries! So our friend Santiago was on date, but then he started posting pics of himself on Facebook smoking weed and we were going to take him off date, but he just dropped us. So kind of a bummer, but it's just what happens. Other than that we have like 16 or 17 people that are in various stages of progression as well as a couple of new friends that we are going to start teaching. The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a drag and we only taught like 8-10 lessons a week, but the first transfer we always taught at least 20-25. We weekly planned super hard this week (it took us 2 1/2 hours) and are ready to work harder then ever! 

I don't have any specific stories with contacts, but my street contacting skills have gotten a lot better! At the start of the mission they weren't the best haha, but I put the reps in and they have improved a lot. I have learned how to make small talk with pretty much anyone and then transition the small talk into talking about the gospel. I still need a lot of work and there is plenty of room for improvement, but I am also way better then at the start of my mission! 

Yeah I have definitely already seen lots of blessings and I know that there will be many more to come! One blessing I have seen is how much my testimony has grown in such a short time! This is obviously a huge blessing for me, but it will also someday be a blessing for my future family. Elder Dell and I talk a lot about how our missionary service can and will be a huge blessing for our future family! It helps us to stay motivated and work hard, because we realize that how hard we work as missionaries can and will have an impact on the rest of our lives and the lives of our future family. Hope you have a great week! Love you Dad!

Elder Cody