October 26, 2009

hey man you got to share the pictures when you when you get the pictures. ok man. Hey dont worry about state cup. I know you gave your best and now you can be gratefull that you had such an awesome learning experience. Thanks for your support little bro. I hope you know that I hold you in my eyes with utmost respect. you're a good kid and all will be well :) remember share the pictures.

As for answers to questions that you posed to me in your latest email....
1.color to lederhosen- negative. no meaning other than to just to be awesome
2. Castle- i dont know what you are talking about. But it is probably the festung.
3. Negative- i have not bought a coat because a member in our ward, her name is Connie Sattler, She gave me a down coat that her son doesnt wear anymore. I am definately not going to freeze. It has been getting a little colder lately.
4. Money per month- 170 euro. Missionwork- priceless
5. Yes it is enough money per month
6. Dinner Appointments- earlier no, now yes. we are working on building the excitement in the ward and the members are beginning to love us. And the dinner appointments are coming with that. For example yesterday we got invited to the Grünauers and they had bought food for a party with all of their freinds but it got cancelled for some reason so they invited us over to come and eat it all. It was rackelet. ya know the thing where you have the tiny pans and you cook meat and cheese and potatos and make omelets and stuff. Ya it was delicious and i think i gained like three kilos.
7. Swine Flu- Keine ahnung (no idea) I am a missionary and i have the faith that God will protect me, so Im not going to worry to much about it.

As for the week it was excellent. We have been working super hard with members to get the excitement about mission work going because it is just really hard to find investigators on your own. We have made the grand and glorious discovery (through what we were taught in Zone Konferenz) that it is easier to have the members just give you the people that they have found and then we can just teach them, instead of spending several hours a day standing in the freezing cold knocking on doors. Cool story about that by the way! A member had talked to a man on a train a while back, His name is Lutz Helmanseder. She had spiked the interest in him to want to recieve a book of mormon. We have tried to contact him for the past like three months or so and have always had no luck. He lives north of us in Bad Reichenhal so we cant just go peddaling up there on our bikes whenever we want to. but we called him on saturday evening to confirm the appointment that we had made out with him the previous week. He was totally excited that we were coming. So in church we got a member to come with us. Br. Schubert. he is soo cool. Any how we taught about the restoration and where the book of mormon comes from and why it can help him in his life, he really to the the lesson and showed extreme interest. When we asked if we could meet with him another time to start to expain about the plan of salvation and the other things that the book of mormon contains there wasn't even a pause and he said Ja Freilich! (that is a big form of saying yes). So we, through the hand of the Lord and the members here in this part of the Lords vineyard, have a new investigator that we are teaching that is going to be coming to church next sunday!!!!! Zone Konferenz this week was way amazing. I love that so so much. Its the spiritual boost you need in the transfer.
The concert of our investigator Ney went way awesome. He played awesome and he gave me a CD of his band from back home in Brasil. We cant listen to it but im pretty sure it is good.
Im doing well. Elder Ensign and I work so awesome together. I love it as we are teaching and we both bear testimony and the teaching is just so spiritual. I can't describe the feeling of unity as you find joy in the work with your companion. We have a good time too. At night time as we write in our journals we recover the days events and there is always something that we find funny to laugh about till we are on the ground rolling and drooling..... ya we laugh pretty hard. well i think that that is all for me. The work goes forward here in salzburg. Im givin it the best i got and although sometimes it doesn't all work out the way as planned, I know that the Lord has His hand in the midst of it all and that we will be richly blessed for the work we are doing here and that the fruits of our labors will soon show forth.
LOVE YOU FAM
LOVE YOU MOMMY!!!!
ps SCARF= good idea. i use the one you gave me in the mtc and it is so amazing. they keep you so warm. if i get to choose a color can i have a brown mixed with black scarf for christmas. If i dont get to choose then i will still love you with all my heart and i will be grateful for what you send me! :) oh and i have not as of yet recieved the package but i will be on the prowl and on the look out for it.

October 19, 2009

The first accident was a while ago on the bike path next to the salzach river. That was during my first transfer. A biker tried to turn and go accross a bridge. I was bookin it down the path because we were late for an appointment and as this man tried to cross my path he stopped in the middle and so i pulled my brakes but it was too late his handle bar went into my hip. That one wasnt bad. But ya all is well. I dont need to go to the hospital it is just a really massive bruise on my arm that i got from his mirror. ha ha it looks like i am playing lacrosse again. Ahhh good times. Any how....NO. mom please no. I understand that it is your money and that i wont be in salzburg forever (although i wish i would be) but still you can just send me peanut butter and i will be super happy. Also if you want, although i think it is illegal, you could send contact solution. it is like 17 euro which is like 23 american dollars to buy a single small bottle of contact solution. But check it out first. I think it is illegal to send liquids through the mail. That would be a perfect christmas for me.
As for this week it has been amazing. We got a refferral from another elder in our mission here. Somehow he found out that his friend from back home was coming here to salzburg for a study abroad trip. He sent us to go find him and teach him. Well we found him. He lives on the top of Mönchsberg. It is like a bike ride and a half to get up there. By the time we get to the top i feel like my legs are jelly. but it is cool. I am changing the Adams inherited chicken legs into massive muscly mountainbike pistons of doom. But any how his name is Brian. He is so so so golden. We just had the most spiritual lesson of my life with him last night. We taught him about the plan of salvation and how we can find eternal joy through this plan that heavenly father has provided for us. He said after the lesson that it makes sense and that he can believe on something like this. He read in the book of mormon and he said he prayed about it and he wants to continue to meet with us. I am so stoked outta my mind. He is so going to get baptised here on his study abroad trip. Elder Ensign said that it was the most spiritual lesson that he has ever had on his mission. By the way Elder ensign is amazing. We are pretty tight already. He is kinda quiet, but he has such a strong spirit with him. I like him already. He is from alaska, and he is super funny. We are going to get along really well and we are going to see a ton of success together. I can see it already. Another investigator of ours, his name is Ney, he is from brasil. He loves playing soccer and he is also a violin master. He is here studying with one of the most world renouned violin teachers in an academy of Mozart. He is actually playing in a concert this wednesday with the Salzburg philharmonic orchestra, and he gave us two free tickets to it!!!! He also gave us a cd of his violin music!!!!! But that is not even the best part!! He has come with us to church the last two sundays, yesterday was stake conference and he really enjoyed that because they had portuguese translation at it just for him. He is so ready he loves coming to church and it just so happens that we found a lady in our ward that can also speak portuguese. She is a less active member, so it is like two birds with one stone/book of mormon. We are going to reactivate her and then baptise Ney! I am so pumped everyday to wake up and be a missionary. AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! Its Awesome!!! Well... Im gonna email president and report about the amazing week we had i will get back in a short bit LUV YOU BUNCHES!!!!

October 12, 2009

Hello
I love you little man. cept you probably aint so little now. Here are a couple pics share with the fam read my email that i sent to mom. Cant write long but know that i love you and i pray for you. :) Peace!

So wow i will answer your questions first. Mom no! Do not, I repeat do not buy me a GPS. That is way too expensive. We have really decent maps here and i am really good at using them. And actually i as for transfers i am staying here in SALZBURG! Elder Wright is going away to München and he is going to be the Zone Leader there. So I am going to be getting a new companion. His name is Elder Ensign. Yes like the magazine. But i really know my way around all of salzburg so please dont buy me a GPS. that is way too expensive and I have already bought a bike and lederhosen. I need to be frugal with money. That is something i am learning on my mission. Cool huh? Elder Adams is learning how to budget money. I do it with the money i get everymonth. Set it all aside and make sure i leave enough for everything i need to buy. I am becoming a big boy out here. Gettin' all growned up. That is way cool about Dallan. Tell him congrats!
As for the translation. Yes that is what we do. One of the missionaries will have a separate mike in his hand. He is still in the same room however and he just does a live translation of the meeting as it goes down. I have only done it once. But ya last sunday there was a whole ward of people here and we had to work our butts off to find batteries and headsets for all of them. Cool stuff though. Mission Work is awesome!!!!!!
I already recieved grandmas letter. That is so cool. I heard Wien is a really cool place. The elders here calsl it the black hole because if you ever get transferred there you end up staying for a long time.
Tell the ward thank you soo much for the donations and the help that we are recieving. Mom that has been one of my biggest worries. That it would be super hard for all of us financially with two missionaries on a mission. We are so blessed. Speaking of blessings. So Sister condie said i need to be careful of how i tell you this story so as to not worry you. But this week i had another bike accident. Dont worry all is fine. But I now realize how protected we are as missionaries. So there is this tunnel in salzburg that is on a downhill incline. It was the end of the night and we had like five minutes to get back to the apartment so we needed to keep up a quick pace. We were booking it through this tunnel and i am not gonna lie i was probably going at least 60 or so kilometers per hour. as we came out of the tunnel i was coasting and pedalling towards home and when all of a sudden a car pulled out a side street and it was directly in my path. I pulled my brakes but one thing that most people dont know is that when you are going that fast, brakes dont work. So within a matter of milliseconds i pushed the handlebars as hard as i could to the side and took the force of the contact into the car with my shoulder. I heard something crack an the girl sitting in the passenger seat screamed. I then bounced over the hood and then landed on the ground with my helmet saving my life. I was out for a bit but elder Wright came from following behind and shook my shoulder and woke me up. The paramedics had to come and the police had to fill out a report for the man who was driving. But all went well. At the crash a Doctor showed up first before the paramedics on her vespa scooter and she started speaking in perfect english. she checked me out made sure i was ok and then just left. I think it was an angel sent from Heaven to make sure i was ok. The only place i was bleeding was from my finger from a tiny scratch. My shirt was completely ripped on the sleeve from where i destroyed the guys mirror. But the cool thing was that it was ripped just under my garment line. Later that night i took off my shirt to see what was wrong with my arm and it was just really really bruised but the crazy thing is that the bruise and the road rash goes up from my elbow and then just stops like a tan line right where my garments are. All that i can say is that i am protected. That is the promise being fullfilled from living right. It was a really cool experience and i will promise to be more careful. Mom i promise you i really am ok. Love you.
I have not bought a coat yet. But there is snow in the mountains. The Hills Are Alive With Snow!! I tell you what you can send me for christmas. Peanut butter. They have it here but it costs more than gold. And its not real peanut butter it is like tooth paste.
Diese woche war ganz gut! Ich kann es nicht glauben wie schön es ist ein missionar zu sein! I am going to write in english now because that is much easier. So this week we found 4 new investigators. I am so excited. Elder Wright and I last night were using Teach to find like profies and we got like four new appointments for the coming week already set out, In addition to the appointments we already have with our progressing investigators. The work is exploding here in Salzburg. Our ward mission leader is starting to get the ward fired up about the work as well. We are really going to busy ourselves with finding people and teaching and converting, because that is what we are called to do, and when the members see that, as they already have, we will start to get more and more refferals from them and then we will be so busy teaching their friends and the people that we have found that we won’t have any more time to do any more doors. Sad thought i know but that is how it should be. The members should do the finding and we are the ones who have been called to teach. However, yesterday, we had an investigator of ours in church. His name is Ney he is from Brazil and he speaks absolutely no german and about two or three words of englisch. But we are still able to communicate with him and get our point accross. We showed him the introduction to the church video in portuguese and he loves our church. He wants to keep coming to church adn to keep meeting with us. Oh and another little miracle to add to this weeks amazingness, there is actually a member in our ward who speaks portuguese!! Who would have thought? We totalled up our zusätslichesonstige lektionen and we had a total of 104! this transfer! Wow that is so many. Elder Wright says that is more than he has ever had on his whole mission. It just goes to show that What we have learned in Zone Konferenz is really helping us progress this work. Austausch this week was amazing! I learned so much from elder Feild. He is a really good missionary. So is Elder Wright and all the other elders I have been able to meet and work with. I just hope that i can keep improving and one day be the best missionary that i can be. Not only for myself but for my Savior and Reedeemer who leads us along in this work.

October 5, 2009

General Conference was so amazing!!!!!!!! Ahhhhh! Can you even believe it!???!!!! We have Prophets! Apostles! Men called of God to lead us in these days! Men just like adam noah moses. We are so blessed. I learned so much from this general conference. I Loved the talk by elder Ballard about fathers and sons. In the priesthood session. Dad I love you. Thank you for being the good example that you have been to me. I wanna grow up to be just like you! I took like ten some odd pages of notes and I cant wait for the liahona to come out. THat magazine has all of the general conference talks in it and i hold that as scripture. So ya the schedule for us was that we watched a session saturday night at six o clock then at eleven o clock sunday morning was priesthood then a small break then one at 2 o clock then a small little break then another one at 6 o clock. Sunday. Six hours of pure amazingness!!! one of our investigators came during one of the sessions so elder wright went into the german translation room to sit by him then a little later another two of our investigators that we invited came and wanted to watch it as well so i went into the german translation room as well to sit by them and to answer any questions they had. It was sooooo cool. I can understand german. It really is weird I cant tell the difference between german and english. Remember how i used to talk in my sleep when i was in the room right across the hallway from you? Yup I still do except now i do it in german. Elder right says its getting kind of old. I keep waking him up in the night because i am either teaching about the plan of salvation or contacting people on the streets in my sleep in german. I assume it would be a funny experience to hear what i say. I am glad people that visit here say i am doing a good work. It helps sometimes to get approval from somebody. I try my hardest everyday. Skip said i look sharp? I am not gonna lie i do look sharp. It feels good everyday to get up and put on a classy european tie and a fresh pressed white shirt. What can i say? Im representing the Lord I gotta act the part. Sorry that is a little bit stolz. I mean proud. You have no idea how many times i have had to delete german words and retype in english. You should buy a german dictionary and just translate just in case i mess up. I owned your octoberfest quiz. it was good though. hey i will try and email you back but we are going to the salt mines today in hallein where we can slide down the mine shafts where the miners were. I will try and send pics next week the computer i am on right now wont send pics so i am also sorry about the pics from last week as well. i gotta send a progress record to president condie. Tschüß!!!!!!
oh mensch!!!!!! General conference was amazing!!! Elder Eyering was my favorite with the story at the beginning with the consecrated Oil. He is such a powerful speaker. Elder Uchtdorf is awesome too. I realized a lot of the talks were about love. I think that is something that i am going to study a lot about now. Charity. Nächstenliebe. If we can develop that love for our investigators for our companion for all of Gods children we meet on the street then i know i can become a more effective missionary. The words came from the mouth of the prophets.
so all was good in conference for us untill frau martina showed up. She (i dont know if i have told you about her before but she travels around the mission and follows the missionaries) but she is basically a stalker and she wants to marry a missionary. so pretty much she followed us around the church and she took pictures of me and the other elder adams. i took my nametag off so that she wouldn't know who i am. But she knows where we live because earlier this week she was waiting outside of our apartment. We couldn't go home and eat. So we went to the Mangums. and we just chilled for a little bit. That is something i have noticed lately. Elder wright and i have been working so hard and so diligently we hardly ever take a dinner break. That is bad i know. I know. But we are just so busy with appointments and contacting and wanting to do this amazing work that we end up just taking a snack with us and eating it on our bikes inbetween appointments. But ya now frau martina (a toothless 50 year old, smelly missionary stalker is following me). Kinda scared. A little bit creeped out. i will have to tell you the full story when i have more time. any how I have managed to somehow gain 2 kilos in the past little while. it was probably all the food the members gave us yesterday at general conference. I was pretty super stuffed. Transfers are next week!!!!! What!!!! the time went by faster in this transfer than the last. WE must have been working hard. I hope i stay though. I love salzburg. Everybody says im going to be training soon or at least a zone leader. I dont think im responsible enough. But they say i am a hard worker and that i should get ready. anyhow. alles gute hier in österreich. tschüß!!!!! LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!