Transfer 4 Week 2

Dear Everyone!!!

 

Life is good as a missionary. I think of things during the week to write but right now I cant remember any of them. We set a date with a girl named Lauren this week. So that's great. I am doing laundry today...that's a highlight. My life isn't boring I just can't think of what to say. My basic day is wake up, exercise, shower, study, study, go talk to people on the street, tract, eat, tract, teach, tract, eat, tract, teach. I love it. I really do. Being able to testify of the gospel and of our Savior, Jesus Christ, I have learned so much. I have learned differant things about people, about myself, about the gospel and about life in general. Going on a mission is the greatest accelerated learning program of my life! It is insane but I love it! Next week I will be sure to save up all my epic stories and tell them all!

 

I love you!

Transfer 4 Week 1

Phsyc!!!!! I was told wrong! I thought I was going to Lincoln city which would put me in the other mission but I actually went to Junction city which means I stay in the Eugene mission. I am actually very happy to stay with my mission President. It would have been fine to move areas but at the same time I am very happy to be where I am. Ok. So you want to know about my new area. It is a lot smaller than the one I just came from. It is a town of about 5000 people. We cover about 5 other towns that are super tiny. So we have a large area. My companion is from Tahiti and her name is Sis. Levy. She is fantastic. It is amazing to me to realize how little I know my own language. When she asks me questions about words and such I have to say 'I don't know' so often!! Also i am discovering that I truly am not that funny. Seriously. This came as a total shock to me. For real. I bet you are siting there right now shaking your head and thinking....'that can't be true. Sis. Adair is hilarious. She must be kidding.' I kid you not. My funniness has come to an end. I have discovered that I am not internationally funny. I am only funny when people understand what I am quoting or the ism I am spinning off of. I say hilarious things all the time and my comp stares at me with crickets chripping. Now I know how Emily feels. But really. I will come home so funny on an international level that no one will know what hit them. .... I promise I am not that obsessed with being funny as I sound. Ok.

So my comp is rather hilarious. She says it like it is. She is very sweet and will knock your head off if you mess with her family. She eats basically everything. She likes the fatty part of meat.She loves raw fish. She says 'Oh Shoot' all the time. She has an adorable islander accent even though her native language is French. Tell Emily she has been saying the 'Yes i'm hungry' in French incorrectly. Yep. She loves to sing all the time. She is pretty much wonderful. And I'm going to visit her in Tahiti after our missions. She goes home in four months. She served in my old area before I did so we joke around that I am following her around the mission. She is great.

My area. It is comprised of two things: neighborhoods and farms. Not really any in between. Junction City is really flat. (GP was super hilly) The people are great. They like to feed us. My new ward mission leader and his wife came to pick me up in Eugene when I got dropped off and they told me too things: Only the best missionaries are called to serve in Junction City and the 11th commandment which is 'Thou shalt not go hungry". 

We are teaching a woman by the name of Dotti. She is very sweet. One day when we were street contacting we saw her in a laundry mat and we went in and had a lesson with her. She is wonderful. I love her so much. We work with a lot of elderly in this area. We go to the assisted living home every Sunday and have some lessons and pray with people. We also work with a lot of youth. So kinda the two opposite ends of the spectrum. 

I love you all. This week. I have learned a lot in being here even though its only been a week. I am so grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow. Our days we spend street contacting, tracting and visiting.

Have a wonderful week!

Transfer 3 Week 6

So this Last week has been crazy awesome!!!! I am attatching the letter i wrote to my president so that I don't have to type it all out again.

President Young,

I will try to keep this brief but we wanted to share with you our miracles from the week. We truly have been so blessed as we have tried to apply the counsel we received from Sisters Conference and from Zone teaching meeting. Our faith has been increased and we know that this is truly the Lords work.

This week we were blessed to find ten new people to teach. It has been an amazing experience as we have diligently sought to be led by the spirit to be where God wants us to be. 

Tony, Christina and Ashley: We had tracted into the husband (Vic) awhile ago (when Sis. Kennedy was here) and we went back and set up an appointment with him and we ended up teaching him, his wife and their two daughters and we are going back this week!

Elizabeth: We were driving down the street and we saw a man pushing a stroller and decided to go talk to him. We parked, got out and tried to catch up to him so we ran a little bit to close the gap. He crossed the street and we were about to follow when a girl walked around the corner. She happened to be the granddaughter to a less active that we have been working with. We invited her to sit in on the lesson this week because she wants to learn more.

Jaycee: We went over to see her sister whom we've been teaching but her sister wasn't home. So we had a lesson and she said she would like to learn more as well!

Jonah: We drove by him last week and stopped and talked to him. We gave him a book of Mormon and didn't get his number. This week we were driving and saw him. So we stopped and talked to him again and he said he wanted to learn more as well and we are meeting with him this week also.

Kristen and Samantha: We tracted into Kristen a week ago because Sis. Marble had an impression that we needed to knock on a certain door. So we did. We went back to follow up and her sister answered and said she wanted to learn more as well. We are teaching them this week also.

Scott: We drove down the highway and saw him walking and stopped to talk to him. He said it was crazy that we stopped just to talk with him because he has been having a hard time and we will be teaching him this week also!

Rob: Sis. Washburn and I tracted into him when she was here on exchanges. He wasn't interested and then we prayed with him and he ended up taking a book of Mormon. We went back, he has been reading it and has questions so we will also be meeting with him this week. 

I know this is a little longer but we wanted to share with you our finding miracles. We truly have been blessed by the Lord. Thank you for following the inspiration you receive to help us to become the missionaries that the Lord knows we can be.

Sis. Adair

This week has been truly incredible and we have been so blessed!

Also I wanted to tell you a story of tracting.... We went up to knock on this door and this alarm went off and a voice started saying "You are trespassing  You are trespassing!" Very loud and very repetitive. So we turned around and walked maybe fifteen feet away and it stopped. so funny! I about peed my pan....skirt. 

Transfer 3 Week 5

Hello!! 

So this woman told a funny story in church that I would like to share to kick off this letter. She was writing an email to the young women telling them that she would be holding an afternoon when they could come work on personal progress. So she started it off with "Hello young women, we will be having...." But when she went back and read through it after she had sent it out she realized she left the 'o' off of hello and wrote instead "Hell young women, we will be having..." Even the Bishop giggled. Sometimes its good to laugh at things that go wrong. It helps us through the day. It makes me think of a talk given by Elder Worthlin about being Happy. Um... not sure what its called.."Come what may and love it" It is so good!! (Mom...can you send it to me?) But that phrase has definitely been a theme this week. It's been a good week but the people we have been around seem to have been having bad weeks. And as usual there are down moments in each week. I have come to learn of the importance of accepting Gods will. Having faith in him that he will extend his arm and also excepting and believing that he has a purpose for the things that happen in our lives. I really do want to name my children after Shadrack, Meshac and Abedngo because they had that unshakable faith in the Lords plan. Come what may and love it.

Sorry that first paragraph was not worded the best but I hope the message came through. To illustrate this I want to share a story. The other day all of our appointments cancelled. Except for 1. When our appointments cancelled we go to our back up plans. For us, it happened to be streets to tract. We ended up tracting all day. It was hot. People were not being friendly. (Oh Favorite Door slam tactics: Knock Knock. "Nobody is home" Knock Knock. "No!" Knock Knock *slam* Knock Knock "We are happy with where we are at") We almost turned around to go back to our car but something in me knew we needed to keep working, whether it be for our good or for the good of the kingdom we needed to keep knocking doors. Thats when we knocked on this guys door who immidiately started to try to disprove us by using D&C. We were not really in the mood. He bid him politely good bye and we really wanted to go else where but we kept going. Then about half hour later one the same street we found this girl who was geniunly interested. She let us pray with her and we left her a copy of the book of Mormon and she even agreed to have us come back. Miracles do happen when we prove faithful.

I love you all.

Sis. Adair

Transfer 3 Week 4

How is it going my favorite people ever? Yes. That is right. I love you. Ok. Let the shock wear off. Alright now you can read on.

So this week was super fantastic. Normally we have 2 cancellations a day and this week we had 3 all week. It was so great!! And we topped it off with a wonderful baptism this weekend!!! Brandon got baptized! He is such a solid kid!!! I love him! I love that he is now enjoying the gift of the Holy Ghost! I love that now he is a member of the church! I love that he can enjoy these wonderful blessings in his life!! he has changed so much and it is seriously amazing to see! I was very blessed to begin teaching him. He was the kid we taught in the foyer of the temple. He truly is fantastic and has such a desire to learn. After his baptism, the family that he is friends with took him out for pizza and they invited us as well. It was lots of fun to eat pizza and be filled with so much joy! I could not imagine a better evening!!!

So last night we had dinner with a fantastic family whom I love so much! They always have such an energy in there home. It is beautiful chaos! They have five kids from 1 -12. The little girl loves to sit next to the missionaries every time we go over there. She is about 4. She loves to be hilarious. She says something, looks at me and says, "Is that funny?" and she also eats potatoes and ketsup with her hands. I felt as if I were in a danger zone. And they have a 10 yr old who was telling us that he decided to make third grade his spiritual year. Sis. Marble and I died inside it was so precious. And the little girl didn't want to eat her cauilflower like her mom asked her to. I asked her if she had ever tried it and she said "I ate it in heaven." It was amazingly adorable. I love them so much and wish all people every where to know such wonderful families.

Families are such an important vital part of the gospel. I feel so blessed to have so many families in my life. My immediate family whom I love so dearly and am so grateful I get to be with them forever. My 'friend' family. I love my friends so much, they have been a support and blessing in my life. My mission family. My companions that I have had so far really have impacted my life. I love my mission President and his wife so much. I love all the families and the members that we work with in this area of Grants Pass. I love Gods children. We can help lift one another through service, kind words and prayers. God never meant for us to go through this life alone. He truly wants us to seek him and as we do that we find ourselves helping and being lifted by others. The Lords plan truly is amazing! I love being apart of this, his restored gospel. I know that Joseph Smith truly did restore the church to the earth through the power of God. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and a true testament of Christ's divinity. I love the peace and the comfort I feel in times of need. I love the peace and the comfort that can be felt in the lives of others. Prayers are answered and God does indeed love each and everyone of his children.

Things I learned this week:

1. I am not a nun.

2. God watches out for his children.

3. God blesses his missionaries.

4. God blesses all his children as we continue to strive to do that which is right.

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Sis. Adair

Pictures! And a MOVIE!!!!!

 

 

Transfer 3 Week 2

Hello everyone that I love so much!!!!

How are you all doing? I love you all so much!!!! Joke for you all from my awesome companion.... Jeffery R. Holland makes Chuck Norris look like a pre-schooler with pig tails. I liked it a lot. So any returned missionary can probably attest to this but missionary jokes are hilarious! There are times when they just come into my mind and I bust up so hard! I love it!

Things from this week: We had interviews with the President! I love him so much, he is amazing!! In fact... I will include an excerpt from the email he sent out to all of us this week. These are quotes from Elder Bednars talk from conference on chastity.
"Will I respond to the inclinations of the natural man, or will I yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and put off the natural man and become a saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord?"  That, he declared, is the test. Every appetite, desire, propensity and impulse of the natural man can be overcome by and through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, he said. It is also through the Atonement that individuals are able to be forgiven from misuse of their bodies. It is the Savior, the "Great Physician," Who makes it possible to be healed from any "injury or wound." From the Atonement of the Savior flows the soothing salve that can heal our spiritual wounds and remove guilt," he said. "However, this salve can only be applied through the principles of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance and constant obedience. ... I promise that obedience to the law of chastity will increase our happiness in mortality and make possible our progress in eternity."

It was a good week over all. It kinda blurs together. Some highlights would be a lady told us we were too young to be nuns. We began teaching this amazing woman who has such a desire for peace in her life. This kid we've been teaching got his answer through the priesthood session of Conference to be baptized! And...interviews.

Oh and something I have been super impressed with is the character of this ward that we are working in! They are amazing at reaching out to whomever is close to them. They serve in a multitude of ways. They truly apply the mantra 'First observe, then serve.' I love them so much and am so pleased to be among such amazing individuals.