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(written 23 Apr 2018)
Holy cow, everyone. This week has most certainly been eventful!
We've been working with Roxana, and the ride situation is resolved! She's now working on getting a job so she can finally be independent / cut herself free from her boyfriend. Everything is going well, but she wasn't able to make church. We were pretty sad about that, but we'll continue pressing forward. We're working on finding more people, but we haven't found anyone new this last week.
However, the craziest change this week came on Friday at a day-long zone conference. It lasted from 8:30 am to 8:30 pm, with lunch and dinner. What happened, though, was pretty historic for the Washington Yakima Mission: we got smartphones!
Honestly, there are a lot of really nice things about smartphones. The best by far is the improvements in the record-keeping system. We now have an app called "Area Book Planner". It is really, really, good. Now, whenever we find someone, we can report how it went there. We report all of our lessons there. It creates a record for ward/branch leaders that can be accessed in LDS tools telling them about how they can help the people we're working with. There is a map in-app that is connected to the unit directory and all of our own records, so it makes it easy to find people and navigate our area.
The other great thing is sending texts/inputting records/everything else is a lot easier, thanks to both speech recognition and a swifkey keyboard.
Another really useful thing is being able to access scriptures, videos, and everything else all on the phone. I no longer need to carry around all of the standard works (in both languages!) just to be able to share a scripture with someone. We no longer need to carry anything with us except for the materials we pass out to people. It's radically different.
Our experience during Sunday meeting with the local leaders of the branch was amazing! It was a very productive and spiritual meeting. We were able to help much better, and President Jones was super excited about all of the new tools we now have available to help hasten the work here in the branch.
Having Facebook is definitely a surreal experience. It almost feels as if we're breaking every mission rule by being online on our phones! Elder Kopp and I have set some goals and made a few plans to avoid distraction or derailment caused by being online, while still being able to interact and fulfill our purpose there as well. For us at least, it has proved really effective!
The Lord is most definitely hastening his work, so we'd better all work to keep up! Love you all!
Elder Adams
Questions from Editor Mom
What pun do you think of when you look at the subject line ("Just Questions")? - Well, I think that's a pretty just question. I'll let you know when I think of some.
How's life in the Prophet's Puddle? - Life is wonderful and getting very sunny! Things got really crazy as soon as we got smartphones. Also, everyone in our apartment is convinced that you two must either be psychic or have an "in" with Church HQ, since you sent me a lens kit for smartphones almost a full week before anyone knew we were getting smartphones. President Lewis said he told the parents about it on Friday, but I opened my package on my birthday, which was a day earlier (Thursday). Okay, you got us. How did you know? 
I know your mission has some materials you are supposed to work on to make your next transfer go smoothly. What are they? What do you have to do? - It's called "MyPlan". It's an online course that missionaries take for their last 6 weeks, and covers a lot of different topics. The first week is more-or-less introductory, and goes over the general concept of making a plan for what to do after being released. Week 2 is focused on setting goals and making plans in general. Week 3 is about setting goals and making plans to continue on the path of discipleship. Week 4 is about self-reliance. Week 5 (which I will do tomorrow) is about dating and marriage (it's infamous). Week 6 is a general review of the goals and plans you've made over the previous weeks, adjusting them all and perfecting the plan to best fit your needs. It takes about 1-2 hours once a week. I've been doing it on Tuesday mornings.
The other great thing is sending texts/inputting records/everything else is a lot easier, thanks to both speech recognition and a swifkey keyboard.
Another thing is being able to access scriptures, videos, and everything else all on the phone. I no longer need to carry around all of the standard works (in both languages!) just to be able to share a scripture with someone. We no longer need to carry anything with us except for the materials we pass out to people.
It's radically different.
What are your goals for the rest of this transfer? - I'm working on being the best I can be, esp. the most obedient and spirit-led I can be. I also want to be as mentally and emotionally prepared as I can be to go home. My problem is not so much being trunky as it is not being trunky enough, if you know what I mean.
What are you doing for service these days? - We haven't had a lot of time recently to do a ton of service, and the next few weeks are crazy, as well. However, we have been able to go to a weekly service that most of the missionaries in the zone participate in, which is singing at nursing homes. We rotate between only 3 or 4, and we don't have a lot of songs we can all sing, so whoever arranged it was very wise and arranged to sing at special nursing homes. Specifically, we sing in Alzheimer wings.
Have you gotten to love any foods over the past few years that you didn't know about before your mission? - I am IN LOVE with quesadillas de alpastor (alpastor is a delicious type of marinated pork meat mixed with pineapple). They are divine. I also have learned to love posole and, of course, tacos. I never realized it before my mission, since I never actually had a REAL taco, but authentic Mexican tacos are absolutely DELICIOUS!!! Okay, that's enough exclamation marks for a single paragraph.
What are you doing/have you done for P-Day today? - Today was crazy... We had a housing inspection this morning, so we cleaned for that, took a giant box of random stuff missionaries left behind to Goodwill, dropped off some pants to be mended, shopped, did laundry (we no longer have our own washer/dryer in our apartment, so we have to use a laundromat on P-Day). We then spent a TON of time mailing about 7 boxes of things home. Buena suerte! 
It cost a LOT of money, since not all my stuff fit into priority mail boxes. It stinks, but I am now %100 positive I won't have any weight problems... with my bags, that is.
Any luck helping your investigators resolve their problems? - Yes! Roxana is still looking for a job, but the other things in the way have now been resolved. She just needs to actually find the job and then put the nail on the coffin, as it were.
So, where did you get the cello [you played at Zone Conference]? - There is a member here, Sister Daniels-Brown, who has had one since Christmas. She also has a friend, Haven Villarreal, who is a member but doesn't go to church a lot. I contacted Sister Villarreal (with help from Sister Daniels-Brown) a little while ago, and gave her some tips for playing cello (she's in a local community orchestra). We then contacted her again before Zone Conference
Do you still have it? - No, but I have easy access to it. Both Sister Daniels-Brown and Sister Villarreal have said I can borrow their instruments whenever I need to. They mainly need them on Wednesday nights, since they both play in the same community orchestra.
Will you be playing anything for your ward? - I already have, actually! It was on a different cello, though (actually, the one belonging to Sister Daniels-Brown). I don't remember what I played, though. It was a hymn arranged in my classic style (adapted for solo cello instead of cello/piano).
Love y'all!
Elder Adams
Pictures from Zone Conference
Excerpts from Ben's Facebook Posts [link]
April 21:
April 22:
Hello everyone! In case you were wondering, no, I didn't run away from my mission. What happened is we got smartphones here! Since I'm now on Facebook, if you have any questions about what I'm doing as a missionary or what we talk about, feel free to send me a message and I'd be more than happy to help answer your questions! ¡Les quiero mucho!
April 23:
Just spent all day cleaning the apartment, doing laundry, shopping, going to a routine doctor's visit, emailing, and sending home half a dozen packages just to find there wasn't really time for anything else.
#pday
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