Elder Adams in Yakima: Week 82: In which we talk with Luis's mom, find an island of Spanish speakers, and have our mission Christmas party!

Super short letter, sorry... :-(

written 18 Dec 2017

Hi everyone! Some incredible things happened this week, but I just don't have time to tell you about them all. I'll just have to forward a portion of my letter to President Lewis this week.

This has been a fantastic week! One of our investigators, Luis, is still a teenager. All the missionaries before have said that his father was far more interested than his mother. His mom is just really, really, Catholic. For a while, Luis was even concerned if she would want him to do much more than meet with missionaries.

However, this past Monday, we saw a miracle! We were able to get in and teach Luis because his father was there (in the back room). Though his father didn't want to join us, his mom did! His sister also quietly listened from the other room, but didn't want to actually join in. In that lesson, we talked with Luis and his mom about the Plan of Salvation, sharing some scriptures from the Book of Mormon. The woman who was not interested at all before really opened up in that lesson. Since then, she has begun really keeping appointments and taking the Book of Mormon with her to work and reading it on her breaks. This last Saturday evening, she came to the Branch Christmas party and loved it! Right now, she's going to visit her baby in the hospital in Spokane every Sunday, but she will get him back on January 18th. She said that after that, she wants to come to church! We're so excited for her and Luis.

We're also excited that we found, late Sunday night, two amazing new investigators. They live in a part of our area where previous missionaries have said there are no Spanish-speaking people. However, we felt like we needed to go there, and we found 5 houses of Spanish-speaking people! In the very last house, right before calling it a night, we found Indalecio and Maria! They are young parents who currently adhere to the Catholic faith. However, They have amazing questions and are really excited to begin looking into the Book of Mormon.

Love you all! Sorry this was so short and lame. Bye!

Love,

Elder Adams

Questions from Editor Mom

Hi Ben! - Hi Mom!

How was the Christmas party? What was the best part? - I loved the Christmas party! It was amazing! There were at least 20 non-members there, which is incredible for this branch! We also had 2 of our investigators come. I'll definitely fill you in more on them in the big email.

Note: Haha! You meant the Mission Christmas Gathering. I was talking about the Branch Christmas party. :-) The Mission Party was epic. We watched a movie called "Freetown" about missionaries trying to escape Liberia during the Liberian Civil War. They all about died a lot of times, and it was an impressive story of faith. It was a very intense movie. I also got to see Elder Fordham again, which made me very happy.

Do mid-transfers affect you, your district, or your zone? - Yes, they do. Elder Buchanan, an Elder in our district, is going home today. He was trained by one of my favorite people ever, Elder Call (one of my first Zone Leaders, who I lived with my entire time in Wenatchee). His companion, Elder Reusch, is going to do one of three things: stay, leave, or receive a new companion. If he stays, he will be with us in a triple companionship (or "tri-pan"). We will all almost certainly temporarily move to their apartment. If he leaves, we will probably just temporarily take over their area. We would probably move to their apartment in that case as well. If he receives a new companion, everything will stay more-or-less the same.

Do you have any exciting plans this week? - Not really, except having Christmas Eve and teaching some BOMB-SAUCE AWESOME people! I'm super excited for that!

Are you doing any caroling in your district or zone? What are you singing? - We're probably caroling, but it's probably just going to be from the hymnbooks.

Are you staying warm? - Yep!

Have you had interviews with President Lewis? If so, tell us about them! - Yes, I had interviews! They were great! I talked mostly about our Christmas traditions with Sister Lewis, and got my temple recommend renewed with President Lewis. I also asked how to be an even more effective missionary, and got some great advice. I'll save it for later, though (for time's sake).

Sister Lewis advised us to be talking to you about our Christmas call. Have you figured out where you will be and when you will call on Christmas Eve to discuss the details yet? I hope we'll be able to Skype reliably. How long is the call supposed to be? - I know where we will be. We will be with the Luna family (Sister Luna is actually from Massachusetts). I don't know when I'll call on Christmas Eve. We can call right after church, which will be around 12:30-1:00 our time. That's about 3:30-4:00 pm your time, if I'm not mistaken.

What did you talk about in your District meeting this last week? - We didn't have one this last week (because of the Christmas Party.

What are you doing to spread Christmas cheer? How are you implementing the Light the World program? - We're trying to share #LIGHTtheWORLD with everyone we can! Admittedly, we're not the best at sharing it all the time because of everything else to talk about.

I love hearing about your thoughts and experiences, so share anything that comes to mind, please. And send pictures! :-) - I'll try to! Love you!

Elder Adams

Pictures from Sis. Lewis

Sis. Lewis asked each missionary to describe their family's Christmas traditions, and to tell what they plan to do this year as a missionary. Ben wrote:

Elder Adams: We take Christmas Seriously. We have lots of Advent calendars–about 10 and lots of decorations inside. We get a live tree, heavily decorated. We make lots of German treats and celebrate the 4 Sundays before Christmas with treats and hot chocolate. We also celebrate St Nicolaus Day on Dec 6th, putting our shoes out and getting stuff to use during the Christmas season (chocolate, ornaments). In the week before Christmas we carol to about 50 people–family and friends. Christmas Eve we light candles on our Christmas tree, turn out the lights and sing carols with hot Cocoa and cookies. We have a nice dinner and a live Nativity. (My parents both lived in Germany–mission and military). This year I’m making a list, not of who is naughty or nice, but of Christ’s characteristics and attributes.

Sis Lewis texted the following picture directly to Tammy:

Pictures

Our wonderful district after the Branch Christmas Party! Left to Right: Elder Reusch, Elder Buchanan (who just left for the Mission Home), Me, Elder Shoemaker, Hermana Birchell (a new missionary), and her trainer, Hermana Burrup. Fun fact: Hermana Burrup is from Richland, WA. That's in Tri Cities, and is also where the mission's main temple is. She's on her mission about 1-2 hours away from her house.