Whata Week

GUESS WHAT.  Last week after I emailed you guys we went to the girls camp down at the lake for dinner and they fed us STEAK! Medium rare! mmmmmm! I was in heaven. It has been over a year since I've had something that delicious. 

Last Saturday we got to go on a Sacred Grove tour with Bob.  Sisters Jones, Hawkes, and I took our trainees all at the same time (Sisters Davis, Steel, and Tipton) All six of us are the cast trainers for 2013!  It was a blast as always and Bob taught us so many cool things. Bob and I are pretty tight.  It's awesome.  He is always giving me a hard time because he says I can "take it" haha.  After our Grove tour we had another cast training meeting at the Poulson's apartment. Things are really coming around and Pageant is right around the corner! Six more weeks and the pageant cast will arrive.  The sites are busy now so that time will fly by.  After all of our meetings Sister Tipton and I went and did service and I don't want to give names for that because it was DISGUSTING.  Let's just say it involved puke, rotten food, maggots, and Sister Tipton doing dishes for 2 hours straight because there were that many to do.  This is probably weird but I prayed that my gag reflex would be still and as I was cleaning up the puke (that had been sitting there for more than 24 hours) this nasty smell wafted into my nose and I almost gagged but then I didn't!  Answer to prayer! In the end, Sister Tipton and I were really glad we went because we made the environment this family is living in so much better and they needed the help so badly.  I am grateful that as missionaries we can serve in any capacity to help people live better lives. 

We finally got to see Sara this week!  She is an investigator who has been out of town with her family for a while to just "get away".  She has been through a lot lately and she is pregnant now but she is bound and determined to be a good mom to this baby.  She is committed to quit smoking and live a better life.  We taught her about sincere repentance and she told us she is ready to repent- that the events that have happened to her recently have really "woken her up" and she realizes now this is what she needs.  Sisters have been teaching for for over a year now and she hasn't progressed this much until now. I am grateful that she is using her agency to make correct choices now and that I get to be the missionary to help her at this time in her life. 

For site meeting this week we got to hear a fireside by the great, great granddaughter of Joseph Smith,  Kimberly Smith.  It was so amazing to hear her knowledge of her great, great grandparents Joseph and Emma at the Hill Cumorah.  She also shared with us her conversion story that was just incredible.  She grew up hiding the fact she was a Smith descendant because the "temple lot church" she was a part of believed he was a fallen prophet.  She was also taught that Mormons or "Brighamites" were evil people conspiring to kill off all the Smith descendants.  How crazy is that!?  She said she went to do family history and the thing that touched her the most was the Spirit that she felt... especially when the missionaries working there spoke about Joseph Smith with such reverence and respect. She was not used to that and said "it just felt good".  She told us that in all of our lives the Holy Ghost should trump all.  I loved that.  We can always trust the Holy Ghost.  So when we get promptings from the Spirit-  FOLLOW it.  No matter what.  I feel like I have let that sink deep in my heart as a missionary.  I have received some pretty crazy promptings at times and I think "What? Really? ooookayyyy..." and I do what ever the Spirit prompts me to and it always works out and I see the hand of God in my life!  It is the best thing!  I know God is there and He lives.  And He leads and guides us through the Holy Spirit each and every day... if we let Him.  I love Him and I love serving Him here in upstate NY!

Congratulations Erika on graduating high school! I love you! 
Love, Sister Alexandra Adams

tons of hawks in the trees at the girls camp! I counted 15! I could only fit 13 in the picture. 

the oldest tree in the Sacred Grove

with my besties! Jones and Hawkes! 

Just another day in upstate NY

Okay so our Mothers Day call was so awesome! I can't believe my best friend is a mom- I love Audrey already! Keri and Craig are such cute parents. Even though you guys were completely blurry on my screen and
Nana had a sick growly bear voice I still loved every second of it! All of my roommates semi-listened in on our conversation and they said we are quite the loud, entertaining family. Haha I have to agree with them...yes, yes we are. I hope you had a great Mothers Day Mama! I love you.

We had our first cast training meeting! Sister Jones, Hawkes, and I were almost out of control excited throughout the whole thing...surprise surprise :) Pageant is just the most exciting thing that happens all year and we get the privilege to be the few missionaries in the thick of it! Organized chaos, it's great!

This week has been awesome.  We have had more time in our proselyting area in Seneca Falls which we like because there are so many people we need to see. Monday we went and taught a former investigator, Joe. He
is a little old Cuban man in his eighties and he smells really weird haha. We asked him if we could pray with him and he said that would be okay.  So I began the prayer and said, "Our Father in Heaven.." then Joe goes, "Wait which one!? Matthew 6?" Haha so I stopped praying and was confused a little bit and said, "The Sermon on the Mount? What? OH! you are talking about the Lord's prayer. It's okay I will just say one from the heart if that's okay." Joe said, "Oh cool!"  He ended up really liking the way we pray and he felt the Spirit.  He is pretty
tied to the Bible and only the Bible so we'll see if he reads the Book of Mormon or not.

We also saw Jay this week and during his lesson his washing machine got off balance and it was banging so loud we could barely hear each other during the lesson.  I asked him if he wanted to go fix it and he said, "No it should be fine! It does this all the time." haha uhhh okayyy. So Sister Tipton and I continued to teach him almost yelling across his living room.  I thought his little house that is falling apart was going to collapse in on us.  Luckily it didnt, and by the end of the lesson the banging stopped and the Spirit was present. Jay is so awesome.  I can't wait until he moves closer so we can find him a ride to church.

We also popped in and visited another former investigator named Kat. She let us in and we shared an uplifting thought from the Book of Mormon with her.  She just started to break down and cry.  We asked her if she was okay and she said, "Yeah I just have had a terrible time lately and you girls always come at the right time."  Sister Tipton and I expressed to her that we were excited to get to know her better and teach her more about Jesus Christ and His gospel.  Kat looked up at us and said, "I need that." So we are going to start
helping her out. I am excited, she is a sweet lady.

Today we went and helped Beverly and Bill set up for a garage sale they are having.  There was a lot of heavy things to take down the stairs so I am glad we went. It made me think of Grandpa Pete going garage sale hunting every weekend haha. We had many good lessons this week with Jim and Mary and Pamela as well.  I love the recent converts and inactives we are working with right now.  I can't imagine my life without being their friends and helping them in their process of turning their lives to God.

Yesterday we had a shift at the Hill Cumorah Visitors' Center and the amount of groups coming in slowed down around sunset.  Sister Lopshire and I just sat in the room with the Christus statue and felt the warm sun and watched it go down. It was just a small, quiet moment but it was one of those moments where I felt the Holy Ghost confirm to me that I was right where I needed to be- right where God wanted me to be. It was a good feeling.

I love you all very much!
Love, Sister Alexandra Adams

Big, huge, fat bee.

Amish guy plowing his fields! (moment when you KNOW you are in the
middle of nowhere!)

Mother's Day is C-O-M-I-N-G!!! Happy Mother's Day Mama! :)

What's up my family! Yes, I will be Skyping you on Sunday! Not 'til late though. Well late for me not for you since you're three hours behind.  I will be done working a shift at the Whitmer Farm Sunday hopefully around 7 (unless we get a late tour-we never turn people away)  So that means we will get to the Breinholts at the Seneca Lake Girls' Camp around7:30 pm here.  There are four of us sisters that need to Skype home so I will call you tomorrow to let you know what time exactly to be ready for my Skype call. I am so excited to see you guys!  Can you believe it is my last call home? Crazyyy. 

Spring time in New York makes my eyes go all big like the ugly creatures in the old Quizno Sub commercials. IT IS GORGEOUS!!! Especially in Fayette.  The trees are all in bloom.  Pink, purple, yellow, orange, white, light blue, green!  I love it. I wish AZ changed color sometimes too.  It just goes from brown to browner. But here it is unreal how pretty it gets.  It has been raining a lot so it is extra green right now. We got a new sister living with us, Sister Rosemore from Tucson, AZ and when she got here we were in the car and she goes, "OH MY GOSH. IT IS SO GREEN!"  Haha yes, yes it is.  I think I am almost used to it now. Don't worry I have been really good at taking pictures so y'all call see it. 

Here's the funny story for the week.  So Sister Tipton and I had so many appointments with people that we had no time to eat dinner before we went to Palmyra for a meeting.  So we stopped by McDonalds real quick to get a smoothie because we had a coupon to try one. (Buy one get one free! Perfect for missionaries!) We pulled up and I was looking at the kinds you could choose from and I turned to Sister Tipton and asked, "What kind of mango do you want?"  She just looked at me funny and laughed and then I corrected myself and said, "I mean, I want mango.... what kind of smoothie do you want?"  Haha we laughed for a while about that.  Then I asked her if she wanted something to eat to and she told me to order her a chicken snack wrap.  So I turned to the speaker you order into and said, "Okay and we need a chicken 'snap wrack'.  Oh... I mean... a chicken snack wrap!"  That made us burst into loud laughing and even the lady taking our order laughed with us.  Oh the effects of talking and teaching people non-stop for hours... you lose your ability to speak. Sister Tipton and I have too much fun together :) I am glad the McDonalds people got a kick out of it too. 

This week fun! Sister Tipton and I have had some big miracles with the less-active members we are helping.  This week we went to Sister Andrew's apartment to watch the Restoration DVD with Pamela (because Pamela's DVD player is broken).  I can't even describe in words how full the room was with the Spirit as we watched.   At the end of the movie we discussed it and then bore testimony and ended with a prayer.  Pamela was really quiet and I got worried at first; but then I felt the Holy Ghost comforted me with the thought that it was okay and that she was just thinking and pondering on what she just saw and felt.  Usually Pamela stays after the lesson to chat with Sister Andrew but as we left and I hugged Pamela goodbye she whispered to me, "Do you have a minute?"  I whispered back that we did and she told us to come a few doors down to her apartment. She quickly said goodbye to Sister Andrew and we went and sat down with her alone.  She got teary-eyed and explained that she had to tell us what she thought but she wanted just us to know about it.  She told us of a spiritual experience she had as a youth that the movie reminded her of and she said, "I could sit and talk with Sister Andrew for hours but I needed to hurry and come back here to pray and start reading the Book of Mormon some more."  That movie sparked something in her.  She has such a desire to receive direction from God and she is definitely letting that desire work in her.  She is the epitome of the scripture in Alma 32 that says, "But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experimentupon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than ^adesire tobelieve, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give placefor a portion of my words. Now, we will compare the word unto a ^aseed. Now, if ye giveplace, that a ^bseed may be planted in your ^cheart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a goodseed, if ye do not cast it out by your ^dunbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord,behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions,ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or thatthe word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to ^eenlighten my^funderstanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me. " (verses 27-28)

The sites are starting to pick up! Sister Tipton and I took tour after tour yesterday at the Hill Cumorah Visitors' Center.  It was so fun! I love talking to people and just getting to know them.  I am so social that God knew I would need to serve at a visitors' center/historic site so I could chat with people haha.  Yesterday someone asked me what it was like to serve in the place where the Church of Jesus Christ was restored and I just broke down in tears as I expressed my feelings of the last 13 months I've been here in this wonderful place.  It truly is an honor to serve here in the Cradle of the Restoration.

I love you all so much! Talk to you in a few days!
Love, Sister Adams

Fayette Ward Chapel

Elder and Sister Hansen on the front of the Church News for the 183rd anniversary of the publication of the B.O.M. at the Grandin Building

At the Palmyra Temple

Apple blossoms at the Whitmer Farm

More apple blossoms

cast trainers 2013 (Jones, me, Tipton, Davis)

Spring blossoms!

Another Transfer Almost Over...What???

This Sunday we should be getting transfer calls but Sister Tipton and I are probably staying together unless something crazy random happens. But I seriously doubt that.  Sister Raines is going home to North Carolina next Wednesday and I am so sad!  I am really going to miss her.  Last night the departing sisters gave their final testimonies in site meeting and all I could think about was how glad I was it wasn't me.  I love it here and I love being in the service of the Lord constantly.  Sister Szuch is getting a new missionary from the MTC and will be training her when I finish up the training program with Sister Tipton.  I am so excited for the events coming these next few months.  Pageant is coming!!! We start our meetings to prepare this month, practice all next month, and then July it is GAME TIME!!!! So stoked and getting pumped! 

We got the chance to go to the temple this week and it was something I really needed.  I feel so grateful that God sent me to a mission with a temple so that I can go and feel peace and remember who I am- a daughter of God.  Sometimes I feel like I am relearning primary lessons and it hits me and I think, "Whoa... I am a child of God!"  And I remember how significant that is and that I have a role to play in God's plan for us.  I hope that I can always live up to what God sees in me.  I know I cannot do it alone and that is why He gave us His Son, Jesus Christ.  So that we can become. 

Yesterday was a busy day!  We had all day to do proselyting work in Seneca Falls.  It was so pretty outside that we did our studies at the picnic tables behind our house.  Then we went out contacting and visiting some less-active members we are working with. We met this black guy named Craig as we were walking- he was just chilling on his porch.  So we struck up a conversation with him and taught him about the Book of Mormon.  He was SO FUNNY.  At one point he was asking us about what we do a missionaries and he said, "You two should be nuns, you would be great nuns."  I responded before I thought about what I should say and said, "Haha what! Why would we do that?!"  He laughed pretty hard, I didn't think it was that funny but I guess it was to him.  But it was good because then that led into how God wants us to have family and we are put in families because He loves us.  Anyway... I'm not sure how sober Craig was but he was nice!  He said he would read the Book of Mormon with his "girl" so we will see what happens. 

Sister Tipton and I taught Pamela yesterday and she is doing well.  She is really searching and has such a sincere desire to find out what God wants for her.  She has been reading her scriptures and praying and trying her hardest to quit smoking.  She did for a while but then she relapsed... it's okay she is getting there.  She is an amazing woman who has gone through so much in her life.  She is beginning to let go of the past and look to the future and how she can improve the quality of her life through living the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We had some really good break through's with her and I am excited to see her again. 

We had a special meeting this week with Don Enders and Gordon Madsen.  Don Enders is at the top of the ladder when it comes to Church History and he was the one over the restoration of the log and frame homes on the Smith Farm.  Gordon Madsen is the man over the legal papers in the Joseph Smith Papers project.  They were both here in Palmyra doing research for the Joseph Smith Papers and Elder Searle asked them on a whim to come and do a presentation.  IT WAS INCREDIBLE!  All of the things that they have found that prove and testify of what a great family the Smith's were and what a remarkable person Joseph Smith was.  Brother Madsen told us about some of the legal documents he has found with Joseph's name and dealing with him has been a marvelous experience.  Joseph was involved in over 200 court cases during the time the Church was being restored.  All have been proven to be false charges and many brought up by other preachers in the places he lived.  You can't tell me the adversary was trying to stop the work from progressing.  But Joseph was strong and had a supportive family and most importantly God was on their side.  He told us that some of the judges at the time said Joseph was one of the best lawyers they had seen because he had so much on the job training.  Haha I thought that was good.  Amazing how God took this ordinary, unlearned farm boy and used him as the instrument to restore His Church back to the earth for the last days.  Also, in the Articles of Faith it says, "We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring and sustaining the law."  Joseph gave his life in obeying and honoring the law by going to Carthage jail even though he did no wrong.  He stuck to his word, his beliefs and whatever the Lord said, Joseph obeyed.  He truly was the prophet to restore all things to the earth.  "Wherefore, I the Lord, knowing the calamity which should come upon the inhabitants of the earth, called upon my servant Joseph Smith Jun., and spake unto him from heaven, and gave him commandments." (D&C 1:17) I know this is true.  I know that God has always worked through prophets for the salvation of the children of men.  Just like in times of old God called a prophet to restore truth and priesthood authority to the earth.  I have such a testimony of Joseph Smith and I feel honored to serve in the places that he lived and did the work of the Lord. 

 I know this is God's work and that nothing can stop it from progressing.  I love being in the front row seat to see people learn about who they are, why they are here, and what they can become.  Seeing that light come into their eyes is worth it all.  This work is hard sometimes but hey, nothing that's worth it is ever easy.  That is why we do our best and press on.  And if we do that- God will be with us. "I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." (D&C 84:88)

I love you all very much! Have a wonderful week.
Love, Sister Adams