Apparently, We Look Really Young!

Dear Family,

Apparently I look really, really young! Both Sister Evangelista and I keep getting asked by people if we are 16. Haha. I am 20 years old!!

Totally a legal adult! Like the other day someone was asking about my family and I said I have a younger 18-year-old sister and a younger 15-year-old brother. And they said "excuse me, did you just say your 18-year-old sister is younger? How old are you? You look like you are 15!" And then we met some kids on the street and this boy that is 14 was talking to us and somehow it came up that we
were talking about how we remember the teenage years being challenging, and he was like "wait, you're not teenagers? How old are you??" And then this morning when we were doing our laundry this lady was on her phone and was like "Oh the cute little girls are here! They do their laundry every Monday". Little girls?? Haha. Oh well. Maybe one day I will look like a young adult... When I'm 30.

This week was BEAUTIFUL weather. Seriously, it has hardly been hot this week. On Saturday we kept saying it felt like the temperature of an air-conditioned house. It was great. But it also rained a ton this week. One day was a really cold rain, which is weird for the summer!
Usually when it rains in the summer here, it is still hot. It's supposed to warm up a little this week, to high 80s. But really it has been such a blessing this summer. I thought it was going to be terrible, but it hadn't so far! I'm super lucky!

Today we have zone activity, but they are going to the exact same place we went last month. This place that is kind of like grown-up Chuck E Cheese. It was fun and all last time, but we didn't want to go again, especially since everyone just wants to laser tag the whole time and I am TERRIBLE at laser tag. I just can never do it! And we don't have the car. The zone leaders, district leader, and our elders in our ward were all upset that we weren't going and were just like "get a member to take you!" But the problem is that we have to also find a ride to zone meeting this week and possibly our exchanges with the sisters in Newton-Conover this week, too! And everyone is on vacation right now. We just didn't want to burn out the members. So we decided to stay. They all thought it was a bad idea, but oh well.

Haha.

It was a great week this week! Honestly, the weeks seem to go by faster and faster. I remember when I first came out on my mission, and it would be only Wednesday and I felt like I was going to die. Same thing with transfers, or when I had hit my 1 month mark.  When I hit my 1 month mark, I was excited but also depressed because I felt like I had already been here for eternity. Luckily, I don't feel that way anymore. I think it's because I have learned a lot about dealing with setbacks. Of course it's hard when things aren't going well, and I wish they could go better, but now I know that things get better, and there is no reason to feel upset. Of course that is easier said than done. The day it rained a ton this week, the sun was not out the whole day and I felt sad. I was also not feeling physically well, which was funny because just the night before I was thinking "Oh yeah, I have been eating so well and taking my vitamins, I haven't been sick in a long time!" And then the next day I was not feeling well. I think it was because of the weather though. The rain makes my head and joints hurt! But all is well, I felt fine the next day.

We had a great lesson with Maya. We hadn't even taught the Restoration all the way, and were planning on teaching it this week, but she started talking and we listened for a good 15-20 minutes and ended up teaching her about baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost.

It's amazing to see how people express their feelings and how it really ties back into the eternal truths that we already know, they just don't really know the name for it. She said that she has been involved in religions all her life, but since her stroke, she feels like she needs to "get it right" and she had felt like it's coming.

And she knows it's no coincidence that we knocked on her door around this time in her life that she had felt like this. We had scheduled to have a church tour with her on Saturday, but she texted us and said she had been thinking about it a lot, and she didn't feel like it was right going to visit the church. So she backed out and she didn't come to church, which was sad. But that seems to happen with her. When we are not with her, she thinks about things a lot and then doesn't seem to want to meet as much. But when we visited last time, she said she feels like she has a cloud of darkness that follows her and she only feels light sometimes, and she can see light in us all the time. I think sometimes the trick in missionary work is having them recognize the contrast between how they feel when they are with us and reading the Book of Mormon and praying and when they are not. When they really start to notice, they start to recognize the need for what we are offering.

We also met with the Hollis family and Bro. Hollis is doing great! Haha.

He reminds me of Sam from Colfax, because he has already looked a lot at the church's website. He told us "I've liked the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on Facebook and invited all my friends to like it too!" And he watches every video we send him on Facebook and loves it all. Sis. Hollis hasn't been doing as much on her own, but I think she's seeing her husband's excitement. One of the hardest things here in NC is that EVERYONE had already been baptized. Sometimes 2 or 3 times. And it's hard to help them understand the need for another baptism, even when we explain priesthood and everything.

So we are working on that, and hopefully they will have a baptism date soon.

Oh yes I forgot- the day that it rained a lot was really strange. Animals kept chasing us! And running around us! We were driving down a neighborhood street, and this dog just came flying out of his yard and was running alongside our car and barking at the passenger-side window. I kept honking and he just kept running! I told him he was going to get hit, but he just did not listen. ;) and then a cat ran out in front of our car, and then later Sister Evangelista was standing outside and this dog ran up and just pulled at her skirt! I also had this dream that my district was at JC Penney's for some reason, and the checkout lady found out I was a missionary and just started mocking me and telling all her friends and laughing and I was like "I am sick of all this persecution!" And then the next day (the rainy day) this lady we met was making fun of us. I still love her, but it was just strange.

Anyway. Then Saturday (the air conditioned weather day) we were walking to an appointment and this man called after us and asked where we were going, when we told him we were missionaries, he said "why have you never come to my house before?" Haha. I wish everyone would ask that. But his name is Fernando, and he is from Mexico. He even came to church on Sunday and was really excited about the Spanish Book of Mormon. I even tried to read the Spanish pamphlet out loud to him and he thought I knew Spanish! Haha. We'll see how it goes. Don't really know how genuinely interested he is. We are going to take some returned missionaries in the ward that are Spanish speaking. Or we will just hand him off to the Spanish missionaries, but the only problem is that they are 45 minutes away and that's where he would have to go to church if they taught him.

My studies have been going well! I am close to finishing Jesus the Christ. I have tried to pace myself my whole mission so that I can finish (most of) the missionary library. I have finished Doctrine and Covenants, and Our Heritage, and Our Search for Happiness. Now I am reading the Pearl of Great Price (which is great!!) and I'm reading the Book of Mormon with the schedule I made for the family, and I also started over The Book of Mormon on my own, and of course, Preach My Gospel every single day. The only thing I won't have read is the Old Testament, and some of the New Testament. I really have enjoyed Jesus the Christ though. At first I wondered if I should even try reading it on my mission, but it really has been AMAZING! I have learned a lot about the life of Christ and James E. Talmage does a great job of being very accurate, and he only expounds on direct scriptures from the New Testament. It really has helped me reading from that though to try to teach and BE more like Christ. He really taught in a way that helped people think for themselves. People were always asking him questions to try to confound him like "well, what about THIS situation?" "Ok, but what if ______ happens?" And he always taught doctrine and let them answer the question themselves.

That's what I'll do to my kids one day. Haha.

In other news:

-I had a dream the President Craven was looking at a map of our area with us and he told us to talk to people on Bethel rd. (The road we live on) and then we got 2 referrals for Filipino ladies that live close to us and we met 2 more people at the park next to our apartments. Thank you, President Craven. Haha.

Goodness, sorry this is so long. Feel free to edit it for the blog. I think it was so long because I have my journal sitting in front of me to help me remember what happened this week.

I love you all so much :) I miss you, too. Being with you all seems like such a distant memory. Sometimes I feel like a lone homeless person with no family! Just kidding. But I will see you all soon :)

-Sister Adams