Feliz Navidad!

Merry Christmas everyone! 

I hope everything is going fantastic, and that this Christmas is great for all of you! 

This week has been such a whirl! I´m in Mexico, and in reality it´s probably warm all of the time, but it´s cold! haha we wear jackets most of the time and yeah. it´s great. but it has been very warm today and it is great! I love it!

This week has been amazing too! Teaching is a special experience. The spirit is strong, and I just have an incredible love for everyone I talk to. This week one of the people we are teaching accepted a date to be baptized! He is 15 and while we were teaching him, he was so interested in what was being said, and it was awesome! I love it. He is such a sweet boy, and I am so excited for him!

One day we were going around trying to find people at home, but no one was home! We went to quite a few houses, and no luck. I prayed to be led to someone to teach, and my prayer was answered! We were knocking at a door, but they weren´t home. My comp turns to me and said, ¨we´re going to contact that family¨ there were kids playing outside, and we went over and talked to them and ended up teaching the first lesson to the mom and dad, and they are amazing! I have a lot of hope for them. We are going back to teach them again later this week. 

The people here are incredible. I love them all so much. It is an incredible feeling. The food is great too! Yesterday though we had dinner with a member in San Carlos, and we had a mixture of thanksgiving and christmas meals. they were american, and I was SO happy. Me and another hermana that is american were like little kids in a candy store. It was delicious, and I ate SO much haha it was great. But yeah, it is amazing here and I am excited to work more! I love it.

I hope you all have an incredible Christmas! Remeber what the true meaning of Christmas is! Jesus Christ has done so much for us. He is our older brother, and I am so grateful for him. 

Feliz Navidad!

Hermana Adamson

Hola Mexico! December 17, 2013

Well! I´m finally here! I am in Mexico! It was so crazy getting on that plane in Pheonix knowing that I wouldn´t step foot on American soil again for 16 and a half months. It was crazy how excited I was. My trainor is Hermana Nuñez. She is from the Dominican Republic, and is a native spanish speaker, and doesn´t know much english haha. It will be a rough few weeks, but I am so excited to learn and hopefully the language will come fast! I hopped on a bus with her and headed out to Guaymas which is my first area. It is so warm here. I definitely don´t miss the cold... Nope not at all haha. 

I am SO excited to finally be here and to start teaching people! Granted I will probably not teach much yet seeing as how I don´t speak spanish very well, but I´m still excited. Also, I´m pretty sure I am the only blonde person in guaymas haha. Oh! Cool thing! I am part of the first group of North American sisters to serve here in at least 20 years! How crazy is that? I´m a guinnea pig I guess haha. I am so excited, and that is a pretty cool thing to be able to say. 

My p days are now on mondays just as an fyi. 

I love you all and hope everything is going well! I hope you´re getting excited for Christmas! Remember to really remember the true meaning of Christmas and the best Christmas present that any of us have ever been given: Jesus Christ. He is amazing, and I love him. 

Love, 

Hermana Sarah Adamson

Hermana Adamson Has Left the MTC!

Her new address is:

Sister Sarah Jane Adamson 
Mexico Hermosillo Mission 
Avenida Garcia Conde #301
Col. Pitic
83150 Hermosillo, Sonora
Mexico

Almost out of the MTC! (December 13, 2013)

So... Sorry about the lack of email last week! I was in Las Vegas getting my Visa! It was kinda really nice getting out into the real world for a minute! Haha but it was definitely a long day! We had to leave the MTC at 4:30 in the morning and got back that night at like 10:30.... It was long and tiring, but it was way fun! While we were in the airport in Vegas waiting for the plane, we were walking down one of the moving sidewalk things, and I look up and see this man walking towards us. I recognized him but thought "no.... there's no way that's him" then we got closer and one of the other hermanas just points and gasps. So yeah, it was him. Mitt Romney. Yep, I saw a possible future president of the united states. I was like three feet away from him. It was pretty cool haha. AND! Even better! We went to Ruby's diner in the airport and the lady at the cash register asked me if I was there for a conference or something, and so I told her that we were missionaries for the LDS church and that we were there getting our visas. So she started asking us if we believed in Jesus and in the Second coming, and we got super excited! We were like YES! THEN she asked if we had any books or cards or anything, so I pull out a Book of Mormon that I had with me, and gave it to her! Then she just went on and on about how much she loves Jesus and how excited she is for him to come again! It was the coolest thing! It got me SOOO excited! So yeah, it was a good day! 

This week has been more of the same haha nothing super exciting referring to classes or anything, BUT we did get to hear from another apostle! On Tuesday night, we had another devotional that was broadcasted to all of the MTCs, and Elder Quentin L Cook came and spoke to us! It was awesome! He was the THIRD apostle that has come to talk to us! And two more are coming for Christmas, but I won't be here. Apparently they haven't had this many General Authorities in such short of a time. Pretty exciting. And Elder Ballard was supposed to come last week, but the snow storm made it so he couldn't come. It has been an incredible experience. 

So last Sunday, Niell Marriott spoke for relief society! As soon as I saw her picture pop up, I got so excited and wished I was on main campus so I could talk to her and President! Before she even started speaking I was a mess. I love her and President Marriott so much! They are the best! They are such spiritual giants, and I love listening to them speak! She mentioned something about sacrament meetings when her sons would pass the sacrament and I just imagined sitting in the chapel with all of the amazing young men in our ward passing the sacrament. I have the best home ward in the world! 

I love you all and again hope everything is going well! I fly out to Mexico on Monday! It's crazy!! I am so excited to get out there and to really teach and serve people! 

Hermana Adamson

Pictures

Week 4; November 29, 2013

Happy thanksgiving everyone! I hope you had a an amazing day full of good food and good times! 

Thanksgiving for me was very different, and very special. It was an amazing day. I have been able to start singing with the choir, and it has been so fun. Yesterday, we had a rehearsal before our morning special devotional, and it was great. We always sing prelude music as a congregation before we start our meetings, and this week we got to sing come thou fount of every blessing, and it was amazing. We have actually sung it a lot lately and It makes me so happy! I love that song so much. Any who, while we were singing because I have been given much, the MTC presidency walked in followed by....... Russell M Nelson! So, as he walked in, we all stood up, we continued to sing and the spirit that was there was unbelievable. We didn't sit down until the song was over which was another I think two verses. I stood there singing and thinking of how grateful I am to be a missionary, to be here in the MTC, for my Savior, and for everything that I have been given in my life especially this gospel, my family, and my friends. I truly am so blessed and I am excited for the opportunity to share some of those blessings with the people in Mexico. As I stood there, the Spirit was so strong and I just started to cry. It was a special moment. 

After the devotional we ate our thanksgiving meal for lunch and it actually wasn't half bad. Then we just hung out with our zone, wrote some letters, and walked around the temple. It was such a beautiful day, and it was so nice to be able to spend some time in the sunshine! 

We also did a service project which was really awesome. We put together dry meals for hungry children in Utah, and I believe we ended up putting together a total of 365,000 meals! What an opportunity. It was amazing. We also had a really cool and fun thanksgiving day program and watched a movie! Haha a church movie, but it was still really good. It was called Ephraim's rescue, and was definitely a life changer. It's about the Martin handcart company, and it for sure left an impact on me. Every time I start to complain about the cold (like this morning) I feel like an awful person. They went through so much and had nothing, and I have so much and in all reality have a pretty easy life. I honor those pioneers and everything they did. 

I am so grateful for all of you! I love you all so much!  I am so grateful to be a part of this gospel. It truly is God's church. He leads it. I know that President Monson has been called of God and that Joseph Smith was called of God to restore the gospel to the Earth. I love this Gospel and I can't imagine what my life would be like without it, and I really don't even want to know. I love my Savior, and I am so grateful to be able to serve Him by serving a mission.

Hermana Adamson

Pictures from the MTC

Week 3; November 22, 2013

Hola!

This week has gone by so unbelievably fast! I seriously feel like I was writing you all an email yesterday! It's strange, the days go fairly slow, but the weeks have started to speed by! 

Not a ton has happened this week, we started teaching new investigators which has been an incredible experience, and the language is coming so much better than it was last week! 

I have had a few powerful experiences in class that have boosted my testimony so much. One was where our teacher was acting as the missionary and had me act as the investigator. In that lesson we had "been taught" the restoration and about joseph smith, then at the end he had me pray about it. It was such a testament to me. Even though I was pretending to be someone else, I prayed that I could know these things were true. I already knew, but I had an overwhelming experience with the spirit that just testified to me again that this really is the true church, that the book of mormon is true, and that Joseph Smith truly was a prophet. 

I am learning and growing every day, both spiritually, and in reality probably horizontally as well but hey. It's all good. haha. I have learned so much about patience this week and I know I will continue to learn how to be patient throughout my entire mission. I love you all and hope you are all doing well! 

Here are a few pictures of my amazing district! We have so much fun! I love these girls so much, we have grown so close and we all get along way too well haha

Hermana Adamson

In the MTC

Thanks for the picture, Elder Hansen!

Week 2; November 15, 2013

Hello everyone! 

This week has been SO good! And thank you so much for the emails and letters! It really does mean so much when I get a letter or email from someone! 

Last Saturday and Sunday I definitely struggled a lot. I was more homesick than I have ever been, but then on Sunday night I went to a devotional on main campus and saw Elders JD Hansen, Ryan Larson, Ben Wood, and Logan Mathie, and just seeing them and talking to them for a few minutes gave me more comfort than I ever thought possible. I decided right then and there that I could do this, and with help from the Lord, I KNOW I can. There will be a lot of hard times, but there will be even more good, and so many moments of pure happiness that the hard times won´t even matter in the end, and they will make me stronger. 

So on Saturday, we started teaching our first ¨investigator¨ His name is Pablo, and teaching him was a struggle for us missionaries. It was all in Spanish, and none of us can really understand it. But we learned that if we went into the lessons with a prayer in our hearts and with the spirit, that he would understand what we were trying to teach him, and he did. Even though we know he wasn't a real investigator, it was SOOO exciting when he accepted to read the book of Mormon and to pray about it, and when he actually did those things, I cannot even begin to explain the excitement and joy that I felt for him. 

Being thrown into a language is hard. It's hard to know what our teachers are saying sometimes, and so frustrating when we can't say what we want to. I have said more prayers this week to understand what I'm being taught and to be able to feel the spirit than I can count. And it works. Prayer is so real and I am so unbelievably grateful for it in my life. 

I have felt the Lord's love and guidance so much this week. Living in a place where EVERYONE is set apart from the world to serve the Lord is a unique experience and I love it so much. The spirit is everywhere. 

On Tuesday night, we got to go up to another devotional on main campus, and the speaker was L Tom Perry!!! It was so amazing! He talked about the importance of companionships and it was a very cool experience to be so close to an apostle of the Lord. It amazes me every time how strong the spirit is when you are in the same room as a general authority. It is incredible. 

Well, I love you all and hope you are all doing well! 

Love,

Hermana Adamson

Week 1; November 8, 2013

Hola everyone!

These first few days have been pretty crazy! It feels like I've been here a week, but it's only day three haha. It is so great here. My companion is Hermana Pepcorn. She is from Idaho Falls and is a really sweet girl. My district is very unique. Normally there is at least one companionship of elders in each district, but in mine, there are only sisters. So our district leader is Hermana Hawkes who is awesome. It is going to be interesting how the whole sister district leader thing works out. Apparently this is the first time this has happened on this campus (west campus). I love the girls so much, they are all so great. So yeah, I am on the west campus of the MTC which is where all of the spanish speaking missionaries are so that's cool. The apartments are way nice, and the food is pretty delicious. My first meal in the MTC was salmon, and it was actually very good. Not too shabby of a first meal in my opinion. Dinner my second night was tritip steak so... yeah, we're eating pretty well. 

It was so awesome. When I first got here, I walked in and got my badge, then I walked through the building and out to head to get my books. On my way there (literally ten yards away) Elder JD Hansen came running up the sidewalk! It was so good to see him! He flies out on tuesday to California, so hopefully I see him again before he leaves! 

All of my classes are in spanish, so that's a struggle, but I pick things up here and there, and I pray that I will pick up the language quickly.

I love you all so much!  

Love,

Hermana Adamson