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| A less active member, Mwaya, who just moved to Brussels to be with his mom for a while. Cool guy, helped us teach Terrence, our investigator, who he helped us teach this day. Terrence is the one who took the picture. |
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| ZUN ZUN GABER!! Check out that bad boy! I saw that on the street the first day here and I was like, "Dude, gabe's got to see that!"" Haha! |
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| After a run one day. Me and Elder Young try and run at least a couple times each week. |
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| This is in the big ole Catholic chapel right next to our house, or just down the street and around a corner, I should say. Really cool paintings inside, we got to go there and take a few pictures for last P-Day. |
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| WHOO BEAUTIFUL ORGAN IN FRANCE YEAHHHH |
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Hey Mom!
I read a very good talk just a couple days ago and today that when we really try and give our heart to the Lord's work, He blesses us. How great is that? How wonderful is it that I can give my whole heart and soul to this, in this time of opportunity and privilege? So I decided, to some degree, that, it's better to have the Lord's will be mine for a while, at least as far as serving a mission goes, because if i go throughout my mission doing good things but wishing i wasn't here, well, that's not going to do much good at all! so i'll try and be grateful for today and do my best; It really does feel good when I can look back and say I did my best for a block of finding time. I can't say that too often, but I hope that will become more and more often.
Well, we have three baptismal dates coming up-- Terrence was going to be this last Saturday, but now we have Terrence, Serge, and Covalie all on the 18 July; That'll be great! We also have a cool exchange coming up with elder adams. Holy cow for some reason the keyboard switched to English and this is really tripping me up. Weeeird. Um one sec I'm going to try to change it back.
There we go that's better. So yeah, this week has been good. We had a good P-day last week, was uneventful, which is fine, I kind of like chill P-days myself, and today has been pretty chill too. Me and Elder Young are both pretty chill people. I think he'd like to go see stuff more on P-Day and that kind of thing, but we'll see about that next week I guess. :/ haha.
Tuesday, we had a great exchange, I was with our district leader, Elder Adams, who's been out just six weeks less than me, (by the way EIGHT MONTH MARK TODAY!! Crazy right?!!) was with me for a day, and it was fun. We went to a lesson that ended up falling through, but it worked out all right anyway, and then we were able to go porting, and we talked to this very nice old lady who talked to us for a very long time, about lots of stuff, but turns out she had just gotten home from the hospital earlier that day, and she had a very religious grandson and his family was all practicing and religious and stuff, and how she wished she could be someone believing, too. And so it was cool to share with her a bit our testimonies, Elder Adams took the lead and I was happy to follow. cool stuff, because he was really happy and really good at talking to elderly ladies, so it worked out perfect! Anyway fun times.
I've been feeling this week in general that i've been giving myself more fully to the Lord, which has been great. Good things await the people who do that. it's interesting, it's actually harder to be a missionary who does good stuff without his whole heart in it, as Dad has explained to me, than to be a good missionary who does good stuff with his whole soul. So I'm going for that second option now. Doesn't mean I'm going to be perfect at talking to every single person I should, doesn't mean i'll say everything or teach every lesson exactly right, but I can do my best. Grateful for the hand of the Lord in my life. May He help and bless all of you. I hope the Lord's blessings rest on you.
Wednesday morning, or maybe thursday morning, I was able to receive TWO GREAT LETTERS, one of whom came from my beloved brother HYRUM and the other of which came from my awesome Grandma Georgia!! You are so nice to send me those, I'm so grateful for your love and support! Thanks so much, sorry if it takes a bit of time for me to get back to you there, because I'm actually supposed to only write replies to letters on monday, P-Day. But yes, thank you so much.
Also, Wednesday morning, (or was it Friday?) I was able to get a great blessing of comfort from my companion, Elder Young. it was really personal and helpful, I won't say a bunch of details but it really helped me understand a bit of what I am doing and going through right now and why it's important, also that it's important to love, pray for, and write my family to stay in touch with you all, it's a good pattern and thing to keep for the rest of life, because let's be honest, life won't be much the same again! It's always changing, I'll have to get home, go to school, don't get me wrong, it'll be fun to have a bit of time at home working, too, but yeah, there you go; Thank you so muhc Mom and Dad for your support, physical and spiritual, in what i'm doing out here. I know there are people here the Lord prepared just for me, I'll be trying to find them this week. The Lord's ability to bless us and comfort us is very powerful through Priesthood blessings. We were able to go give one to a less-active sister two weeks ago, too, and elder Young gave it, and it was great. We went over with the sisters because they're the ones who visit the sister. It was good. She's been coming to church since. Lord bless all of you, in all your efforts to be good people and leave the Lord your whole heart, and do the right things He asks you to do. it's hard, it's scary, I'm still scared of it, but in the end, it's like jumping into a warm, slightly coolish pool--it's better if you just get your whole body in and start swimming around! You can't enjoy it until you do that. So there you go, that's it. Powerful lesson I've learned and am still learning.
Sometimes, it's discouraging. I had a discouraging moment like that one of the nights this week, a couple nights before the blessing. We went out street contacting and nobody really seemed to want to talk to us, we talked to a couple people, but without much success; Sometimes, it's hard when people don't want to listen or don't treat you with much respect. But I'm grateful, too, because the Lord is there, He hears our prayers, and if we do our best, He'll bless us. I'm realizing that I want to be an "all-in" type of person like Dad is, thanks for your great example there, Dad. Good to get through moments like that. They can feel long, but then, before you know it, you're back in the apartment planning for the next day, and so life is all right. "ça va," as the French people would say. difficult moments are a part of life, and thanks to the Lord we have the scriptures, the Gospel, and the atonement to help us understand and become better people thanks to them. After all, without difficulty, where would be the growth? Without pain, where would be the muscles? And without initial questions or confusion, where would be final peace and understanding? So it's a blessing in the end. I'm just trying to figure out how to realyl be happy here. Happiness isn't a self-centered thing, you see. It's really just to have the bare needs taken care of and then to go out and serve the Lord and love your family and friends and do missionary work and go from there. Happiness comes from when you find something that's worth dedicating your life to and then you jump in with both feet.
Anyway, we have a sweet soirée familiale, or family home evening, with a family in our ward tonight, in just a couple hours, for which I'm super excited. I hope that'll go well, we made a little paper to write down little services or missionary acts. It's fun. We're going to try and get the kids invovled, too. Fun stuff. Anyway, I hope the week has gone well for all of you, and before I forget,
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY DAD!!!!! and to all the great grandpas and great-grandpas and even uncles and great examples I have in my life, thanks to my young mens' leaders Bishop Parker and Brother Barney and President cook, too. I'm grateful for them. YOU ROCK DAD!!! :D
Here are some pictures, hope you enjoy them; God bless you all!
Question: Mom, could you send me the albums of Nashville Tribute Band and also all the Motab albums we have? So I guess nashville Tribute, Motab, and then Handel's Messiah. That'd be so great! thanks so much! How's life for you all? Love you tons, talk to you next week!
With the love of God,
Adam Edwards
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Hey Dad!!!
Great to hear from ya. yeah, in response to your question there, I am technically the older companion, Elder Young has been out three months less than I have (by the way, it's my EIGHT MONTH MARK today!!! Crazy, right?!!), but in our mission, we actually don't really have an assignment of senior companion and junior companion. I mean, you know who the older person is in the équipe, because they're on the left of the mission repertoire, but we don't really assign it like that. But yeah, I guess you could say that if you want. But to be honest, Elder Young is a leader in so many things, from planning to getting out the door and what we eat that he's really more of the leader! So yeah, I can't really take a lot of ego from that. But it is fun. President Babin actually likes to have two young missionaries like this a lot, it gives us the chance to grow and try and figure things out and that can bring lots of faith and miracles from the Lord, Elder Williams and I certainly saw that last transfer and we've seen a bit of that this transfer as well. But yeah, I'll keep you updated if I ever am made district leader or anything. Right now, I really want to train, I'm really excited to get a blue. But I'll keep you posted, it's likely that me and Elder Young will be togehter till august or so, which is fine, just probably what will happen.
Wow, I liked all those cool pictures you and Mom sent me! That looked like a super fun trip! And I'm glad you don't feel as pressured to send me a great email every time, I understand when time is short or whatever, a shorter one is fine. But hey, it seems like you and mom really "profitéd" or enjoyed your anniversary trip, good for you. HAPPY FATHER4S DAY AGAIN to you, and I hope you have a great Fourth of July. In fact, I wanted to tell you, Dad, I'm doing better with putting myself aside a bit more. it feels better in a way. I mean, I'm starting to here, and i'm starting to for me, because I wnat to, too, and it feels good, it feels different, but it's still kind of scary! I mean, it makes sense, you go through 18 years of life and then you're kind of out on your own! I'm sure you know what I mean. But it's a good thing. It makes me sad to think of so many people who use their God-given agency to tune out all that is good and pure and wholesome by giving in to addictions and media drown-out and all the video games and terrible distractions of our day. But God bless us, we'll carry through all right; It's very important to have hope. President Uchtdorf's two talks from this last conference, which you reminded me to read, as well as a talk I read this week, two actually, one called "Missionary Purification" and the other called "The Fourth Missionary." Man it's really powerful, you could probably look it up online, I think you'd really like it. Don't worry too much about me over here in France, life is good. Me and Elder Young are having some pretty good times together. It's a good time.
Other than that, I wanted to say that I love you, thanks for everything you do, and until next week. You're the best Dad!! By the way was that the Parisian restaurant in Salt Lake that you and Mom went to? Holy cow Mom is so fun to watch with all the Paris stuff. I love you all, enjoy the week, and the Lord's blessings, and GREAT JOB on the member missionary work you are doing with Kelly. You are so blessed to have followed through on that opportunity. I hope that all the extended family are doing well, tell them hi for me, and i'll talk to you next time! Au revoir!
Love, love, love, lots of love,
Elder Edwards
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