July 27, 2015 - Adam's letter

Hey Mom and Dad! Happy 24th of July!

I'm so sorry this is so short today, wanted to let youi know that its been a good week. I'll try and send you the draft I had on my iPad for you Dad but the iPad died so I'll get that to you tomorrow. Not huge but love ya. 

I'm sorry that I don't have much time, but the week was good. I'm going to try and work hard this week, I don't think it's good to just think 50 percent is enough, I'll try and give 100. Also have been growing my testimony some and I wanted to let you and Mom know that I'm not out here bcause you want me to be, I'm here because I love the Lord and because I love what he gives me, it took me a while to decide that but yeah, I've been working on that. *

Working on my Bible skills, want to try and bash with people maybe a bit this week. 

God bless you all! Have a great week, okay? Sorry I didn't write more. I loved your emails very much. Please know I love you. Serge and Covalie are pretty much dropped, they won't come to church. Terrence we'll see tomorrow. Other than that; we had a sweet RM return rom the London mission and he's SO COOL!!! we had lunch with him today and he's super sweet; Legit guy. english accent!! haha. anyway love ya, talk to ya later. God bless. love you tons. 

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Mom and Dad, this is the email that i was going to send to you last
week but couldnt because the ipad died. Still here! God bless, thanks
for chatting me, love ya! By the way I have an ipAd mini.

Hey Dad! Happy to talk toy ou doay, thanks so mich for the email!

Yeah, things are going well here in Nantes. This is a really
coolville, one of the most envied in the mission, and in the last four
months, they've cut it down from eight missionaries three or four
months ago to now just four !! So we are now just in a two manapartment, different but good. I have a lot of things i can learn from
Elder McBride, he's a good guy, always looking for something to do
that,s missionary work related. Fun stuff.

I've been learning some about how to pray short prayers, Im usually
terrible at that but Elder McBride is helping me get better so I can
sleep longer and so we can talk and stuff.

Just really quick before I forget, would you mind ordering three pairs
of garment bottoms for me? I've had to get rid of a few pairs due to
ink stains and stuff like that. Thanks Dad

Thanks for all the good advice, I don't think you reliaze how much I
treasure those little words of encouragement, it's so precious.

Well this week was good, we had ZERO investigators show up for Church
which was weird. no recent converts or less actives for the
investigator class or anything!! Haha anyway it's all right life
happens, we're excited to start a new week and stuff. We have a lot of
people to teach, thanks to the hard work of the other equipe as well
as some investigators a d less actives to work with from me and Elder
young's old equipe. But we have lots of Africans to teach!! It's
really good, i'm trying to get better at Bible knowledge so I can
Bible bash and stuff or at least argue decently well. Anyway good
there.

Is there any advice you have for me in particular Dad?  How is your
spirit doing? I love ya, hope I don"t leave you
and Mom out in the blue too much there. I realiZe tou jind of get what
it,s like, but Mom, not so much, she has ,t done it heraelf. I'll try
ad keep you more in the loop. Love you dad! Man life is always a
struggle but grteful to feel like the mission is more my choice now.
I'm here because I want to be here and serve the Lord, I want you and
Mom to know that im not here because you want me to be here. Anyway
love you tons, thanks so much for your love, see you later! At this
tiMe we have two baptismal dates set. Serge and Covalie are more or
less dropped, they simply won't come to church, so it's hard" but God
bless you, talk to you later!

Love, lots of love for you, dad,

Your dear and faithful son
elder Edwards

Adam's Letter - July 20, 2015.

Hey Mom!!

Thanks a bunch for your great email! Oh thanks a bunch for those packages! I liked them so much. Okay, I will take the supplements consistently. I'll try and do that idea that you said, breakfast and lunch, I think that'll be best. I love you so, so much. I feel bad because I realized, not for the first time, that I've been kind of leaving you and Dad out of the loop of life over here, and I got the impression that you don't really understand how missionary life works and all that stuff, what happens every day. So i'll try and fill you in a little on that every week from now on.

Glad that life is going well! Absolutely, goals are better late than never. Thanks for that cool spiritual thought! Cool with the Scout camp and all those Merit badges! Tell Hyrum and Gabe I'm super proud of them!

Well, this week is transfers, and I'm now in my 6th transfer, about 9 months out, life is good, I'm happy. Elder Young is leaving, which makes me pretty sad, but I'm also happy to see him leave his first area and move on in serving the Lord in Aulnay, north of Paris, a little town north of there. He should be able to see Paris on P-days, so that's super cool for him! He's been one of my favorite comps, a real dear guy, and we're going to hang out and play soccer together for sure after the mission. He's also pretty ticklish (yeah I tickle the other missionaries in the apartment--figured I missed doing it to everyone in the family, so I kind of just adopted Elder Young, McBride, and Carson into the family, you see. :D So yes i've been tickling them lots, pretty funny.) I leave that to your disgression to leave or take off the group email. haha!!

It's always fun to get lots of emails from people, I feel blessed because I try and make an effort to reach out to other missionaries and stuff, and it's good, it's fun. I email Elder Briton Wright, my red-haired friend who went to Syracuse Junior with me, and also Elder Zach Griffin a bit, other people like that, anyway, it's cool. Thank you SO MUCH for your emails, yours and dad's definitely matter the most. There's not much I can say to be more grateful for it.

So yeah, I'll tell you a bit about our P-Day: we played soccer with Terrence, did our laundry and studied in the morning (yeah, some at the same time, we'll have to work on that--kind of hard because our washer is broken), and now we're here doing emails. I also got "contacted" or talked to by a guy from Algeria, the north of Africa, who was really nice and spoke some decent English, and he was really cool. He worked construction, twas fun. anyway tried to invite him to a lesson but didn't fly. I'm not always good at inviting, but figured I'd give it a shot, I'll try and be better. But it was still really good, really fun. We're now about to head over home, eat a bit, and then head out to work! God blesses us a lot on P-Day. It's kind of in remembrance of our old life. Haha but it's also good, to prepare for full-time, single-heartedness for the rest of the week. Missioinary life is so weird! But I love you Mom. Yeah the baptism went really well, I got to confirm Terrence. I love you tons. I'll be comps with Elder McBride, he's a gerat guy; Love you. See you MOm! Have a great week. Talk to you later! 

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Thank you so much, Dad! 

I appreciate so much your love and support. i'm sorry that I'm brief when I talk to you, but I'm grateful we can still have direct, loving communication. I love you dad. You're awesome. Really, if I ever become half the man you are, I'll be pretty proud of myself. But I guess really I just have to give all of myself to the Lord and see what He can make out of me. You always taught me not to compare, I should remember that. But I'm grateful to you, father, you're a great man. 

I'm sorry that I don't have pictures of the packages, but please know I appreciated and loved them fully! It was so great to get them, thank you for sending that "To from Us" package, haha it was really good. I hope you know God helps us, He's working with us in our lives. You know, up to this point, one of the major setbacks I've had in my mission is just feeling like I didn't want to be here, wishing I was back home, but I realized, I'm realizing, I guess, that it's a lot harder to do a mission with my face behind me than looking straight ahead. So there you go. I love you, Dad. 

Glad that the scout camp went well. I'm sorry it rained there, but sounds like Gabe and hyrum did great! Super proud of them. I hope you know I love you. I'm going to try and make an effort not to reread and dwell on news from home too much, I've been guilty of that a lot, but don't worry, I love the emails, I'll just try and be more focused this week. Please let me know if there's any other spiritual advice you want to give me or any cool talks you see for the week, I think spiritual stuff like that would be okay for me to see and look at, I can't respond but just in case you ever want to. But if that's too much, weekly is okay. Well I just love you dad. 

This week is transfers and I'm losing a great comp, Elder Young, he's a great guy, he's really cool, relaxed, and we've had lots of good times together. We got to baptize Terrence, and it was a member who got to baptize him! Super cool, right? It was really fun too because he asked me to confirm him! I was a little surprised but I was happy to and I did. It was great. I love you dad. I want you to know that the mission is hard but i'm grateful for it, and I trust willingly that it'll be worth it, all-in-all. These people we baptize, they'll know all their lives that the gospel is true, just because we were willing to lay aside worldly things and a couple years. 

But anyway, I love you and I wanted to express that. Your voice almost still communicates peace to me sometimes. haha, it's funny, I'm still afraid sometimes that you or someone in the family will die, just because I'm scared of it I guess, I don't know, but I'm grateful because I know the Lord is there. I want to become a very powerful, mighty missionary for him, thank you for all the help and success you've shown me, how to live a good life. I hope that you and Mom don't feel too out of the loop. I realize you know more or less what it's like for me, but I just hope Mom doesn't wonder too much what we do every day and what's it like and all that. Would you let me know if she does? I'd just like to try and answer her questions better, I realized that my communication has been kind of one-sided. I just love you so much. 

Also, my companion will be district leader, it's Elder McBride, he was there my first night in Belgium and he's here now, we've been in the same apartment for the last transfer, he's a really good guy, I'm excited to learn from him and grow from his example. He's about a year out and I'm out now about 9 months. Whoa, that's enough time for a baby to be born! That's crazy! So yeah, that's a bit about me, I'm really sad to lose Elder Young, but Elder McBride is going to teach me how to contact people on transportation and stuff like that, he's a good teacher, too, so I'm excited. I'm making goals to not be a push-over this transfer, to be able to stand up to disobedience, either in myself or others' suggestions, and really push for the Lord and carry on His work. I want to work so hard that the transfer catches me by surprise! I'll let you know how that goes. But I love you, have a great week, god bless in your work, and till next time! I'll try and forget a little and give myself! It's good, it's happy. :D Love you dad!

Can't really express it great in text, but love you tons!!

Have a great week, dad.

Talk to you later,

your son,

Elder Adam grant Edwards

Adam's letter July 13, 2015

HELLO FAMILY!!!! Oh you guys are awesome!!

Thank you so much for the packages!! I was so glad to get them! They actually came the same week, if you can believe it! And I didn't even know that that "To from us" one was coming, so that was a real treat and surprise! Yes, and I received the other one, too, thank you so much for those supplements and the little mints and the little hand-outs, I love those so much. Every little note or card or treat means so much, thank you forever!!

Just to answer your question on emails really quick, Mom, yes, so we do have the ability to read e-mails in down-time such as meals and stuff throughout the week, because it's like a normal letter in that way, they wouldn't ask us to wait until P-Day, but they do ask us to wait until P-Day to respond, so that's the only day I can respond. So yeah, if you want to send a couple during the week of emails or just little "hi"s or cool quotes during the week, I think that'd be fine, I'd just ask you to please help me not be distracted. I hope that makes sense. I'm trying to give myself to this work and it's helping, lots. But yes, if you want to send one or two little emails during the week that you want me to read, I think that's okay. But just know, I don't have wifi in the apartment.But yeah, there you go! Love you guys tons.

Cool! I'm so glad that Nate Bezzant is going out on his mission! I think he'll have a great, fun time. God bless him in his work and what he does! The mission has lots of hard times but lots of good ones, too. He'll be blessed as he gives the Lord his whole heart in all that he's doing.

Thanks for all those cool pictures! That was really fun to see your fun experience at Bear Lake, I'm glad that Elizabeth and little Seaver are doing all right. I hope they've recovered okay. I really liked seeing all the happy little kiddos and I really liked seeing you guys too. I loved seeing Grandma B smiling and just so happy with her sweet happy face at all the kids and just having so much joy over them. It reminded me of the beauty that comes to people like her when they've peaceably lived peaceful, happy, worthy, joyful lives of service. It brings things that nothing else really can! The gospel is great. I loved seeing you, Grandma! I love pictures of the rest of my grandparents and extended family, too!

What cute pictures with petite Brielle and little Ziester, too! I'm so glad you were all able to go and see little Brielle get her baby blessing, wish I could have been there, but it's okay, I'll be back before we know it. So cute. I show Elder Young a picture of at least one of my nieces pretty much every time. :D every P-Day. It's precious, yeah. Love my family. I'm glad that you all were able to feel so much love and have cool bonding experiences up there. Bet it was fun!

In regards with the iPad, yeah, I guess it does feel kind of different. We had to take some time Saturday to do some iPad training at the Church. That feels kind of weird, to be in the Church just to do stuff like that, but also it was a good reminder that I can really spend time better sometimes--sometimes, I like staying at the church, even after church is over, to talk and hang out and stuff, and that's not necessarily a good thing. So it's been a reminder to me not to let little things, such as staying after a lesson at the church, to download a few videos, which is a good thing, turn too long, or turn into bad things, like wasting tons of time. But I'm grateful for it. I'm trying not to let it change the function of the misison much, it really shouldn't change much how we do work, but really just the power of our teaching and the availability of church publications and videos. It also makes it easier to have scriptures and stuff, and we can bring in the Spirit very powerfully to people who will listen. We've tried once or twice to use it on the street talking to people, one guy just kind of shrugged it off, he didn't listen to the Spirit though, purposefully was putting a wall up, and other times, I think it's been better.

The other elders in the apartment, Elder Carson (who is super funny and fun to be around, likes to sing random stuff and we have little random sing-offs at the apartment), and Elder McBride (who played hockey, is from Canada, a,d is also a pretty fun guy) have used it in contacting on the tram and on the street and have found great success with it. To be honest, we could probably put more effort in there, just need to use it more. But yeah, it has changed our lessons a bit, we often try and put a video in now, I'd say even usually. Oh yeah, and we call Elder Young "petit" because that's his nickname, it was given to him by an older missionary when he was a bleu, so yeah, it's just kind of stuck. He doesn't mind it, so it's okay. The other missionaries have kind of given me the nickname of "Eddy." Haha that reminds me of Dad's nickname, too, Eddy Stresser. :D good nicknames, right Dad? 

I love you a lot, I need to go now. Thank you so much for all that you do and you're doing! God bless you!!! Have a great July 14 --Fête Nationale in France!! Haha just kidding. That's tomorrow, it'll be fun. We also need to avoid the partiers, but yeah. Hey plus, Terrence is getting baptized Saturday! So that'll be cool. He was here before I was, so it's been fun to teach him an dhelp him for while. God bless you all, my dear famiyl! Till next week! It's always dear to communicate with you. yeah, Mom, you could send me another flash drive, or even just send me music over emial, that works too; if the music could be on MP3 format, that'd be great! Or even if you could just send me a file that converts them, that'd be awesome. Yeah, we had good meetings, district meetings are super fun, we have tie theme colors, this week will be pink, and so yeah, I hope you all have a great day, we'll talk to you later! God bless. See you next time!

Love, love, love, lots of love,

your son and brother, beloved family,

forever yours,

Elder Adam Grant Edwards

Weekly Letter--RENNES ZONE CONFERENCE, ELDER BALDWIN, LIFE IS GOOD, PRESIDENT HINCKLEY'S STANDING FOR SOMETHING

Hello my dear and sweet family!

So I wanted to write you this little letter today, I apologize for any shortness of letters I've been sending you lately. That's not my intent, I should be sending some good letters to my family! So I'll try and send a good one today.

This week has been good. Whew, I feel like I could be better at utilizing the time I have--it's hard to get out of the apartment sometimes after meals or after studies, for example--but don't worry, still working over here. I try to be a good missionary, but the hours are something I really struggle with. Not getting up on time, thankfully, I'm usually pretty good with that (even if I fall back asleep on my knees haha), no but usually it's good. I guess just I'm just trying to work on leaving meals after an hour (the rule is an hour) and also going to bed on time and stuff like that. It's also hard to get to studies on time, for me personally. But that's not to whine, that's just to say that you can always improve at things! Life is good, even if it's hard. :D

Monday, we had a pretty relaxed P-Day and we didn't really do a whole lot. Cleaned the apartment and maybe did something...? Yeah wow sorry that sounds super lame. No I think we just went to our family home evening at a member's house. That was awesome though! That was super good, we went over there and it was so great, we got to talk about the temple and the members and it was so cool. Get this--each member in our ward has to travel TWELVE HOURS just to get to their temple! Here in the Rennes stake, we're assigned to the Bern Temple District (no, missionaries can't go, haha), and so that's literally all across France. Twelve hours of driving. Pretty crazy! Makes me appreciate the temples we have in Utah, all of which, I dare say, are closer than that from our house!! Pretty cool, huh?

Tuesday, we were able to have a good zone conference!! I GOT TO SEE ELDER BALDWIN!!!!! WOOHOOOOHOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!! I LOVE that guy, he is SO COOL! I got to sit and talk with him a little bit,  and GUESS WHAT? He was the first person ever to ask me to play piano for something as big as a zone conference. Sniff. He knew I played piano, so he asked me to play prelude, and then apparently that's assigning me to be the piano player for the rest of the meeting. :D Hey I'm not complaining!! It was great, got to play some prelude and do some improvisation, lots of fun. Man and it was just SO GOOD to see Elder Badlwin again. He is almost effectively my "dad" on the mission, or my trainer. Really good guy. We got to catch up a little bit on his missino and how the ward is in Rennes and stuff. He's going to attend his local college in Georgia for a year or so and then maybe transfer out to BYU. But a funny little moment--I asked him during the lunch if I could come over to Georgia after i was finished with my mission. He just scrunched up his face and said, "yeah!!" like it wasn't even a question. He's so cool. I'm so excited to go visit him. Haha that's far in the future but hey, still cool. So cool story--when he told me about Nantes, thisis the ville where he was "born" or where he started his mission, I said I wanted to go there! And look where I am!! And when I was thinking about him finishing his mission near the end of our time together a few months ago, I said, "I want to see his dying testimony," or his farewell testimony in the mission. And GUESS WHAT?! I WILL!!! We have combined zone meetings between the Rennes Zone and the Angers Zone (I'm in Angers) pretty frequently, so I should be able to see him give his last ttestimony on the mission!! Pretty great, huh? Fun times.

Well, other than taht, we received an iPad for our companionship this last week. Good stuff, we've downloaded some videos and tools to use. We're hoping it'll be a good tool for study and the other guys, Elder McBride (he was in my district when I was in Charleroi) and Elder Carson have been using it pretty well in contacting, they say it works wonders, so there you go. We have two booklets that talk about how to use them and protect ourselves against dangers with them. Of course, the Church has parameters set up to defend us against that, but still. I'm kind of nervous, because that can so easily turn into a distraction, and I've been so distracted with things ilke Facebook in the past. But actually, we're not even using Facebook right now as missionaries, but still, a little nervous. But it's good, we keep it in a place where we both can see it when we're not using it, and when it's being used, the other comp. has to be able to see the screen. So it's a pretty good system.

Other than that, more than giving a day-by-day letter, I wanted to give a more personal one, so here goes:

We had an exchange with the district leader, Elder Adams, and his companion, Elder Bruno (who by the way is Elder Baldwin's MTC comp--small world out here guys), and this time, I was with Elder Bruno. It was good, we were able to do some service at a bread shop for homeless people and they gave us some pastries after. Haha good times. It was good, we had a little bit of time to go contacting on the street, and we tried talking to a few people (not many in the little town of St. Nazaire, their area), but it made me reflect--I really should be doing my best here to talk to everyone when we're out contacting, to give the Lord my best, to help people understand the importance of the restored gospel. It's not something to avoid or wish I didn't have to do. Interesting stuff. So that makes me think. We also had a very delicious cherry pie, Elder Adams and Elder Bruno are legendary cooks, and "petit" or Elder Young was able to help Elder Bruno with it, so there you go. Very good. Good times there.

I love my zone and my district. I was able to go around and talk to people and make some new friends, felt more natural than it did at the beginning of my mission. Cool stuff that happens here, I already feel like I know lots of people in our two zones here--Elder Vance was in my last district, and now he's in St. Brieuc, in the Rennes zone, I know my district pretty well, and there were a couple of people I already knew too. So fun times, I'm starting to know people now. I dread the day when everyone I know will start dying...:/ all the old missionaries say that happens and they're like..."dude, I don't know anyone!" But thankfully that day is still far away, and, like you said Dad, I can still live every day to its fullest and try and be happy with the many still left. We also have an exchange with our Zone leaders this week, tommorow and Wednesday, which is unusual, actually, because neither I nor Elder Young is district leader, but apparently, that's something they like to do to get to know us and probably teach us and stuff, so that'll be good. I'll be heading out to Angers so that will be fun. (You say it "On-jay") .

Other than that, I've been reading President Hinckley's book "Standing for Something," which is a MARVELOUS work and I simply could not say enough good about it. So much treasure in there, you just feel like a wiser and better person in reading it. It's such a great comprehensive work. President Hinckley covers more or less 10 virtues in 10 chapters, more or less, and it's a great little discourse on how to live a great, full, joy-fulled and gospel-obeying life. Man, all the little values in there. I enjoyed a couple of these principles:

1. Frugality and industry (he used a quote from Benjamin Franklin to this effect): it means you take money and time and you use them both as effectively and as well as you can. Also covered the Pioneer saying "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." Cool, huh? 

2. He also shared a couple cool stories of how he's reached out to others or others have reached out to him, for example at airports (what better missionary is there than the prophet, right?) Once, he was talking to a rather rebellious young man, drifting through life, visiting South America, and he basically set him straight, telling him that old values are indeed of value and that the young man was in error, searching for a world where morality wasn't important. I've also very much enjoyed trying to keep my mind more virtuous and President Hinckley's thought to see people around us as children of God, to see them as our own brothers and sisters. How valuable is that? So important to see them as children of God. Also so cool to hear this from a prophet. Such a good book, really recommend it. It's actually written from a Christian perspective specifically for America's situation, but it's very hopeful, citing how Britain was able to overcome the evils of Nazism in large part due to their great, optimistic attitude, and how we can overcome the evils present in our day, inour lives, in our societies, such as family divorce, pornography, drug abuse, etc. Great perspective because it's optimisticand it's super great. Anyway good read, I should be finished with that in the next three days or so.

Well, I love you all, my family, and I hope all your lives are good. Happy 4th to you and I hope that went well. Today we played some basketball with Terrence our ami with a baptism date and that was about it. But yeah! I also wanted to answer your questions (please also tell me all about your lives, how school work is going, all that, I'd write more questions but I don't have much time):

• Dad, yes, with the Nashville Tribute Album and Handel's Messiah and "stones in the River" Album, I actually only have the Trek album of the Nashville Band on my flash drive. Maybe I accidentally deleted the other stuff?! Haha I don't know. But I would love that. If you can, would you put that into MP3 format, please? I hope that's okay. I don't know if it's possible to find an MP3 file converter and just send me that, that might be easiest and that wouldhelp a lot. Thank you so much! 
• Thank you SO MUCH FOR THE PACKAGE! I haven't got it yet but I feel the love alrady! you guys are awesome! 
• Couyld you guys send me a photocopy of my Patriarchal Blessing? I lost my original copy and I fear that it won't make it to me from the elders in Charleroi--I requested one there but I think it might get lost there...I would really appreciate that. 
• Good luck at Scout Camp!! 
• Independence day--went and bought some pain au chocolat (chocolate bread) haha and joked about how we'd put red, white and blue chocolate chips on top. No, didn't do too much, but we thought of America in our hearts. :) It was good. 
• Terrence, Serge, and Covalie were all found before I was here. They're great. Sorry, I don't have my camera with me, I'll try and send them next week. 
• Woohoo for you Mom! Cool with those goals and how well life is going over there. Way to take a little break. Cool that you saw Ms. Moyes! that's super crazy, I didn't recognize her but thought maybe she looked a little familiar! Wow that has been a LONG time! I'm glad you got to have fun lately! Cool with the blog success too! I need to go but I love you all and thanks for all you do! Thanks you too Gave! Talk to you later! God bless you! 

Love, love, lots of love, to my dear and eternal family,

your brother and son, Elder Adam Grant Edwards