Aug. 17, 2015 - Short letter and a few pics

Terrence!!! Okay now you finally know who this guy is! He was found by Elder Young and Elder Lucas (the guy I replaced, great missionary), taught in large prat by me and Elder Young, and baptized by Simon, a Young adult in the ward. Great guy, still going pretty strong. 

Selfie time--me and elder McBride

this thing was HUGE you should've seen it!! haha

Hey Mom and Dad,

Great stuff today! We went to go help a member move for part of our
pday which was sad but good. :)

Love you smuch. God bless you in all that you do. Thank you for the
updates and your letters and love. Sorry it's so short today but I'm
loving my mission, I'm loving it and I love you and God. I'm doing it
for God now, really doing it from the heart.

Thank you so mich Mom and Dad. Would still like
the other stuff though. Will be trying to work hard and love it and
talk to people rather than hang between letters now, so I will be
working away, but thank you for all of your love. God bless you and
thanks for the pictures!!!

Love with all my stinking heart,

Elder Adam Grant Edwards
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Gee, Dad, thanks it is good to hear from you. I. Love you and
appreciate you so much. Sometimes it feels like I havent seen you in a
while! Haha which I guess is true. I hope you got those pictures that
I sent, that that went well and all. Thank you for all that you do and
your little update on the week. Glad that Balderree family party went
so well. Anyways, just wanted to invite you to chat me if you have a
sec. Sorry realized I could have asked you way earlier when I started
emails but there you go. Thanks again for that good Dan Cahoon music,
I like it!

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Aug. 10, 2015 - Adam's letter and pics of cathedral

this is the one like Aragorn; pretty cool!!! Sick!

the organ!!!!

Love you Mom and Grace and Gabe and Hyrum and Malia and Dad! 

This week has been good, we got to go see a really great big cathedral! Guess
what else, we still have two baptismal dates, we had to move them back,
but it's going well, the Lord is blessing us here in Nantes.

I think about you guys often! By the way, thank you so much for the
letters, I appreciate it so much. God bless you in all your endeavors.

I got to be part of a really cool Plan of salvation lesson yesterday,
and guess what? I think that someone who I personally contacted will
get baptized. We'll see though all in the Lords hands.

Learning so much about being independent and becoming a better person
and being stronger in the gospel. Encourage you all to read a talk by
Bishop Causse entitled "Architects of Our Own Happines." Do things that
encourage you and lift you up and help you make your goals. Do things
that help you but the lord and the gospel first. That's always
important. The people who don't in hiatory always regret it.

Always be ready to help in missionary work and in genealogy work. So
important in our lives!!

Love you all so much and thank you for the photos of the family party.
God bless you all. Sorry I couldn,t get a personal email to each of
you today but hope it"s going well. Love you!

Sincerely,

Your loving son and brother serving the Lord In France,

Elder Adam Grant Edwards

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From Adam to Dad (Mike):  

Cool!! Go get 'em in court Dad!!! :) whip that prosecution! No haha

sorry I'm just kidding. But I love you lots and I think of you and

your example often. It's interesting to be here and be so far from

you, but I'm glad I'm doing it. I think i'm going to work on having

fun here and enjoying t like you said.

Oh I don't know--maybe just some good family pictures and maybe a good

cookbook with some good recipes, haha I want to learn how to cook

better. I hope that's okay, thanks so much Dad! Also, I know this is

kind of a special request, but I thought it would be really neat if you

could please enlist the four grandmas and grandpas in putting together

a little family tree with all of my ancestors marked who were converts

to the church, like marked in red, and a copy or retelling of each of

their conversion stories. If there's a way to get that from them four

and you and Mom, too, even mission stories, that'd be great. Even just

a couple little cool ones, whatever you think Dad. I hope that's not

too much. Please thank everyone for all their kind notes and letters

and prayers and support!

Can you imagine I've already bee out here for 10 months? Lots of

people are impressed by my French, I get lots of compliments now, but

also still have a hard time communicating, but it's from the Lord, I

don't want to take any glory from it.

Talked to a cool guy who was going on vacation here in Nantes on a bus

who was Vietnamese. He was a cool guy, really nice. I don't know, you

probably tried it on your mission, but MAN bus and tram contacting

takes soe courage. It's all right, I'm more used to it now, but you

really have to be nice and natural and it's kind of hard just to start

talking to people, also to get the subject toward the gospel!!!

Anyway I talked to him just for a minute and, mentioned the church,

asked him, I think, maybe not if he'd be intereseted in hearing more,

and he said no, but it was still cool. Stuck out to me because he was

Asian and i really like Asian people, they're good, they have good

hearts, you know.

Well we have been teaching, for the second or third time now, a new

ami who is from Africa who just moved here from Tours. How we found

her is quite miraculous, definitely inspired toward her, but we found

her pretty far out of the middle of town where we live and where we

most often cross through, and we talked to her and taught her a little

lesson right there on the street (it's different now, you can teach

just a principle from Preach My Gospel, even just a little something

like how we believe in prophets or how to say a prayer, then you have

to wy a prayer, then give them a commitment to do, then it counts as a

lesson). Then we got her number and address and were able to go over

to her house the first time a few weeks ago. Now we were just able to

go over yesterday with the sisters, Sister Proudfoot (who I qctually

knew in the MTC) and sister Romero, to pass her over to them. Her

name, by the way, is Marina. She has two cute little African boys, so

energetic and fun! Haha Elder McBride bought the little guy a soccer

ball for his birthday last week and gave it to him, he's been loving

it. It was hard a little bit to let her go, especially since elder

McBride announced that we'd be passing her over to the sisters before

he'd even discussed it with me, but I'm not bitter, it's actually

better in the end, just sad to see her go because she is literally one

of the most legitimate people I have ever contacted. After the visit

with her yesterday, when we finished teaching the Plan of salvation,

she cried at one point and said she believes it, she's trying to

accept it at least. She will get baptized in six weeks, I call it! No

ha a but it will be fun to see what happens, I have faith in it!

God bless you Dad, hope that's good to read. Would you and Mom like me

to add more stories and experiences in general to my letters? What else

would you like in them? Also i've been studying and trying to figure

out my life mission, studying my patriarchal blessing and all that, and

what do you and Mom think about my life mission? Any important

thoughts or impressions you've had, especially about how I'm learning

and growing in my mission? I hope that life is going good for each and

every one of you. God bless you so much.

That album is SO COOL!! Thank you so much. Yes, could you please send

me Handel's Messiah and the Stones in the River album? Thanks so much.

Thanks for teaching me how to sing too because then if it's in your

head, it's out in the air! (Especially if your name is Dad

Edwards--and it may well come out with a couple little rhymes and funny

additions!!:D )

Dad, sometimes I get kind of down, seeing all the wickedness and all the drinking and smoking and stuff that people do, it makes me kind of sad. You would not believe

how many crazy, evil ideas are rooted, i mean rooted in these peoples'

minds, it's amazing!!! Like truth is relative for each person, good

for you if you believe in God but it's not important for me right now,

maybe later, the good ole' "well there's so much bad stuff in the world

that how could God live," you know of course.

Love you tons, God bless ysou in everything you do. Serge and Covalie

actually are not dropped, but we currentlycannotget in contact with

them. Denice is doing well, we need to get this family coming back to

church and to see and teach him again soon. David we saw and we moved

their baptismal dates to the2 september, just after my birthday!

Cool right? Anyway yeah. Lots of exchanges. I got to go to St. Nazaire

by the coast twice two weeks ago and also to la Rochelle right down by

the coast (AND the southern-most area in our mission, or close to it

at least, nerly surrounded by the Lyon mission and the Bordeau stake)

and that was really cool. The people just get MEAN sometimes in little

villes like that when missionaries have been there for a while.

Generally it was all right, we chose a hard spot to contact for a bit,

too, it was just interesting, haha. Some French people certainly do not

have a hard time being cold. But most are good. nantes is really nice

because lots of people don't know you, you know? Probably one of the

closer things we have to being like San Fran, a lot smaller but still

lots of people and lots take the tram.

God bless dad. I know this gospel is true. 

Love, and with eternal friendship and brotherhood and sonhood, your

dear beloved son,

Elder Edwards

August 3, 2015 - Adam's letter

Hey Mom and Dad! 

I'm doing okay, things are going well. I was happy to hear about you guys and your cool experience with the bike ride! Yeah, I bet you guys are all sore! I'd be super sore on my butt if I'd done that! Pretty crazy there. It sounds like that was a pretty spiritual experience. Life is so good when we live it well. I hope that life is going well for all of you over there! That was fun to see all those pictures from the bike ride and from the family party. Plus, Malia sent me a few pictures of Zia and Brielle, and that was awesome!!! I love so much to hear from you all, and also to review and see my life the way it is, thank you so much for working so hard to keep me so up-to-date!

I love you all so much. I just wanted to say that this week, I've had some real cool lessons on how to live life to the fullest. Sometimes, I don't really state my opinion or let it be heard, I'd prefer almost just to let it sit in silence and let myself mope about it and feel sorry for myself later. Well that doesn't really help anyone! So it's kind of cool, it's a fun time to try and speak up more, it's actually helping me feel lots better inside when I work with other people and it helps me feel lots more like my companion's friend! It's not Elder McBride's fault at all, I just need to speak up more! so good to feel like I'm heard and people listen.

I've kind of done some thinking about life lately the past while, and I just wanted to reflect a little bit on one thing--It's so important to live life to its fullest. Sometimes, we think that going against the grain, against the gospel, or against the prophets or their teachings, will bring us happiness. I see that every day. Most members do. And if we don't see it around, right in front of our very eyes, we see it on the news. We see so many things calling for our attention. If you live in a big city, or even just in the midst of a school, you can walk around and see people put on these masks, wishing that others won't notice them or make fun of them, trying to hide something from the outside world. I do that a lot! And it's really interesting, we actually don't need to do things like that at all!! I LOVE the fact that we can be legit, we can be authentic and genuine and loving, and we can share Christ's love with people, and we don't even really need to try! We can let all our coldness and doubts and fears melt away, melted by the warmth and sun of christ's love! What a powerful warmth that is, too!! So every time you feel cold or empty or feel like you face too much weakness in yourself or that you'll never overcome your sins, smile and remember all that the Lord has taught you. Do His work happily in your heart. 

And as a wise missionary I knew told me, one who has now gone home, Elder Wells, the Lord doesn't call us to be people who we're not. He didn't call Elder Edwards to the France Paris mission to be some cold, unreachable character, or someone who wouldn't take life and live it to the fullest. He called me because he knew I could do great things here and because I can reach out in love towards others! So don't ever doubt the Lord's ability to warm your heart. That happened a lot at the beginning of my mission, whoa boy I was a stiff ole' goat there for a while, and He'll help me with it this week, too. It's so important to reflect and go back, looking at your life through a lense not of criticism, but of reflection, with a sincere desire to see and live the way the Lord would want you to live, and what a powerful thing that is. Look through your Patriarchal Blessing. Don't share it with me or with others, but keep it personal between you and the Lord. That is a special thing, a compass just for you. Live it love it every day. 

Take all the doctrines that Christ has given us through our beloved modern-day prophets and put it to heart. And remember something: be grateful for those prophets, for their teachings, for the scriptures, because man, you come out here in France and it is not the same! You see just how lost people are, and you work with people and you talk to SO MANY PEOPLE who just don't believe in God, not even one bit! It's sad, really, it's scary! But the good thing is, I've learned that their beliefs or views on God do not at all have to be the same as mine. In my heart, I desire to believe in God, and I know that is right, and I know it's right to do this mission faithfully and follow his prophets. So dang it, we can do the things the Lord asks of us! Never doubt because of past mistakes or current trials or worries for the future that Christ can make of you everything you want to be, and even more!

If we could see the warmth of His light bouncing off of and playing on the surface of our spirits, it would make our eyes shine! Truly, no greater days are ours! And it is true that no days we live can be relived. In other words, once you "eat up" this day, you can't "eat it up" again, you can just turn to tomorrow. So, repent, do everything you need to in order to live happy this day, and in the mean time, hey, have some fun, take a walk in the morning, learn to cook, smile, laugh, enjoy every single minute of life, take some moments just to appreciate the fact that you're alive, that God loves you, that you have clothes, you have food, you have a family, you have beloved friends, you have commandments that keep you warm and safe. 

Oh, my friends and family, speak out your hearts, make your feelings and opinions known, remember to never forget what Christ has done for you, your fathers, your children, your nations, and take it and GO! Reflecting on this power God has endowed you with, this ability to live this life TODAY, you have more power than most people could possibly imagine! In concentrated effort, in living the commandments, in being faithful in your trials, in smiling even in the rain, you learn to become the joyful, happy, bright person God so hopes you to be! Live, write in your journal, reflect on past choices, repent and let them go, and move on and decide what you'll do differently so every day, no matter how hard, can be as joyous as you can make it! And I can promise you, being thousands of miles away from home, dealing with things that every missionary deals with on the mission, the Lord can and will strengthen you in your trials. 

I've been trying to write in my journal a little more often, to talk to my companion just about whatever, have a laugh or two with him, to really invest in this beautiful life God has given me, and what a gift it is! Take moments to put the smartphones and youpads and computers down, and just enjoy your family and friends for crying out loud. There's a reason, maybe, why Genesis doesn't include the creation of iPads! Because when God created us, and He gave us the gospel, that was pretty much all that was important! If you do this, life is so joyful. Stop being too hard on yourself, be happy no matter how many people mock you, make a choice that you'll live to follow the Spirit now and forever, forevermore! God bless you all in this pursuit, and I hope that you have the chance to really ASK GOD what you can do, how you can repent, start with a new vision, get that new desire, re-evaluate your life, and start what it takes to change. Talk to God. Talk to your bishop and Priesthood leaders. god will make a way for all things to happen that must. 1 Nephi 3:7 and never forget..."Men are that they might have JOY."

Wow, glad to get that out. Have been trying to read my scriptures more by delving into them, getting deep, you know, my own personal questions. So good. Things are going well, we're teaching Djenice, a little boy of 11 years old, whose dad is super cool an RM, and also David, both of those people have baptism dates but we need to see David again, haven't seen him for a few weeks. Anyway, for all those missionaries with bikes, be grateful for them! God bless you all, take care, and see you later!!!

P.S. Thank you mom for the talk and to the McCrary's for their package and to Dad for the music. It worked, thanks so much! :D God bless, talk to you all later!!

Love, tons of love, and go and enjoy life,

your loving son and brother,

Elder Adam Grant Edwards

Missionary, representative of Jesus Christ

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