03/21/2016

From: Ronald Adair <ronald.adair@myldsmail.net>
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2016 11:40 AM
Subject: Ballin' Hard (week of March 14th-March 20th)

Dear Family and Friends,

We had another great week! But it was somewhat of a struggle. But that's honestly what made the week even more worth it. We did a lot of tracting and we got yelled at by several very rude people. And people keep telling us we can't be in their building because they say we are soliciting! But whether we are soliciting or not, we are no one can legally kick us out of an apartment building that doesn't have a lock on the door. We are ordained ministers and we aren't selling anything and we have the freedom of speech given us by the First Amendment. That's my rant. The melancholy of getting yelled at is definitely lessened though when a beautiful college girl answers the door and talks with us:)

Yesterday was my 19 month mark! Sheesh this is going by quickly!

On Monday we balled hard with the Assistants and the traveling missionaries. The next day I was on exchanges with Elder Jolley in Fargo and we had some good success! We met some transgender... brothers (they were born with male genitalia) and it was very awkward when one of them said Elder Jolley had cute eyes. The whole situation was just sooo uncomfortable for many other reasons! When I was driving myself and him to Jamestown to go meet up with our regular comps, he fell asleep in he passenger's seat. So I decided to "be funny" and turn up country music on the radio really loudly until he woke up. He woke up about a minute later to me with a jokingly mischievous smile on my face and just calmly switched the music back to spiritual stuff. It was  funny experience:) 

Happy St. Patrick's Day! We celebrated by having a little get-together with Elders Laws and Hansen as we waited to go pick up their new companion at midnight. We had a bunch of green soda and root beer and some good salmon that I cooked up. Their new comp Elder Campbell is from Springville, Utah and he's a cool fellow. 

We were walking around the other day and we saw these two young guys playing basketball so we asked if we could play too. It was way fun and the kids were way good! I think the 11-year-old was about as good as me! He was makin' hook shots and fade-away jumpers like no one's business! 

One last thing to say is that we were definitely flirted with by a 67-year-old lady last night. The kicker was that when we asked her how old she thought we were she guessed in the 40's!

I hope everyone has a beautiful Easter Sunday on the 27th and celebrates the miraculous event of our Savior's Resurrection. What a beautiful thing it is.

Love,

Elder Adair

02/29/2016

From: Ronald Adair <ronald.adair@myldsmail.net>
Sent: Monday, February 29, 2016 12:20 PM
Subject: Temple!! (Week of Feb. 22nd- Feb. 28th)

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy Leap day! This past week was great (like most other weeks)! On Tuesday we went on exchanges with the Jamestown Elders and I went to Jamestown with Elder Fisher. We had a fun time tracting a bunch and we were able to talk with a lot of people! We keep teaching a lot of people but not a lot let us back in to teach them again:/ We did teach seven lessons on Wednesday which was pretty cool! We were teaching almost nonstop the whole day from 10am to 10pm. The Sisters I came out with are going home on Friday! I can't believe the past 18 months have gone by so fast! I will definitely miss all those wonderful Sisters. On Friday I went on an unplanned mini-exchange with Elder Bennett and went to Pizza Ranch with the same recent convert I ate dinner with when I went on exchanges with Elder Brush last week! I love Bro. Claypool:) And Pizza Ranch! It was great going there again after quite a while. We ended the night with a nice Bible Study with some people of different faiths. Saturday we went with a bunch of recent converts and missionaries to the temple in Bismarck!! It was the bomb:) On the way there transfer calls were going on so we were getting a bunch of texts from missionaries telling us what was happening with them. Both Elder Jarman and I are staying!!

At the temple I saw people from each of my past areas!! It was THE BEST!! Excluding Fargo I saw there were 12 different people there from the areas I've served in on my mission. Going through an endowment session with a lot of them was such a blessing too. Yesterday after church Elder Jarman felt inspired to tract a certain building and we actually ended up knocking on the door of a less-active guy that has been coming back to church! We had a nice scripture study with him and then he tracted the rest of his building with us. Last night ALL the Fargo missionaries were invited to the stake president's house to watch the movie Freetown. It's a wonderful movie about missionaries in Liberia during the Liberian civil war back in the 80's. It teaches so much about faith and selflessness and and integrity and fearing God more than man. I recommend it to anyone!

I love y'all and I hope your week was great too! Do something cool for Leap Day!

Love,

Elder Adair

02/22/2016

From: Ronald Adair <ronald.adair@myldsmail.net>
Sent: Monday, February 22, 2016 12:59 PM
Subject: Crazy College Kids, Arabian Horses, and Old Memories (week of Feb. 15th- Feb 21st)

Dear Family and Friends,

Oh man, there is a lot I have to write about this week! 

Well, on Tuesday, which was our P-Day last week, a member in the ward took us to a friend's barn to see some Arabian show horses that are sold for up to $800,000 a piece and maybe more! It was pretty cool and we got to see their little baby horses too. These horses are so well taken care of that when an Arabian show horse is pregnant, someone will take out the fetus and plant it in a surrogate mother horse to carry so that the Arabian isn't at risk of looking less pretty from being pregnant.

We were tracting the other day and we found this college guy that seems really prepared to hear the gospel and is way cool! We taught him the Restoration and next time we teach him his roommate who plays baseball for NDSU will hopefully be there!

We had an awesome church tour with an investigator of ours and he is planning on coming Institute this coming Tuesday! He's another college-age guy and he's cool too. Giving the tour reminded me of my very first Zone Training Meeting which was here in Fargo and we role-played giving a church tour:)

On Friday night we began an exchange with the Fargo 2nd Ward Elders and it was a blast! Beforehand we ate at HuHot Mongolian Grill which was DELICIOUS! That night I was able to go to the church for a bit while the stake youth dance was going on and say hello to a member that I knew in Bemidji, Minnesota! She had drove a few of the young women to the dance. It was so great to see her and she told me her family and the rest of the Ward was doing great! It was crazy also because I met her family when I first started my mission and now I'm 18 months out and I got to see her again in Fargo which is where I was dropped off to meet my trainer way back in September of 2014! Being on exchanges with a greenie only enhanced the intense feelings of my past meeting up with my present.

On the exchange Elder Brush and I had a lot of fun and we were able to talk a whole lot of foreigners! We taught a guy with seemingly good potential from Nepal, talked with a Muslim guy, talked with a recent convert of theirs from Liberia who is going to the temple to do baptisms soon, and much more! We also ate lunch with a fun Lutheran couple at McDonald's who have been married for 63 years! I was very privileged to eat dinner on the exchange with a recent convert I knew in Williston. He is such a great testimony and I'm so glad he moved to Fargo.

Saturday night there a major party going on the floor above our apartment. The smell of weed was very apparent in the elevator and a few times we were invited by a bunch of drunk college kids to join the party but we declined. 

Sunday at church a guy came up to us and said he recently moved here from Las Vegas where he was taught by the missionaries and he wants to get baptized! And he's been going to the Church since he was 8! What a blessing to have run into him! Also last night we gave a returned missionary college guy in our ward a cake for his birthday and celebrated a bit with him. He's way cool. At his place though we were confronted by his friend who is very strong in his beliefs and talked at us endlessly about them. He doesn't believe any Christian religion right now has all the truth and is anxious to read the Book of Mormon. His arguments did make a lot of sense. He's in for a real treat when he reads and prays!! I love those kind of experiences because they strengthen my testimony!

Have a great week! I love y'all!

Elder Adair

02/08/2016

From: Ronald Adair <ronald.adair@myldsmail.net>
Sent: Monday, February 8, 2016 11:47 AM
Subject: (week of Feb. 1st- Feb. 7th)

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was great! We had a lot of people flake-out on us unfortunately but we still taught a good number of lessons. I went on exchanges with the West Fargo Elders on Friday and had a great time! I also got some awesome ties from trading with them too:) One tie is in the shape of a northern pike! The weather was very uncharacteristically wonderful most this week. It was in the 40's for a few days! Yesterday and today it has been SUPER windy and snowy. This coming week we have Zone Conference and my comp and the Sister Training and I have to give a 45 minute training! It's my first so I'm pretty nervous! Wish me luck! We ran into a lot of crazy people this week. We got cussed at a lot but it was fun and a learning experience:) Anyways, I hope y'all had a fun week too! I love y'all!

Elder Adair

02/01/2016

From: Ronald Adair <ronald.adair@myldsmail.net>
Sent: Monday, February 1, 2016 1:44 PM
Subject: First full week in Fargo (week of Jan. 25th- Jan. 31st)

Dear Family and Friends,

This was another good week! We taught a good number of lessons and worked really hard. Unfortunately we don't have any progressing investigators right now:/ But at least we are getting some less-active's to come to church. On Monday Elder Jarman and I went shopping at Burlington Coat Factory and Halberstadt's and Goodwill. We then played basketball for hours at the church with other missionaries. We did a lot of tracting this week. The weather has been in the 30's this week! It's amazing and I love walking around without a jacket or sweater! I got to give a baptismal interview to a woman in the 2nd ward! It was so cool and she was SOO ready to be baptized. She has an inspiring testimony. She's from Atlanta, Georgia and got baptized on Saturday night! At her baptism I finally saw a man named Bob that I had taught a few times in Williston and it was so cool to see him again and know that he is a strong recent convert! The other day we went tracting for about an hour and we taught 3 lessons with only knocking on 4 doors! And then the next day we took an 18-year-old tracting in an area close by for about 2 1/2 hours and no one let us in!! It was rather frustrating but what can you do? At least we got a bunch of potentials! On Saturday night around 9:30 we were doing some planning and we heard some people being really loud outside our apartment building. We looked out the window and saw about 50 college people walking out from our building carrying booze and such to what looked like a big party bus! We have no idea where the bus took them but it judging by how they were dressed it looked like they were going to a pretty legitimate party. They woke me being loud as they walked back in the building around 2:30 am.

We are still having a whole lot of fun eating with other missionaries and members and meeting new people every day.

Have a great week everyone! I love you!

Elder Adair

P.S. Here is my address to whom it may concern:

1900 Dakota Dr. N. #308

Fargo, N.D. 58102

01/25/2016

From: Ronald Adair <ronald.adair@myldsmail.net>
Sent: Monday, January 25, 2016 1:12 PM
Subject: FARGO (week of Jan. 21st- Jan. 24th yes, it's shorter than a week)

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was the bomb!! Thursday morning Elder Ashe and I drove to Stanley and then Minot from New Town and hung out with a few Elders there that were also getting transferred. It was hard saying goodbye to Elder Ashe:( We were together for 3 months! From there I drove myself and another Elder down to Bismarck. In Bismarck I got to talk with a whole lot of Sisters and Elders that I haven't seen in a while and it was truly so much fun!! I rode the transfer "train" from Bismarck all the way to Fargo and that drive was way fun. The assistants Elder Gardner (from Mesa) and Elder Jolley drove and I talked and reminisced with them a lot. We got to Fargo Thursday evening around 6 and I met Elder Jarman (my new comp) and Elders Hansen and Laws. They are all so awesome!! And almost everyone in this zone has been out just a few months! Thursday night we had our first dinner appointment and it was in Glyndon, Minnesota!! It felt so good to be back in that wonderful state after so long:) We rarely go to dinner appointments without being accompanied by the Elders and/or Sisters in our ward. Elder Jarman is from Bluffdale, Utah and is a big ball of energy! To make things easier, let me list of the things I love so far about this area:

• My companion and all the Elders AND Sisters in Fargo/Moorhead (Minnesota) are really nice, are great missionaries, and are way fun
• Elders look up to me as a zone leader and I can be a good example to them
• I get to go on exchanges to a lot of areas with a lot of great missionaries
• Elder Jarman is already really helping me talk with people a lot better than I have before
• Many people are prepared to hear the gospel
• Fargo has way more attractive women than any other place I've served
• We cover NDSU so we talk mostly with people our age, no one in our huge apartment building is over the age of 25
• We talk with cute college girls all the time, and a lot are athletes or dancers
• Fargo has seemingly endless places to eat and to shop
• the members are a heap of fun
• We get to eat at dinner appointments with other missionaries very often
• We live in a nice apartment
• there are people EVERYWHERE to talk with and teach
• all the houses are old-fashioned

I will probably include more things in the coming weeks:) Haha the other day we were tracting, which we do a lot, and we stumbled into these four nerdy looking college guys playing a board game in an apartment on a Friday night. I guess sometimes stereotypes prove to be true! I am so happy to be in Fargo in this position and I can't wait to continue doing missionary work here. 

That's my week! I love y'all!!

Elder Adair

01/11/2016

From: Ronald Adair <ronald.adair@myldsmail.net>
Sent: Monday, January 11, 2016 12:59 PM
Subject: Finally got cold (Week of Jan. 4th- Jan. 10th)

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was great! We taught 19 lessons I think! I properly shined my everyday shoes for the first time and I can't believe the difference! We had Zone Training Meeting on Friday in Minot and that was pretty fun. We ate at the Cooks' house a few times this week which was very preferable. Haha we have so much fun with them. Sister Cook burned a cake in the oven and it looked pretty funny afterward. Bro. Cook also ordered me some of my new favorite cologne!! I am so excited to get it this week because it's amazing! Saturday it was actually cold and we almost had to stay in for the day. I think it got to -20 with the wind chill. But haha we went tracting that day anyway and found a cool potential investigator family!:D 

On Sunday we got a call from a less-active lady that wants her two kids to be taught and baptized! Yay! I taught the lesson in Elders' Quorum yesterday and it was great! Here is the sequence of events: I asked a simple question to the class. They gave answers and insights and personal experiences for about 5 minutes. I asked another simple, thought-provoking question. They class gave their insights for about 5 more minutes. I asked one more question. The class gave their insights for about 25 minutes, I shared my personal testimony for maybe a minute, closing prayer, done. Haha I hardly had to do anything but the class made the lesson great!

I love you all and I hope your weeks are going very well! I know that Jesus is the Christ and that He loves and cares about each and every one of you more than you can understand. 

Love,

Elder Adair