06/20/2016

From: Ronald Adair <ronald.adair@myldsmail.net>
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2016 12:07 PM
Subject: I'm Unmotivated to Think of Cool Titles for My Emails (week of June 6th- June 12th)

Dear Family and Friends,

Shout out to my trainer Elder Wendell who got engaged last week!:)

Here are some things that happened this week:

We got a new Bishopric! I'm excited because the new Bishop was the ward mission leader 

for three years and he's a great guy so he should be able to help the missionary work a lot.

We had a Zone Training Meeting (ZTM) and it was great. We learned about the law of increasing returns and how it relates to working with members. Sometimes blessing don't come for a long time, or a very long time, and the work is just a daily grind that seems to never yield fruit nearly equal to our efforts. But eventually something clicks and then the blessings just pour down from heaven and things just keep getting better and better at an increasing rate. I know that even though working with members can be difficult and seemingly pointless at time, but I also know that the Lord has commanded us to do so and He will not let our efforts go wasted. 

Elder Kane and I sang a duet to How Firm A Foundation at ZTM and it was a lot of fun! He sang the bass notes while I sang the melody. After ZTM most of us Elders treated ourselves to Hibachi at N.D. Asia. Hibachi is where the chefs cook your food in front of you while doing a bunch of fancy tricks.

Elder Beeson and I started to sing a Hymn in comp study every day and it's pretty fun and humorous because it's really only a thing Sisters do:)

We had interviews with our mission President and that was splendid as always. My mission President is such a stud:)

We had a great lessons with our new investigator a recent convert and also another investigator this week! We are going to try and put our new investigators on date for baptism! 

Have a great week everyone!!

Love,

Elder Adair

05/30/2016

From: Ronald Adair <ronald.adair@myldsmail.net>
Sent: Monday, May 30, 2016 12:15 PM
Subject: 

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was great! 

On Monday there was a YSA Family Home Evening held at the Nelson's house and a bunch of people showed up! I think everyone had a really great time and hopefully we can help get more of those nights to happen:)

On Tuesday we were asked to go out to the middle of nowhere to help someone move, which was fun:) It was also 50 cent corn dog day at Sonic so we each got 10:)

On Wednesday we went out to Garrison and had a great time! We contacted a referral for a guy who has been inactive for 25 years. He jovially let us into his house and we taught him the Restoration. He wants to come back to church! While we were there he called his Mom who is a stalwart member and told her the missionaries were at his place and she was so excited:) We also had a great scheduled lesson with a nine-year-old and his less-active parents in Garrison. They want to come back to church too and also get their son baptized! They are very fun people to be around and they gave us some jalapeno cheddar moose sausage when we left.

On Thursday I was on exchanges with Elder Gates in his area and had a good time. We almost caught a snake while picking up trash at a park. 

On Friday we a had a stellar combined District Meeting about hope and also said goodbye in case any of us were going to get transferred. 

On Saturday we and all the other Minot Elders participated in a service project painting some walls in downtown Minot. That was a lot of fun:) We also got a call from one of the Assistants to the President and he told us Elder Beeson is the new District Leader! 

On Sunday we had a good time at church and also had a fun meal appointment with some nice members. We decided after dinner to walk around the block once to get back to our car. We felt inspired to walk the direction that would take us past the Ortiz family's house. As we walked past their house Brother Ortiz called us over and we talked with him and his nonmember friend and actually ended up teaching his friend in the Ortiz' home! It was a great blessing. Brother Ortiz also generously fed us some spaghetti after the lesson:)

Things are still going well! Minot is a great place and I'm so grateful to serve here:) I hope y'all have a great week! I come home August 15th!

Love,

Elder Adair

04/18/2016

From: Ronald Adair <ronald.adair@myldsmail.net>
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 1:04 PM
Subject: Transfers! (week of April 11th- April 17th)

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy birthday to my awesome Dad who turned even older yesterday!:)

This past Monday we were invited by a member in our ward out to a ranch by Hawley, Minnesota to do some leadership training with horses! I was a little squeamish around the horses at first but it was so cool to really get comfortable with them! And for anyone who may know the rules of our White Handbook, we did not ride the horses:)

This past Friday was amazing!! Our entire mission went to Minot for a Nashville Tribute Band concert! That entire day was so much fun! Our zone met at the church in Fargo and then drove up to Grand Forks to meet the missionaries of that zone at their church building. We all ate some pre-ordered pizza for a bit and then drove all the way 3 hours west to Minot. The band put on a separate show for just us missionaries before the big concert. Then came the real concert which was amazing! It was so cool to see and hear them play those songs that have become so dear to our missionary hearts! And they are great live! I loved seeing everyone in regular street clothes for a change! It was also wonderful to see so many missionaries I know and love:) 

After the concert we drove back to Grand Forks and stayed the night in the zone leaders' apartment. We didn't get to bed until 2:15. The next morning we drove one last hour down to Fargo. On the drive we got our transfer calls and I am getting transferred to Minot, N.D.! Wow, this will be my third time that zone! Minot is doing really well with missionary work right now and it's either the 2nd or 3rd biggest city in N.D. My new comp will be Elder Beeson. It should be fun! 

Yesterday morning we got an unexpected text from some of my recent converts from Williston! They were on their way to Fargo from Minneapolis. I got to meet them at the Fargo church building and teach their friend the Restoration with them and Elder Jarman! It sure was a blessing to see them:)

I am very grateful for my time spent in Fargo, N.D. I will miss these times with Elder Jarman. I know that God has a plan for me as well as all of us. It fun to gradually see how God puts us in situations that will best help us grow personally:)

Have a great week, everyone! Thanks so much for your prayers!

03/28/2016

From: Ronald Adair <ronald.adair@myldsmail.net>
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2016 9:50 AM
Subject: Easter! (week of March 21st- March 27th)

Dear Family and Friends,

I can't really think of much to write about this week. The weather was really nice for a day or two. Then it's snowed hard for a day, and now it's back in the 40's. All in all it's nothing to complain about! We had exchanges with Elders Brush and Swensen on Friday and Saturday. We all had a good time. Elder Swensen and I met with a less-active in his ward whose family has been struggling with testimony. Elder Swensen and I were able to bear solemn testimony of the Restoration and the Spirit was able to help them out a lot! We also got some referrals out of the visit too! 

Yesterday we had a good time at church and we ate Easter lunch and dinner with with a few member families and all the missionaries in our ward. It was so much fun! At dinner we played a game about how well we know our companions...and Elder Jarman and I lost. :/

We should be having a baptism for a 12-year-old girl we have been teaching who recently moved down here from Belcourt, N.D. to live with her grandparents! She is way ready to be baptized and is a pretty cool girl!

Yesterday was Easter Sunday, the most important day of the year. May we all remember the beautiful REALITY of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. He lives. He guides His people today. He wants us all to become members of His Church and discover the blessings found therein. The Holy Ghost is leading Heavenly Father's children to this Church. Because of the Resurrection, death has no sting and nothing negative has to have any lasting influence. We SHALL live again and we have the opportunity to inherit eternal life in the mansions of our Father.

Love,

Elder Adair

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