January 25, 2010

Ok, lots to talk about, not a lot of time. So our new house is good. Sister Lofland is gone for a week so we’ve had the place to ourselves. This week I liked Ephesians 5:9 “For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.” I challenge you to make goals! They help you be a better person, and you get a lot more done. And it’s not a goal until you write it down. Then pray for help to achieve your goals and Heavenly Father will help. I know it works because I made a goal to expand our teaching pool, and we forgot about it specifically, but we have grown now so much we need a bigger white board to keep track of all the people we’re teaching!

Anyway, now to business, I know that I didn’t write much last week, so I’m going to give you the highlights!

So, I guess it was the 11th but we got the best referral ever! His name is Marcus Johnson, he’s the 7’ 350 lb size 18 shoe African American!



He’s from Louisiana and has 3 kids, 2 of them with his fiancé, and he is so interested in the church! We set him for a baptismal date the first lesson and he agreed. Right now we’re working on helping him to stop smoking and to get married – he’ll be a great member! His nephew, Ray who is 25, Marcus is 28, is here visiting from LA. He’s married too and has a 9 year old girl and a boy on the way who is due in 2 months. He was supposed to be at church on Sunday, but his Grandpa died yesterday, so pray for him. He’s going to be a super strong Priesthood holder one day, I have no doubt about it. We’re going to send his info to the LA missionaries so that they can get him to the water (baptism) very shortly. So they’re awesome! Marcus’ fiancé is awesome, Tierra, and very soon they’re going to be members! Hooray!! So Marcus and Ray are awesome, Marcus refers to us as foot soldiers of the Lord, I think that’s a pretty awesome title! So the day after we met Marcus, we were walking and Elder Hiatt went past this guy, but I went up and talked to him and now he’s a progressing investigator of the church, he’s even been to church now too! He told us he’s been praying for a way to get back to church, and then we showed up at his door like 3 minutes later. It’s crazy how the Lord lets everything work out perfectly. Later some kids thought we were drug dealers, and then we ran into a member, it was pretty funny. Doing service at the food bank is awesome.

We had Ward Conference a while ago, a lot of our less active members came to church, 15, which is insane!! So Billy, one of our investigators is awesome, pretty sure I told you about him, he has cataracts, but his quote was “I can’t even seen you guys but you guys are just so righteous!” We’ve gotten really close with Ray though, Marcus’ brother, and I’m sad he’s leaving in a couple of days, but he might move back!

I had my first interview with our Mission President, it went well. He told me to keep in mind that my mission is a marathon, and not a sprint, but he told me I was doing a good job! Hooray! So pretty much, I’ve had a lot of rough days, but the good days are worth it.

We have a lot of people to teach, and a lot of work to do. Setting goals is really helping. Also, the scriptures are still just… AWESOME! One of my trainings was about who I want to be when I am done my mission, so I’ve been working on getting to that place.

The mission is the best of times, and the worst of times.

Yesterday we were supposed to have 5 investigators at church, and we only had one :( but it was worth it! Her name is Donna Thomas, she’s a friend of a recent convert. She’s had a rough life, but she committed to be baptized. We need to set a date, but she wants to do it in a river, ha! I told Elder Hiatt I don’t do cold water… so we’ll probably get Shane, her friend that is a recent convert, to baptize her.

But yea, my mission has been the best time of my life so far. Bikes are the best invention ever! My legs are huge and muscular, but its kind of awful riding about 25 miles a day, up hill both ways haha… no really, there is a valley in the middle of our area, grrr!

Umm, I challenge everyone to open your mouth about the Gospel. It’s the best and MOST important message in life. I think about music, schooling, and all the other distractions in life, and I keep thinking how much this outweighs all of them by a million. Without this message, the gospel, nothing else really matters! And it’s my privilege to share it with the world. I probably didn’t answer all of your questions, but I will try in the future!

I love you all

Byebyeybyebye!

Elder Allred

January 18, 2010

So since today is a holiday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I literally have 2 seconds because we’re using computers at Kmart since the library is closed. This week was awesome, I have so much to tell you, but a lot of it has to wait. I will write a paper letter :)

This week some kid got off the bus and walked passed us and said “Oh my gosh, it’s the FBI!” Some other kids thought we were drug dealers and tried to either sell or get drugs from us.

To answer your question, Elder Hiatt and I moved because every 3-4 months the missionaries move so they aren’t putting so much stress on one family that they live with. The last family we were with had the missionaries for 6 or 7 months, so it was time to go! We are moving in with a sister who is older, and we had to get special permission since she is getting divorced, but it’s good that we’re there for her.

So today is p-day, so we will email, shop, play volleyball and the game called BANG! It is so fun, get it! I will probably get a hair cut later today from my District Leader. I’m pretty warm, usually. It was 5 degrees here for 2 days straight when Elder Hiatt got sick. I did get my bike fixed up at a shop, and I also got the leg ties for my pants. My bike needed new tubs and other stuff; it was discounted because the guy loves missionaries and it’s winter, so I got an awesome deal! Did I mention service this week? This week we worked at a food bank with this old Asian lady, she was so nice! We found some cool stuff, I’ll send you pictures of it next week.

I’m trying to work hard, we had 6 lessons in 1 day on Saturday! It was nuts! And that was after 2 people had dropped their appointments! Billy, Marcus, Donna, Jared… and Kyle?... he’s a possible investigator!

Overall the moral of my week was: Blessings come when you follow the spirit and you are where you are supposed to be. We now have two investigators, one who even came to church! One is a 7’ 350lb Black man named Marcus! He’s getting baptized (knock on wood) in February!! We just need to get him and his fiancé married! The other is Billy, he has cataracts and can’t see, but he came to church and loved it! The gospel is true. Lately when we ask people if it would be important for there to be a prophet on the earth, they say “yea, I wish there was,” and then we say “well well well…” and tell them about it! It’s awesome!

Anyway, I love you all tons. I’ll do my best to get a paper letter out.

Love you bye!

Elder Allred

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Here is a link to see the pictures from Elder Allred's mission so far, enjoy!

PICTURES

January 11, 2010

Sooo, it’s me again!

Hello!

It’s been an interesting week to say the least, I forgot my journal, and all I have is my planner, so we’ll see how much I remember.

So Monday I emailed you guys, the rest of the day we played volleyball and this game called Monopoly Deal, it’s such a fun game! That night we ate dinner at this awesome member’s house and had a lesson with a less active and her son who hasn’t been baptized, who is 14, named Jared, he loves the video game Halo, soccer, and skateboarding. He’s an awesome kid.

Tuesday turned out to be a bummer. We had appointments and they all fell through, but we walked around the whole town, and got a map. It was fun. That night we went and met Sister Lofland whose house we will be moving to. She’s going through a divorce right now, but she’s the nicest lady ever! Her house looks like it is the finished project of extreme home makeover, it’s awesome, and she did it all herself, but it’s not overly huge. And she has a baby grand piano!! AWESOME!

Wednesday we had a mission tour. Elder Brimhall of the Quorum of the 70 came and spoke to us. His wife talked about how we can be more enthusiastic and the blessings it has. He talked about how we can be more effective as missionaries. It was pretty cool. The high that day was 9 degrees, and it snowed… no fun! Rumor has it that Elder Perry, of the Quorum of the 12 apostles, will be coming in February!! It will be awesome! We finished the mission tour of Aurora (where we will be moving to) and came back to Arvada. Then we went and met with the Schobys. We finished all of the new member lessons, so we started teaching about faith, prayer and the scriptures. They’re committed to read and pray every day, but they’re going through a lot of temporal needs and trials right now, but they’re getting there!! They’re awesome! Then we went outside and froze, so we went to the Shoemakers. He was called yesterday (Sunday) as a Ward Missionary! We taught a little lesson about how “if ye have done it unto one of these, the least of my brethren, then ye have done it unto me” it was cool. We went to dinner at the ward choir director’s house, the Gillians. They’re older, but it was nice, he was just talking at the table before dinner and in the middle of his sentence launched into prayer, and I was like, what? OH! We’re praying! Then right after “Amen” he just kept talking about what he was before prayer, he’s cool.

Thursday was another bummer of a day, we had 5 appointments fall through with less active members and possible investigators, which was hard, but oh well. We had dinner at the Stievfater’s house, the parents of the people we’re living with now. It was cool, we had cheeseburger soup, it was spicy, but oh so good! And we managed to get in one lesson with a recent convert and their son.

That night the “fun” began… Elder Hiatt got violently sick starting at like 11:30 or 12, so I became nurse for 2 days. To avoid repetition his fever got up to 102.4, no higher, we drank a 12 pack of 7UP, I only had like 2 of them, we slept, brought a TV into our room and watched The Mountain of the Lord and The Testaments. We played with transformers, I studied a ton, I wrote my talk for Sunday, which was on the atonement, I worked out, recorded some tape, helped the Steivfater Jrs. Move stuff, played with the dogs that they have, and anything else that I could do to stay busy. We missed 4 really really good appointments that day :( so we have to reschedule. Saturday night he got back up and running and we made it to an appointment with a member for dinner. They have 4 kids. Here’s a joke… what did the tie, say to the hair? Give up? Answer: “Get out of my house”…that pretty much sums up our dinner. Gotta love little kids. Then we went over to the Dachtlers, Carl and Connie, and their son Larry. She has some chemical imbalances, but is also pregnant and so she can’t take her medicine which makes it tough, but they’re awesome! He looks like he was in a biker gang. He’s a convert of 4ish years, but he’s teaching the Elder’s Quorum class on Sundays, so we talked about some gospel principles and helped prep his lesson, and just had a relaxing visit since Elder Hiatt was still sick-ish. They are just awesome though. Larry has a speech impediment, but he loves me and always runs to hug me in church. They’ve seen their fair share of trials in life, but they’re still strong in the church, which is an inspiration to me. Also, that night at the Wagner’s their Grandma was there, and I was sitting across from her. I felt someone’s foot rubbing mine under the table and was really freaked out and I looked over at Elder Hiatt and he was laughing, I was relieved it was him messing with me, I almost cried, it was hilarious! Oh, and as we were walking out some kid outside was like, “Man what’s up with you Jehovah’s witnesses everywhere, just give it a break!” We told him we weren’t Jehovah’s witnesses, and he was like “Oh, you Mormon?” Yep! His response was “Run it’s the Mormons!!” Then joking around with Elder Hiatt after he ran off I said “Yea you better run, we’d spiritually whoop your butt into shape” …we had a good laugh about it.

Sunday we got up again at 5:30 to get ready for church because of ward council at 6:30. We got to the church first. Then church started at 9. I gave a talk on the atonement. I love the atonement; it’s the greatest message in life. The Bible Dictionary says that the resurrection is the most important and glorious message of the gospel, which is so true. So that was good, Elder Hiatt spoke on the Restoration, and then our Mission Leader presented the Ward Mission Plan which is to give 10 invitations to come unto Christ, to others. It’s simple and straight forward, 10 invitations! Hopefully everyone in the ward will do their part. We have a lot of people that seem to have the attitude that they’ve heard it all a million times and are jaded, but we’ll see, I have faith. Then we went home, ate lunch and went to the Shoemakers. We talked about Christ’s life and what the gospel does for us (Brother & Sister Shoemaker and their 3 daughters, Heidi, Madison, Natalie – she’s the one that got baptized a few weeks ago), but Sister Shoemaker was sick :( So, then they had a bunch of questions about patriarchal blessings which we got to talk about, we had a great discussion! Then we had about an hour for weekly planning. Then dinner at the Orvins. They’re a cool family, an older couple, Brother Bott worked for his dad growing up. Then off to the Teinveri’s (both have been divorced with kids, and now they’re one big happy family, 6 kids) where we played “Bang” it’s an awesome game!! We barely had time for a spiritual thought, but I shared 3 Nephi 9:11-13. Jesus says come unto me and be healed, I just love it! Their oldest son Max is like a thug, but I love him, he’s less active in the church, but we’re trying to fellowship him, he loves us and we love him! He has this awesome Mexican suit that he wears to church! He’s now living at home and going to school.

Overall, a good week, but with illness, mission tour, and what not, it was a little bit crazy.

My testimony of my Savior, Jesus Christ, is undeniable. I know that true happiness comes through the atonement, eternally and temporally. Rules are hard, but the more rules we have, the more we can keep, and the more blessings we get! HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! Keep it real everyone.

I love you all more than you can possible know! I miss you.

LOVE YOU!

Elder Allred

January 4, 2010

Wow, so a lot has happened!

So I went on my first exchanges last week with our District Leader named Elder Aston, he’s the man! He’s so happy and cool, and just easy going, we went tracting (door to door contacting) and had a blast. We talked to this old lady named Janet who kept passing gas during the conversation. She would say the same thing over and over, 8 times or so. We got her mail for her and told her to get a Finding Faith in Christ DVD (it can also be viewed online here), and she said she would. That was fun. So yea, exchanges were really awesome!

The next day I was sick-ish, but we went out and saw some potential investigators, nothing too big, but we did set up a return appointment with a lady named Rosalinda, she’s from Tejas (Texas), she’s awesome, and that was on Friday?

The next day I felt really sick and I knew that I could go back to bed and be completely justified but I didn’t because God was like, “Get out there Sonny boy.” So I went on, and we found 3 really solid potential investigators. The first one is this 18 year old guy named Kyle who goes to Faith Bible school, he was way interested in the prophets and stuff. Next was one of our recent convert’s friends, Donna, who has already read up to 3 Nephi in the Book of Mormon! Crazy! We were going to meet with her, but Shane, her friend that is a recent convert ended up getting an infection in his face from a black mold or something (he does reconstruction). Then last was Beth, who we met after work, she works at Einstein Bagels, and she was way interested in getting closer to Heavenly Father, she said she had been thinking a lot and wanted to get back to it. She, and Kyle, also accepted a Book of Mormon. It was awesome! We were way blessed! Then we also met the Walkers, who worked with Grandma and Papa Allred in the temple, they were really nice, but seemed to have some mental issues right now and are too paranoid of the world to go to church :( We are working with them. Oh yea, while we were tracting some guy opened his door, slammed the door, and yelled “F*ing mormons!” That was… interesting. Then we saw him outside later and asked if we could help him load his truck and he was like… meh, and wasn’t as hostile toward us.

Umm, the next day was super hard actually. Satan is throwing a lot of stuff at our district and me right now. But I’m still just going through. We had a really good lesson with some less actives who came to church! We taught them about the blessings of baptism and the Holy Ghost. The Schoby family, just two of them, Scott and Starla, they’re great. We also had a chance to meet Brother Fowle, who is really awesome! Then we met with a less active, who forgets everything and has a million questions it seems. We’re working with her, and I’m gaining a lot of patience :)

Yesterday, fast Sunday, we got to wake up at 5:30 to make it to Ward Council at 6:30 :( Church was good. We sang the Lord’s Prayer, the arrangement we had sung back home in choir. I found out naps are bad for me, they just drain me completely.

Before I forget to say in this letter; the church is true, it makes sense! Rules aren’t here to inhibit us from being happy, they’re here to make us free so we can be happy! Wickedness definitely never was happiness. And when you think about this life, well life is a string that stretches forever, then take a sharpie and make a dot on the string, and that’s life on this earth, and what we do here, effects forever. MAKE GOOD CHOICES! Trials are mandatory, misery is optional. I love you all! Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, and our brother. He would have died if only for us (individually)! We owe Him everything, even unto our whole lives! And then we become joint heirs with Him, in the Kingdom of our Father, inheriting all that the Father hath! How amazing is that?! I can’t wait to be there with all of you!

So, I haven’t sent the memory card home yet, I’m hopefully going to do that today, no promises though. I’m going to try to attach a couple of pictures now, but who knows. :( It didn’t work.

Please keep me updated on the temple in Philly and what’s going on with it, there are some people from Philly here who want to know!

A care package would be awesome Mom. I could use a new tie or two, I love ties! Umm, we have soooo much candy, I can’t wait to go buy some bananas today and be healthy! I hear BYU is doing a program called “Messiah: Behold the Lamb of God” a TV mini series or something? It might be online. Check it out and tape it for me!

Anyway, I love you all, if there's anything I can do for you let me know. Send me letters! Letters = happiness! :)

Until next week!
Elder Jonathan Allred

PS: this week went by sooo slow, but I've been out a month! Crazy?! It feels like a day and also 18 years haha