December 13, 2010

First off, shoutouts to:
Courtney Chew for an awesome Christmas card.
Gayle Langan for some awesome Christmas cookies.
and Randy Slaugh for an awesome CD he made!

This past week was a blur, i feel like i blinked and now I'm at the computer again....
so update...let's see

Last monday we went down to the mission office and played kickball and knockout in the gym...
one of the wards had set up Christmas lights, and the lights didn't seem to like us playing kickball, but everything got fixed by the time we left so it was all good. Then our whole zone, aka stake, went to the stake president's house for dinner. The APs (Assistant to the Mission President) came b/c they're in the zone now and it was super fresh cuz they're both like my way good friends. Elder Porter is probably going to get released the end of this transfer which is good, b/c he looks tired...he's got the AP for 5 transfers syndrome. After that, we went over and helped our relief society president move some stuff and talked about how we can help the sisters in the ward. It was good to share stuff that we've been doing with her and figure out a couple of ways that we can make her life easier.

Tuesday was a giant ball of cancelled appointments. WE did have some though. My favorite was probably our lesson with the Williams...I had this idea, which ended up turning out well, to relate life to a test (been done before right?), and actually give them a test. So we made a test of 15 ridiculous questions including calculus, hit boy band culture, Spanish, and lots of ridiculous things. I think gave Morgan, the youngest, all of the answers. We told them that they could have a prize (Dr. Pepper) if they got all the questions right. Morgan was the only one lol, it was super hard. Everyone said she cheated, but it was ok b/c she was using the resources she had. No one else asked for answers. We then related it to the scriptures, because they contain the answers to what we need to do here to get our "Dr. Pepper" in the hereafter. That night we were also able to meet with T and teach the Plan of Salvation, which is an outline of What God wants us to do here in the life, where we came from before and where we're going after. The spirit was really strong and he told us he appreciated it a lot.

Wednesday more cancelled appointments....all of them actually. It was a really rough day going around and just seeing everything drop. We did get some things done though and were able to help out some members of the ward who really just needed a hand this week. That night, we were also able to go carolling with the youth b/c our night appointment cancelled. It was really fun. We knew how to get everywhere better than anyone else did which i found funny.

Thursday we biked out to Gunbarrel. It took forever. We did take the time to stop by one of the houses we carolled and find an i-pod that one of the young women had lost the night before. It's funny how people will look and look, and then we say a prayer, stop by, and find it. I love being a missionary. Then we finally made it out there and got our hair cut by sister Landerman. Keepin it fresh! After we were able to meet with an older sister who had moved in from Indiana several years ago and hadn't seen anyone from church or had any contact in all that time. We were able to talk to her and her husband Jay who is a unitarian if they would like visiting teachers and home teachers, they said yes. After that our zone leaders picked us up and were like...you biked here? they have a car so we loaded our bikes on the rack and got to district meeting like 30 minutes late...but it all worked out. I slaughtered a couple more Christmas Classics on the piano and then we went to dinner. Our dinner just gave us some money so we went to the 3 Margaritas, which is becoming my fav place to eat. Such good mexican food.

Friday was a long long day of weekly planning. Though we were able to get out and talk to a member of the church about a friend that they're going to invite to meet with us. We were also find out that a lot of people had moved from where we had their addresses listed as... yea that was fun. Dinner was good and then our district went out carolling. Lots of happy people.

Saturday.....hmmmm found out more people had moved. Were able to see the Hafers and talk about life. It continues. After we worked around the area and had dinner with the Larsens who gave us chocolate flavored peanut butter for Christmas! I'm so siked to open it and eat it....12 days! Then we headed up the hill to a concert at church. it was the "Colorado Mormon Chorale", but for all intensive purposes they could have been The Mormon Tabernacle Choir. IT was probably the best live choir concert I've ever been too. It was themed Christmas Favorites, and I loved them all. I hope they put out a live cd of the performance. They did that Nigerian Christmas song that Motab does....so good.

Sunday was church, and none of our investigators made it out :(. Agency. After though, we were able to meet with the High Priest Group and the Elders Quorum President and go through some names they didn't know. I think they realized how valuable we are because we knew pretty much everyone they didn't, which was...everyone. Yea. it was good. Then home for lunch, i really and enjoy the cheese and trail, i feel like I'm at home! Then lots of visits, a good dinner/Christmas Program at one of the members house, some appointments after and bed!

It was a fantastic week
I love the season where we get to celebrate the birth of our Savior.
I hope you all enjoy this time that we have to be with our families.
Know that though this time is short, that we can be with our families forever through God's plan for us!
Know it. Live it. Love it.
Elder Allred

NEW address until DEC 28

Dear Family and Friends,

From now until DEC 28, packages and mail can be sent directly to me at my housing address. After DEC 28, the address will change.

The Mission Office has asked me to tell you to mail early, due to the holidays.

Elder Jonathan Allred

747 Orchard Court

Louisville, CO 80027

Merry Christmas!

December 6, 2010

So not a lot of time and it was a super busy week, so we'll see what happens and please excuse my spelling.

So, last monday i wrote you guys then we went shopping, ate Little Cesar's pizza played basketball and volleyball and some kind of weird game that has no point and is really hard to explain....pretty normal pday. Afterwards we ate dinner with............someone? The Miitchells, had a good time, taught family home evening about Alma 32 and experimenting on the word of God. Good stuff. Then went and stopped by M&B’s, set up an appointment.

Tuesday we went and stopped by a former investigator who we left dropped, wasn't really interested in meeting with us, and that took up most of the morning. Had lunch and then went to The memory care center to do service and play bingo with old people. I got hit on by another old lady, which hasn't happened for a couple weeks so that was refreshing to know that I still got it (for those senior citizens). It was freezing and the wind was blowing like crazy, so it took us a while to bike around to our next appointment, but we got to see a Sister in the ward and have dinner with our Bishop's family. After that we went out to Gunbarrel (really far away) and had our appointment cancel on us due to illness :(. However, we did get to see a cool guy who just moved into the ward and works at this place called Spark Fun. They do like robotic parts and stuff. Super cool office (where we met) and got to see all their toys. There's some really cool chess like game with lazers and a pharo that they had i forget what it was called...but look it up, it looked gnarly.

Wednesday was HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO NETTINA!!! i celebrated her birthday by going to zone conference for most of the day, lol. So we left, got there early, i got to see some old friends from the Arvada Zone. Then the piano played didn't show up. SO i got to play prelude music. Then, he still wasn't there, so i got to play the opening hymn on the spot. That was fun, actually sounded pretty good. So i thought i could relax. However, I got called up to do a review on one of the trainings with my companion, which is weird because I've done a review EVERY ZONE conference, except for one, so like 80% of the time. Then i did get to relax. We had some great trainings on agency and how to be effective, make sure we're doing good things with our time. Since sister Stiefvater (who i lived with for like 6 months) is the Stake Relief Society President I got to see her at lunch time which made my day super happy. After lunch, sleepy, more trainings. Then had a really good zone meeting (yes it's different) and talked about what we can do to improve our efforts. Good stuff. After that it was straight to dinner. After, when biking around and realizing that I smelled bad b/c i was out of deodorant, we hit up a walgreens super quick to grab some. My stench must have been divinely inspired b/c we saw a former investigator who i knew pretty well in there. We talked to her for a while and she asked us to stop by, so we're actually going to go have a lesson with her tomorrow which we're super excited about. She just lost someone really close in her life, so we're probably going to talk about how we believe that families can be together forever, through Heavenly Father's Plan.
We then got to go see DS which was awesome. We started going through the book of Acts, which is pretty cool.

Thursday we biked a ton in celebration of MY YEAR MARK!!!!! no one was home. Which was ok, it happens. For lunch we went to Qudoba and I splurged on delicious food. Soooo good.
After that we had District meeting and I drank my martinelli's in front of everyone to show them how cool i was. After we went straight to an appointment with one of M&B's friends who we had met with before, and shared the message of the restoration of the gospel. We talked to him about what he was thinking about what we were teaching and if he had read and prayed to know if it was true or not. A little background, we believe that God is the ultimate source of truth. And because He loves us, He will give us answers if we ask Him for them. So Todd asked and got his answer! He said it came so fast that he was a little bit skeptical. SO he prayed 2 more times and asked Heavenly Father if the Book of Mormon was true and He said he felt peace and comfort and joy and knew that that was his answer! It's so wonderful to see someone understand and have an experience where they KNOW that God is there and loves them. We invited him to be baptized and he said that he wanted to come to church before he set a concrete date. Fair enough. After that we biked super fast up the hill to dinner. And then headed home. On our way we contacted this guy from Mexico named Enrique and talked about the true Christmas message. We offered him a copy of Joy to the world and he said that we could come over to his house and drop it off....he hasn't been there...but we're still gonna keep trying.

Friday we did weekly planning (takes forever) and decided to head out to Gunbarrel to do some work. We found out after we left that there were 50 mile winds that day and ended up falling off our bikes several times. It was fun. I got 3 goat head thorns in my tires from being blown off the road, but thanks to the miracle of bike slime, my tire stayed fresh. Made it out there, tried to see a lot of people who either weren't home or weren't' answering...but that's life. We got to see our new move in again which was awesome. Dinner and then headed home.

Saturday we were finally able to introduce E. Rodriguez to our Ward Mission Leader.
After that we went around and weren't able to see too many people, but did have some good contacts. It was Elder Rodriguez's first day of serious tracting....his eyes have now been opened, let's just leave it at that :D. Dinner was good with the Fishers and then more contacting on our way home.

Sunday we super good. Our fast and testimony meeting was really powerful. Todd didn't make it to church because the family he was supposed to come with didn't either :(. Super Sad. But we did get to see them afterwards and found out there's some stuff going on but that it's going to be ok. Todd was actually up and ready to go but, with some extenuating circumstances no one made it out. After church we got to see a lot of people before heading over the the First Presidency Message at church, which was awesome. Then we worked on an object lesson idea that I had and it turned out great, maybe I'll send you guys something else in the Christmas box. It's a test lol :D.

But, moral of the story is. This week was packed. It was busy. I loved it. I love helping people understand that life can be and is good if you have the right perspective and understand what will truly make you happy.

It's a wonderful life.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

love you all
Elder Jonathan Allred

November 29, 2010

So, not a lot of time, time for speed typing

So, tuesday, woke up, in my new house, we live with our Bishop's mom, she is awesome.
Went to the trainer’s meeting, we ended up getting there super early and just chilled.
hung out with a lot of other people i knew who were also training this transfer, good times.
Met my new companion, his name is Elder Rodriguez from Provo, UT. he was born in Argentina but moved to the US when he was 10. He's super cool and yea. So we went to lunch, went shopping. Went home and got down to business. We headed out and contacted for a while on our way to try and see people in the ward leadership positions. We found a potential in a former investigator's mom who we're going back to see this week! We then got a dinner out to Gunbarrel (the really far away place) and had dinner with a Sister, her daughter, and her daughter's boy friend. It went really well and her daughter and boyfriend are going to probably start meeting with us. They were supposed to be at church...but it didn't happen :(. So after that we went home, he unpacked and we passed out.

Wednesday was action packed lol. We found him a loaner bike and ended up walking our bikes around for a while b/c we couldn't find him a helmet. We did make it to our 4 appointments for the day which were all really good. One of my favorite people in the world decided to get his ear pierced contrary to his mom's guidance and it was funny b/c our lesson was on the sons of Helaman and how they followed what their mothers told them. it was a good time :D>

Thursday was thanksgiving. Up until Thursday morning we thought that we were going to have to go to district meeting, however, we got a call saying that it was cancelled. So, we rolled over to the Fangers about 1ish and were there until like 8:30. we were supposed to go stop by a couple others but due to timing and stuff it didn't happen which was fine. We had a great time, the Fangers are awesome. They had a lot of little cousins over so we played tag, that was good.
I gained 5 lbs that day.
It's already gone.

FRIDAY! TEMPLE DAY! probably the best thing about training is the fact that my companion had a temple trip. So we went. It was awesome.

Saturday we had district meeting where I pretty much slaughtered two Christmas Classics on the piano...i don't really practice those hymns a lot. But yea, after that we had to rush to an appointment, so i biked reasonably fast and kept looking back to see if Elder Rodriguez was keeping up, which he was. We got there, got inside, and he was like...i think i need some fresh air, we stood on the porch and he like fell over...yea. I was like..what the heck, he was so pale and it was weird. What happened was he isn't used to the altitude and just pushed himself really hard...so i learned that I'm gonna have to bike slower for a while. So after sitting down for 5 minutes and 3 glasses of water, we were able to go back inside and I kinda had to teach the whole lesson as he was recovering, but it was a good time. We had dinner and ended up doing weekly planning that night b/c we had to get it done!

Sunday we did ward council and church was super good. None of our 3 investigators showed up though, :(, so we were bummed, but that's life, we're going to go by and see what happened today. After we finished up studies and talked about how to hand out Book of Mormons. SO we went out and tried. We did our best and Elder Rodriguez did a good job, but no success. We had dinner, stopped by to pick up a referral and then finished weekly planning.

All in all it was a really short week.
It seems like time just keeps going faster.
Looking back now in hindsight, the past year was SUPER LONG and the Shortest thing i've ever experienced. there's just no explaining it.

But I can now give you a year in recap.
God loves us, and if you want to be happy figure out what HE wants you to do and do it....that's where happiness is at.
Family + God
that's whats up
i love you all
J