November 28, 2011

Emporer Zerg, we meet again, FOR THE LAST TIME

Dearest family, it's me, here at a library in colorado........
i was really trunky last week b/c there was no one here
now there are tons of people here and i don't want to come home.
but i guess i will.
i love you all tons.
Keep being amazing
I'm still working hard, don't worry.
See you in a week.
God lives! with blessings for all of us. people need to know, so let them
Love
Elder Allred

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November 29, 2011

back, for the last last last last last time

so i'm finishing my trunky letter now
we just had one of the most spiritually powerful lessons of my mission
a girl just found out the church is true
everyone ended up in tears
she has a brother on a mission right now
she's coming to church on Sunday and is progressing fantastically towards baptism
Dang it feels good to be a gangster...i mean missionary
Love you all, if you need me i'll be here 30 mins and then i won't talk to you until i get home.
just got the email about being released, not thrilled.
much love
Elder Allred

until we meet again...on monday
all my love
Elder Allred

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December 1, 2011

Hour left
92.5
no big deal
just sent in my last zone leader report and mileage stuff
I'M FREEEEEE!
love you all
going to set someone for baptism now
2 people have gotten answers about the church
1 re-activated sister is now going on a mission
1 recent convert getting her patriarchal blessing
1 struggling member who i got to give a blessing to just got a job
0 more district meetings
1 temple trip
1 Christmas party
1 Church block
1 plane ride
Love

November 21, 2011

So, time left?
weird sensation, i'm in the middle of packing a giant box

Quite frankly i don't have a ton of time, or a ton to say (yes dad i'm taking a leaf out of ur book...(where did that phrase come from)).

anyways.
life is great
we had Elder Maynes of the 70 come and do a mission tour
we met with him tuesday as zone leaders, i went out with The Carol Family from my first ward right before that cuz we were in the area.
we were in fort morgan like 5 times this past week, tons of driving, i think we went around 800 miles or something, good times.

i'm not trunky, at least i'm trying not to be.
i'm pretty bummed to be going home.
but whatever, that's life.
still working hard, no changes there.
I love it.

The principle that's stuck out to me the most this week is one of my favorites,
that is THE LAW OF MUTUALITY
this law or principle is the exact opposite of the way most competition works in our society.

The law of competition says that in order for me to win, you have to lose.
the law of mutuality says that in order for me to win, you need to win first, and i need to help you.
This is the way that Christ lived. He lived for others.
And if you think about it, if we all lived to help other people, then that would mean that we wouldn't need to focus on ourselves at all (to a degree, bear with my sweeping generalities for a second)
and everyone would look out for us.
This is the gospel principle that drives us to serve others as ourselves, the results of love and charity toward all men.
Though salvation is a individual experience, it comes from the results of many working together for the benefit of an individual and the group.

It's awesome
Think about it.

Love you all tons
The next letter will be my last.

Weird.
Don't get trunky

Love you
Elder Allred

November 14, 2011

So this week i have not a lot of time (pun, get it, 20 days? lol) (not trunky) (for reals)
anyways
biggest news, i got my trunky papers aka my flight itinerary.
so i leave here at 9:10 aka 11:10 and i get in at 2:35 pa time.

i go to the mission home at 5pm on dec 4th
i'll be going to the temple december....2nd (which is my 2 year mark)
it's a friday, I don't know what time yet, but probably morningish.
i know people have lives. But anyone that could/want to come would be cool.

life is going great
to be honest, don't really wanna come home, but i guess that's life.

love you all
life is great
keep being awesome.
Love
Elder Allred

November 7, 2011

It's me! The Elder Allred!
didn't forget about me did you?

Life is awesome.
My companion and I are "tearing it up" as they say on the street, here in Greeley Colorado.
It's boss.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't want to come home.
People ask me if I'm excited and usually i just make a happy/sad/confused/crying/weird face in order to get across all the emotions i feel.
doesn't really work.

So, life is great.
This past week we had a ton of meetings, yes, we do believe in meetings.

Monday was halloween, so, we played basketball with the district, i found out how out of shape i am (but my forearms are straight wolverine status) but that's also ok, because when i come back home to sea level, it will be like i just became superman.
So, we had to be in by 6, so we and the Elders we lived with borrowed a charcoal grill and grilled some sirloin tip and Elk steaks.
It was boss. We lit a fire in the fire pit outside and had a great halloween.

Tuesday was awesome. We taught a ton of lessons. We found out that one of our investigators was in a play (anything goes, more on that later) and invited us to come, we
said we'd see what we could do. (more on that later). uhhh, had a great lesson, she had a question about who we are, really as people.
So we talked a lot about how we find out and how we get in touch with kind of our internal thoughts and feelings and what role God plays in all of it.
The other lesson that's sticking out to me from that day is our night one, where we have a pagan friend who's looking into the Church.

I used a hobbit analogy. We started the question with, what's in my pocket. We all took turns saying what we thought was in there, and then we found out who was right, which was me.
so we related that to the nature of God and how we can vote on it, and we can try and convince people that we're right, yet, it doesn't change fact.
God is God, and we can find out who He is by talking with Him.
It then went into a discussion about truth at large and how we find it, it was cool.

Wednesday began the run of meetings we've had this week.
2 district meetings followed by several more lessons and before you know it, the day was over.

Thursday we drove to Fort Morgan to the district meeting out there.
It was good, we had ROOTBEER MILK!
it was amazing.
Great night, great food, super hungry.
Quote of the day "at when all is said and done, you're just another guy without a duck"
such is the life of Elder Allred.

Friday we went to Loveland for Zone Leader Council, my last one, kind of. We have a meeting with Elder Maines of the 70 who's coming soon, so I get to go to a meeting with him, that will be sweet. It was aight, i'm just glad that I get to stop worrying about 16 other missionaries problems in a couple weeks. good practice for the future though right? (isaac if i try and have 16 kids, punch me, ok?) friday night was good........don't remember much else that happened.

Saturday was cool. We went to Texas Roadhouse with some missionaries and a member for lunch. Then we had previously gotten permission from our Mission President to see our investigators play. I just told him that our investigator had asked us if we could see her musical on pday, he was like sure. Then we found out it was "anything goes" and still didn't know what it was.... and, it was hilarious, just a little bit....anything goes-ish.
good times. lol.
then we weekly planned, the power went out, so we went to our ward mission leaders house, and then got taco bell.
That night had a district leader council within our zone.
Then home.

Up super early, though we ended up getting an xtra 30 mins of sleep ayways, on sunday for our 7am meeting.
Talked about zone re-organization next transfer.
it was weird talking about things that i know i won't be here to see happen.
Then church was awesome.
Great day.
Found some awesome people.
and that was about it.

This week looks good, though starting week 4 of the transfer, time is going to fly by...you'll see what i mean.

So,
moral of the story,
Don't get trunky, (yes YOU! not me, i'm not even close to trunky)

Remember who you are, and that God loves you
and set goals and make plans to be happy.
That's about it

Much love.
Elder J Allred

October 31, 2011

So, life goes on
here's a brief update!

I am not trunky :) !
seriously, i'm loving missionary service and i'm totally focused here.
i had the best week of my mission last week.

monday was transfers, pretty hectic, but also awesome, we ended up getting 2 new investigators that day alone with 3 hours of work and teaching several people.
we got a bunch of referrals.

tuesday was great, we had a super awesome with J preparing her for her baptism on Saturday.

wednesday was district meetings and snow. it snowed a bunch, but it's a good thing i had warm clothes. power went out during the district meetings we had so they were super cold.
good day

thursday pretty much everyone bailed, it's the first time that's happened in a while, but we were able to try and get in touch with a ton of people that were contacted by missionaries before.

friday was good, talked to some people that just really wanted to argue with us and they got frustrated when we wouldn't "scripture wrestle" as they said.
We told them why it wouldn't help. good times.

Saturday was super busy. we got a call in the morning that said the building hadn't been scheduled and that there was a party there. We ended up going over ourselves and making things work. lots of stress, but the baptism was awesome, pictures next week! then a lesson bailed on us, we didn't really get a pday, and then the halloween party was super fun.
horray!

sunday was awesome. i got sick, but we worked through it and had a great day.
lots of use of the word "great" this week.

sorry it's vague, we have a ton of stuff to do today.

My thoughts for the week have been directed how do I get to know the Savior more?
He's not here, so what resources do I have.
The answer that I've come to is Service.
If you couple together a bunch of scriptures, we find that we can't know Christ unless we have served Him, and we serve Him by serving others, and there's a ton of ways that we can do that.
Keep and Eternal Perspective.

Love you all tons.
Have a good week.
Elder Allred

October 24, 2011

So, this past week has been amazing
we've been finding tons of people to teach.
J is getting baptized on Saturday and asked me to baptize her!
we invited another girl we've been meeting with to be baptized, and she'll be baptized late November.
Everything is going amazing.
Elder Montague is getting transferred which is super sad, but that's ok.
I have no idea what to do with my life, WHICH IS OK! cuz right now i'm a missionary and i'm loving every second.
Keep me posted on life.
It's transfers, so busy time.
Anyways, that's about it.
Much love
J

ps: Everyone needs to read Alma 7:11-13
think about what in your life you need help with and then get that help!

Alma 7:11-13
11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

13 Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.

October 21, 2011

So, here we are again, weird.
It's been almost two weeks since I've emailed, feels like eternity.
You know life is good when you look forward to something as small as emailing.
Right?
So, first things first, i'm not getting transfered as far as i know.
my new companion is cool, it'll be good times, i'm super sad to see Elder Montague go though.
We've had some great times together and yea, it'll be a sad transfer day.
So.....let's rundown the highlights reel.

Last time i emailed, the rest of the day flew by. We talked about the Book of Mormon for FHE, it was tight.
Then we played catch phrase and I was straight up boss-ing (doing really well).

Tuesday was awesome, we met with a ton of awesome people and had some super good discussions.

Wednesday was a day jam packed full of district meetings. Had one of the best discussions of my mission. Somehow the night disappeared, i'm not really sure.

Thursday we met with a new guy, super cool.
Long day and even longer night, we ended up in loveland at 10:30 to get a hide a bed for the farm house....nuts-o.
Got home at like 11:30, bed at like 1...no bueno.

Friday we finished the saga of E. Montague getting a bunch of cavaties filled...i can only wait and find out how my teeth are doing. We drove out to Fort Morgan to do a baptismal interview. Good times. such a long boring drive. Then when we got home our washer discharge pipe was clogged, and our land lord told us that we couldn't stick it out the window b/c there are fields of corn and what not near us, so......i scrounged up a pipe system that drained the washer into the sink. it worked well beyond the estimated expectations.
Also, one of the people looking into the church quoted Preach My Gospel without knowing it and it felt like I was in a pmg movie or something, it was awesome.

Saturday we got haircuts. Found out that there was a quiditch (yes from harry potter) tournament on the college campus. Went and watched....i can't believe that actually happened.
One of the most ridiculous things i've ever heard over a loud speaker "does anyone have jumper cables? the denver dementors seemed to have sucked the soul out of their car"
it was ridiculous.

Sunday was cool. Met with the stake president as usual. Went to a ysa conference in fort collins and got to see where the temple will be built there. I sang in the choir. It was eh.....
yea.
They needed way more practice, i had only been to two and I was one of the only tenors that could hold the part. no bueno.
Then lots of good things. Ate dinner with a couple that will soon be married!
Did some weekly planning and met up with our ward mission leader.
I also found out how to say "i make it rain" in german.
Good times.

Monday was a day of heavy contacting, it was super sweet.
Found a ton of awesome people walking around.
For lunch, we got ROCKY MOUNTAIN OYSTERS! good times.
We had a visa waiting missionary here waiting to go to Peru.
he wanted to have a colorado experience before he left...he didn't end up going with us, but it was still good times.

Tuesday was awesome.
Went out to lunch with the district and ate entirely too much.
Great day. and that night was even better.
we set up an appointment with someone who used to be looking into the church and after we met with her she decided to be baptized the weekend of thanksgiving!!!
we're super excited.

Wednesday was much more district meetings. Lots of interesting things. Headache.

Thursday, headache, felt sick, was sick, did work anyways.
Drove out to Fort Morgan again.
Got back and met with a bunch of people., was awesome.

and then today.
We went to the temple.
And now we're back.

Themes from this week:
Don't look beyond the mark. Focus on where you are and what you need to be doing.
also, don't look into things more than you need to. Blowing things out of proportion does not help anything.
The Book of Mormon changes lives.
You can't change without God.
God has a very detailed plan, we just have to figure out what it is and then have enough faith to follow it.

Belief+obedience=faith. no obedience = no faith. Faith is the power of miracles.....so if you want miracles in your life, be obedient (to God!)
horray
life is awesome.
I love being a missionary.

Much love
Elder Allred