A letter from Troy to Paden and Paden's letter back:

Hi Elder Allen,

How was your week?

I am reading a book entitled "Trails to Testimony".  I am reading this book for scouting and round table.  The main point of the book is the importance of bringing young men to Christ.  It talks about the Aaronic Priesthood and scouting and how they can work hand in hand to bring young men to Christ. 

Some points I have highlighted are...

·         Scouting, Varsity, and Venturing weekly activities can be the laboratory for practicing and applying what the young men learn on Sunday.

·         Scouting benefits are... Character, Citizenship, and Fitness building.

·         Monthly camping and hiking can be trails to strengthen testimonies of God, prayer, Christ.  And preparation for life.

·         Reflection, reflect on how the activity or experience relates to the gospel or life values.

- After every activity
- Immediately after an experience
- Ask open ended questions

Toward the end of the book it shares several stories of missionaries and how scouting helped prepare them for the mission field.  So, my question for you is this. 

As you reflect back on your first year as a missionary, have you every had a time when you may have related it to an experience or something you learned as a Scout, Varsity, or Venture?

P.S.  Be warned, I may share your experience with the leaders at round table.

Have a Great day!

Dad :o) 

Dad,

Of course, actually i was just thinking about that yesterday.

There have been several times i have used things i have learned in boyscout this year as a missionary, from helping people paint to tieing as cloths line for an old woman in her front yard, a not that wouldnt come undone again. also i am always applying teachings i learned from scout leaders in teachings that i give. this sunday i helped to teach a class on how to teach where i  related many expiriences as a scout to teaching. If i hadnt been invovled in Boyscouts I would not be a missionary now. from learning self confidence in campouts as a boyscout to helping the others apply what i had learned as a varsity i not only learned how to do many priceless things, obtained many priceless memories, but also has helped me to learn how to express myself in teaching things that i have learned, and that is a priceless lesson as a missionary. When things are hard to do i remember the diligence i had to have to get my swimming and archery merit badges, the 2 most difficult ones that i earned, i started them both 5 years before i finished them, several times in my mission i have thought: ´´If i could do that i can do this.´´

Hopefully that helps with what you needed from me :)

Love you,

Elder Allen

12/5/2011 freaking awesome week

 Hello family and friends,

First off Happy birthday to Dillon and Wyatt :)

 

This week was a killer, we had a crazy time organizing baptismal dates tours of the church house spiltz and christmas related activities. we foought a bit to find new investigators, however we did find quite a bit, we had the baptisms of Maudiel Anibal Manzanares Renteria and Macaria Gaytán Moreno, we found them both knocking doors and they progressed super fast. Maudiel went to church and everyone thought he was a member from another ward, he has a special light about him that is amazing and he just needed to hear about the restoration and water to be a member, we actually took him with us to a few apointments in order to be able to teach a few sisters, cause we need somone 18 or older to come with us and he played the part of a member :) he is already thinking about serving a mission in a year when he can send in his papers. I feel blessed to have been the one to find him. God would have led him to the church all by himself but chose to use us to bring him to the Gospel.

 

The story is pretty much the same with Macaria, she was found the same day as Maudiel but has gone to church more, this sunday she showed up in a skirt for the first time all by herself for her confirmation. she set the example for Sergio, her husband who has to quit smoking first. they have both been coming to church by themselves.

 

This next week we will have the baptisms of Toni, Martha and Gabriela, toni is a young man, 18 years old and super excited to be baptised, but has lots of opposition, his mom is pentacostes. and doesnt agree with his decision entirely, but then again neither did Maudiel´s family. this sunday we were in sacrament meeting and he leaned ovcer to me and whispered: i saw the font is full, can i get baptised today or do i have to wait until saturday? unfortunately he couldnt do it just quite yet as he needs an interview first. he has already started paying tithing :). He was a refferal from a young woman in our ward that is in a few of his college classes, we were introduced the Fiesta we had in the church a few weeks back :) 

Hope everything is going great back there in Idaho, still like 70 degrees in the day with a chilly northern wind, and about 40 at night sometimes, its finally cooling off, they tell me  once the cold finally sticks that it will last until late februrary. and to answer Jacobs question, no it has not snowed here. actually the last time it snowed here was in the 70´s i think, snow is a fairy tale for all the little kids here :)
Love you all and enjoy this christmas season for what it really means eh?
Con Cariño,

-Elder Paden W Allen

Mosiah 4:30 & 5:5

Working to make the world a better place, one door at a time.

Week of Miracles 11/28/2011

This week was a miracle,

Lots of things happened this week that made it a miracle. We fought with colds and finding new investigators the first half of the week, we didnt think it was going to be a good week. But we endured, knocking on door after door when it was necessary. But we did get a chance to visit veronica´s father, we listened to him talk and we gave him advice in his life for about 2 hours, we left and felt very good about it all. Veronica came to church this week, :) Her Dad finally let her,we just had to introduce ourselves formallly with him. We also had a lesson with Veronica and her sister Judith this last Saturday, However we arent allowed to teach sisters alone, we have to have a male with us 18 years and older, it doesnt matter who just a third member, so we took Maudiel with us, an Investigator that lives about 7 blocks from Veronica. Judith has a bad habit of attacking us with questions and picking apart our religion, looking for something wrong in any little thing she can find. We listened for 20 minutes while Judith asked a question and Maudiel answered, defending the Church and our beliefs for us. Judith was suprised to learn that Maudiel isnt even a member yet but has known us for the exact amount of time she had. after Judith was calmed down we invited Veroinca to be baptised and she accepted, the hardest part with that will be getting her Dad to sign the paper as she is only 17 and can´t sign her own paper yet. Also yesterday, we were eating Dinner when i got a Text from Martha, an Investigator that can be Baptised tomorrow if she wants. it said ´´Brothers,(thats what everyone calls us if they dont know to call us Elders.) Can you come to the house I need to talk to you. -Martha´´ Antonio, her husband, who might be a member but we arent sure yet as he has no records, was very bitter against God because his work sent him on Vacations for 2 weeks and he doesnt know if he´ll have a Job when he comes back. I shared wiht him 3 Nephi 13: 31-33 and other advise as well. He will be looking for work these 2 weeks and if he keeps his Job, well thats great, but if he doesnt at least he´ll have a head start. but we were able to help them when they were super upset and it felt good to do so. Thanks giving day I didnt even remember it was thanksgiving until we got home and there was a note on the door to go downstairs and talk to the Bishop (who lives below us) he suprised us with a turkey dinner :) It was great. being close to the border a few people celebrate Thanksgiving but as it is an American Holiday the Majority of the people dont celebrate it. This sunday we had 14 investigators come to church 10 of which showed up all by themselves. we had the Baptism of David and Brandon Luna Gloria who are 2 of the sons of the sister that we baptised 2 weeks ago. It was super spiritual. Also those of you that dont speak Spanish the picture of the sign says ´Dont Drive with Hunger.´ its an advertisement in front of a snack shop. Maudiel is progressing beautifully and has expressed the desire to serve a mission after being baptised, and he will be a great missionary!!! The picture with the family in front of the Christmas tree is Martha Antonio and their kids Gabriela and Nayelle. This week was awesome, it required diligence but we were blessed  in the end :)

With Love,
--

-Elder Paden W Allen

Mosiah 4:30 & 5:5

Working to make the world a better place, one door at a time.

Noche Mexica-ha-ha-ha-na!!!! 11/21/11

Dear family and friends,

This week was what i would describe as wicked sweet, although those probably arent the adjecives most effective to be used when talking about the Lord´s work. We had a mexican Night, or a Fiesta as we would call it there, it was in the stake center and we were told to invite all of our investigators to go and enjoy. So we did and we also invited the members to invite theirs friends.. to make a long story short we had 19 investigators show up. If we had music and tacos in sacrament meeting there would be no problem getting people to come to church :) however we also had 10 people come to sacrament meeting :) oh yeah it was SICK! another adjective that really doenst make sense when used in that way, but hey! whatever :) I included a picture of me and three investigators, Veronica, Javier and Maudiel. Veronica is progressing nicely, only she cant come to church yet cause her dad wont let her. Javier and Maudiel want to be missionaries after getting baptised. :) its way cool. Maudiel even asked us if he could come with us on a few visits even if he isnt a member yet :) we didnt have a baptism this week becuse David, the young man who had a baptismal date, feels like he hasnt recieved an answer yet, but hes still interested. Things are going very well here in Nuevo Laredo, calm and peaceful, full of work and good tidings.

Love you all,

Elder Paden W Allen

Excellent Week

Buenas tardes todos amigos y familiares,

So, this week was an absolute killer; seems like yesterday i was sitting in another cyber writing last weeks email. things have progressed rapidly, we have a baptism planned this week and 3 more the week that follows. the blessings of unity in the companionship, exact obedience, and hard work are coming to pass... as promised. :) we had an awesome expirience this week as it sucked really bad untill about friday. We couldnt find any new people all week untill we went in splitz with a couple brothers from the ward. i went with Javier, who is leaving in december to serve a mission in the Dominican Republic, and my companion went with his older brother Isreal who goes to Puerto Rico the same day. My companion found everyone we had been looking for this week and Javier and I got lost, and decided to contact a random street, we found 8 new investigators the in 3 different house holds in 1 1/2 hours. Saturday night we were walking back to the house after a fairly depressing day when the phone rang, it was Macaria and Jorge a couple i had found with Javier the day before, they wanted a ride to church... of course we already had who in mind cause the is only one member that lives within half a mile. so i dialed the number and beep! we´re out of minutes, which means i can recieve calls but not make them, unless they are on the plan the mission has, which of course involves other missionaries. so we called the district leader and he called the sister and told her to call us, she called us at 9:45pm yes Grandpa tubbs its a sin i know ;) (you are all allowed to laugh he can´t smack me for atleast another year and a month (: ) but to make a long story short they showed up early to church :) in all my time in Mexico someone has NEVER called us asking for a ride to go to church, NEVER! and we alwayd leave our phone number. :) it was awesome i really enjoyed it, the blessing come rolling in eventually, we just have to be patient and diligent. this week we have Angelica who will be baptised on saturday. she syas that she thought we were all pretty wierd untill she visisted a members home and saw the sister fighting to control her toddler, she said: (translated of course) ´´thats when i realized you all are normal´´......... Thanks... i think... Lol anyway, thats it for this week i´ll talk to yáll next week. :)

Con much Amor,

Elder Paden W Allen

Baptism for the first time in 3 months :)

Hello everyone,

Glad to report that the mission president is no longer thinking about sending me home as we were able to baptise somone this last week (its a joke dont freak out mom). Her name is Angelica Gloria Santos, her sons are also listening to us, they are David (17, short hair) Bruce (21, LONG hair) Brandon (9) and Jessica(7), armando is also present, he is a close familly friend and was rapidly removing all his piercings before the photo. lol. it was the first time we had met him. also this week we found an investigator that was a refferral from the district leader, we knocked on her doors and when she answered she asked us what ward we were from..... people dont even know the name of the church here, much less the organization, we then listened as she explained to her sister who we were what we did. she explained everything to us from Joseph Smith to our daily schedule... she works with a returned missionary, the only thing is that her uncle is the Pastor of the local pentocost church.... yep. we are excited to teach her, never had an expirience like this one before it should be interesting, her family askes us about 1,000,000,000 questions per minute about everything from who is Joeseph Smith to what happens after death... I´m excited. Angelica´s Children all have baptismal dates, david is planned for this saturday, bruce and brandon for the week after. if we do it right david can baptize them :) that would be super cool! my companion baptised angelica and i confirmed her the day after in sacrament meeting, it was the first confirmation ive ever done. it was super cool. we are finding lots of people that want to listen to us and learn and actually progress. but at the same time we find a TON of peole that want nothing to do with us. thats part of missionary work however, I´m just excited to get back to work tomorrow. :)

Con Cariño,

Elder Paden W Allen

New Digs Area: Mirador.....The Watcher...

its great! i took a few picts to show you, first house ive had with a couch. we have found a ton of people here in nuevo laredo, this week my companion Elder Chavez and I get along very well he looks and acts kinda like Justin Jensen, i have a feeling were going to have lots of success. were both super excited to get work done, he is from puebla and 21 im senior companion, not worried about anything however, hes not out here for politics and neither am i so we get along great.

PACKAGES SENT TO MEXICO:
So the mission offices called me this week and said someone sent me a package in the package, were a few things that arent allowed to cross the border. they returned the package the mission told me to tell everyone i know that if they are going to send me a package to the mission office they have to do it through UPS. Now that we all know we can be happy again :) also anything made in china.... cut the tags of, it cant cross the border..... who knows why....


Hola gente mia :)
This week has been crazy, apart from having a companion who is excited to preach the gospel and doesnt complain about everything like my last companion, and having an area that is MASSIVE things are going better than great. the goal for new investigators is 12 every week, we found 23 this last week, i dont even really know my companion yet cause we have been sooooo busy. I got here and the house is the prettiest one ive had, with a real fridge, couches, a real desk, and a closet. :) and an extra room for all the stuff the missionaries who finished their missions left behind. in the bus station i saw a good friend from the mtc who is serving in the monterrey mexico west mission, that was awsome, way cool to see him again. my area has about 30 colonies, which is massive as the areas i have had in the past had 9 and 13 colonies. more people in my area than there are people in malad. ok so there are more people in 1 colony than there are in malad... anyway, we did a few spiltz with a couple young men in the ward who have their mission calls, that helped us alot. But basically im excited to be working with elder chavez, we both have had companions that didnt want to work and are happy as bugs in a rug to be with someone who is excited to preach the gospel. His name is Elder Ezra Alejandro Chavez Rios and hes a convert of 9 years from puebla, hes 21 and thats pretty much all i know about the guy, we havent even gotten to know eachother because we went straight to work. this is going to be a great transfer.
Talk to you all next week!
Elder Allen

Transfers, For those of you that have the address in Texas you should send mail to the mission address again.

Hello Everyone,
Transfers have come and i am leaving Rio Bravo and am headed to Nuevo Laredo, the area is called 创Mirador创 I will be senior companion but i have no ide who my companion will be, they tell me i may be a trainer, but who knows, i wont find out until i get there.
For those of you that have the address in Texas you should send mail to the mission address again because i will not be recieving it any quicker if you send it to texas now :) if there is another person that helps out i will send the address, they say about every ward has someone that does.
This week was the best week we've had, we had tonz of success. found lots of people that had lots of interest, the only thing is i wont be here to see what happens with any of them. :/ thats part of being a missionary however. I wasnt ready to be transferred yet i feel like im still getting started, and the fact that we havent baptised here is really depressing. however life continues onward and we've gonna be working hard in my other area so hopefully we see some results there. Its been great in Rio Bravo and have learned alot, i have also seen a huge change in myself of course a good change right :) anyway also we found a less active member that works in a used clothing department or something like that but she brought a TON of ties for us :) theyre mostly all work ties for windy dusty days but hey ties are ties :) thats pretty much it this week asta la otra!
-Elder Allen

Wow...

So this week was pretty much the hardest one i have had so far, we had 2 people with baptismal dates but 1 doesnt want to continue and the other one was the guy that speaks english however he took off south after the drug cartels kidnapped his wife. it was a bad deal, i was glad to be able to help him in what ways i could however. we did more knocking on doors i have ever done my whole mission with out eeing any of the fruits we would like to, however we are seeing a lot of progress in nuevo progresso with the investigator we are teaching there :) lots of interest, and helps us see that there really are peopl who want to learn still :) the problem isnt people who dont want anything but people who are convinced the church where they are is the true one, its frustrating but we continue onward anyway. D&C 61: 29-31 i think helped alot.

From Mexico, but just barely, really i saw the states this week.

Elder Allen

Highlight of the week: Puppy in the fridge! 10/10/11

Hola Todos!,

Entonces.... this week we visited lots of less active members and went everywhere on foot, trying to find people that will eventually be baptised. conclusion, about 20 less activ members in sacrament meeting and nobody progressing towards baptism, in our area at least... Nuevo progresso, a town about 20 minutes away from Rio Bravo before there were sister missionaries there but they were taken out and the area was closed, however there are 2 investigatores there that want to be baptised, so the zone leaders picked us to go teach them so they can be baptised. there was some confusion there because its part of the other district but its all good, it was interesting to go to a different town to teach someone then leave.... also we saw the border. it was crazy to see the difference in just the roads between mexico and america. i had forgotten that there was a difference but there is. that is basically all that happened this week. we did lots of talking to people in the streets and knocking doors oh and we had splitz with the zone leaders again, it was wierd to speak english all day with Elder Ott, actually we dont speak english anymore. we speak in spanglish, there are phrases that just dont translate sometimes. scripture most used this week: 3 Nephi 14:5, sad but true.

Conferencia General 10/3/11

"Hello!"..... End Quote.

This week was great, loved general conference and all the spiritual blessings it has given us, we all learned differnet things but we all learned what god wanted us to learn, because even though the speaker could be talking about how to raise a girl we could be recieveing revealation about how we can help our co-worker come closer to the gospel. That is Beautiful.

I was suprised by all the references to the book of mormon and even a few to Lehi´s Dream because the mission President has initiated a project in the mission where we share the Dream of Lehi with the members of the church, inviting them to close their eyes and imagine themselves in the place of Lehi, and when they do this there is a part where Lehi looks for his Loved ones, the members will see the face of a Loved one who has been prepared to hear the Gospel. Its been a huge success, Lehis Dream can teach us all an outstanding amount of things you can´t possibly put it into one little e-mail.

Also I've had a cold sore or 2 since last monday and its not getting anybetter, robbing me of my sleep , most importantly. anyone have any advice of how to get rid of them?

There is a truth i have always believed in but am just now understanding, there are only 2 churches in this world. the church of God and the Church of the Devil. The talks this week have been a huge evidence of this to me. The doctrine of the Nehors is running rampant, and the only way we can defend ourselves is through studying the Book of Mormon. 

Anyway short on time this week hope to write more next week, Love you All!

-Elder Paden W Allen

P.S. the lizard is one of many house pests we have here, on top of rats, flies, cockroaches, mosquitos and dogs we also have Lizards...

Where did the week go exactly? 9/26/2011

Hello Everyone!

This week went by way too fast for my liking, lots of crazy stuff happened. Tuesday we talked to a guy who claimed that the leader of his church was the only true apostale..... he also told me prophets were an open book you could never know what they were going to say,this was in the middle of lots of random scriptures that didnt make sense to anyone involved in the conversation, "i just said great lets see a scripture about that" he stared at me for a second and started flipping randomly through a bible, that he pulled out of who knows where, and i said "maybe amos 3:7 would help you." he read it (look it up in the Bible) and then quickly changed the subject. Point is: there will be many false prophets and many false christs in these the latter days, we have to stay glued to scripture study and prayer and temple attendance in order to not get confused in the teachings of men, This is the true church, the restored gospel on the earth, and the only church with the authority necessary to act in the name of God. so put on the armor of God (Ephesians) and we will be strong and the devil with his whore over all the waters (1 nephi 11-14) will have no power against us, over us, under us whatever! God is on our side :) also we had a family home evening with the branch, it was pretty much a testimony meeting, i shared my testimony in English... There wasnt a person there thatdidnt understand me, even the man who didnt know what hello meant. It was a great expirience. It really doesnt matter what we say or what language we say it in, when the spirit is there, they who also feel it will understand. we found a man who speaks better english than spanish, we.... well i am teaching him in english, he is the most interested person i have met while i have been here. Its a reall change teaching someone who has been thouroghly (however you spell that, spell check is in spanish so.....) prepared by the lord. :) i also had a really good Split with Elder Rodriguez from Puerto Rico, I have known him most of my mission, he was my Zone Leader half the time in my other area and is my Zone Leader here, I learned alot from him and he helped me get even more excited to get work done! he is 20 months in and not anywhere near trunky, scared to death of going home actually... he doesnt know what hes going to do to get a girlfriend, he has gained a little bit of weight in the mission lol. Also, last story, I had a really nice black and gold watch that i bought in Monterrey, it was broke for the longest time, but i fixed it saturday night and wore it to church on sunday. we have been battling with unity in the branch and i was pondering how to get it done, i then remembered something i heard once: sacrificing and showing love for others brings people together. just then the ward mission leader  showed me a scripture, "... ask and you shall recieve, knock and it shall be given unto you..." he put the word watch in place of it, and i said you know what, he is struggling with everything hes going through, and i have my watch i wear normally, so i gave it to him, and i felt good about it.

T-T-Thats all folks, 

Elder Paden W Allen

New Beggining Necessary 9/19/2011

This week  was not my favorite although mexican independence day is a huge party. and one things mexicans know how to do is party! they had a district independence day party, they had dances skits songs food and a dance afterwards for the youth it was great!! There were rediculous amounts of people there, if we could just get them all to church on sunday........ this week we had  0 success, we looked for people to the point where i dreampt about knocking on doors... not that fun, we should be getting some references this week from a few of the members in the branch. we are also going to change which part of our area we do most of our work, because where we are right now obviously isnt working all that great. Although we did find one guy who plays pretty much every musical instrument on the face of the planet!! He would be someone the members would be dying to have in the chapel as right now we dont have anyone who knows how to play the piano! hopefully he follows through, him and his family...

Anyway thats the weekly update this week, Talk to you all next week

Elder Paden W Allen

Hello All!

This week was a killer. I spent all day tuesday and wednesday with food poisoning thanks to some bad bacon that I ate tuesday morning. it wasnt fun and i lost 7 pounds. (not complaining.) i was starving on thursday though, since i ate literally nothing the first half of the week. We dropped lots of the investigators we had either they didnt want anything anymore or they were never home. this next week will involve lots of door knocking. Fun..... we did a service project for a less active member and found 2 tarantulas one with an egg sack, i attatched a photo. its very patriotic this time of year and i bought a mexican flag the guy gave me a good deal and i bought the biggest one he had. Dont know what got into me but it looks good on our wall :) I also attatched a photo of the canal that runs past our house. It ALWAYS stinks and makes it hard to sleep at times. there are turtles in it though, its kinda cool they climb up on the tires and sun bathe. last week we also saw the head of a small crocodile. that was interesting! this week a young man from the branch gave us a really good reference. we found a girl and her mom practacly ready to be baptised the girl can get baptised the fastest in 2 weeks the mom however has to get married first :( Literally NOONE is married here! its frustrating as its a requirement to be baptised if you are living with someone you have to be married to them but about 1/10 couples are married. and they usually already have religion and want nothing to do with us. Thats this weeks update. transfers came and went without effecting us. 6 more weeks of working hard with Elder Cardona.

With Love,

Elder Allen

Caloròn

Ok so it rained just enough to make things muddy here, and just enough so that when the sun came out it raised all the water into the  air making things about 2X as humid... even hotter. the 40 days of hottness supposedly ended on the 24th of august... but its even hotter now!! things are supposed to be cooling off!! anyway, now that im done complaining about the heat, this week was good, a little slow but that happens at times. we knocked on a lot of doors this week. the majority of the people are never home or when we find them at home its `a once in a lifetime opportunity cause they are NEVER home` supposedly. i dont know how we ALWAYS find people in this 1 time that they are home. (if you didn`t catch the sarcasm there, it was intended) I bought a really nice and big mexican flag this week as mexican independence day is approaching, i have a picture but my camera is dead and i dont have the new charger i picked up with me. anyway this week we had 2 people in church, Javier and hios daughter maleni, we teach the whole family but they are a little scared of commitment. i have little miniature less extreme Golipoki expiriences when we go to their house cause javier keeps asking me if im ready to marry his daughter yet :/, thats a bit annoying. But they went to an activity during the week, where a small dance was held and then went to a party at a members house where there was more dancing, they come from a religion where their pastor said `Dancing = Bad` that was fun, we had another investigator that had the same question, so we shared Ecc. 4:3  with them, Javier and his family said ok, cool. The other investigator said `well your bible is different than mine i dont believe you` i looked at her and said, `actually this is your bible, i forgot mine so i grabbed yours` oops, she just wanted to contend with us anyway. so we`re not going to go visit her again. anyway, thats the part most exciting about this week, Love you all! Talk to you next week!

-Elder Allen 

crash week 8/29/2011

this week i crashed about 5 times on the bike, not cool. it rained alot turning everything into smelly mud, unfortunately i crashed in every puddle i could. we found 13 new peopleto teach and pretty much dropped all the investigators that we did have and we had interviews with the pres. very exciting, it got me even more involved in the work, my companions bike broke yesterday and we had to walk the 5 miles back home it was great! Not.... thats pretty much all that happened this week, although we did find one guy that said he was ready to be baptised when he lived in the states but got deported... oops. good thing we found him though :) thats this weeks update, love you all talk to you next week!

-Elder Allen

Crazy Week-8/22/2011

OK so this week was kinda crazy,

My companion is DL so he had to go to Monterrey for a leadership conference, basically of 8 missionaries there are 3 of us with 0 responsiblity, but ne had to go to finish his visa, His name is Elder Reddish from Pocatello, tall kid with cleft pallet, its cool to know another gringo who isn´t from utah or california, anyway so it was me and Elder Santamaria from Puebla Mexico, the rest of the elders were at the conference, we just worked in the whole city for 2 days as we were the only 2 here.

Oh about a week ago i had a really bad pimple on my face or actually i thought it was a pimple... turns out it was a skin infection that you get from being too hot too long and in the sun alot, i had 15 sores on my whole body and they put my on some meds that are fixing me up real good, i still have to missive sore on my face though, its about the size of a quarter today, i´m just glad it shrunk last night :). anyway... i have realized this week just how much i have changed, before my mission when i was in church i was pretty much just another body... however. now when i´m there i really know the signifigance of it all, and i really appreciate the sacrafice the savior has done for us. i really look forward to sunday as a spiritual renovation its way cool as well, i´m still a goof as normal but when i have a responsibility i get it done better faster and while having fun :), anyway thats this week in a nut shell, oh also there is a member here named Humberto Medrano, he is a member who goes to the states every 3 or 4 days :) he told me that to send packages to his p.o. box in texas would be quicker and easier for everyone. here´s his address:

 

P.O. Box 71

Los Indios, TX 78567-0071

 

While i´m here in this area if you could send stuff to that address it would be really nice (=.

 

With Love,

Elder Allen

20 years...oops feels like 10 - 8/15/2011

OK so this week we did alot, we got work done! it was difficult to get people to church, only 2 investigatores came to church, 2 out of 16, oops, not one of them in church has a baptismal date, we have 10 people with dates and they didn´t go it was frustrating, thank you all for your Birthday wishes I feel like a kid still don´t worry, doubt i will ever get over that. i was using a bike that was uh, um forgot how to say this in english.... Prestado? oh lent! i was using a borrowed bike until i could get my own, i found one for 623 pesos about 55 bucks or something like that. I miss my other area but i´m making friends here as well, i like being on a bike alot more, you don´t waste nearly as much time traveling when your on a bike, that and my feet are not nearly as tired at the end of the day, the picture attatched is the last photo taking in my other area, the battery on my camera is dead and i need to buy another charger as i lost the one i had..... however, we are teaching lots of different types of people right now, last week we were in soriana, mexican version of walmart, and this guy came up to us and got mad at us cause my companion had talked to him in the street about a month ago, they wrote down his address and then never went by, so we went by this week, family of 5 their daughter has just had a child, their names are: javier sr.; apolinar, Maleni, Laura, and Javier jr. they are fairly interested, the parents not so much, but Laura with the baby has alot of intrest in the church, she´s 18 just had a baby 2 weeks ago and her ¨husband¨, as she calls him, is in prison in the states, he got picked up by immagration, but they aren´t married, nobody here is married it makes it difficult to baptize, as you have to be married to be baptized in the church, you just can´t be living with someone which is literally what EVERYONE does here in Rio Bravo. its frustrating, hopefully she responds well when we teach them the law of chastity, chances are that even the parents aren´t married, i´ve seen homes where 5 generations are all living in the same house and not 1 couple is married.... Anyway, this week was good, and hard at the same time. Thanks everyone for the happy birthday wishes again!

Love you all,

Elder Allen

New Area 8/8/2011

Hello Everyone,

So i now go around averywhere on a bike, the people here aren´t as used to seeing a blonde hair blue eyed man as the people in monterrey were. there have been many people ask me if i dye my hair, wear contacts or come up and pull on my arm hair to see if it really exsists :) It does don´t worry :) Haha i think its funny. I can almost see the states from here! HA Just kidding, but really i´ve seen more texas license plates here that i did while i was in texas! Its actually safer here than where i was in the city, to answer a few questions, yes i´m safe and well protected.:)

My companion is from guadajuato, a state in mexican more to the south, he´s a funny guy, Its alot more humid here than it was in Monterrey, i broke out with a rash because my skin wasn´t used to it. also its alot hotter here, somehow, i got a sunburn on my neck and back, wierd, considering i haven´t been outside without a shirt in about a year or so.

The church here is very small, we live in a small apartment above the house of the branch president, also the area is more rural, there are random farms everywhere, which i am more used to :) also at night its a little bit colder, :) that means i will actually be able to sleep! ha! the people here are also a little more humble and open, and they don´t live to work like the people in the city do, so its nicer to try and get appointments etc., for example we have to count numbers the normal number of lession taught with a member present that i had in monterrey was about 4 or 5 a week, here in one week we had 15..... its almost like vacation! just kidding, i think i will enjoy the work here, i just have to do that, work. hopefullywe see lots of success here in Monte Real.

Con Cariño,

Elder Paden Allen

transfers 8/1/2011

Friends and Familia,

This week was ok, we were going to have a baptism on saturday but he came out of the interview and said he was too nervous and wanted to wait a week, we had the font filled up and everything, i was disappointed i wouldnt be able to see him baptised but at least he still wants to do it, the next day he told us he just got super scared, which is understandable, he{s 78.. he has reason to be scared of water and lots of movement. Tomorrow i am leaving Guadalupe and Nuevo leon and i am being transfered to Rio Bravo tamulipas, border town, my companion will be Elder Cardona, hes mexican, that alone makes me happy, that means my spanish will get a ton better! Cant believe its august already, time flies when your having fun i guess. I am very nervous to leave the area i am in, its the only place in mexico i{ve stayed in for an extended period of time, but at the same time im ready for a change, i went around and said goodbye to a few members, so far its not as cool as when my other companion left, everyone cried when he left, when they say goodbyeto me they just say ok see ya later, :/ whatever haha

Anyway thats about all that happened this week.

With Love,

Elder Allen

Promised Blessings 7/25/2011

Ok so this week was a killer! I´m going to start at the begining, we are teaching a 78 year old man who doesn´t know how to read. at first he just listened to us cause he was catholic and thats what catholics do, the (pretend) to listen. unfortunately he went for his kids weddings and thats it, so he didn´t get the memo and actually listened :) that was about a month ago. he´s been to church 3 sundays in a row and wants to be baptised, he´s even learning to read where before he had no desire to do so! its a very great transformation. his name is ruben, i´m hoping he will be baptised before i get transfered, transfers are coming up next sunday, and i will probably be leaving this area as i have been here for 5 months going on 6... so this week we contacted a lady in the street, we shared our message with her, but as soon as my companion mentioned the book of mormon she began to deny it was true, we bore our testimonies, and she denied our testimonies, she told us we needed to get our testimonies from God, not man, we bore our testimonies about how we knew it was true, through the holy ghost, she denied our testimonies again, we were naturally a little upset, but we just kept turning the other cheek, finally after she denied our testimonies the third time i raised my voice, (not a lot) and i testified about everything, my companion read a scripture to her with nothing else to say, it was a powerful expirience to feel the spirit prosephy powerfully through me, and even further strengthened my testimony.  Also there was a less active member who wasn´t attending because he is always tired from work, i promised him in the man of Christ that he would not be tired anymore if he made the sacrafice, my companion then repromised the blessing, i could feel the spirit so strongly that my skin was prickling and everyone in the room had tears in there eyes, i know this is the true gospel. Don´t ever forget it!
With Love,
-Elder Paden W Allen

This Week 7/18/2011

This week went well, we did lots of teaching, nothing too exciting, we did find lots of rude people however, we have found pure old people to teach... no kidding the youngest one is 70.... yeah. anyway, last week after we wrote i got my packages thanks everyone! the jerky lasted me the week haha great to have and american taste in my mouth again!! the ties were awesome! although i´ll never actually wear them cause i don´t want them ruined (they are REALLY nice) this week was actually a little boring, not alot of action, although the average temperature here is about 120. we´re about 4 days into the canicula....canicula is a name of a time of the year, (cuh-ni-coo-luh) its 40 days of stale humid hottness.. it happens every year across northern mexico grandma could probably explain it to you. looks kinda like dracula and its just as blood sucking, its really hot! 90 doesn´t feel hot anymore, i´m scared for idaho weather again.
talk to you next week,
Elder Allen

Another Week In The Mish 7/11/11

OK so this week was fairly good. we did lots of teaching. lots, which is nice, it means less contacting, which isn´t the most effective thing you can do as a missionary, this week we found a kid who is 17 and he had 2 questions, how do i find the true church and how do i become clean from my sins, as a missionary all you do when that happens is smile and say ``we can help you with that`` it was way cool, first person i`ve found that actually wanted to know those things. we were going to have a baptism this week, a 17 year old girl we were teaching that wanted to be baptised, but when she talked to her parents they decided no and so she couldn´t get it done, maybe in the future, but as of right now, there isn´t much else we can do for her, her parents told her to wait until she´s 18, which is next june... we had an expirience that was pretty awesome and very humbling. yesterday (sunday) we ate with a really old widow, everyday we eat with a different sister from the ward. lately we have been struggling to eat, the sisters of the ward just don´t seem to want to feed the missionaries, so we eat with the same families every week, thats a fairly heavy load for a family, the widow woman has been telling them to sign her up for about a month now, well they finally did. the woman literally has nothing. she rents a 1 room house that is falling down around her, she sits next to a radio alone all day long, every day, she´s a convert to the church as of 2 years ago. she put a little night stand and 2 cinder blocks in the hallway outside her room so that we could have a place to eat, she then placed every scrap of food she had in the house on our plates. she insisted that we eat it all. so we did, it was very humbling, to see someone who had very little give everything she could to us made me feel very grateful.  She will be very blessed for the sacrifice she made to feed the missionaries. Love you all, talk to you next week.
-Elder Paden Allen

6/27/2011

yeah time flies here so i forgot to say happy b-day to mom the last week but happy belated birthday anyway :)

ok so this week we had the opportunity to listen to Elder Johnson, the area 70 of mexico from the 1st quarom of the 70 it was way cool he taught us lots and helped us learn how to help our investigators better, it was way good, anyway, we also had a special meeting where we got to bring investigators to the actual meeting with us, it was way good and the spirit was rediculously strong! we brought an investigator named emilio with us and he learned alot fromn the question and answer session we had during the meeting. also we had a baptism this week of the son of a less active woman, his name is magdiel and he is 12, we also have another baptism planned for thursday i´m excited, Also i´ve been asked to share an expirience or 2 i have had that may have challenged my testimony, really i haven´t had one yet, i have observed things happening in the lives of others and i see just how blessed i really am! i have strengthened my testimony in this way and haven´t really had an expirience where i have stumbled in my faith yet, i don´t doubt it will happen but as for now nothing can shake my testimony. Thanks to everyone, love you all!

-Elder Allen

p.s i´ll include pictures of the baptisms next week the pc i´m using this week won´t let me do it.

6/20/2011

another transfer in Tacubaya

So i get to stay in my current area for another transfer, which is good, my first 6 months will be spend in the same stretch of city! my Comp stays the same and everything. This last week we expirience 0 success, which happens alot, my comp says he has never really had alot of success in the mssion, which happens to some people. The first picture is our front room, with elder osorio at the desk, elder bartels with the light saber, and elder sinchi getting whacked :) the other is me looking out over our area from the top. its a really long climb! we had splitz with the district leader and splitz with the zone leaders too this week which was fun and not so fun just cause of all the travel. unfortunately i learned that i now weight a little less than 180 lbs... oops, ha! but i started eating less and i´m already dropping, thats what happens i guess when your a missionary in mexico, the food is very very fattening here, i´ll probably lose it all when i get back home. anyway thats pretty much it athough we are teaching a kid named pedro who is the son of a catholic minister, we´ll see how it plays out. hopefully it goes well.
Anyway love you all and talk to you next week!
-Elder Allen

 

6/13/2011

Exito! Translation: Success! It gets confusing when talking about an exit ramp....... :)

Ok so this week we finally got someone new to church, which is a miraclke cause we didn{t even think the guy would come.. but he did, and 15 minutes early and we were counting our blessings the whole 15 :) we were going to baptise a kid of 12 years this week but he was out of town and got stuck there all day fri, sat, and sun. so he wasn{t baptised but this week he will be :) the 15th is my 6 month mark, crazy how fast its gone!  the 20th we have comp change again, we will see what goes down, i{m getting scared i will be changed to a different area i have like 4 months in this part of the city, and its really wierdly shaped here... I had splits this week, and we will be having more splits the week thats comes ( please excuse all spanglish...) and thats pretty much it i forgot my camera this week so no pictures, sorry, we started teaching a pair of twins this week, their mom is a member of 3 years, but she has never shared anything but a book of mormon with either of them, so we started teaching them and they have lost of interest in the church! but they are really the only ones that are golden that we have found, anyway gtg love you all!!

-Elder Paden W Allen

6/6/2011

OK so the little girl that got baptised this week is Lauren, she walked into the chapel dancing and thriving with excitment, she is the daughter of a less active member, we had to teach her so she could qualify to be baptised since she is 9. the second picture is me duplicating what me dad used to do when i was a kid. >Elder Bartels and i were talking about all the retarded stupid things are dads would do to make us laugh and i demonstrated this one to my companion, i think its a monster he was usually saying AHHH while doing this. haha anyway, this week we worked our guts out, found out i{m getting fat which made me glad im hiking the mountain everyday. of course like 20 year old guys we decided we would go up to the vary last house in our area and knock on the door, which we did. and of course we got an appointment there which we regretted the next couple days cause now we have to go there ALOT!! We have seen alot of challenges this week, both on us and on our investigators, it really isn{t the funnest thing in the world, but whatev, we{re here preaching the gospel and thats that. My companion got his other 2 teeth cut out today which makes everyones life more complicated. I got the wire retainer removed from behind my bottom teeth because it broke when i was elbowed in the face by another elder in a soccer game a couple weeks ago, the dentist told me the wire was doing more damage than help cause my mouth had grown since it was put in so it was pushing all my teeth together, it feels wierd to feel my teeth again. i also attatch a picture of a really big milapede we found while we were walking home one night, we also have lots of cockroaches here and there are some really big ones here.thats pretty much all i{m glad to have heard from everyone! have fun! oh and the average temp. this week was 41C.

Love you all,

Elder Allen

5/31/2011

Ok so to first adress a few of the things that i got in family e-mails. Jacob and every other youth in the valley will continue to hug the edge of the road as long as the teacher remains, unfortunately we learn lots of bad habits when we should  learn good ones. Also I have recieved a few e-mails where expiriences with jehova´s witnesses have been mentioned... You all have NO IDEA! i wish i could have talked to the missionary that came to the house and talked with grandma, they are good people and do what they think is right but unfortunately they are very lost. They don´t even believe that christ was resurected. They also try to tell us we are neglecting tons of commandments, which are either already completed with the sacrifice of Christ or are not done publicly, they gather lots of knowledge, but with out the holy ghost to dictate truth from falsities they get confused very quickly, and if they don´t get the chance to listen in this life well hopefully they do in the next, i don´t doubt it, they´re good people for the most part. Actually last night i talked with a taxi driver who is a missionary for the Jehova witness church (i don´t know exactly what their name is in english) it was a very civilized conversation, whereas normally, testigos will jump down your throat and not give you a chance to talk, but we had the oportunity to listen to what he was sharing with the people, and his desires are very similar to ours, he then listened intently as we shared the story of Joseph Smith. It was a good expirience, many missionaries are rude with testigos, i´ve always tried my hardest to be as nice as possible and i´m starting to see that its working, the witness missionaries that walk in our part of monterrey now start to smile and wave when they see us, where before they werent the friendliest people. I want to help them so that their labors are valid after this life, right now their desires are wonderful, but they are  just lost.anyway, hold on a second while i hop down off my soap box...

Ok so this week we accomplished almost nothing, my companion got two of his wisdom teeth out, so we stayed in the house cause he couldn´t go out in the heat. We changed houses this week before he got them out, so we set up the house the first half of the first day, then the land lord came over with paint, so we moved everything and painted the house. it looks tonz better. we also have air conditioning now :) :) :) :) its AMAZING. I forgot what it was like to be in an air conditioned room. we did have a baptism this week which was awesome, the guy is from texas and naturally speaks englsh a bit better than spanish so we got to teach him in spanglish. it was cool to see him progress and make the necessary changes in his life. he about killed hermano Lozano (who baptised him) because he is very scared of water, after he went under he reached up and started flailing his fists, but he´s the happiest guy i´ve ever seen, (even though he´s convinced he almost drowned.

Anyway, thats all for this week ttyal. Love you all!

-Elder PadenAllen

5/23/2011

Ok first off no reactions etc to the ant bites, i had zit looking things for about a day but after i popped them they were gone i don´t have a mark on me.

My companion and I get alon great, alot better than i got along with my other companion. I can actually be myself with out making my comp. mad. which is awesome. I was with my new companion during the expirience last sunday. This week sucked. we didn´t get a whole lot of teaching in. we couldn´t find anyone new to teach. bt we were working on one side of the area, but we couldn´t find anybody whatsoever. everytime we switched over to the other side we found someone new who actually really had some interest in our message. it was really cool. we are now going to focus in the other half of the area. the side i don´t know very well because we never go there. its a little more sketchy, which means there are more drunk guys... lol. anyway. We should be having more success there. My companion has to go to the dentist this thursday to get his wisdom teeth removed. don´t know hy he still has them but whatever ha! Thats pretty much all thats new here Love you all!

 

-Elder Paden W Allen

5/16/2011

Paden had a week last week where he felt the power of the adversary.  It is to personal to share with the world.  To paraphrase, one of the new converts is truly an asset to the gospel and Satan doesn't want to loose him.  Paden is ok and he is doing well.  I have attached his testimony.  Shelly



This expirience has really affirmed in my mind the power of the adversary, it also was yet another testimony to me of the power of God. It wasn´t as exciting to be attack by an evil spirit as i thought it would be (movies lie) it was after all only ants, but still, it made me realize satan does have power in this world and that salvation is nothing to mess around with. It also helped me to understand that even though the devil has the power to make ants attack me he has nothing in comparison to god, who has the power over everything. I know that i´m supposed to be here otherwise the adversary wouldn´t have tried to drive me away as he did, i know the power of God is real and that if we are doing as we are supposed to we will be ok in the life and in the next. I Love you all, until next week:

Elder Allen

P.S. Remember to say your prayers.

5/9/2011

OK so those of you who don´t already know the story the guy my companion got angry at came to the baptism we had this sunday, he told us he wants to be baptised. Wow, what a miracle, from anti-mormon to baptize me in 2 months and with no help from us whatsoever, he has to quit smoking however. We also baptized the last member of the Aguilar Luévanos family, his name is Carlos Ivan, and he´s 16. but that means if they do everything lke they are supposed to i will be able to see them sealed in the temple a little over a year from now, his friend Fransisco baptized him. Also tomorrow is transfers I will be getting a new companion, Elder Bertels from California, usual a white guy here only has an average of one other white companion and i have never had anything else, its a little bit wierd but whatever.  I think thats pretty much it for this week, we did lots of knocking and sweating, thats always my favorite. It was good to talk to everyone in the fam. Congrats to Devin and katy, (I´m trusting mom to fix any spelling errors on names btw... lol) Also i promised mom i would describe the real situation down here, I´ve never seen anything, but its not uncommon to hear sirens or see a helicoptor buzzing really low. However the Lord protects his servants and something out of the ordinary has happened to put us out of harms way every time something would have happened, someone wasn´t home, we decide to go a different way, someone tlks to us on the street and delays us etc. but we are well protected here Love you all :) Talk to you next week.

 

-Elder Allen

5/2/2011

OK so this week was cool, mom, before i forget i need the tres leches recipe you hve there is a lady in the ward here that would like to know how to do it also the information for phone calls is at the end of this letter. You´ll need a phone card.

We are in the preocess of changing our house, we are moving into a brand new one that is always cool because it has air conditioning HAHA thats not common for missionaries houses here. and guess how hot it was this week. yeah 116.5 degrees on tuesday. woot.. but right now its about 50.... don´t ask me its just as wierd as utah/Idaho weather here, it just involves alot more hot sun.... although the humidity keeps you from frying like you do there where its super dry. i´ve not touched my sunscreen and haven´t had a single problem. anyway, the house its 3 rooms and pretty much whatever else we want the guy didn´t even want to charge us rent he was just going to give the house to us. its way nice in comparison to what we have now. the guy´s name is Efraín and he´s an investigator. he tried to give us his car and offered us his housemaid to clean the house every 2 days as well... wow! he´s a way cool guy, he told us if anyone else wanted it then of course he wouldn´t do it, but for us, he´d give us the shirt off his own back, which is really cool, we had to talk him into letting us pay lol.

Anyway, we had 3 Baptisms this week, Mario Eduardo Selatiel Salazar Gámez, (13), Eusebio de Jésus Aguilar Luévanos (23), and Alan Daniel Aguilar Luévanos (13) 2 of the sons of Antolín the last one will be baptised next week :) he is the tall one in the blue shirt. This week way way cool. Daniela has trouble with her family but we fasted to have her family´s hearts softened about a month ago and this week her sister and brother in law told her they would support her in her desicion to be baptised, we just have to get her mom to let her go to church... she´s 23 she should be able to but still lives with her mom so.....

ok the information for the phone calls is:

Sunday the 8th,

You will call me at 5:00 PM your time the number is:  (I left this off-Shelly)

Love you all!

Elder Allen

4/25/2010

Things are going great here in Mexico, We have a couple more baptisms planned. to answer a few questions:

 

The most suprising thing here is that the people don´t flush their toilet paper down the toilet, they drop it on the floor and clean it up later or they have a trash next to the toilet but its rare. they also have cults here that use the indian magic to communicate with their ancestory and heal the sick and afflicted blah blah blah. yeah the whole nine yards, like everything there are extremists that go crazy with the rights and what not (haven´t seen that luckily, just heard about it.) and there are the ones that just use crazy herbs and stuff. although the cult in our area is struggling seeing that their Witchdoctor has had a change of heart and got Baptised by the Mormon missionaries ;) haha :) kind of interesting didn´t know about it until now but it seems to be playing out ok.

 

I´ve only had one companion so far, he´s from Utah, and he´s every bit opposite of me, which works out cause it has to make us more understanding of the other, he tells me i´m his favorite Companion :) i feel lucky. All his other companions have been mexicans that hate Gringos... that doesn´t work out to well if your a mexican and have a gringo companion....

The people of Mexico have an outstanding amount of faith, at times i see faith being excersized by an investigator and it makes my faith feel rather small... but thats ok! thats kinda the point... right?

 

Its hot and muggy here still. this week its variated between 90-85 at night it the normal 107-110 during the day.... yeah...

 

We get the Liahona here in English and Spanish although we don´t really have time to read it a whole lot.....

 

Happy Easter everyone! i wish i could have celebrated here but instead they celebrate the cruzification of Christ and parade a man roped up on a cross in the streets, so i couldn´t really join the locals in celebrating. Its been interesting though. Jose Angel was confirmed yesterday, my prayers have been answered :) we had a hard time with him all week cause he is very stuck in his catholic ways seeing as his dad is the minister and all... wierd we baptised the ministers son and the Witchdoctor of the area here.... oh and a couple normal people too lol jk its been fun.´

 

My companion got sick while we were at a members house and we were told to remain inside out of the sun so we did so and we got to watch Charly, its a church related movie about 2 people that get married and then she dies from cancer. very sad. but oh so good.

 

Other than that this week has been fairly interesting. every time the members see us they tell us to carry around an umbrella to avoid gettting tan cause everyone here likes being as light as they can, and every time we tell them we can´t so we just keep getting darker.

 

Love you all, Happy Easter

Elder Allen

 

P.s.- still don´t know whats going down with mothers day stuff, should find out next week. also if you want to put money in my account i need to buy socks and buy a new inhaler. the mission doesn´t pay for that also i´m putting together a couple packages, its about 30.00 to send a package from here. woot. :) Thanks -Paden

oh and Happy B-day to Emmett. :)

4/18/2010

OK so this week was a killer, José Angel disappeared on sunday and we have no idea where he went, so he still hasn´t been confirmed. Also, Daniela, who is the first person that actually acted interested when i knocked on her door, her family decided that she had to be catholic or she couldn´t be part of their family. Its very sad. they locked her out saturday because she was talking to us. But then sunday they let us in for about 5 minutes, only cause we were helping however. We are going to be moving our house soon. Right now we live on a fairly large street but we will be moving to a way nicer house :) I´ll get to enjoy it, however my companion will not. We had 14 lessons with a member present. which is so not normal, the goal for right now is 8. But saturday was our day of Miracles. We didn´t make it to 1/2 the appointments we had set but we did however help Daniela out alot. We hadn´t talked to her in forever because of her family trouble and she is also working through a divorce. but we knocked on her door and she came to the door very animatedly because she had prayed the night before to have us knock on her door and that we wpould be able to ake her to the chapel to show it to her. We had both felt inspired to knock on her door even though it wasn´t the plan. the problem was that they changed to keys to the chapel and they still haven´t gotten us a copy, and we were very far away with not alot of tiime. So we made a few calls and we found a member with a car easy, we had to get ahold of some other elders with the keys however and they had to make a sacrifice in order to open the chapel for us. it was way cool how even though there was no possible way we were going to be able to do that, and it wasn´t anywhere close to being planned, everything came together just right in order for us to have that lesson with her. When she got back she had been locked out and her family said if she wanted to talk with us then she couldn´t live there anymore and that she wasn´t loved anymore. yeah it was bad. she came into the house, where we were having a lesson, crying, and had to leave again to see what her husband wanted, but when she came back she was determined and dead set in taking the path that we were teaching her. it was way cool. they didn´t let her go to church the next day but thats just to try our faith as missionaries and since the last time we taught her which was the 30th of march she had read half of the book of mormon. she didn´t understand most of it but the fact that she is reading is amazing.

We went to the center of monterrey this morning to find some special shoes for my companion. it was a waste of time but at least we got to see the infamous statues. i was excited to take a picture of the statue of life cause everyone always talks about it but i realized when  saw it that its only because its a giant fountain with lots of naked statues, greek style. which its confusing why they have posiedon in the middle of monterrey but thats ok...

Thats about it but talk to you all next week!

Love,

Elder Allen

P.S. Mom, did you all ever find that missing disks from the movies levi lent to me while i was there? if not i still have to replace those.