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