Family and Friends,

this week was a tough one with appointments falling through and lots of fruitless efforts searching old investigators. We prayed for a miracle all week, and when Sunday came,  8  less active families attended and 5 investigators, between the two areas, and the chapel was filled, it was very spiritual and we found a man named Richard Painter, was an old reference had never taught because he was never there for the appointments but Sunday we called him and he attended church, and the choir activity with his wife that evening. He is really excited!He will be a new member soon I think. T´was a perfect way to end the week. and the mission. Love you all! see you friday!

Hello Everybody,

This week we found lots of people to teach, we´re strating to see the fruits of our labors AT LAST!!! but nobody came top church for problems such as work complications, familiy violence, and sicknesses. such as phantom limbs hurting... yeah it was a good week overall, i feel great and laugh when people make dead man jokes, cause they really are kinda funny but i sometimes feel that they are making them to someone else cause i feel that i will always be Elder Allen.... i´ll have a harsh reality check in about 12 days I believe. I had to explain how to prepare for a mission using my own expiriences and i realized i have been prepared for the last 21 years to be such..... wow.... thats about it though, dont judge my spelling as there isnt an english spell check on a spanish computer so EVERY SINGLE WORD HAS A NICE RED LINE UNDER IT lol love you all!!

hey yall,

so this week was a long one where we had lots to do with little time to do it. we are struggling to find new investigators, we finally get used to something then we our hands tied even more and more which is normal and just another trial, but one ting that is very common here in monterrey is that the man doesnt get home untill 9 at night... daily, but now we have the same rule as Elder Dillon Allen we have to have a thrid person with us to visit the single sisters or sisters that happen to be all by themselves. this has cut all key indicators in half or more. also things are hot then cold all the time! the weather cant make up its mind!! i am all sorts of excited with the new activities we are trying out with the memebers so that they can get even more involved in the work of the lord. it would appear that it is working, we contacted several refferals this week and next week we have appointments with them, although it was rather indirect i hope we can have success in this way. i am working hard to leave the area better than i found it cause itll be horrible for the new elder that gets here if there isnt anything! just kickin it here in the sticks! love you all! 

Hey peeps,

so this week it was cold rainy, muddy and awesome, one i havent seen the sun in a week :) 2 we found new people to teach which is something we struggle with here in this area. i am sick of dead man jokes and practically pass out at night. its never been so hard to get up at six thirty. i included a photo of the bucket brigade, as the drain in the baptismal font doesnt work well.... we haul it out in buckets and throw it anywhere there is a drain elsewhere, toilets, sinks, castodian drainage etc.... it took us half an hour which is really good cause with only 2 of us it takes like an hour and a half. sorry its short this week but i dont have alot of time sorry! Love you all!

Hey everyone,

Sorry the letter is SUPER short this week cause i have been not only been fighting with the PCs i have been on but i am fixing stuff up for school, which takes up time, unfortunately. This week we did lots of stuff, Laid cement, we are now professional cooks. race runners and lesson teachers. it was a slow week but i did enjoy the work we did. everyone keeps telling me i smell dead(trunky). but they tell me to keep working because at least i dont look like it still. i included a pic of the cement laying crew, we tore it up cuttin weeds with machetes and shovels, leveling out the members back yard and laying the cement patio. sorry its short and all but g2g sorry all.

with love,

Hello,

So i thought last week was bad. the few investigators we had left abandoned us this week. we have to start from scratch.. again. transfers left my district exactly the same. nothing really new though. the only plus is one of out baptismal dates transformed into a new member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. :) He was the only member of his family that wasnty member. hes 10 years old and never wanted to be baptised until now. we passed by the first time and asked him if he knew who God was, he said no. we asked him if he knew wh yit was necessary to be baptised, he said no. and as he suffers from what appears to be ADD or ADHD we had to explain to him step by step and without ANY distractions, which means every lesson in the chapel. we explain that only baptised people can get into heaven and he suddenly changed his mind and decided to get baptised... :) someone had to just come out and say it so he could get it. we had to get the new flu immunization this week as i am old in the mission the one i got 2 years ago is underdated.... nthis week the 2 soccer teams from monterrey played easchother. so friday was a dud day, meaning NOBODY wanted anything to do with missionaries. its the one time of the year that the streets are practically empty. more so than Christmas etc...... anyway love you all have a great week!!

Hello family and friends,

This week was a slow one, there was literally nobody in our area this week, who knows where everyone can go but we literally passed by house after house, Active members, less-actives, investigators, ancient investigators etc and nobody was there it almost appeared a conspiracy! oh and if people would like souvenirs from Mexico please tell me asap, cause it live on the outskirts of Monterrey, the edge of my area is the desert.... so i will have to look long and hard on p-days to find foreign objects. Mom, still working on the dress sorry its taking so long but Mormon standard time in Mexico is ALWAYS off schedule.

Cool experience: this week we participated in a confernce with brother Robert Swanson from the mission board. he taught us in porta-spanglish..... he speaks fluent english and portegess but cant tell you what time it is in spanish. interestly enough portegese is very similar to spanish and with a bit of help from the gift of tongues we could understand the guy, it was like listening to spanish with a french-italian accent... very interesting. As we all know i am not a man of many words when it comes to emailing so i will leave it at that. Love you all!!!

Hello everyone,

This week was a great one. we had LOTS of work, lots of lessons, and lots of cutting across rivers to get to meetings on time. we figured out the bridge is a really big time drain so we go straight to the mountainside take off our shoes and forge the river, which is about ankle deep. when we got to the meeting the ward mission leader wasnt even there and showed up an hour later! dumb. but it was a good expirience.

Recently one of the young men from the Elder´s quarom who is waiting to go out on the mission is going with us almost everywhere with us. he is a month younger than me and is leaving to chiapas the 19th of december. we are working hard with the members of the ward so that we have a constant influx of refferrals, and its working!! we are also working alot with the less actives. this sunday 2 less actives  that we have been visiting showed up and they brought friends. :) well one is the old ward mission leader and actually brought one of our investigatores who lives close to his house. that was awesome, it was a good week in the chapel, loving life and working hard here in mexico.

Love you all!!
Elder Paden W Allen

Hello all,

This week was an alright time, we were kicking around preaching the gospel here and there and managed to double all of our weekly results. thats beside the fact that last week we were not in our area for 3 days, so it got to be a bit difficult, but we have 7 people with baptismal dates, not one of these 7 came to church so that is going to be our focus this week, GET TO CHURCH PEOPLE hopefully they understand so that we dont have to start dropping people. I am pretty sure that at lest 1 we are going to have to drop this week cause we can never find him and when he says he is going to be there he´s not and his wife doesnt help, she is less active and they live in 2 places, which means they could be baptised here or there... wierd... we found a guy named david this week he is 67 and only has one leg and refers to everthing as male or female, but as if they were animals. macho y embra. hes quite hilarious and seems to understand the lessons just fine. his problem will be church attendance cause he works sundays in the catholic church taking pictures of ''baptisms'' hes not catholic but as he is one legged and there are a bajillion catholics here thats what he does cause there is always work and he only has to do it once a week and he can eat off of what he makes. it rains on sundays now, and when we are out working all week its about 85 degrees still. looking forward to snow. it´ll be great. :)

livin good in the neighborhood, love you all, peace out untill next week!

Querido familia y amigos si es que hay amigos que leen esto.. JAJA

Well everything is just peachy here in Mexico. We watched General Conference in Spanish which wasn't that bad. Elder Johnson Gonzaléz, Scott and one other that i cant remember right now translated their own messages. That was cool. especially to be able to hear Elder Scott. he has a bit of an accent but what gringo doesn't?

I Felt very impressed and Exhorted to pay more attention to the spirit in all situations. I also began thinking about everything i am going to have to do after the mission..... best say we wont go there right now.  Our mission president invited us to look for references to the doctrine of Christ as it is mention indirectly by every apostle. there were 447 references as i could count to the doctrine of Christ as it is portrayed in 2nephi 31, 3 Nephi 11 and 27.

I am excited to be where i am and to be doing as i am doing because the end is coming closer and closer and "it gives me fear" anyway love you all and take care.

Family and Friends,

To answer the question you all have, Frambutàn is the stange pinically fruit that i took a picture with i believe it belongs in fantasy books.

This week was great. very exciting and something new! i have never opened area before... well i have now. we kicked trash busting in and giving it where nobody was looking. the members dont know what to do we pass by at almost all their homes at least 2 times a week to ask for refferals. its working as the elders that were here before werent working hardly at all, they are very good elders, just that one had been here for 9 months or somehting like that and needed change. the other one is now home. I included a picture of myself with president walker, with my new companion Elder Cordoba,  and me with the giant moth i cought while i was writing this. i think it thought i was hungry as it tried flying into my mouth.

Anywyay back to this week. We tore it up here in TAMAULIPAS 1 my entire district is opening area, and 2 of 3 of the areas are training as well. the other area is a sister area. I have never learned an area so quickly. i no longer need the map while we are in 5 of 9 colonies. cause i already know the ``rumbo`` hehe. We are super excited, although there isnt alot to write about yet other than being content. Thanks for everything to all of you!!

Family and friends,

I will be sent off to train a new missionary which just got here i still don't know which one it is. Elder López will come in my place, i will be District Leader also in the Tamaulipas ward, Tamaulipas 1 area, in the Andulucia stake. It is very typical that Pres. Walker sends off his AP's to train their last 2 transfers because he says in that way we train future APs. He also considers being trainer the most important assignment in the mission, and this will be my second time doing it :)

This week we had a very very good experience. there is an Rm here that came home 8 months early, he didn't do anything wrong but he just didn't want to be a missionary anymore, he had been  with my companion in the MTC of Mexico. but he came back with a girlfriend who is 16 and a small 9 month baby which is not his. they were living with his mom in separate rooms. anyway they have been trying to get the girls mom to come from Nogales to sign the wedding papers so that the rm can start taking the sacrament after his disciplinary council. we showed up on Thursday to eat with his mom with out knowledge of the fact that the mother was in town for the wedding on Friday.... the rm and the mom have differences... they were fighting when we got there which resulted in us leaving with out lunch and the poor guys mom going after the lady from Nogales who was saying that her daughter could get married when she was 18.... we ate in a small store the size of a gas station, and the both of us felt the impression to return to the house. so we go back and the 2 women are still gone, the house was buttoned up and looked like no one was home. just before knocking on the door i turned to Elder Talavera and asked: "what are we going to say" he responded: " I don't know... just ring the door bell. so i did. the door flew open with an angry Pedro( that's his name) on the other side... he looked at us for about 10 seconds without a single word being said.. he then burst into tears telling us to come in. we proceeded to listen to him for half an hour, gave him a blessing, said a prayer and shared a couple of scriptures. he was not the least bit angry or bitter by the time we left. we called his mom to tell her we had stopped by and that her son was ready to talk with a clear head. the next day we were passing by and noticed the after wedding party. It was a beautiful experience that we had to help that family and to help Pedro put his life back into order. It was especially special for Elder Talavera, who had been with this kid in the MTC, he said it was hard to see some one like him break down and bawl like a baby cause he knew him, and it just wasn't normal.

I learned allot of Humility and patience from this experience, and i saw how some of my life experiences and past studies had helped me to be prepared to help him.

Hello,

Yes friends i am still doing the exact same things. Preaching the gospel and fulfilling duties such as travel a long suffering journey of 5 hours to Valle Hermoso, while trying not to go crazy with a couple of movies like marley and me 2 puppy dog days and some movie where talking zoo animals give some guy dating advice.... i wanted to rip my eye balls out. if they are goiing to put some sort of movie i would prefer they put some thing good on like Captain America when we went to Reynosa... or Pirates of the carabean strangers water like when we came back from valle hermoso.... thats what the bus rides are like on the mexican travel buses. President chooses his APs carefully for these reasons because someone who gets distracted easily would not be able to work all day after that. but thats part of the job. Next week we will be planning transfers. from 9-5 tuesday to thursday we'll be in the offices... finding trainers, zone leaders, district leaders, and maybe even a new AP.... depends on what president desires on that one. we have no idea how this whole this works out.

   

     This week i have learned allot. We have been working with the members entirely for 3 months now and almost all of our key indicators, or our reports have improved. the only thing that has gone down is the amount of new investigators that we are finding is rather low. but we are doing a better job with less than we were doing with more. we have had to help several missionaries understand that this is how God has desired that we do his work in our part of the world and there is no turning back. it is more efficient. and a missionary has to be even more prepared than they had to be before because its success or failure, then end. Love you all and talk to you next week!

Family and Friendz,

So this week was wonderful in América. Nothing too exciting happened. We had interviews with President Walker and a training meeting with Sister Walker, where she talked to us about what we had talked to the missionaries about in the last zone leader conference, with emphasis added in about planning well. it was the most interesting set of interviews i have ever had. Ever week is like an interview with President Walker so we took up half the time that is normally taken for an interview. we had exchanges with our District leader and our Zone leaders. Next week we will be going to Valle Hermoso, it will be my first time going there, they call it the city of 3 lies.... cause its means beautiful valley they say that 1 its not a valley, 2 its not beautiful, and 3 its not a city... but it just a  joke really cause i have heard it is very beautiful. we had a baptism planned but the sister had to work a double shift so she couldn't make it to the interview, so it will be delayed for another week. we realized on Friday that the baptismal font was still full from last Sunday, and that the pump to drain it was out out service. there was no electrical connection. so we got smart, we had a bunch of mops and brooms, 4 buckets, 2 trash barrels and a very long hose. so after surveying the provided equipment Elder Avila who was with me asked me if i was an eagle scout and if they had taught me anything in the BSA. I said not in this circumstance, but i saw a trick once in a primary lesson in Nampa, so I grabbed the hose and spread it out on the front lawn which happens to be a small incline. Connecting the hose to the tap I proceeded to fill it full of water until it was flowing out the end, disconnecting it i stuck the end that had been connected to the tap into the font and ran to the other end and began sucking until i felt the hot water from the out door tap dissipate and the cooler water from the font take over.... it took 2 days but the syphon worked and the Baptismal font is now empty. ready for a good cleaning and the baptism this week. that was the biggest occurrence this week. it was exciting to try and overcome the problem, which we did rather nicely i would say.

it was a very short week. next week we will be planning transfers again. and i am not sure what exactly will be happening. i am sure that my companion is going to stay as AP but i could be sent off to train. but there are few news that will be arriving this transfer and we are like 23 missionaries in my ''generation'' as they call it, so i dont know if i will be training or stay with Elder Talaverment another transfer..... who knows... I dont even think that president Walker knows at this point.

Elder Allen to Fly into Pocatello

I got a call today from an Elder in the Monterrey East Mission asking me if it was ok that my elder flew into the Pocatello airport in December.  I said yes!  So to all of the family that wants to welcome Paden home!

Family and Friends,

Yes i have but 3 and a half months left in my wonderful service of a mission. However, i do not feel it yet. I have not realized that my mission will end. i feel that it is still beginning. truth be told i do miss a few things, such as reading whatever i want but that is the least of the mind occupying matters on my mind lately. We are all sorts of busy with the politics of the mission. Special Transfers, Splitz, administration, reporting, Interviews with President Walker, and getting ready to plan transfers again. I don't know what will happen with me and my Companion. We have a few options. 1- I leave to train the last 2 transfers of my mission, and my companion trains a new assistant to end his mission. 2- We stay together another transfer, allowing My comp to finish in super work mode, and allowing me to train another Assistant before finishing my mission. 3- My companion goes to do half training with a new missionary leaving me as assistant with a new AP. who knows what will happen. president Walker hasn't said anything about it yet. and even though it is a curious thing. its one of the only transfers i have had where i am 100% unprepared for what is coming next.....

This week we went to Reynosa and sweated our eye balls onto our face where they were glued to our sunburned cheeks by wind billowed dust.... its was one of the worst nights sleep i have had in my mission where i was screaming in my sleep apparently... something about i will give you what you want.... Who knows. i got up like 6 times because it was so hot i had to drink water. I am glad i am in the city where at least at night we have a nice fresh breeze blowing through our house. 

We had a baptism this Week!!! YAY!!!! Maria Josefa Camarrillo Barreda of 55 years of age was baptised at 9:30 Am before the sacrament services where she was then confirmed a member of th Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. :) she is a woman taxi driver and is an Ancient investigator of Elder Wood and Elder Aranda, who were the assistants when i got off the Airplane as a new greenie. that wierded me out a bit, and made me feel rather old..... anyway it was a great expirience. i also included a picture of the secrataries and us goofing off last week. :) Anyway......

This week has been very constructive for our area and for the mission. 9/10 zones had baptisims this week :) very good cause normally its not that way. I feel we are making progress against the vain efforts of the adversary to stop the work in its Tracks. “The Standard of Truth has been erected. No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing. Persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame. But the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and dependent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, until the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the Great Jehovah will say, ‘The work is done.”

Love you all, until next week!

Your broski,

Hello Fam and friends,

This week was rather quite interesting, we had lots of work to do and very little time to do it. to start off with was the zone leader council. which took up half Tuesday and all of Wednesday. Tuesday to set it up and Wednesday to do it. after that we had little tie to work in our own area which was involved in splitz with Apodaca which is in the city but still a half an hour away from where we are. it was quite interesting.... of course there is the normal chat of hey what you gonna do when you get back? what did you do when you were at home? many people are surprised when i tell them that i worked in a pumice mine plant, they find it very extreme, even though I see it as something normal. he also wanted to here one of the stories i have thought up so i explained it to him after we had finished our nightly planning. the kid doesn't like these kinds of things, he´s a baseball jock that wants to be a team player scout someday, but he said that even with those barriers that he has his attention was called :) made me feel good. anyway......

This week we were trying to find Martha who had her baptismal interview last Saturday but has no desires to be baptised yet. she has come to church constantly for like three months now. she just doesn't feel that she is ready. but when she didn't come to church this week we knew something was wrong. we also hadn't seen her dog all week, normally the little french poodle comes running whenever we knock on her door. So visiting her roughly painted pink home we were surprise by excited barks from the dog, and we could see someone behind her house sweeping water around on the patio, although we couldn´t tell who it was do to clothing that had been hung in the narrow alleyway that leads to the back porch of her house.  so we shouted until the woman came out to see what the problem was and when she emerged from behind the dripping blanket strung across the walkway we recognized Martha´s daughter Isabel. She told us that Martha had taken vacation days and left the state and had been in Sabínas coahuila since last Saturday night... she must have left exactly after the baptismal interview... we also did lots of service this week, we helped a lady tie her dog up so that it would stop attempting to hang itself from over top the concrete railing and i had to explain to an ignorant woman about chickens and salmonella so that she would move it out of her house and tell the small children running around not to touch it and if they did to watch their hands. i also clipped one of its wings so that it wouldn´t escape the cinder block fence that is the poor bird´s cage; i also clipped the front of its beak off so that when it pecks it wont draw blood... again.. haha, in a couple of weeks i will have to go back and clip its spurs.... its starting to get big and its going to start crowing too. we´ll see how long they last before they turn that poor young rooster into a KFC main dish. :) Its been a fairly exciting week and things seem to be going good so until next week,

Dear Family,

This week has been crazy. we finished the transfers and sent the missionaries home. I sent 2 old companions Home. 1 that i was good friends with and the other that i didn't really get to know. Now i know why President says that the Assistants have to be stronger that the other missionaries, now i know why he says the Assistant´s Job is harder than an average missionary´s. 1- You get rather trunky talking about home with 18 other missionaries who are going home, just to go out and work for 3 days trying to get the results you would have had working for....6.   2-  you have to do it every 6 weeks, apart of daily reports, weekly reports, meetings, training meetings splitz damage control traffic control ETC. Its very occupying. there is very little time to one´s self. from 9:45-10:00 every night and 4.00-6:00 every Monday afternoon. not the most ideal schedule for a normal person. but for a missionary its very awesome, 0 free time, lots of work and lots of Joy for doing it :)

last week i barely had enough time to write on Monday and didn't even get my clothes washed or anything. president gave us Wednesday to recover from Tuesday night when we went to sleep at 2 after help weight suitcases and getting things ready, and got up at 3 to go to the airport. i took a shower before laying down and then slept in my suit so i would just have to get up and go. i was in the airport with a 5:00 (Blond) shadow at 4 in the morning helping the other missions mission president´s wife cause she doesn't speak Spanish and trying to get 4 American missionaries through immigration and stressing cause the line was half a mile long because of a cancelled flight. but it all went over well. i finally got to wash clothes and everything else on Wednesday instead of Monday i also slept from 10 to 2. that was my p-day..... yep lol

The rest of the week was great we taught 2 investigators that we had had for a long time but this time on levels of spirituality that were higher than normal. which is how it should be, they now both have baptismal dates. :) one we planned and it worked out just like we had practiced and the other was almost ruined by a member who started talking right as i was about to invite to baptism, destroying the moment. so we prepared another lesson and came back a day later took control of the lesson and invited her, who in turn accepted. the is a hoarder and 2 times a week we go and help her throw things away. normally the things she had gathered while we weren't there throwing things away, but Hey! its progress. i would suggest (for those of you involved in missionary work) in sharing your testimony over more than one thing. Pure Testimony as Elder Bednar says. short simple powerful and true. when you vomit your religion on a person they are naturally repulsed..... i wouldn´t recommend that!

Anyway i gotta Bounce and i think i am out of things to say for now, so this is Elder Allen reporting, over and out.

Love you all,

Dear Family,

...And thus the end is near. I am proud to announce the coming of the end of transfers. in 2 days........... I started this email and then had to run to catch a taxi and go to the airport at 8 at night to get a missionary that had supposedly arrived from Bolivia without advising us. we get there and look in the 3 international terminals then send a few calls over the intercom, and Pres. Walker calls and says it was an error of the west mission and the church system. that the elder that had arrived was from El Salvador. Our Elder from Bolivia is still in Bolivia. Great..... that was the fourth trip to the airport today.

     The first trip involved sending a missionary home then waiting for a bunch of 16 missionaries. Which actually arrived as 32 16 for us and 16 for the west mission. I was missionary traffic control. good thing is i had more or less memorized the faces and names of the missionaries that were coming to our mission so i could relatively tell who ourmissionaries were. the other mission had it easy as they just smiled and waved. We took 2 small short airline buses to the offices got them all settled in and took off to the airport for the second trip. I´ll be right back i have to go to the bus station to buy another bus ticket........so i will continue this email when i get back.... like at 11:00PM... More of less. I probably wont finish this untill tomorrow. I lied i am back 11:05 i decided to finish now or i never will. second trip was only 3 the third was only 2 missionaries so it was alot easier and quicker. 

     This week went flying by. We were planning transfers and attempting to work all at the same time. then we were up last night untill midnight planing transfer plans looking up bus times and checking to make sure everyone travelingt never got stuck alone etc. it was exciting. i literally had no P-day today. luckily i have my clothes in the dryer :) anyway i am out talk to you all next week.

Dear Famiy and friends,

for those who are interested Andrew Rutherford, who is swimming in the Olympics is an RM from my mission. :)

OK so this week was alright i got a long awaited letter from a family that was baptised while i was in Nuevo Laredo. The converts most faithful i have seen in my mission all live in Nuevo Laredo and if i ever have the chance to visit the mission after the mission i Will be visiting there at least! What Dillon says about Alma 37 is right, it is a very good chapter in the book of Mormon where we can learn countless things from that chapter. I came across it in my normal reading about 3 days after he sent his Email. 

This week i had a couple of health revisions and they told me not to worry about anything and they gave 2 2 medications to fix the few problems i do have. All is well until the next check up in 4 and a half months.

We have been helping President Walker this morning to plan a few transfers that are taking place tomorrow, We will be planning missionary transfers all week and next Tuesday is transfers for the whole mission. I am really excited. STUDY ASSIGNMENT: :) other than PMG as Dillon challenged i am also inviting you all to study 1 nephi 3: 1-5 When nephi and his brethren are sent back to pick up their wives etc. Its not so much about what happens when they get there but what they learn in the journey. what can you learn about it. let me though then i will share what we have learned this week from this chapter. :)

Gotta go, Love you all,

Dear Family and Friends,

This week was good for finding new investigators. even though we cant knock on doors we found several part member families that we are now teaching. we havent had too much success with member referrals but we´re getting there. we did lots of walking which i recently found out is actually doing lots of damage to my body. I will spare you all of the details for the moment. if you absolutely HAVE to know more my parents are a LOT more available than I. 

We are teaching a wonderful old lady who is 81 years old and still strong. she is proggresing rapidly despite her failing memory. she should be having her baptism performed this week if we arent backed up by my health problems. shouldnt be too much of a problem though.

Sorry i dont have alot of time but I have been really busy with doctor visits and all that so i have had very little time. i havent even got my hair cut yet!!

Love you all, and dont worry nothing suer dangerous, all is well in Zion!!

Dear family and friends,

     This week has been crazier than crazy. I´ve been so busy i dont have time to think but when i do think i tend to think about my future career as allot of people have been talking about what they want to do and i wasnt so sure. So i thught about it all week between 9:45PM to 10:30 or 11:00 PM when I fall asleep then i dream about it and to make things easier on myself and to not worry about it too much for the next 5 months i have decided i will be changing my major from Biology to be an English when i return. problem solved :)

     But that is the least of what happened this week!! Elder Talavera and I have been working our brains out! Tuesday: Splitz in matamoros, Wednesday: Full 2 days worth of work in 6 hours. Thursday: Weekly Planning. Friday: Splitz with Stake Paraíso. Saturday: Work untill Elder Allen falls as a burnt crisp before the intense and ruthless mexican sun. Sunday: wait for investagators and visit those who didnt come. Monday: Recieve Reports from Zone Leaders..... The week flies by.  We are getting ready to go have a meeting in the mission house then eat then go bowling with the mission president, His Idea, not ours. it feels strange going to "hang out" as he put it and it was very strange to hear ´enough with: all work and no play.´ come out of his mouth. its a more personal relationship with President Walker than i have had in the past. not complaining.

I am really enjoying the mission and am happy when i hear from people :) *cough* Hint! *cough* Hint Hint *cough* *cough* anyway, love you all :)

Dear Family and fiends,

     I have run out of things to do during the day. Not being able to look for our own investigators is fairly difficult!!! We run out of investigators at about 3 and have to go visit members. The problem is our ward is very extremely small. we have already visited the active members like 7 times already and they don't know anybody good ;/ we´re working hard however. next week we go to matamoros in splitz with the Zone leaders. it should be fun cause i have never been to matamoros. I am actually very excited to do so cause i once saw the town when i was in Rio Bravo but i haven't ever been able to go there. I have been to Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo, Rio Bravo, Apodaca ,Guadalupe, Villa de Juarez, San Nicolas and Monterrey. Matamoros and Valle Hermoso are the 2 new zones where i will be able to visit. it is really cool having permission to go to whichever part of of area we want.

     In our Area we are doing lots of meetings with the members asking for referrals and its hard cause the members dont share the gospel with anybody. that shouldnt happen i would invite you all to share the gospel it just makes everybodies lives better :) if you dont think its possible just read the book of Alma in The Book of Mormon and then get back to me on that one. :)

     I am rather very exited for the new changes that are going down in the Mission and its exciting to be involved in the organization of the whole ordeal. Everything is great with my companion. he is a great guy. makes me think of Elder Marsh who was one of the missionaries in my MTC District. Every Sunday and Monday we have a campout in the mission offices cause at 8-10 AM me and my companion are here making phone calls. I miss the study time but its a sacrifice  that we have to make. We also don't have much of a P-day either although they tell me i am lucky cause the Mission president has been in the border the last 2 Mondays and we haven´t had the mission correlation meeting. that is normally from 11:00AM to 2:00 PM, but its all good. loving the new assignment and working hard as always. :) love you all!

friends and family,

So its actually alot different being in the offices cause we are the ones doing everything that before just kinda happened like magic. planning, more planning, working like mad men to finish everything in one day what a normal missionary does in four. well at least this week cause its a wierd week transfers just got done and all. normally i wouldnt be on by now. update on AP: AP is an assignment we dont have senior or junior companion, we both have a cell phone and we are primarily in charge of the zone leaders, also any kind of event on the mission level we organize like the zone leader conference thats coming up. we also have to help with whatever the president needs. sometimes he feels that we need to do splitz with different places and we do it. anywhere from Monterrey and Linares Nuevo leon to Matamoros, Reynosa, Rio Bravo, Valle hermoso, Nuevo Laredo and san Fernando Tamaulipas. We also have our own area to work in there are time when there is nothing that comes up in our own area :/ my comanion is from Villahermosa, A small town outside nuevas Casas Grandes chihuahua grandma knows who the family is because they are skilled artisans in Pottery.

Love you all and best wishes!!! :)

Hello friends and family,

     So to start off with, this whole transfer 6 of the 14 missionaries have told me at least weekly (and at least daily  in the case of my companion) that this next transfer i would be passing it in the office with the president as AP (Assistant to the President) it had become a large joke between us. especially for my companion and the X-AP who is now a district Leader in our Zone. To my surprise,  Sunday night comes around, 8:00pm hits when the assistants always call to give us the transfers, and they don't call.... around 8:10PM the phone rings, i was in the other room packing up my things cause the president never leaves a companionship together more than 2 transfers, its very strange that 2 companions are together than that, and my companion only has 1 transfer left so he was obviously staying, that and the president told him he would be staying in the interviews. Anyway, the phone rings and my comp shouts ´´Its for you!!!`` i hear him talking to someone and the he says ´´Elder Allen, President wants to talk to you!``... I about wet myself thinking, ´uh oh, what did i do wrong??` well he talked to me about how i felt and asked us how we were doing on baptismal dates, we told him we had 13, he was very happy then continued to tell me that he had prayed and received Revelation and he felt that i had been prepared to be his new assistant.... he asked me i f i would accept it. i said ´´Sí está bien...`` followed by him telling me that it would be practically the hardest thing i had ever done in my mission and that i would have double work in my proselyting area and as his assistant. I never thought that it would happen to me but that's when the Lord calls you, when you don't expect it. I am excited nervous and anxious and a bit sad to be leaving my area, we have 3 families with baptismal dates and i wont be there to see their baptisms but i trust the Lord knows what he is doing. we had the best week we have had all month this week with 6 lessons with member and 11 others. 8 new investigators. its hard in Guadalupe but not impossible. The Lord always sends blessings when one is diligent in his work. I felt the end of my mission coming closer this week when my companion told me i only have 4 transfers  left which is 24 weeks, but i have lots of work to do so there is 0 chance of getting trunky.     Also the way we work in my mission has changed completely we will now not be doing any talking in the street or knocking on doors, but we will be run completely off of referrals from members. that's is a very large difference because until this point we talked with 140 people weekly in every companionship in the street apart from knocking on Doors etc. 4 of the 20 investigators we are teaching right now are from a member referral. we have allot of work to be doing. the work of the Lord is Progressing, no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.

Here we are there´s not much anybody can do about it and now if we get bored and don't have people to teach we´ll just go chill on a members couch until he gets so sick of us he gives us a referral, teach, Baptise repeat. :)

Hello Family and friends,

This week was a crazy expirience. For example, friday we get a phone call and we are invited to the temple to see yet another of my companons converts recieve their endownments that was great. we found 2 new famlies to teach and we had a stranger come all by his onesy to church :) this is the expirience i want to share with everyone.

His name is Jose Carlos Rubio Salinas. he showed up late to sacrament meeting and attended gospel principles with us. satrting the class we were called out by the stake young mens president to be invited to a stake high priest council to help organize a missionary activity with the stake. ill tell what went down wth that in a bit but after that we returned to the class and were there for 2 minutes when Carlos started sharing something about faith in Christ which is not bad its just the class was about the creation and the teacher hada just started basically cause it was like the 5th time he had done it. so the teacher asked him to be quiet so we could go over the theme and that we would give him time to share his testimony after the class.  she hadnt even finished the sentence when he said ok i understand i´ll just be going now. and he grabbed his bag and left.... we were like ok we gotta go after him we cant let him go with this kind of immpression from the church. so we followed about 30 seconds behind him and caught him aout 3 blocks from the church and when he saw we had come to invite him back with us he said ´´i know you are representatves of christ and that that church is his church, cause you dont even know me but love me enough to leave and invite me back. so we went back to church everything was straightened out and turns out he is having a bone transplant tommorrow and was looking for the church of christ before the operation. wednesday we are going to teach him in his home. one day after the operation. it was a very awesme and spiritual expirience, also very humbling to see a grown man so humbled. Ill never forget that exprience.

Hello Everyone!
    First off happy Fathers day to all the fathers out there, especially the one that lives in the house at 47 Reynolds st. in good old Hick Town Malad Idaho!

    This week was crazy. we had a visit from the 2nd conselor in the area 70`s presidency, Elder Tenorio. he talked about concentrating, working hard and Accomplishing your dreams. he made my comp quite trunky who is only 8 weeks away from going home. but he made me more than excited to preach the gospel!

    Its an average 90 degrees here at midnight recently, it makes me scared of Idaho cause it gets less than 90 and i get cold....... i have been sadly desensitized to heat. people often ask us how we can stand in the sun instead of the shade in a street contact. sadly i hadnt even thought about it....

    We are working hard with a family of 4 who is quite excited to be baptised they just dont seem to understand the importance of goiong to church on Sunday... the parents are in the 40`s and the 2 kids are 18 and 13 and VERY rebelious. but they seem to accept well enough. the 18 year old son has stopped wearing his eyebrow and ear piercings and has stopped bothering his mom about getting a Tattoo. we had very little time to work this week cause my comp got sick and we had lots of half days  and yesterday the Assistant to the president called us with special transfers and we had to go help the missionaries in my old area get moved out of the house, then go pick up the sisters who moved into the house 1 hour afterwards. it was interesting and strange to see the mission President in such an informal situation and i realized that without his suit coat the guy is really quite skinny... anyway thats all for this week. Love you all. Stay strong!! 

Photo: Who ever said i wouldn`t ever use them all? paisley collection :)

--

-Elder Paden W Allen

Mosiah 4:30 & 5:5

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

Hello all,
Este semana fue despacito un cuanto a la obra... oh its supposed to be in english write? haha anyway this week was slow but we got to go to the temple with a famly my comp baptised a year ago :) that was awesome. i was kinda nervous to do it in spanish with all the big words and i dont speak vosotros that great.... read yes, speak no. for those of you who dont know what that is its the thee thy shall stuff but in spanish. but it was good i think i did better than in english... haha but it was amazing i saw my first live sealing and it made me want to work all that much harder :) i also included a pic of a whole lot of cocroaches... those are all the ones we killed in 3 days in our apartment. it is flat out rawnchy when it come to cocroaches in mexico... well monterrey at least... not a whole lt to say as it was a slow wek but love you all and talk to yall next week!!

Hey Peeps,
So this week was a miracle week. we realy had a hard time at the first part of the week for a zone leader conference we had and also the weather was crazy! 46 degrees (celcius) and random tropical showers. when they say tropical shower they really want to say 创there is so much water falling from the sky you cant see your own nose`` or 创you might as well go swiming`` it was fun. we had a baptism friday an 11 year old girl named nataly we helped her mom return to church and stay there and now the whole family is memeber except dad. they have to get married before he can get baptised though and its kinda complicated for divorces and stuff that they have to do so it will be a long time before it happens. Thats pretty much all tough. way super busy today we have to train one of the district and get them up to date on a few changes that went down in the mission. Love you all!!

Dear family and friends,

This week was a good one. we had a baptism. YAY!! a little 12 year old girl who is the grand daughter of the stake patriarch. she was a blessing from heaven in truth. we prayed for blessings and she almost literally fell from the sky screaming baptise me!! We have been working alot with less active members and part member families. its been inspirational and motivating expirience. I dont think i could ever enjoy being a less active.

This week the really heat started... 115 degrees and 105 at NIGHT. I didnt miss it at all. but the good thing is that it has taken a while to get here this year. last year it was hot in februrary. it s almost june and just starting to get unbarable. people frequently ask us if we´re hot... and if we are hot why do we walk around in the sun all day.  I often feel like saying: ´´Truth be told its blistering hot, and we walk around to avoid fainting and faling to the ground, that and we are saving souls here, can we come in for a bit?´´ its always fun to hear that conversation 6-8 times a day.

I love being a missionary though. thousands of slammed doors in my face makes the few awesome moments worth the pain and blisters.
Love you all,
Elder Paden W Allen

Family and friends,
This week was very tiring. the sun has come out and the heat has begun. but the good thing is that last year it was this hot in februrary. its alsmost june and its just starting to get thick. We had a good expirience this week where we helped a guy cut a few limbs out of his mesquite tree. we were there for a long time but it was all worth it when he and his wife showed up to church 3 days later :) that was cool. He was a refferal from the Missionaries in Tacubaya, which is right next to our area. they were walking along the border street between our areas and the Man (Edmundo) called them over to his house. the only thing was that he lives in our area. so they called for permission to teach him once and they passed the refferral. its a big family and they are progressing little by little, and they are preparing for baptism :) even better when they arrived in the chapel it turns out that the sister (Lourdes) is friends with 2 or 3 sisters from our ward so it will be even easier with the fellowshiping. but of course everything depends on them and their will to follow christ if they get baptismed or not.
We have been working alot with less active members and several families have returned to church and there are several 9-11 year old kids we are teaching so that they can be baptised. the members feel this is better cuse they have the expirience of conversion. but we were studying it this week and it is actually the opposite. For a memeber of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints we have the responsibility to teach our children so that they can participate in baptism when they reach the age of 8. D&C 68:25-27. The opposing option isnt too bright. Thats just one of the things i have learned this week. Our district Leader asked us to study D&C 4 frontwards backwards referenced and crossed referenced. WOW i would and invite all of you to do it as well. almost every point of the gospel of Jesus Christ is in this small 7 verse chapter in 1 week i have studied verses 1 and 2 and have discovered how completing with this section will help us complete with every other requirement the Gospel puts on us. i am going to continue studying it and 创Sucking out all the Juice`` and the didstrict Leader invited us to do. He is really one of the best district Leaders i have had, Elder Brandenburg from Virginia. One of the coolest guys i磛e met in the mish.
Dillon, read the BOM in your language study out loud in spanish DAILY. for 5 to 10 minutes. it will help you have the gift of tongues and be able to understand wht the other people are saying.
Love you all,
Elder Paden W Allen

scripture of the week: Alma 6:6. Apply it, then as Elder Bednar says: Get to work!!

Week 5/6 of Transfer 11.

Family and friends,
This week was great. We had a baptism thisa week of a 9 year old girl named Lupita. She was difficult to teach because she is Attention deficit and also has never been away from her mom for 5 minutes or had any real reason to even speak. But we were able to help her understand everything so that she could be baptised by her father, who has been active in the church again for 2 months now. It was an interesting and humbling expirience. Also it was a very rainy week. we got drenched saturday night when we came left our last appointment at 9:00pm and it just started pouring. it was dark and wouldnt have even noticed the clouds if it wasnt for the lightning. but in literally thirty seconds we were soaking wet! it was cool cause we were a mile from home. so we threw everything in plastic bags and ran home. I havent been running in a while and i realized that i`m outta shape! But that can be fixed more or less easy.

busy week with almost nothing accomplished

Family and Friends,

This week was crazy fast with the Zone conference and then with crazy three way splitz and normal splitz as well. we went crzy knocking doors and talking to random strangers in the street. but we had no success due to who knows what... :( But basically We fought through and dropped alot of people that were not progressing. this week shold be better. looking forward to the phone call this week. Love you all, and sorry its short!

Love, Elder Paden W Allen

Killer Week

Hello all,

This week was a killer, i walked my soles off... well one soul. its been held together with shoe glue for about.... 7 months but its finally pealing its way out of my life haha. but we are struggling to get people to come to church so we are going to try harder to stress the importance of church attendance this week. we have 12 people preparing for baptism adn only 1 came to church this week,a little  hobbit of a girl named Lupita who is nine years old and comes with her parents who are returning to the church after being inactive for 5 years which is great but 8 percent attendance isnt great odds, considering the odds should be 75....

But thats apart from the awesome week we had as a zone this week. 8 baptisms. 3 families that found the true and restored gospel :) sorry its short this week folks but my time is now up. Love you all!

-Elder Paden W Allen

Hello everyone,

This last tuesday we had a visit from Elder Bednar, who spent all this last week in Mexico on several assignments in missions, ward and stake leadership conferences, and meetings with several government officials. He arrived at the temple grounds where the 400 missionaries from the east and west missions were gathered in the stake center (which is right next to the temple) we all had the chance to shake his and his wife磗 hand, together with Elder Johnson, the 2 mission Presidents and their wives and 3 other area 70磗 that were present. it was a great expirience. Before he visited us Elder Bednar asked us to study 2 of his past articles 创look for learning by faith`` and 创Ask in Faith`` (general conference addresses 2008) we learned a ton by only reading the articles but then he came and taught us by talking with us, asking us what it was we had learned and how we were applying it in our lives. I could put everything i have learned here but they would have to give me another P-day to be able to do it, also the majority would probably be misunderstood as we learned by the power of personal revealation. Elder Bednar gave us an hour to make statements about what we had learned and an hour to ask him questions and obviously not everyone got to ask their questions etc. at the end of the 3 hours we had he asked us to raise our hands if 创we didnt have the chance to ask our question and sombody else didnt ask it, but recieved our answer anyway.`` the majority of the missionaries raised their hands. his big focus in the whole meeting was 创Espiritu santo es el maestro`` i will leave that to the translator, i thought it was cool cause he said it in spanish. he also translated a few scriptures from the book of mormon. now he read them in english, they were translated into spanish, i understood both, but that man as a seer pulled a deeper meaning from the scriptures, a meaning i had never considered. that is part of his holy calling. Mosiah 8:17, 2 Nephi 30: 17-18. I know the church is true and that every person is entitled to recieve revealation. DyC 42:61&65.`` man cannot recieve the holy ghost without recieving revealation创- Joseph smith, index; Holy Ghost. This church is the true church, if the evidences dont do it for you its time to get on your knees and ask the personal revealtion to be given to you so you can know it. I Love you all. Untill Next week,

Elder Paden W Allen

 

Return to Monterrey

Dear family and friends,

This week was way wierd for me. i arrived in my new area, and the next day i had to go to my old area in splits cause the 2 elders there are both new and neither one really knows they area and they werent teaching a whole lot of people during the week so they sent me there to help them out. it was cool to see a few of the members  i knew, recent converts, well not so recent as it was a year ago that they were baptised etc. My area is a bit bigger than the first one i had and about half of it is on Cerro de la silla. If you dont know what that is, google it. :) But my companions are super funny and great teachers. Elder Morrison is 21 from Utah and will be returning home wednesday. Elder Tovar is from Hidalgo. hes 26 and an engineer. he has a computation school at home but let it in his moms hand when he came out on the mission. he`s been out 20 months and it is possible that i could be his last companion. but the area is great. I`m looking forward to destroying my shoes climbing the mountain daily and preachng to anything thats still breathing. I`m Gonna miss Nvo Laredo but i know i will enjoy the new ward i am in as well.

Good luck to Devin in singapore, Jared and Jeanie in Arizona and congrats to Lincoln and Heather. Love you all!

Atte: Elder Paden W Allen

Transfers

Hello everyone,

This week was a tough one, but at the same time, full of blessings. We had some miracle investigators show up to church we had invited them to come like 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times and they fianlly came :) we also had a baptism. Sergio Valentín Almazán Ponce, 20 years old was baptised the 7th and confirmed the 8th he was one of those super prepared Investigators that pretty much just needed someone to fill up the font for him, even if there would not have been anyone to perform the ordinance an angel would have come down to do it i´m sure.

     Also  i Will be returning to Monterrey tomorrow, straight to where i served my 1st 6 months in the field. I Am going to Guadalupe Nuevo Leon.. Again.. Haha! Area: La Silla Zone, Los Angeles. I will be in the area which borders my first area. I´ll even be going to the same chapel building, very rare when that happens, I will be going as junior companion, zone leader, i will be in a trio, Elder Morrison and Elder Tovar will be my new companions. I will getting to know the same people all over again in splitz and getting to know the other ward better. I´m phsyched and nervous at the same time. the funny thing is I already know where everything is... The chapel... the house... The Bishops house... the grocery store... So its not going to be SUPER new but new at the same time. I´m going to miss the area i´m in currently but i know the Lord has more for me waiting back in Guadalupe.

Love you all,

Elder Paden W Allen

182nd General Conference

 A Mis Seres Queridos,

     This week was amazing with General Conference. First off there were allot of family themed messages, its crazy how the lord reveals the same theme to several different authorities in order to communicate the message necessary for us to hear. Also Dillon was looking might handsome that Saturday afternoon session ;) haha it was a great choir. 

     Other than the General Conference messages that i loved there was an extra special experience we were able to share with a family of a recent convert, they had an aunt pass away. and as the Catholic priest was busy they invited us to present something at the viewing. Saturday between the 2nd session and priesthood session we went to the funeral home and sung 3 series of 2 hymns 6 in total. we sang 2 and had a prayer and a small message by our zone leader. we sung 2 more and had an small testimony meeting. then we sang 2 more and a closing prayer. Our zone is not the most gifted of singers but that day we really felt the spirit very strongly and the sound of our voices was not our own. we literally felt Angels singing with us. and it sounded like it too. every person in that room felt the spirit even the workers paused their smoking break top coming in sit down and listen. there wasn't a single dry eye leaving. it was a super special experience.

     Sunday we were siting in our little classroom, 5 gringos listening in English :) and we were surprised by a family that came in and sat in a row of chairs right behind us. they were from Texas. The mom was the only member, the 2 daughters were quite extreme. One with bright red hair, apple red BTW, the other with green, and they brought there boyfriends a couple of bags full of bones. we sat for about a half an hour in silence taking notes like mad men. then all of the sudden the lady tapped me on the shoulder asking me something about the bishop,  ``which bishop?´´ I asked. ´´I don't know,`` she said, ´´he told me to come in here and look for the missionary  that speaks English. You speak English right?`` ´´We all speak English.`` I responded. ``Oh.´´ was all she said, soon after the bishop came in and indicated the missionary had been referring to. it was a rather humorous event that set the whole room into laughter. 

Anyway that's the update this week. Love you all!

Élder Paden W Allen.