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...