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