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.

26 de Marzo 2012

Sup Peeps,
This week was an altogether flop other than we did get to contact lots of people that were referrals. Sergio is progressing nicely. hes super tall and everyone thinks he is american cause he has lighter colored skin but he contacted us. :) which always makes our job easier. he works from 4 in the afternoon to 6 in the morning in a factory and he sleeps until 2 and starts walking to work at 3 so we dont get to see him any other time than the weekends. but he is a super good guy and wants to do whats right and has alot of really good questions. other than that we are wrestling with people to come to church right now. Although i cant complain. in the past 4 months in the different wards here in Nuevo Laredo the average baptisms are 2-6 and in the past 4 months we have had 14 the president told me he knows he can send me to which ever area he wants and he knows that i will work and be blessed. The is always very encouraging to hear. I Love being a missionary. It makes me sad to think its will be over before 2012 ends. All good things come to an end though.... unless youre sealed... but we wont get into that :)
Miss you all, Stay strong,
Elder Paden W Allen

March 19th 2012

Hello Todos,

Thats shorter than friends and family I decided. But to sum up the week, we walked and walked and walked and walked. it actually reminded me of that primary i always hate to sing cause i thought it was boring. but there were no buses on the 3 days we had to take buses to be able to visit everyone we were gonna visit. so we wasted alot of time walking. it was rediculous how much we walked. But we did find one guy named Sergio. actually we found us a week ago while we were running to buy a lighter really quick. he lives 5 houses from our house. and he just said ´hey i would like to know more´ my comp asked ´´about what?`` he replied ´´um...i dont know whatever you guys do cause you walked by and just felt like i needed to talk to you´´ :) he will be baptised the 7th of april if everything goes over well. but we have seen him for at least an hour for the past 3 days. Thats basically all that happened this week that is worth writing. other than the fact that the circus came to town... Yep... where do you ask? oh yeah in the field next to our house. we go to sleep every night listening to wonderful circus music... its great. really.

Love you all!

Elder Paden W Allen

12 de Marzo 2012

Hello Family, Friends, and Fellow Missionary, (as i find myself in the strange, extended presence of yet another Elder Allen XD )

   This week was, well, to make a long story short: Long, Depressing, extreme heat, freezing cold, rejection, plans falling through, and being chewed out by our loving Zone Leaders... with all of that in mind it is difficult for me to admit that i feel more than happy to be here. its quite confusing actually. But i know for every trial we have in the mission just means yet another blessing that is coming our way. The mission is a strange confusing place where boys are turned into men, spoiled snobs to responsible gentlemen, and a thick, beautiful, full head of hair, to wispy, scarcely populated widows peaks...(Still don't know exactly how you feel dad but starting to get the idea) I`m just feeling more and more grateful for the scripture  which reads ´´... not a hair of your head will be lost in the Resurrection...´´ (Not an exact Quote so dont shoot me if i wrote it wrong) 

    

      We had a good experience with a recent convert´s children this week. Dolores, who was baptised last week has 3 kids, Christopher (14), Williams (11) (she didn't know at the time of naming him that Williams is the surname and William is the name name) and Angeles(7). Williams wants to be baptised but is influenced allot by Christopher, who is atheist. we had a super good experience teaching them and helping them understand Gods nature purpose and design for us here on the earth. they didn't go to church due to the scheduler change, which in the border, it changes the 10th of march at twilight, well thee rest of Mexico changes April 1st..... nobody told us that the schedule changed and we got to church what we thought was half an hour early but it was really half an hour late.... depressing. for the same reason we had very few visitors at church :( i almost cried but managed to maintain my dignity. i was then surprised as the second counselor  came up to me and said ´´i need help on my grammar test, i don't comprehend the verbs make,get,let, make... blah blah blah can you help me?´´ in English... i was surprised as i didn't know he could speak English but i was even further surprised that the majority of the bishopric speaks English.....cool. the good thing is that they never had to use it with me as i already spoke it.

Anyway, those are the highlights of the week, Love you all!

-Elder Paden W Allen

P.s.- I was surprised furthermore as a teenage girl asked for a picture with me. i felt like a celebrity or an abused zoo animal... I`m not exactly sure which. but i said sure but my companion has to be in it too..... all that just for have blond hair and blue eyes... then again, i am the only one in this city with those features... Other than Elder Haskell... who looks freakishly similar to Kirby Hayborne..... Yep.

 picture included: me chewing out a dog for barking, i did it in english and as it was a mexican dog it did not understand very well.

foto 3 marzo 2012

Dolores Guzman Ibarra, Bautizada 3 de marzo 2012, su hijos estan empazando a interesar tambien en la iglesia. Su hermanadora es la Hna. Contreras.

Gracias,

Elder Allen

5 of March 2012

Hello everybody,

This week has been crazy we didnt knock on a single door!! I know its was amazing. but we just contacted refferrals all day all week. except thursday and friday, when we went to a trainer and greenie meeting in Monterrey. It was good and it helped us to get excited again, not that we werent before just that it helped get even more so. Dolores got baptised this week, i will include the pic in a seperatew email. The time is going by much quicker than it should be its already march and i feel as if the world left me behind in January. oh well life goes on and quicker than we would like...most of the time... we found a family of 7 that are taking the discussions, they are super special. the father of the family is an ex catholic missionary but he realized that all the idol worship is against Gods laws and they rarely go. they are super special and we are making sure that we follow up reaññy well on them.

Love you all,

Elder Paden W Allen