Finally got to the library. The weather was crazy this past week so we didn't get to the library on Monday. Not much has changed since saturday -- our baptism is on saturday with Nora and Gabriela! We're pretty excited! We will have the first baptisms of the year.

This week has been pretty busy so far. We've tried to bump up the amount of books we're handing out and lessons we're teaching. We're up to about 15 lessons per week so we're pretty pumped! I need a haircut really bad, I guess that's somewhat new. Umm, not much else is going on. I kinda told you guys everything last Saturday! The snow that hit was pretty crazy though. We got piled in with about 2 ft. of snow so we couldn't drive anywhere all Sunday or Monday, of course it would hit us AFTER Christmas. It was still a good time though, we enjoyed ourselves. On Monday we washed our clothes and watched Toy Story 3 in Spanish for P-Day... 3 times.

When we came back to get our car out of the snow (which we parked in a nearby Pentecostal parking lot) we found a piece of cardboard under the wiper that said "NO PARKING next time you will be TOWED" Meh... We're good to go! haha.

I threw in some pictures to look at. Los amo mucho y quiero lo mejor para todos!

Also, if you get some time, I'd like a new spanish book. Maybe http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Spanish-Practice-UItimate-Reference/dp/0071744185/ref=dp_ob_title_bk or something of the like. I'm starting to just memorize all the answers in the books I have and I'm not thinking anymore. Whatever you can find though would be great.

-Elder Conner Allred

12-20-10

Hi family!

So this week has been pretty good! Sailor is so cute haha. Oh man, I'm sad I'll miss her kitten years :( Great idea with the cat nip haha. Tayci can dance!??! When did this happen? When I left she could barely walk! My mind is about to explode! It's crazy how fast they're all growing. Whenever I want to make people feel bad (for example, last year this time a lady told me that I was bothering her during the christmas season because I was calling from the MTC. She told me I basically had no heart.) I tell them I have a niece I've never met. haha.

The Arguetas are great! We'll probably call from their house around 1 or so. Maybe later, to be honest I'm not 100% sure. But I'd think 1:00 would be good. They speak pretty good english so you can talk to them if you want as well.

I still have one tie left to open on Christmas!! haha. But that's about it. :( I'm doing better than elder phillips though, he has nothing left to open. This week we had a pretty good day of tracting, so hopefully some good comes out of it :S We'll see. We had a christmas party on Saturday which was great. But I'm trying to take the caffiene out of my diet again and so my head was swimming the whole time.

At church yesterday we had an awesome time! Gabriela and Nora of course came and all the seats were taken, so Gabriela sat alone -- ten minutes later Vanessa Recinos (one of the young women) left her family and sat next to Gabby! HOW AWESOME!!!!!! It was really sweet! The family is really getting involved in the ward, so we're happy.

We went over for an appointment the other day and Nora has 2 sons that are here in the states, Jose (12) just got kicked out of his house by his step-mom so he came to church and he gets along with us really well, he's a cool kid! So we're starting to teach him, too! Nora was asking us if there was anything we can do like if we knew any lawyers or anything. I was really caught off guard, I'm 20 years old! I don't know about that stuff! Anyway, when Jose got kicked out, Sister Argueta was of course, awesome, and left at 12:00am to go pick him up from Providence and take him to his mom. She is so great, I wish everyone was like her.

Anyway, I don't have much more time left, I love you and I'll be writing a special Christmas letter for you. I'm praying for each of you and may the Lord bless you this season!

Madre,

I got the package! Thank you! And yes, I left some things to be opened on Christmas day.

So far the girls from El Rey haven't come to church. We are hoping to get together with them this week, also Dinora's uncle may be interested as well so that would be great! I hate when people work on Sundays, because you can't really say much to that. It's one thing to get a sorry excuse like "I was sooooo tired." But it's another to have someone say "I work from 7 - 3" because that's a pretty good excuse for most people out here. But, we'll keep praying and tell her to tell her boss she needs the day off!

Nora and Gabriela are doing great! We had an awesome family home evening with the Argueta family in our ward. I don't know why the other elders in this area didn't use that family because they are SO missionary minded! They are amazing!!! Herbert and Alba are sealed in the temple and then they have 5 kids, 2 active (their youngest daughters). Alba calls Nora all the time to see how she is diong and takes her to all the activities. She even sits with her during the investigators class!! That's above and beyond the call of duty! Gabriela (i don't know how to say this in english) cayó muy bien (eww, the guy next to me just ripped one) with the young womens and two of them went to her house to pick her up for a firside we hosted last night. So great!

Last night we had our first annual ward fireside and I spoke! The theme was reverence, really stupid haha. But it went well. I was prayerfully preparing my talk a half hour before the fireside ;) and I asked one of the kids that was there early "What do you think of when you think of reverence?" (mind you, he's 7 years old) and he said "Behaving and being quiet." I then asked, "Why are we quiet at church?" and he responded "Because God is watching us." It was such an amazing response I used it in my talk. I read 1Kings 19 ( i believe) where it talks about God's eyes being open upon His house... This child in 5 words said a profound statement, words of a prophet, in a way everyone can understand. It was really neat!

We got a new baptismal date this week! Her name is Anyela and she is Dominican. We have taught her mom a little bit, but her mom literally told us "I don't like to think" so we kind of dropped her. But Anyela is awesome! She has sincere questions, and really reads! She picks apart the scriptures. She's a really driven girl, she's a senior in Highschool and she is just great. We're really excited for her. I told her "Anyela when you pray, be specific; if you want to know if we're just lying to you or not, ask!" So in her prayer she said "Padre, por favor dime si lo que estan diciendome son un monton de mentiras o no." Which means "Please tell me if what they are saying is a mountain of lies or not." I smiled to myself, it was such a good prayer. So she has a date of Enero 15, she just needs to read the Book of Mormon and talk to her parents! Her mom thinks we're great so I don't think it will be much of a problem.

We had our Christmas party this week which went really well, it was a lot of fun. We got the whole mission together and spent about 5 hours together. We played Christmas songs with Kazoos and we had a small Christmas special which I sang in. Elders Phillips, McLellan, Hansen, Larsen, Me and some others, sang The First Noel. It sounded great.

For Christmas, since it's on a Saturday, we will be able to call you from our cell phones. Elder Phillips and I will probably be at the Argueta home all day as they have invited us to come over and pasarla with them.

This week has gone well, I have had my ups, my downs, but I feel like we're doing a lot of good here. We have had some good successes. I would be lying to tell you I'm the perfect missionary. That I am anal about everything. But I'm happy to tell you that I feel like I notice where I need help, Yes, I need to stay off the couch in the morning! But at least I know I need help and I ask the Lord to help me. I love the atonement. I hope that each day, I can grow my testimony and share it with all that are willing to hear. I love you!!

p.s. Don't worry about Pete. He's happier now!

-Elder Conner Allred

December 6, 2010

Family!:
My shirt sizes are 14 1/2 32-33 Tailored fit please!!

This week went well! Nora and Gabriella have a baptismal date set for January 1st, 2011! We're pretty excited for them. The ward has been somewhat helping them, but not as much as we would have hoped. We had a lesson with them on the Tuesday following their first time at church. Apparently Gabriela recieved the up&down look from one of the other girls in the young womens and Nora didn't feel very loved. Hopefully they really did enjoy church this week, I felt like it went a lot better -- it also helped that we were able to sit with them during sacrament meeting.

Poor pooty :( I'd rather him be put down than suffer though. If you're waiting for me to get home and prolonging his suffering, I'd rather just remember him as the active gomer cat than come home and see him suffer and die :(

Lets see so what happened this week. Well, Elder Goncalves is now in Pawtucket, my grand-father (as far as mission genealogia goes) and this is his last transfer. He's an amazing teacher, kind of a weird guy, but he'll be great to learn from. We have changed the car share, so now We share the car with Pawtucket only which is nice so we don't have to make useless trips down to Providence and waste a gazillion miles!

This week we taught a less active member, the daughter of the secretary of la sociedad de socorro, he name is Lina. They're Colombian and have been here about 8 years. Lina is 19 and was baptized in Colo. But, has since fallen away from the Iron rod. She has a non-member boyfriend, and works at Dunkin' Donuts. We had a good lesson with her and she really reminded me of myself when I was home. Just didn't really worry at all. The warning bells haven't really gone off in her head yet. She says "I'll come back at some point, it's just not my thing right now." I didn't know eternal salvation was a trend, but we'll see what we can do to bring it back in style.

So about 3 weeks ago, Elder Phillips and I decided to go on a Gospel Spanish music hunt and entered a store called "El Rey." The girl that worked there asked us where we're from because we didn't look mexican, and we explained to her how the mission works and why we're here. So we have been stopping in here and there to say hello. The other day her friend was there as well, she has recieved the missionary lessons in Guatemala! The both of them have started to take the lessons! Really cool! We just need to get them to come to church. But we had a good lesson about prayer yesterday at the Laundromat haha. It was very much like running into Daisy in Hartford! Miracles happen!

Anyway, not much else has been going on this week. I hit my year mark on Thursday!!!! WOW! I'm pretty happy that I've made it! It's not easy, I feel like I have been carried the whole time. This week has been tough. Just hoping I have done the best I can. I love this place, I hope the Lord is happy. I just hope He knows that I'm doing my best, even when I'm not really "doing my best" I'm still just trying to keep fighting.

I love you, Merry Christmas!!

-Elder Conner Allred

11-30-10

Hey! I don't have much time, we have an appt soon and the lib was closed yesterday. So!!

iPod - Red

d:Fi - Green

Shirts - I'll send you a letter.

Tacey is getting HUGE! It's really weird to see that!

This week we found 2 new investigators from Guatemala. Nora and Gabriela. Gabriela is the daughter and Nora her mother. Nora has two kids in Guat that are already members, they are progressing nicely and should get a baptismal date today.

At church I had to translate from English to Spanish in front of the congregation! It was pretty nerve racking but it went well. I didn't know I was translating until 5 minutes before, the high-councilman asked me to translate his talk for him. Needless to say I was nervous, but the spirit helped me out a lot! It was amazing, as I was up there I felt really calm and I felt like I could pretty much collect all my thoughts. His first sentance was a hypothetical sentence "If it weren't for the restoration, we wouldn't have the priesthood, or know of the true nature of God." "Si no fuera por la restauracion, no tuvieramos el sacerdocio, ni supieramos de la naturaleza de Dios." It was intense, went really great though!

Anyway, not much time left, we have an appt in 5 minutes! Love you!!

Conner's current address

Elder Conner Allred
61 Shawmut Ave. #2
Central Falls, RI
02863

11-22-10

Family!

Another interesting week in Central Falls has passed, this upcoming one is the last of the transfer actually! Time flies!

It has been getting really cold lately but we haven't had any snow yet. I know it's bumming out Elder Phillips because he just wants it to snow already! haha.

We went by the pentecostal family last week and they didn't show up! I sure felt good though because we weren't the ones to wuss out! It really goes to show who has more faith I think. We left a note and they haven't called. I hope they do.

I'm not sure when we are doing calls yet, but we'll know soon I'm sure.

Thanksgiving; we have been invited to a lot of different parties! So I'm not exactly sure, but we'll be ok! I think my sizes are the same. A purple iPod would be great. I think Elder Hansen might buy my iPod so I might sell it to him, but if you need it for someone at home let me know. I don't want to have two iPods, I already think it's a little silly to want a new one, but it's so shiny!!

Raymundo y Dinora ignored us sunday. We had a great lesson on Saturday night and committed them to be married, and they were iffy but said they'd pray and then go to church on sunday. Didn't happen, wouldn't answer the phone. Maria y Fernando didn't come either... And we committed Maria to stop smoking last Friday -- she didn't smoke all Saturday!! Then we saw her outside this morning smoking... Really frustrating. That's about all the exciting news about our investigators this week. Hopefully we start so see some fruits.

I feel like P-Days are a day to finally worry about our OWN salvation. We spend so much time worrying about everyone else it's finally a break to just sit down and enjoy the blessings we get haha. I got really frustrated last night because an investigator (Manuel) told me that we are OBVIOUSLY going to read the scriptures and pray etc. because we're preachers, but NORMAL people just don't have time. I WANTED TO CHOKE HIM! He clearly must be turning off his brain when I tell him that I have a family at home, I went to school full time, I had a full time job, I had a life!!!! But I made time for God because the time I have is given to me from God anyway! I then held up a card to him and told him about Jesus Christ, he didn't do ANYTHING for himself. His whole life was according to the will of the Father; yet Manuel doesn't want to take a few minutes out of his "busy day" to read the scriptures. These people clearly don't understand that church isn't just a fun party every sunday, it's your salvation! You WILL be cast out if you don't do what you are supposed to! Anyway....

Anyway, we had a dinner appointment with the Majangos family and it went really well. We talked about finding a testimony and patriarchal blessings.

Love you!!
I'm Praying for you!!

“…pues sabemos que es por la gracia por la que nos salvamos, después de hacer cuanto podamos” (2 Nefi 25: 23).

-Elder Conner Allred

p.s. I sent you a picture of us doing our laundry last week! We didn't have the washer because the elders in Pawtucket never answered their door.

November 15, 2010

I think the manual is just about right!

Anyway, this week hasn't been too eventful. We did teach a pentecostal family though -- they were completely insane. So I'll give you what happened with them.

Elder Phillips and I were knocking some doors in hopes of finding some people to teach (obviously, why else would I knock doors...) anyway -- we knocked on a door and a girl about 15 answered and we asked her "Who is this in this picture?" and she answered "Jesus Christ" then her father came over, great! So we asked him a couple questions, if he has a faith in Christ... etc. I noticed his daughter was wearing an abercrombie shirt with a dress, this was my first clue. He then invited us in, next clue, and then I felt like I was in a polygamist home. His wife, and 4 daughters all were wearing normal shirts with dresses... hard-core pentecostals. I was quite scared to say the least. I could only imagine what was going to happen next. I was afraid he was going to start feeling the holy ghost and murder me. We talked to him for a little and he said "So you believe that you can drink, just as long as you get drunk, DON'T YOU!?" (it was more of an attack than a question). So I said "no, we don't drink at all." and then he said "You have one day where you can dance as much as you want, DON'T YOU!?" and I said "No, we can dance every day!" He thought we were J.W.s, he was a little confused. So we shared a message with him about the Book of Mormon. He asked me about baptism and he said "Do you know why we need baptism?" And I said "el que no naciere de agua y del Espíritu, no puede entrar en el reino de Dios." He was a little caught off guard because you could tell he thought I wouldn't have any bible knowledge. He then said "Yo no se si tu sabes, pero si una anade a la biblia..." and then I cut him off and said "The plagues of God are added unto them, it says it in Deuteronomy, too." He said "Yeah, and if someone preaches a word other than the word of God..." and I cut him off again saying "He is of the devil so says galatas." He was obviously surprised, so I explained to him that if he read ezekiel 37 he'll find information about the Book of Mormon. But, it was surprisingly a good lesson. We have another appointment with him, so who knows! If he converts, I know he'd be a great member, so we're going to pray about how we need to approach them without just bible bashing, because people have been doing that since Christ died and look what that got us... NOTHING! Just a gazillion churches and a bunch of confused people. So, we're going to simply enter and testify that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.

Not much else has happened this week! Our family (Lopez') didn't come to church :( but we're still praying. We continue to work hard with them. We had an awesome lesson about Lehi's dream in 1Nephi 8! We took an old lamp we have and taped real leaves to the shade so it looked like a tree and then turned all the ilghts off in the room. We took apart our clothes rack and used an aluminum pole from it to be the iron rod and then used the TV as the great and spacious building and we took them piece by piece through the dream Lehi had. It was way fun! It was a neat way to show how it really must've been. The tree had the light and then everywhere else was dark. Hopefully they took something from it!

I love you and I pray for each of you. The Book of Mormon is the word of God. This is His church and it is run by Him. The authority of God resides in this church and none else -- this is the way, Jesus Christ is our Savior -- He knows our needs, weaknesses, strengths, and desires. He's our advocate with the Father, He will plead for us at the last day, "despues que hacer cuanto podamos."

Love

-Elder Conner Allred

Mom,

That's good to hear about Pete! I hope he's going to be ok.

Those big bunch o' babies. When I get home I'll show them how to really eat spicy haha. They think they know spicy until you have home-made chipotle by a real mexican lady. That'll make your nose bleed!

Our ward has 4 elders, so the area is split. We visit the members in North Providence and Central Falls. They visit the people in Providence. Well, as of late, the members from providence have not been feeding them but instead have been inviting US over for dinner! Kind of bad, but also funny. It just goes to show, sometimes, you need to let go a little bit and have a laugh. One lady said "Are you coming to Thanksgiving at my house?" And I responded "Sure!!" So she went to ask the other elders if they wanted to come too, she told us that Elder Hansen said "Well, the point of these visits is to strengthen the spirit in your home, not just feed us." So she responded "Oh, well I won't have time for that, my whole family will be there." And walked away!!! I couldn't believe it! Elder Hansen is right, and I agree, but there ARE exceptions. Elder Phillips and I have actually been doing something kind of cool -- whenever we go to eat, instead of just leaving a simple "spiritual thought" we have started by doing the actual PMG lessons. So we're teaching these families the first lesson etc. So hopefully it will excite the members to bring more friends over to eat! So far it's working for us!!

Christmas, shirts -- more long sleeved shirts. I don't know what size I am, I can send it to you next week. GIft Cards are awesome. But I'm not really in dying need of anything, I'm pretty well off to be honest. I have every color of sharpie you could ever want, what else do I need?! I'm going to try to sell my iPod and buy the new nano, so if you know of anyone that wants my purple iPod at home -- let me know. It doesn't have a camera, but it can play video.

This week we found a new Mexican family! Raymundo and Dinora! They're fantastic, really catching on to the gospel. The husband was ok with baptism on our first visit when we talked about it. Dinora was a little set back, she has a really strong belief in la virgincita. But she said she wants to read, she also told me "Tu dudas de que voy a leer!" I was taken back! But it was a little true. She told us she actually loves to read and so we left 2 chapters with her. I think they'll make a great family in the church. They ahve one little daughter, Leslie and then it's them two, perfect! They've been married for 5 years and they talk openly about how much they appreciate one another. Raymundo told us how much he appreciates the fact that she is a good mother and cooks. I thought it was awesome to see that kind of love in not only a regular family these days, but a hispanic family, where the men are usually pretty hard-headed.

We are continuing with Maria, Fernando and the family. Hopefully things go well with them. We had a great lesson about families with Maria and Fernando last week but the kids didn't show up. Hopefully they took something from it. We found out they are not married, so we need to work on that as well. Lots to do in so little time! But we can do it! I can't think of too much else that has happened this week to be honest. Elder Phillips is doing great. We still have tons of cockroaches -- gross. Oh, and I made a delicious breakfast for myself this morning, you won't believe it unless you see it! So I attatched a photo.

I love you all, please pray for me!

Nov. 1, 2010

PEEETTTTEEEE :(

There was a lady in Bridgeport that asked for a blessing for her dog. haha, maybe.... No. Well, I'd rather he be put to sleep than struggle. How did you know he was sick? That dumb cat.

This week the weather was pretty good but it's starting to get really cold! It was 70 the other day, we didn't have to wear our jackets, but now today it's like 40!!! It's pretty annoying.

Smallest City in the World at 1.29 sq miles
over 18,000 people in it
7% graduation rate
92% hispanic

It's almost like the garden of Eden.
Last week we had a cool miracle! We were walking around contacting and we talked to this lady on her porch. She was outside smoking and we started talking to her. She is from Guatemala and as I talked to her I finally just asked "Are you a member?" and she nodded her head, she told me she was baptized when she was twelve. I asked her about her testimony about the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, she said she still believes. Now she is married with 4 kids. Her husband is Mexican. Her 17 year old daughter has a 6 month old, so I'm sure that has got to be hard. They are such an awesome family. The father seems VERY family oriented. I have great hopes for them and I have been praying and fasting for them very hard. I really hope they can see the happiness the gospel brings! This family could change so much.

I'm not really sure what else happened this week, we have been showing the ward that we are hard workers and the ward is very grateful. They told me "We could have another Elder Rogers" (They worship him here) but that was very flattering. I think Elder Phillips and I could do a lot here, and we already have a pretty good teaching pool! Maria's family (Guatemalan) is our biggest hope right now, so we'll just keep praying and hoping we can find more like them.

Spanish continues to be a challenge, but I feel like I'm at the point where I can say whatever I want, now I'm just being picky and trying to figure out how to say things in a more complicated way haha. But I'm really enjoying it.

I love you all, I'm praying for you.

-Elder Conner Allred

Oct. 25, 2010

NEW ADDRESS:
Elder Conner Allred
61 Shawmut Ave. #2
Central Falls, Rhode Island
02863


I totally forgot to tell you last week that I'll be training and that I was moving. Oh well. Anyway, my greenie is great! Elder Phillips is from Las Vegas and he's a great kid. His spanish is really pretty good and it's been a good first week! The elders that were in Central Falls left 5 weeks ago because one of them went home early, so we walked into a dead area -- but, now we have 6 investigators (4 thanks to the providence elders) and a half a page of contacts, so we've been working hard. Elder Phillips and I click really well. It's so great. He's a lot like Mickey Dailey haha. So we have a lot of fun together. He's not into cars, but his attitude is very much alike -- very ironic and inteligently humorous.

It was hard to leave Bridgeport -- I loved it there and I miss the people a lot. The people are mostly dominican or Guatemalan here, they all tell me I talk like a Mexican haha. They all speak in Vos, which is weird. It's like more informal than Tu form and it only changes present indicitive and present subjunctive, so it's really easy to learn and use. It's just weird to me though. We had a great little party with the people in Bridgeport and it really made me feel great. I'm going to miss the people there, they were so great. :( But, life moves on. I'll see them again, one day!

Our house is a huge dump, it's disgusting. I fount a garrapata (tick) crawling on my shirt the other day after I got up from praying. So I called Sister Pehrson to see if we should spray, she said no for now, we'll see if I just brought him inside or what happened. But I murdered him with a knife. Our utinsil drawer had only 8 cucarachas in it! I hate our house. It's really nasty. The area is a lot more ghetto as well. Our first night we didn't get home until 8 p.m. but I still took Elder Phillips out to scare him haha. We walked outside and some dominican kids yelled out "Los Mormones!!" So I yelled back "?!Que Onda!?" They definitely didn't realize we spoke spanish. We shared a little bit about Christ with them, one of them is an inactive kid. We said a prayer with them and then after that we went home and planned.

Well, I can't really think of much more at this point. We are having fun moving in and getting everything rolling! I feel honored that President Pehrson trusts me not only to train, but to basically open an area!! Que Chido!


Los Amo
-Elder Allred

Pictures: Saul and us
Stephanie Perez and Me (Inactive Member)
Elder Phillips and Me
p.s. I got the book!

10-12-10

Hi all,

Library was closed on Monday so we're finally getting our e-mails done! This week has been kind of slow but it's been a good week all in all. To be honest, I can't really remember what really went on -- my brain just kind of mixes things up all into one big ball and I can't discern between yesterday and 6 months ago.

We did have some luck with an old investigator named Brenda last week. She thought we were J.Ws the first few months the missionaries were meeting with her. Finally I asked her to compare her bible with mine and she found... they're the same! So then she said "Well, then what's this book?" So everything actually went really great with her! She seemed a lot less confused! But, tragedy struck. This morning during studies we got a phone call from her husband -- he says he doesn't want us to come over anymore to meet with her. So that kind of bums us out, but hopefully his heart will be softened. We just told him "if you need anything, give us a call."

We are teaching a part member family from Paraguay. Very interesting accent, too. TrabajaR. They have really american R's. The husband was pretty heard hearted up until now, for some reason he wants to meet with us. So we're happy about that. Last night we taught the restoration and we told him about the apostles having the same authority as Jesus Christ, he thought it was blasphemy and questioned me on it. It was such basic knowledge (so I thought) I didn't even know where to look to answer him! Finally I looked at Acts... DUH, acts of the apostles. And read him a few of the miracles done at the hand of Filipe. He is opening more and more, he just needs to have scriptures to back up what we say for him to believe. Which is fine with me, I feel comfortable answering questions with scriptures. I feel like I don't get the chance to do it enough, actually. People will usually just believe our testimonies, so it's fun to use a little spiritual knowledge. He asked last night though, "Why should I have to read alone? I will just listen to my wife read, we're going to be together forever aren't we? So we'll just read together." Those are the kinds of questions he asks. I was kind of stumped, I thought "Yeah, good point." I can't really explain to him the difference in studying alone and with someone. Personally, I like to study alone -- but I didn't have a good reason to give him to study alone, other than I like it! haha.

Elsi's daughter, Camila was in the hospital the other day! We gave her a blessing though and then we prayed that night asking that she would be healed by morning. She left the hospital at 12 the next day! Talk about a cool miracle, huh?

A woman in our ward named Amelia (Mexican) lives with her daughter, son and son in law. Her daughter is 7 months pregnant with her first child and has been married less than a year. They were sealed in the temple. Well, her husband decided he doesn't like whatever he's got so he skipped off to Mexico without any warning and just abandoned his wife/baby. So that has been kind of hard for her. She's 23 and is about to have a child! She feels pretty vulnerable. So we're having them over tonight with the Sanchez' to try to get a good friendship going. And, to have a little time away from sitting at their house in the dark. They need time away!

We're going to see if we can track down the ladies from Spain. The family they were living with have no idea what happened. They just took off randomly one day. The mom wants to stay past her Visa and from what the other family said she's a little insane. She is basically the boss of her daughter and wants to marry her daughter off to an American to get papers. So we're going to see if we can catch them near her highschool today. Hopefully we can, they definitely need some help in that family!

Transfers are coming up next week and I'm hoping I don't take off.

We moved apartments by the way. Same address, just apt. 111 now.

I love you and I am praying for you.
-Elder Conner Allred

Oct. 4, 2010

Mom

Thanks for the words. It's still hard but I'll keep moving on.

Conference went well, the brethren seemed to talk a lot about 1Timothy chapter 4 which is a great chapter. We had a few members show up and I thought my companion was going to have an aneurysm. He kept asking me "So, people don't go?" (Saturday morning) I said "No, honestly, people just throw it on TV and pay a little attention or are out working, especially the Hispanics." "But, why? Do they not care? Do they not understand?" haha. I was just thinking -- RELAX! They have lives haha. The Lord understands. We went to dinner with a member family on Saturday night and he about started to chew out the wife because she had been home all day and hadn't watched any of conference. I just kind of shook my head. She then started speaking English (that's when you know they're a little frustrated) and said "Elder, when you have children, you'll understand." Andale!. He means well haha. He's a recent convert of 3 years so I think he deserves a break haha. It's just really funny! To me, at least!

I really liked the talk about not looking back -- that was a great talk for me I think. I have a hard time not looking back. There were a lot of great messages about this and what I think I saw from this conference is that the world is being attacked, especially the saints, and we need to raise our children in such a way to be prepared to battle these attacks.

I have made an extensive study guide for how to read Spanish. We have an investigator who can't read. She is 30 something years old and has children etc. But she can't read! So I have split up each letter and we begin on Tuesday with lessons. I have a page on syllables and vowels and then 2 letters per page. I have written up some homework she can do that goes along with the lessons we teach as well. I'm excited to help someone learn to read! How cool!!

I can't think of much else that has happened this week. The Library has new computers, finally! I love you, I hope all is well at home. Happy Birthday!!!

Hopefully things go well this week. I love you.
-Elder Conner Allred

9-13-10

Mom,

I got your package!

This week has been great! I'm definitely learning some patience, and how to bite my tongue. It's been a real test for me but I think I'm doing better. My comp is really OCD! haha. It's kind of fun to play around with though. He does things without even knowing he's doing them. Like he'll go around and shut the lights off or straighten my jacket so it doesn't get wrinkles or put the toilet seat down. So just for a little fun I'll put a wrinkle in the table cloth to see how long it takes him to fix it haha. He usually gets it right away. Have you ever seen Monk? That's my companion haha. He's a great Elder. We worked really hard this week! But didn't see a WHOLE lot of success as far as new investigators. The people from Spain didn't show up to the Mexican Party :S but it was a great party still! I'll go print some pictures and send them off when I can. These computers are definitely less than I'd hope for so it's almost impossible to send pictures.

Elsi is set for baptism on the 25th of September! We announced it in church yesterday!!! WOO!

My spanish has really grown in these past two transfers. I don't really have to look up grammatical things anymore, it's mainly just words I haven't heard before. Right now I'm working with subjunctive and conditional statesments though and indirect / direct objects! Fun fun!

We ran into a bunch of JW's this week which really kills me every time. I just want to bible bash with them but that definitely won't get us anywhere. But what frustrates me is the lies they plant into people and they make people so attatched to them that you can't convince the investigators that they can use their own brains!! I asked a person studying with JWs "How do you find out an answer if you have a question?" (after reading james 1:5) She said "ask someone with more biblical information than you." AHHHH BNO!OO!O!O!I!NO! NO! FALSE! One guy told us God doesn't communicate with man anymore, so I said "Isn't God the same today yesterday and forever?" And he said "definitely!" So that made me a little dumbfounded for a second... Come again?

I feel like I'm on crazy pills! It's like I'm walking around with a backpack full of a million dollars (eternal life with God) and saying "I'd like to give you a million dollars (eternal life with God)." and they say "NOOO way, only millionaires can have a million dollars." It blows my mind! Oh well. We continue fighting I guess.
Well, not much else is going on.

I love you and miss you!!
-Elder Susan

Things are going great and I did indeed just get my new companion! Elder Cohen is his name -- his grandmother is a practicing Jew. Elder Cohen had a bar mitzvah when he was 13, then converted to Mormonism when he was 20, 3 years later, he's serving a mission! He's got a great gringo accent in his Spanish, and has OCD really bad. He's great! He's so pure hearted, does everything with pure love and dedication. We're going to have a great time. He'll be a patience challenge for me, but I'm going to just focus on loving him the best I can and I really want to, this transfer, look at him as I look at my investigators, just love him unconditionally. I think this has been my issue in the past. I'm not very patient and I like to be left alone a lot of the time, so I want to change that, I'm really excited. But nervous, because I feel like I have a lot of pride -- so hopefully I can tackle that, too!

Earl unfortunately didn't pay us a visit. I was a little bummed out to be honest. I thought it'd be cool to have some crazy news like "A boat landed on our car!!!!" but unfortunately, it rained for about 5 minutes and then the sun came out again. SNORE.We had about 3 gallons of water prepared and the car was filled with gas constantly, we have a mission safety plan which we followed closely. We prepared for the worst, but nothing happened.

All last week we had really bad traffic on Barnum Avenue. Arson struck at a HUGE abandoned factory last week, this is what I think happened. This building is a huge waste of space, it's broken down and is used for nothing except a good place to go sell drugs. I think someone lit it on fire so that the city has to tear it down on their bill so that someone can build something new. It is a nice piece of land, but nothing anyone would want to buy and then pay for to clear it up. So I have a feeling as soon as the city tears it down (which they are doing because it's now too dangerous) someone will buy the land and build something on it. Then I saw at the gas station on the front page headline it said "Officer charged for arson." Maybe you can look it up and see if that's what it was talking about. Anyway, it was a traffic headache all week!


I always get a chance to tell people about grandpa out here. It's really funny, since all these kids have babies by the time their 15 all their grandparents are only in their 50s. So when I say "My grandpa faught in WWII" They want to hear all about him! haha. To me, he's not that old haha. It's really neat to tell people about our family history, people think it's really interesting. One lady in our branch wants a picture of me with her to show that she has met an ancestor of William Clayton. haha, I told her to come to utah and every 3rd person on the street is an ancestor of him. hahaha.

Anyway, we are really excited for this week to see how things get going! Saturday we have a Mexican party at the ward. All the Mexicans are making food for us and we are going to sit around and watch them dance. This will be really good for our younger investigators. We are teaching one 17 year old (sister of one of our members, Francisco who is 30's and his oldest daughter is 12, he's from Colombia) and we are going to start teaching an 18 year old Ecuadorian and her Mother. The rest of their family is in *drumroll* SPAIN! The 18 year old was basically raised there, so hopefully she can teach me the zeta! haha. She has a really interesting mix of Latin and Spain spanish.

I'm going to give that Bannana thing a shot out here. Can you believe Saul and Emmanuel have never had a Root Beer Float.... WHAT THE HECK?! So we're going to make those next P-Day.

We went and did some service for a family, the Perez family who I think I have written about before. Saul, Alejandro, Emmanuel, and the two of us went to their house and totally revamped their backyard. It was a complete mess, dangerous too. They had weed killer just lying around, the pool was still water for MONTHS now, it was just disgusting. We threw everything out and cut the grass and cut down all the overgrown bushes. Mulched the lawn and I got the duty... nay, the honor of taking the dead squirrel out of the pool that had drowned the night before. I picked it up with a shovel and hurled it over the fence. It was nasty. Anyway, Hopefully they can just get the lawnmower out and keep it up now! I learned how to keep a lawn nice though! I learned a lot from those mexicans! haha. If you just do the little things, take an hour a week to mow the lawn it will NEVER end up like their back yard, it's that easy! It's just like the gospel. Once a week -- go to church and take the sacrament. Yeah it's a pain and it's boring sometimes. But then you won't have a life full of sin and nasty stuff that takes 4 other people to help dig you out of.


Well, I love you all. Hopefully I can get some pictures off this week.

I'm praying always. I love you!
-Elder Conner Allred

8-30-10

I have read parts of that book (Rough Stone Rolling) out here actually. I absolutely love it. Not many people know that Joseph Smith had some alcohol problems! People find that to be a huge fault in him and mull over it for hours and it's hilarious because just look at our family and the amazing things that have come out of the alcohol abusers in it. We gave some blessings last night and it went really well. I gave one to Ligia . After her's Elder Trujillo gave one to Pablo. Pable is the non-member. After the blessing he was trembling a bit and was trying not to cry. He said "Porque estoy como asi, elderes?" At the same time, Elder Trujillo and I both said "El Espiritu." It was a really special moment.

Good news!!! ELSI HAS A BAPTISMAL DATE!!!!!!

We were all in class yesterday and right after the closing prayer I turned around to Elsi and I said "Are you ready?" and she said "For baptism?" and I said "Yes. Let's set a date for 2 weeks from now." And she thought about it. then said "Lets make it 3." WOO! 19 of September she's going down! How cool is that!? Her husband has been drinking a lot but they're working through things. I wish she would have told us that earlier. The Elders Quorum Pres. was an alcoholic. I knew he was having some issues like that. Elsi's husband I mean. So we're going to start working with him tomorrow. Really exciting!

So for your Pizza and Pickup-Lines you should read through Chapter 10 in PMG. It talks about how to ask questions and listen. Very useful tools for any situation!

This week we didn't do much finding. Elder Trujillo is about spent. But, all is well.


well. I love you and I'm praying for all of you. Make sure to tell annabeth Hi for me. I'm praying for her and Sarah. Love you all.

Elder Conner Allred

Hey Mom,

This week has been pretty good! I'm feeling OK, just keeping on going. We found some new investigators and things are starting to pick up again. Plus, the diarrhea passed, so all is well inside and out! haha.

We were actually supposed to go on a hike today with Saul, Emanuel, and us Elders but the weather is rainy so we are going to stay inside. President Pehrson approved Alice in Wonderland with Johnny Depp, so we're going to watch that today! Woo! Last week we watched Mulan and Spirit. Sounds boring, but it's nice to watch some good wholesome movies and take our minds off of things for a while haha. I'm sure you remember.


This week went well! We taught the husband of a member, Ligia (Ecuador). His name is Pablo and he got caught playing hookie. Anyway, it put him in a position of serious humility and he knows he needs to repent. We had an awesome lesson about the plan of salvation with them. Honestly, I thought "oh great, he's just trying to make his wife happy." But honestly, he's ready. He prayed at the end, kneeling and it was the most sincere prayer I have heard! It was awesome. We set a date with him for September 12th.

Elsi is doing ok. Her Husband gave us a ride the other day because we were watiing for the bus outside after an appointment with her. Before we left he dropped roses onto the porch. He's a weird guy, I can't figure him out. She was really depressed but she is in New York with a friend this weekend so hopefully she'll get a little bit of a break. Bless that woman, she's doing the best she can.

Alejandro Cruz and Mabel are preparing for the temple in December and Alejandro is getting the Melch priesthood!
Nothing happened with Mariela, she called and didn't show up to the appointment.
Mendes is doing great, just got ordained a priest.
Veronica and German are awesome. Still having problems with the step family thing but German has blessed the sacrament twice now!

Things are going quite well. The Lord is blessing us abundantly, hopefully I can continue to grow in this work and hopefully he is seeing my good works and I'm doing the best I can to please Him. It's hard but good. I'll just keep soldiering on.

I love you all, and I'll talk to you again soon! (p.s. I'll send some pictures next time I go to print some.)

Los Amo,
Elder Allred

8-16-10

Investigators... This week our pool has shrunk quite a bit. We have two new investigators named Silvia and Fernando from Ecuador. They are a great little family of four, friends of a member (Ruth) and Fernando's heart is really being softened. Josh actually taught them 2 years ago. So that's about all we're working with at this point!

We're going to hopefully start finding more people to teach and get some more work done this week. It didn't help that I was throwing up on Tuesday. That was gross. I ate some old meat and then Got sick from it. had like 4 days of Montezuma's revenge and threw up. It was awful! haha.

You are going to be very pleased in December with my portuguese when we can talk again! I'm getting a bible in Port from Elder Rolim . But It's a great language. It's grammar is almost the exact same, just different sounds, as spanish. But, of course -- I am working mainly on perfecting spanish. The one thing I get confused a lot in are Direct and Indirect objects. Like "N os Gustaria invitarle" or "nos Gustaria invitarlo" Cause the rule is, for direct objects (the Lo) "who or what is being ___ed?" Well, you are being invited.... But i guess it's supposed to be said with Le... Is this making sense? Anyway, it's coming along. I just need to figure out a few more things and work on my vocabulary mainly.


Hopefully we see more success this week. I am hoping to do well so we can get the ball moving again. Hopefully I'm recieving the correct promptings and things I need to do. I just hope I'm following the spirit. Or even recieving the spirit! I'm trying real ly hard to be as obedient as possible, I just can't figure out why things are going w rong. I hate to say it, but is it me? What's happening!?!? What the heck!? I hope this isn't my same old gripe as usual. Anyway. I just hope to see some fruits soon. Make me feel a little better. Just hope I'm worthy to be recieving the spirit and helping people.

Anyway, Not much else is going on. I miss you all and I can't believe I'm coming up on 8 1/2 months! Wow! haha. Miss you again.

8-9-10

The baptisms! They're going well, but unfortunately this week I don't have pictures because we forgot the camera. Mendes is Brazilian, I think I told you that, so that was a fun baptism. This week we also had 2 confirmations (mendes and Veronica).

I got the talks, thanks very much -- I just need to translate them for her haha. She doesn't read or speak a lick of English, but I think these talks will help Elsi quite a bit.
This week has been pretty crazy, I can't really remember all of it to be completely honest. We were all over the place getting things ready for the baptism and confirmations, it was insane! Alejandro Cruz baptized Mendes, really neat since it was his first time using his priesthood! Alejandro and his wife were just baptized last Feb and are still goin head first! He receives the Melk Priesthood in 2 months and will be entering the temple to be sealed in Feb! They had to baptize Mendes 3 times because he didn't go all the way under, but overall it went well and it all worked out! I think the main thing is to get in the water and just relax. You don't need to rush! Get set up, say the prayer, slowly put your hand on their back and put their hand to their nose and then tip them back and pull them up. I think everyone sees these videos from the church where it's this gorgeous flowing motion and gets a little too excited! haha. But it was a really spiritual day!

We got some people from Cape Verde reactivated. One of them, Nissy, just moved here a month ago -- was a primary teacher years back. She is 26 and she hasn't been to church in a little while so I sat next to her during sacrament. As the sacrament was being passed, she busted out into tears. She told me she felt embarrassed because she didn't even know why she was crying! But I told her I'm sure it's the spirit working his sanctification. She only speaks Portuguese so that's really fun! I get to practice that with her. She is great, we have really high hopes for her to continue. The relief society ladies said she seems VERY knowledgeable in the gospel.

Not much else has been going on that I can remember. We're going to do some serious finding this week and try to find some new people! I hope everything is going well at home. Love you!

I will keep annabeth and sarah in my prayers... This news is ridiculous!

-Elder Conner Allred

8-2-10

We had a baptism! She actually showed up! Helps when the rest of the family are members though. It's been a really cool experience to watch this family grow from where they were to where they are now. I believe the husband is even working on a repentance process so that he can hold the priesthood soon! They have their eyes set on the temple now (she even has the Buenos Aires temple pictures bookmarked on the computer) so that was a big win for everyone! I can understand why it would be difficult in Spain to have baptisms, the people are much more educated. But, when you baptize someone like that, they are usually much more solid. Easily converted, easily led away. So sometimes it's good to have to fight a little.

I miss Elder Rogers! He was a great companion, I learned so much from him in 6 weeks. He was a great example and I'm glad I get the chance to fill his shoes in Bridgeport. I feel like if I can fill his shoes here, the people will be very greatful. Even if I can't do EVERYTHING he did, as long as I try and show that I'm trying, they'll be greateful. They've had too many missionaries here that get too comfortable and slack off! So I'm going to do my best not to be a slacker!

Elder Trujillo, does SOUND like a native, doesn't it? He's 4 generations from Spanish (spain) ancestors. He didn't speak a lick of spanish before his mission and was raised in idaho. His dad is in the army and they have moved from places like Texas, Atlanta, Germany, Idaho, and a few other places. He'll be finishing his mission in 5 weeks so I won't have him for very long either! I'm excited to see what happens afterwords as well though. His goal is 8 more baptisms before he does home. 7 to go, and 6 after this Thursday.

We got a referral this week from Massachusets! One of their recent converts just moved here and she is frome Cape Verde. So my portuguese is being tested again! I taught 2 lessons this week in portuguese! Of course, it's not perfect, but the Lord really helped me out! I was able to speak on the phone with her and also teach those lessons all in Port. What a blessing!

Well, this week should be quite busy. New trainings and baptizing sure can be tiring! haha. But truly, I'm greatful that the Lord has allowed me to watch the changes in these people and allow me to be changed by them. I would have never understood the grace and charity that people have for others unless I served this mission. Veronica and German, weeks ago had nothing. Now, they still don't have much, but they are blessed with food on the table, and a little more work. 100% more than they used to have. They even feed us when they go over. It's hard to eat it because I know they don't have much, but I am so grateful for their service to us -- what great people we have here. Their hearts are just so darn pure, every last one of them here. They're great.

In one of those pictures, I think I'm not smiling... I was pretending to be a Mexican. Mexicans don't smile ahha.



How's Brinleast??? Hope she is good, I miss her. I miss all of you. Shaydyn looks great by the way in the picture you sent me! Has she been dieting still?? She looks really good!

Send some pics of fat pete and zorini!

I love you!
-Elder Conner Allred

7-26-10

I'm excited to get home and see the bandit, I bet it's sweet.

Alright, so the baptism and an update on that! She has fallen off of the earth. The members have been calling and going to her house and anything else they can do but we finally got a hold of her... sort of. We called her phone from a private number and her boyfriend answered :S. We also went by her sisters house (where she lived) and she told us she had moved away to New York with her boyfriend which we didn't really know if we believed as we were told they didn't want to hear the gospel so maybe they're just trying to get us outta there! Well, we have NOW heard, that is false. This whole time her 4 nieces and sister DID want us to come by!! AHHH! So we're a little bummed out about that. But we're going to start lessons with them. And, she did in fact move to New York. We're thinking it was more of Gods doing that she didn't get baptized. Probably just knew she wasn't worthy and ran away -- we'll see what happens with her family though!

This week was really good, except one thing. Elder Rogers is being transferred to Avon to be assistant to the President :( We really sucked every last opportunity out of our companionship that we could though, so at least that worked out. We spoke about 75% spanish and a little english when we were together and we studied and worked hard. It's a bummer but I'm excited to see how I can do being the "veteran" in the area now. Elder Trujillo will be my new companion. I don't know much about him so I'm excited to see how everything goes!

Elder Rogers though is from Denver, CO and goes home in six months. He has a family of 6 and he's the oldest boy. His little brother just entered the MTC in Sao Paulo 3 weeks ago. He is really good with spanish and knows the grammer almost perfectly, so that was a huge help to me. I'm bummed out we're being split up, but -- all good things come to an end.

We have a few more baptismal dates.

Julio - From Ecuador

Miriam - From Ecuador (married, a few children that are grown up)

Veronica - From Argentina, the luchadora

Mendes - Brazilian

So we have plenty of work! We're excited and it's a lot to do so we'll be happy! Elsi is another one of our strong investigators so we're helping her right now a ton; hopefully she will accept baptism soon. She has been really solid in going to church etc. Her husband is a member / returned missionary and she has a 3 year old daughter.

Anyway, that's the news here from Bridgeporn... I mean, bridgeport library. You can probably guess why we call it bridgeporn.. haha

Love you!

-Elder Conner Allred

7-19-10

Ma! Tudo bem! Como vai voces?

Well this week was quite interesting. We had a pretty good week as far as new investigators -- one from Ecuador named Julio. Solid as a rock! He's a really nice guy, lives here with his sister and his kids are still down south in Ecuador. He came to church yesterday with his hair all did and a nice ironed shirt! He loved it! He especially loved priesthood meeting. Our priesthood meeting is very inviting and loving for everyone, the members are great at fellowshipping them. It's a nice change of pace after all the sriousness and kind of intensity of Sacrament Meeting haha.

Veronica is slowly quitting drinking coffee! I don't know if I told you guys or not but Veronica is the wife of German, or as known in the wrestling world, Apolo. They have been married for a while now and he was baptized in '95. He has a daughter from his previous marriage who was born into the church and just showed up at church one day. Now Veronica is taking the lessons and has a baptismal date for August 1st! She is super awesome and doing her best to stop drinking cafe. (it's easier to spell in spanish). She has been getting really bad headaches so she has just een taking it with more and more milk each day and less coffee. It's a start!! She has really changed, we can all see it. She is much more calm and collected. The whole family is actually, it's great. Veronica was actually a wrestler as well, you can seach for them on Google Apolo and Havana and you'll find them! haha, they're so sweet!

Right now we have 4 baptismal dates so we're pretty excited to have some work to do.

Yesterday was definitely interesting... Yesterday was the baptism of Mariela Cobarrubias. We had the font filled and Elder Rogers was dressed in white, ready to go. 6:00 and nobody is there! Slowly the people started to pack the place though. We had a better part of the branch there, allt he leaders showed up, and we were standing around at 6:30 saying.... Hmm.... Where's Mariela? Mabel had been at her house since 5:15 waiting for her. Elder Rogers played phone tag with Mariela and Mabel for over an hour. We still are not sure what happened, but the baptism was eventually called off. It was a really rough time for us. We were really hoping for it, Mariela hasn't talked to us since last night -- so we're not sure what's going on.

In stead of this happening, I took the chance to take some family pictures of everybody that was there! Well, most everybody. So I have a little work I need you to do for me. Just touch them up a little. There's one picture of Ruths family and there's a man next to them in blue and white. If you could get him out of the picture or crop it somehow, that'd be great. But it made for a little fun while we were there. Then just shoot them back to me. There's a few pictures of Ricardo Carvalho and his daughter, you can e-mail those to me and to him (rickgol11@hotmail.com). Gracias.

Anyway. I love you!

-Elder Conner Allred

7-12-10

This week was slowish. I can't really decide. We had a lot of success with Mariela; she is getting excited for her baptism -- as are we. And we had a really great lesson with Ruth and her family / husband again. Her neice Ligia came with her non-member husband as well. We watched the Testaments and when we flipped the lights on all the women, and me, were crying. Booyeah. I love that movie, it really helps us understand the BoM and also the love of Christ in our lives. We had a great little testimony meeting afterwards and it seems as though Ligia has made a few mistakes since her baptism in December so we told her why we have repentance/confession! Not to scare you, to help you! So We are cheering her on! We're hoping the movie impacted the husbands a little bit and maybe they understand the message a little bit more, we'll see.

Our branch does something really cool that I haven't seen before. Each fast sunday at church the Elders Q. and Relief society are each given a paper that they put their name on and the families they have for visiting teaching, at the end of the month, they bring them back with the information they recieved from the family. Including, whether they talked to them on the phone or had a visit and what they know about the family. If they don't bring it back, the President(s) work with the individuals that aren't pulling the line. How neat! It's a little harsh, but it really makes it easy for everyone else and they love to do missionary work because of it.

Well, Next week is the baptism! Going to be a great week! We're going to do a little more finding this week and hopefully everything falls correctly! We don't have super crazy plans yet that I'm just going crazy about, but that could be just because I'm really tired. I'm glad it's P-Day!

I included some pictres of the apartment and one of Elder Rogers and I! Not too shabby of a place, right?!

I love you and I'm praying for each of you every day!
-Elder Conner Allred

Hi all,

The 4th was super regular, as usual. Nothing new! We came in at 9, planned, went to bed.

We have something really cool here though! REAL FIREFLIES! I have never seen them before, but they actually DO light up! It's sweet!!

This week I can't really remember what happened to be honest. All the weeks kind of merge into one big one but I'll do the best I can to remember what's been going on.

Well, Mariela has been defending the Book of Mormon at work in front of her co-workers so I think we're ok on the aspect of her getting baptized for correct reasons so that is good. And then she has been coming to church so her baptismal date is still looking good! We're pretty excited for her and doing the best we can to make sure the members are helping her out (which is super easy in our branch!)

We have another baptismal date with a part member family, the mom's name is Veronica. She is from argentina so she speaks with a Sh. Like ?Como se Shama? and Mira ashi. It's interesting. But she has also a very puerto rican accent because her husband is from the P.R. She has been meeting with us every day for the last week and she is catching on really well. They are doing the best they can to find a job though ecause that seems to be the hardest thing for them right now.

We hav a new investigator named Jose, from the P.R. as well. Jose was driving on the road the other day and slammed on his brakes to stop to talk to the English elders. Elder MacLennan and Salazar have been teaching him for about a week but I think realized last night he just doesn't know enough English for this to work, so we all went over to his house last night to meet him. He's really great, he has a bachelors degree in communications, too! He's very educated and his spanish is actually very clear. He understands things as they come to him and his daughter actually has had open heart surgery (she lives in P.R.) So he's been counting his blessings. He said after the surgery, the Jehovas Witness' told him not to do a blood transfusion and that's what made him realize that religion is balogna. He watched the Restoration DVD and said "Wow, I feel really peaceful and good." And he says he feels that while he reads the BoM, too. We're pretty sure he's prepared! We're going to set a date with him soon.

Elsy Prado from Honduras is a part member family and we're working with her to get her in the water. Her husband Luis served a mission in Sacramento Calif. and he is from Guatemala. They ahve a 5 year old daughter. They are a great family though and Elsy, after months, just told us that she feels good when she reads the BoM and is starting to realize it really IS scripture. She also loves the Doctrine and Covenants! Awesome! Their daughter though was, we're pretty sure, a victim of sexual abuse at her day care, so she is in our prayers. They are taking her to a psychologist etc this week. She's such a cutie, some people are terrible.

We had a really cool experience while tracting last week. We were walking down the street and a man was basically just telling us to take a hike but I asked him "Sir, can we at least give you a card?" and he agreed. He saw the picture of Christ descending into the Americas and asked "well, what's that?" So we explained it to him. Now, Hector is taknig the lessons and loves the Book of Mormon thus far! We're worried because he is a little shaky as far as keeping appointments, but we're pretty sure he's ready. He just got out of prison a few months ago, he was locked up for 21 years. Lucky for us, he's free and clear now so he will actually be able to get baptized! I'll fill you in as we continue to teach him.

I have come up with a new tactic, when people ask me "why are you here?" or "what do you do?" I'm going to share with them the last verses of the book of John. "if ye love me, feed my sheep." I love the Lord, his atonement for us is amazing. Look up a great talk by Brother Skousen "A Personal Search for a Meaning of the Atonement." I spent all last week in studies translating it into Spanish for a ward member. It was hard work, but good practice. You will be amazed at the things you can learn, for example: The Atonement is not So much suffering for so much sinning. He doesn't suffer more if we sin more -- He suffered enough pain and torment that the principle of the atonement is INFINITE. My favorite part of the talk is "He suffered so much that when we get to Heavens gate he will say 'Father, let them enter or I will be robbed of the reward of my labor.' and God will say 'If you really love them that much, I will do it, but not because of their righteousness, it wasn't good enough, but because of your sacrifice; I will do it." He also tells a story to help outline how this works, because Amulek tells us no one can take someone elses justice away, in that I can't die for someone else. If I commit a crime, and my companion dies for me because he thinks I still have something to do here, that doesn't meet the demands of justice. So what the atonement does for us is it meets the demands of justice in the following way. "There was a boy of about 19 years old who fell asleep in the civil war, many of his friends were killed and when he was found he was court marshalled and sentanced to die. This young man thought it was only just that he die, but as Abraham Lincoln was going to sign his death warrant a little mother came to him and said "Mr Lincoln, I am this boys mother -- when this war started I had a husband and 6 sons. First I lost my husband and then one by one I lost 5 sons. President, he knows he should die, he accepts his fate, but for my own sake save this boy. He's all I have left. Not for his sake, but for his mothers sake. And Abraham Lincoln said "For you, little mother, I'll let him live."

This is how the atonement meets the demands of justice. That is how we will be saved into the kingdom again. Not because of our righteousness, because we're still short of the glory of God. But we will be saved because Jesus Christ watches us do good things, and do the best we can to repent, and then he will be our advocate and beg with the Father that we may be saved... Because he loves us that much. I love Jesus Christ. My prayer is that he knows that I'm just trying to do the best I can. Sincerely.

Some more music would be a great gift if you can! Come Thou Fount would be great. Mo-Tab, Solos, whatever you can find. and then also a really good song by Sally Deford, Whole Again.(there's an extended verson as well) I'd love that on a CD.

Bridgeport is great! We're having a lot of fun and doing a lot of good things. I'll try to get more pictures this week! Love you!

6-28-10

This week!

A few good things have happened this week. We have a baptismal date for July 18th with a girl named Mariela, who is a native from Mexico. Only downside is she has told us that she is apparently in love with me, so hopefully she is making the decision based upon the spirit and NOT based upon me being tan guapo, hahaha. She came to church yesterday and all went well! The members here fellow shipped her like it was their job, so she felt really comfortable. We're really excited for her.

We also had a part-member lesson last night with a family from ecuador. The mother, Ruth, was converted in their first few years of marriage and she is also endowed now. But, the father continues to live in his teen years. They have a 14 year old named Jessica, 9 year old Katrina, and 3 year old shelly. Adorable kids! The older two are both baptized. The husband Angel, just doesn't want to recieve an answer. We asked him last night if he would follow an answer if he recieved it and he basically told us no. So we don't really feel too bad for him on that account. We said what we needed to say and I think we made some progress. What i saw from the whole thing though was that their relationship needs some serious work because everytime Ruth wants to say something to him she would turn to us and say "Elders, he does this or that." So I busted out some knowledge that I have gained from all my years living with our crazy family and I said "Ruth, I want you to tell him one good thing about him, then tell him what you want him to do, and then tell him you love him." So she did so, but basically told us... Again. So I said "Ruth, Ya sabemos (we already know) Tell him this time." She said "Right now??" and I said "yes, right now." So she did it, and I think it really helped. They need to communicate a lot more if he's ever going to understand WHY he needs to be baptized and how important it is for not only their family, but also their relationship! I wrote them both a prescription, they have to take it 2 times per day every day. They have to tell each other they love each other. It's the simple communcication that seems to be ruining it! It went really well.

This week we had a tornado rip through Bridgeport. To us, we thought it was just a quick storm, and then as we continued to drive home we realized there were trees blocking our path and powerlines were down! We got to our apartment and the power was out so we couldn't get into our front gate. The Most of the east side of Bridgeport was trashed. The trees were ripped out of the ground, like the big old trees, and the power lines were destroyed. Power is still out in some areas and a few buildings have collapsed. It was awesome! Nobody died either, so it was something a little exciting.

Well. I love you all, hope you are all doing well, and I have you in my prayers.

Love
-Elder Conner Allred