2/22/10 pix

Here are some pix of a bday party for a ward family's little girl and the view from Conner's front porch. That store is a liquor store which makes for some interesting traffic out front. The upper right pic is a view of east hartford.

2-16-10

The flight was great, unfortunately I was sitting next to missionaries the whole time though so it wasn't that great of a chance to proselyte while on the plane. I have been having a really great time here but the spanish is much harder to understand than I expected. The Puerto Ricans speak so fast and cut off a lot of their words that it is difficult to understand. We used to have an investigator that was a spaniard though, but unfortunately he dropped us.

My companion is Elder Urrutia -- He's a native but he lived in Texas most of his life so his english is fantastic as well. He is a great help! I am doing my best to constantly speak Spanish and hopefully I'll get fluent quickly.

Our address is:
Elder Conner Allred
Connecticut Hartford Mission
288 Park Street Apartment 2W
Hartford, CT 06106

We are right in the middle of Hartford and it is GHETTO. We live right in the middle of the city -- the city is mainly made up of Puerto Ricans and other hispanics and some blacks. I think I have seen one white person in the last week -- it's crazy. I never thought that the culture here would be so hispanic!

We live in a 4some, Elder Burbidge from Salt Lake, Elder Barney from Salt Lake, and Elder Urrutia and me. Elder Barney is hilarious. He always lectures Elder Urrutia and always always always says his name after every sentence. I'll take a video sometime and send it, he cracks me up. The other day he was telling Elder Urrutia how to change the toilet paper roll... "Urrutia! Look at this, How am I supposed to get the toilet paper if it's not on the roll, Urrutia? Watch, Urrutia. Now I put this on the roll and it just slides off, Urrutia... Convenient, right, Urrutia?" Haha, he's so strange. Our apartment is quite small and the people above and below us are usually smoking, drinking, and listening to music called "Reggatone;" it's hispanic rap. So we have a lot of sound and stuff going on constantly, there are always sirens going past our window and there's a package (liquor) store accross the street, so the street is littered with bottles. As dirty as it sounds, I absolutely love it.

The people are very humble, I met this family -- Jose, Christina, and their 2 year old daughter Melody -- we went to their house to have dinner, as they were baptized just a week ago, and she served us some food from Peru (a lot of people are preuvian too). When I saw the plate I thought. "Yeah, that plate looks like about enough to serve 8 of us." But then I realized that that was ONE serving. She had plates for ALL of us. It was crazy! They are a really great family, and Melody is hilarious. I will send a picture home she drew while we were sharing a message with the family. She was reaching in my suit pocket stealing all my pens and paper and drew with all of them. She's really funny. She's 2 years old and she understands spanish better than I do, as well... Not too fair.

We also went on exchanges, my district leader is in Windsor and is english speaking so I went with him and he took me to an area that is a little bit better than hartford but not by much. The family we went to was black and they were all pentecostal... The whole hour and a half they just wanted to bible bash -- luckily between Elder Furness and I, we had answers for all of the things they threw at us. But at the end, they wanted to say the prayer and it was the scariest thing I have ever been a part of. We held hands in a circle and they all chant, while one person says it, they chant things like "Jesus, Lord, Jesus!" and "Hallelujah Lord, Jesus!" and they sometimes recite the prayer as the person is saying it, he said things like "please, Lord WATCH OVER these men as they JOURNEY. Bless these CURSED boys." That same guy also pointed out Galatians 1:8 to us -- he basically said we are accursed.... Let it be, for the good I'm doing, if that is evil -- I'd rather be evil. haha, good times. It was an interesting day. I'll have to copy down my journal entry from that day and send you the entirety. Anyway -- I will send a few pictures with this e-mail, I didn't get a ton while traveling cause we didn't have a ton of time, but I'll send what I have. Love you.

Conner in CT safe and sound

I heard from Conner's mission "mom" today and he is in Ct safe and sound. He is in a group of 4 elders... 2 spanish speakers (conners companionship) and 2 english speakers.
Conner's comp, elder Urruita, is from TX but his parents immigrated from Mexico so he is fluent in spanish. Conner lives right down town and his new address is:

Elder Conner Allred
288 Park St. Apt. 2W
Hartford, CT 06106