1-31-11

Family,
I got the packages! Thanks so much!!!!

Tell Brinlee happy birthday!!!!! Crab Core for Life!

Everything went well this week! We actually had a great week this week as far as helping our less actives and getting the baptism together. Our meeting went really well, we had the branch presidency there and our ward mission leader -- we went through each calling and we have set up to go out with our Ward Mission Leader this week and also to have correlation. We have a ward mission plan that we wrote out and presented to them and then we also made an excel sheet of all the home teachers etc; before they were just on a white piece of paper. We got to the church about 3 hours early and found that it was actually better that way. Usually we go 2 hours or less early to get ready and even though we had more than enough time this time, it was better to have some cushion. We got there and found that we didn't have the right key so we had to find some time anyway, and then it turned out that the baptismal font needs to run for 30 min, then stop, then run for 30 min, then stop, then finalyl run again till it's full; if you want the water warm! So we had plenty of time to do that and we got the programs and everything just went great. It was a small baptism, just Maria's family and President Coats baptized her (Stake High Council) and I confirmed her on Sunday morning.

Cynthia brought a friend to church as well! Go ward missionary work! She didn't even know she was doing missionary work, either. So that shows, I think, that the ward feels comfortable introducing their friends to us. I'm really excited. Her name is Alexandria, she's 28 and she's Ecuadorian. I asked her what she does for work and she said (in english) "dealer" I said "ohhhh. de las drogas?" haha. She laughed and told me that she's a card dealer at the casino in Norwich. I still call her the Traficante though (which means drug dealer) and she thinks it's funny! She invited us over this week.

Amanda went to New York this weekend -- where her "boyfriend" is. We gave her a call and she seemed reluctant to tell us what she was up to. Turns out, she left for the whole week though! I was pretty busted up about it. Sometimes I just don't understand why people make these choices. She had just tried to fix this, and now she's going back! I had a hard time with that because I felt like we could all see that it was obviously Satan, but she couldn't.

Christina has been ignoring us for the past week, so we are probably going to drop her for a while.

Let's see, what else is new...
Really not much! Oh yeah! My mission is going to be the Boston Mass mission starting July 1st. Surprise. I had a feeling, we're down to 68 missionaries.

I haven't gotten the scriptures yet, but they should probably come today, I hope. Our mail out here has been hectic because apparently when they get a little snow, the world collapses. I'm surprised the economy here hasn't crashed yet. These crybabies haha. Everytime we talk to people they ask "Well, you probably won't be able to get to my house with all this snow." And I simply respond "In Utah, we don't shut down the world when we get an inch! Unless someone dies, school is still in session!" These past two weeks they have had school off 5 times! And some guy on the news said "WE ARE A PART OF HISTORY!!!" I'm glad they don't live in Utah, they'd cry themselves to sleep! haha.

Last night we went to the Cambell's home. Br. Cambell is a stomach Dr. Beautiful home and he's in the branch presidency. He served his mission in SLC, spanish speaking. We were talking to his boys last night (5, oldest is 11) and we asked "Who is your favorite person in the Book of Mormon?" and the oldest responded "Nephi" then the next youngest said "JESUS!" That just made us all burst into laughter, it was a darn good choice! haha.

Anyway, not much else to report this week. We had a good week at church, Rosa and Angelica brought their mom to church and she was crying all through sacrament meeting. She liked it a lot. Emili Morel came (another LA) and she brought her husband this time! So things are still going well!

I love you all, keep praying for us, we need it.

-Elder Conner Allred

address correction

Conner's zip is wrong in the previous address change post.
Correct Address:

Elder Conner Allred
67 Hawthorne Drive North #3
New London, CT 06320

1-24-11

Dear Elder Susan,

I always like to look up your new crib on google maps. This looks
like a pretty tame area...not as exciting as living across from a
liquor store.

When you told me about the people that had been receiving the lessons
for the last six years, it reminded me of a funny, tongue in cheek,
blog post I saw entitled INVESTIFAKERS aka INVENTIGATORS. Basically
when this guy was on his mission he would create (as a last resort of
course!) a fake investigator. But only under these conditions:

-Do you serve in a place where it is difficult to find people to
teach? Fake investigators temporarily fill empty teaching pool rather
than making full teaching pools overflow. If there are real
investigators to teach, you don’t need fake ones.

-Does your mission leadership make your life miserable when you have
nobody to teach? I don’t just mean a bit of tut-tutting or a thoughtful
letter: I mean accusations of unworthiness, threats to send you to the
outer reaches of the mission, a steady rotation of improving splits by
leadership, shouting, calls to explain your shortcomings publicly in
zone conferences, etc

Of course there were lots of inventive returned missionaries who
responded to this post with shenanigans of their own including:


john Says:
If this is satire, you’re a genius. If not, you’re probably a
sociopath. : ) However, when things got really slow, companions and I
did indulge in ETERNIGATORS...you know, those appointment-keeping
souls who never tire of seeing the missionaries, but just can't quite
commit....for years and years...and years...

So you might have an "eternigator" on your hands.=)

Any who, I was wondering how your old companion with OCD used to
manifest that. Just curious.
I can't believe Brinn is going to be 16! She wants a new phone for
her bday. One with a data plan etc. Not gonna happen. She still has no
interest in getting her license. Strange!

I had to speak in RS. I had to make a celestial goal for 2011and tell
about it. My goal was to be more open to things and not just think "I
can't do that or that's a bad idea, or you're an idiot" right off the
bat. So far this attitude has helped me to not escalate a couple of
arguments I was having Brinn and Scott. So that's all good.

I started my french class. Wow it's hard! Maybe my brain is too old!
My teacher seems to be the hooked on phonics type. He doesn't get too
much into the nitty gritty of conjugating, just how the words sound.
My brain doesnt connect the dots very well like that. Oh well... I'm
trying to be "open" about it =)

Not too much else is going on
Love you tons!! MOM


Oh boy oh boy!

This week was great! We are making some great strides in the ward and I'm really excited about it. Our ward mission leader has turned out not so much to be a flake, rather he just doesn't understand his calling very well -- tomorrow night we are all meeting as a presidency to read through chapter 13 in preach my gospel. We made a new mission plan (Elder Phillips and I) and we got 6 less actives to church! What's funny is all six of them we were told by the last missionary that was here "Weren't worth the time." Fail! Maybe It's because he didn't quite love them enough, but we have seen some great successes. We also have a baptismal date for this saturday, a 9 year old named Maria. She's dang smart and funny. She said she is getting really nervous but she is excited. We already had somewhat of a bad time with the english ward though. Apparently the english ward takes over the primary for the spanish ward (which I didn't know) and so the english ward primary lady interrupted our sunday school and pulled us out. Her first sentence was "So, Maria is walking around telling people she's getting baptized on Saturday. What do you know about this?" I got a little heated because of the way she approached it; we're new missionaries, we don't know how you like to do things, and we don't know who you are. BUG OFF! I snapped back a little bit and probably shouldn't have but I told her that we both just got here and it should be a good thing she is excited about her baptism. The lady said she wanted to know because when the spanish branch fails, they can pick up the slack because that's what happens in the spanish branch (according to her) but, Elder Phillips and I are on top of it, so I told her not to worry about it, we can handle it. It was frustrating though. Now I remember why I was sent spanish speaking. Don't have baptismal clothes? Psh, we'll just sew somthing together! That's how it is in the spanish branches! haha.

We're working with a few great inactives in the ward, I hate that word "inactive" but I guess that's all there is to it. One of them is named Amanda, she wanted to serve a mission but life happened and she wasn't able to but she has an amazing testimony and we're going to see what we can do to get her called as a ward missionary. I think she would be great for Christina, they're both Dominican and Amanda really wants to help us with missionary work. She really understands the atonement and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ / taking leaps of faith. Really awesome.

Another is Cynthia, Maria's sister. She has an attitude, but I know that deep down, she wants to do what's right. She is a really nice girl but I'm worried that the ward might offend her if they're too hard on her for not "having her priorities straight." To be honest, she reminds me of how I was. I just didn't want to hear anything, but deep down I just needed to be told I was needed somewhere and that people wanted me in church because they cared. She came to church though! We're praying that Maria's baptism will help her find her testimony again.

It's really hard to find people in this area, so we're running off of referrals. But, we are working with the ward a lot more. The Branch President is awesome, he's busy but awesome. Every member (all 6 haha) seem excited to help us out. We just need a little organization and I think we'll be good to go!

I had a hard time yesterday for some reason, not sure why, but I fasted and had comfort spoken to my mind. It was an interesting morning, but I felt like I did a lot of good at church and I feel much better knowing that I'm needed in the branch again. I like being the go to guy, instead of the back-up in Central Falls. I did love that place, but it's nice to be needed every once in a while.

Well, I love you and I'm praying for you. Keep me up to date on your French classes... Booooo. French is a dying language haha. Take Portuguese or spanish! That's just my input, but you unfortunately have your free agency haha. Love you!

-Elder Conner Allred

Conner's current address

Elder Conner Allred
67 Hawthorne Drive North #3
New London, CT 96320

^This is my new address^
This week was insane; and to add to it we just got to the library after walking for an hour and a half! Yesterday the libraries were closed (obviously). This morning we decided we were going to do our e-mails today and just as we decided that we got a text from the Mission President telling us it was too dangerous to drive and to walk if we have to leave, that meant an hour and a half walk for us to get to the library. At first we were ok with it. We got splashed a few times and it was a little cold but we made it! As soon as we got here we received a text from President Pehrson saying "drive carefully, cars are O.K." Bah!! That was a little frustrating. Fortunately a member from the english ward is probably going to come pick us up, and possibly give us lunch which I would be eternally greatful for haha.

Elder Phillips and I got to New London and found that this area is tiny (but not as bad as C. Falls) and there aren't many hispanics. Our branch has about 6 active members -_-. Elder Nelson was the last Elder here and had 3 baptismal dates before he left. The night of transfers one of them called him to tell him that she couldn't be baptized and lately we have found taht the other two (mother and son) didn't really have a date for baptism so much as just a goal. She and her son have been receiving the lessons for about 6 years now! She told us last night "Le dije que no estoy lista." But, we'll get her ready. I'm just a little frustrated because he talked this place up like he was the savior around here but in reality he left us a big hole. I don't know if he was oblivious to it or if he was just trying to cover it up.

The lady you talked to is Betzy Mojangos. She is a really great member in Providence, I'll miss that family! We had no idea the change was going to happen. Elder Sorensen went home and left the mission short an elder in the spanish program so it threw everything off because we're already short spanish elders as is. So we got the call Saturday night that we were both leaving and we had to clean the apartment and get it ready to not have anyone in it, plus we had to pack still and do our good-byes. So it was a busy three days. Anyway, everything turned out ok.

Not too much more to report really. I love you and miss you all!

1-3-11

Mom,

This week was pretty boring! Our New Years we didn't really do much as we were asked to be inside the house by 6:00pm so we ended up studying, writing letters, and making hot chocolate.

The baptism went great on Saturday! Here's the whole story.
We have been teaching Gabriela and Nora for more than a month, so last week we all talked about what we were going to do to get this thing together during PEC. Friday rolls around and we have the program for Gabriela and Nora ready to go so we called Hno. Javier (WML) and he said "I'll call you back when I get home." Great... we waited until 8:30 and he still hadn't called, so we called him back and he was home he said "Yeah, I'm home... but I don't have the program." What on earth? So then Saturday at 4 he planned on meeting us to do the program. Didn't show. We called him and he said he was on the way and ended up getting there at 4:30 and I gave him the program, his response was "I don't have a key to that office." I was dumbfounded. WHY??? I couldn't figure out why he didn't just tell us this in the first place! We would have gone to the library and done it ourselves!! Anyway, we're trying to get a hold of someone that has a key and the other elders were in a lesson so finally I called the 2nd counselor and his response was "There's a baptism? Who is getting baptized?" By this time I'm pulling my hair out! Not only did the bishopric not know, but neither did the young womens or relief society. So I ended up driving down to the 2nd counselors house to get the key from him and I'm blazing down Webster ave. -- Red and Blue lights -- Great... Just my luck! So I get my wallet out and roll down the window, he asks "Hey bud, there a reason you're driving so fast?" I said "Yes, we have a baptism tonight and it's very disorganized so I'm flying down here to get a key from someone to open the building." He said in response "Ok, well, just do me a favor and slow down... and use your signal... and stop at the stop signs." WOO! Let me off. PHEW. So we get they key and fly back (safely of course) to the church. We open the door to the clerks office and hno. Javier turns on the computer and said "That's all I know how to do, turn it on and off." So we ended up doing the program anyway. Sometimes I wonder why we even ask other people to do things, anyway -- Elder Goncalves said something really funny to him, Elder G. is very open with people and he turned to Javier and said "Javier, Dios te dio una cabezita... usala!" (Javier, God gave you a little head, use it!) With the program finished and the people there, we did a lot of calls to invite people, we ended up having 60 people and 6 investigators there! It ended up being fantastic. After the baptism Nora said "I feel something right here, (pointing to the middle of her chest) I don't know what it is, but I know it's good. It was the ending to a great and crazy day! Sunday we confirmed them members of the Church and now they're doing amazingly. Nora's son Jose even said to her "mom, I want to be like the Elders, I want to serve a mission." So we're going to give him a baptismal date tomorrow for two weeks from last Saturday!

Even though it was the craziest day of my life, it's days like that that make it all worth it. Seeing someone content and happy and feeling the spirit in such abundance. God lives, Christ lives, and I feel so blessed to have had the chance to help someone find out that eternal truth. As Nephi tells us, is this the end, my beloved brethren? It is not... We endure to the end.

I love you all!

-Elder Conner Allred