3-29-10

This week we have had a great week!!

Daisy Roman, from the DR is getting baptized!!! April 17th is her date and she even bore her testimony yesterday! She said "I knew my life was about to change when God sent these two little angels to my aid." Wow!!! She is such a saint! She already wants to pay tithing haha. She is so awesome, I'm so excited for her! We still have a little more teaching to do but when we taught the Word of Wisdom she said (before we started the lesson) "I've been thinking, and I kind of want to stop drinking coffee. And I really like fruits and veggies, but meat only sometimes." haha WOW! Perfect or what? Then we taught the Law of Chastity, which is usually super awkward, but she agreed 100% with the pamphlet and even said "Oh, I've always believed in this stuff." haha. She is so great! So that's probably my first baptism.

We also taught a guy named wilberto. He was interesting. We met him on the bus once before and he was a little insane and then we got a referral and went to it.... There he was. He is insane. At first, he was super nice, no problems, super chill guy telling us about his beliefs and then listening to us. Then his buddy lit up a joint and he started smoking weed during the lesson! What the crap! He at first was just a little woozy, and then he started to get a little insane. He was screaming and whistling and saying he was the KING! "SOY EL REY!" and then he asked us "Han Escuchado de El Hijo del Hijo de hombre?" we're like... what.... on earth? He said apparently that Jesus Christ had a son and it was the Holy Spirit... And then he began to tell us about how he is the prophet of 2010 and that he wants to write a book, like the Book of Mormon. We said "well.. can we finish with a prayer?" and I said the prayer and before I could say amen he started shouting and yelling in the prayer... Then as we left he said his door is always open to us... He's nuts, we're not going back.


We had transfers last week and we got a new elder, Elder Meira from Brazil. He lived in Brazil for 14 years and then moved to Utah for 5 and now he's serving here. He's awesome, he had a bullet bike before his mission ;) we get along great. He's a great Elder, and he has taught me a little portuguese as well. It seems as though I may end up learning more Port. than I thought. There are a lot of brazilians here, it's crazy.

We have been checking up on that door that we found open and we went yesterday again and the girls mom, Pura, was finally home! She is AWESOME! She said she had 10 minutes, but by the end we taught a 45 minute lesson and she even said the closing prayer! She is really great, I'm really excited for her family. I think they are amazing and were being prepared for us. So we'll see where that goes. I have high hopes it goes somewhere great!

I just want the Lord to be pleased. You know that. I have been having a lot of fun, and the language is tough -- but coming. Hopefully I will start understanding more and more and then learning more. I miss the family.

Tudo Bem
Adios

-Elder Conner Allred

3-22-10

The Weather here has been so great! 70s+ and we have been able to take our jackets off. It's so nice to not have to keep our jackets on, as silly as it seems, the jackets really get annoying when you're carrying around a shoulder bag. This week is the last week of transfers and it looks like I'm staying in Hartford! The only person leaving Hartford is Elder Fife, Elder Pacheco's companion, and we have a native Portuguese speaker replacing him.

Yesterday we got the chance to listen to Elder Fife speak Portuguese, which was really cool. We called a member of our branch who is from Brazil and at the beginning of the conversation you could hear some Spanish mixing in with his Portuguese, but after a few sentences, his brain just switched to full Portuguese and he was speaking fluently again. Crazy!

I don't remember if I told you but I got a letter from grandpa telling me of my cousin Jeffery in Brazil! He's a ZL and doing a great job I hear! One thing that made me laugh was grandpa's surprise at his number of baptisms. I guess back in the day, Brazil wasn't the easiest place to baptize. BUt grandpa said "He's having a lot of good luck in an area which is very hard to baptize in." But the ironic part of that is whenever we go tracting we say "Just remember, for each door we knock on, there's a baptism in Brazil." haha.

This week has been pretty great. Our newest investigator Daisy came to church this week for the second time in a row! She's probably going to be a baptism for us! We are going to set up a baptismal date with her this week, but I worry a little bit because she tells her friends to talk to us about God, no matter the religion. Hopefully she understands we are LDS, not just Bible Teachers! But, she's in the Lords hands -- He knows her better than I do!

We had a great meeting last night with the South Elders and their investigator Romulo. We went over 2Nephi 2 and we had Romulo read and we explained the passages to him. He really liked the chapter and we shared with him our thoughts on how he needs to taste baptism and stop worrying. He is worried about sinning again after baptism, but we told him he'll have the Holy Ghost to help him resist. Romulo is great, I really hope he gets baptized. But last night we got transfer calls when we were at his house and found out Elder Fife is leaving, so hopefully that doesn't get him too upset. Luckily, Elder Pacheco is staying though.

Yesterday we got a little hard work from the ward! Our Elders Quorum president came out with us and visited some inactive members! It was great, but unfortunately it's really hard here to keep people coming to church. I made a funny parallel yesterday. They call this state the Constitution state, yet this state is one of the hardest states to worship freely in... Doesn't make much sense, does it? The church can NEVER get permits to build. So it's annoying for some people, especially a lot of the people we teach in Hartford, because they are too poor to have cars and can't get all the way to bloomfield for church. From where we live, to church is like downtown to your house. So it's not as easy as a hop skip and a jump like it is for us in Utah.

With the warm weather we see all types of interesting characters coming out of the woodwork and walking around on Park Street. It's a pretty interesting place, but I love it. Our neighbors are CONSTANTLY partying through the night, so that gets old fast, but we just turn some fans on and it drains out most of the noise. Finding sure is easier when there are people outside to talk to.

So, something really neat that happened to Elder Urrutia and I this week. We were walking past some houses trying to decide if we should tract or not and then I see this house with the door open. I had a thought that I should go in but didn't mind it too much and then Elder Urrutia said "think that's a sign?" I said "Yeah... the spirit just told me the same thing." So we went in and ascended to the 3rd floor and we ran into a family that just moved here from the DR 2 years ago. The girl that answered the door is 15 years old and she actually had heard a little bit about the message in the DR! Her mom, we haven't met yet. But we're hoping to catch her this week. But every time we go over the kids run over to the door and love to see us! What a blessing!

I gave the lesson in Gospel Principles yesterday on the Life of Jesus Christ. It's all in spanish, and boy was it difficult. But I told them at the end "Espero que mi espanol esta bien, pero yo se que el Espiritu Santo habla en un idioma que todas las personas entienden" and they agreed. It was a great lesson though!

We also had a ward activity this week with investigators etc. It was awesome! We had a really great time and ate TONS of food. Elder Worthington (one of the senior couples) did the Hakka for us. He served in the pacific Islands and speaks Mowry. It's a really beautiful language.

We went to catholic mass two saturdays ago. It was really interesting.


Love ,
Elder Conner Allred

3-15-10

Well, this past week while tracting. We were telling a lady about the Book of Mormon and she was a little interested, so we shared the Joseph Smith first vision with her and showed her the picture of it in the pamphlet. SHe said "Oh wow! I saw Jesus, too! Just like that." We thought "oh boy..." she told us how she was on an airplane during a lighting storm and saw Jesus in the clouds...
It's supposed to be a little warmer this week, so I'm pretty excited about that. And things are going well in the field.

I came up with an idea for contacting today. I'm just going to start sharing stories from the BoM with people or just share a "Spiritual Thought" with people on the street, and then -- let them know that it was from the book of mormon. Maybe get them a little interested in not just learning the words of God. But reading some great stories as well!

We're trying to hurry today so I'm going to make this short. But the Acuna family had me over for my birthday, unfortunately I didn't have anyone to sing Happy Birthday to me like ytou do... But it was still a great day! They all just call me "Allred" every time I go over there, Romulo says "My Friend! Allred! How are you!?" haha, he's great.

Are Megan and Spencer ok from the storm in Fairfield?

3-1-10

Not much has changed since my last e-mail. a few good lessons here and there but not a lot of progress has been going on to be honest. I seem to always fall in love with the families in south hartford, which aren't my area! North Hartford just doesn't have many families cause it's more of a city than an urban area so it's hard.

Yesterday we went to this ladies' house, Guadalupe, she's a catholic and from what I picked up she was just kind of interested in what we teach. She is from Mexico and being in her house -- definitely shows it. We walked up to the front door and right away there was a Cross on her door with Christ hanging upon it. It was a little weird -- then we walked inside and she had a table set up with statues of the virgin Mary, pictures of Christ (you know, the eccentric hispanic ones), and other crosses and things. She pulled her bible out and we began to teach the lesson. This was the first time I had ever seen this but whenever we had her read a scripture she would stand up to read and then say "Las Palabras de Dios" before she sat back down. It was a little different but I was impressed with how much she cared about the words of God. She was very surprised when we showed her scriptures about the restoration and scriptures about us needing prophets and she seemed excited about families living together forever (who wouldn't be, right?). I didn't teach much this lesson because Sunday was a pretty rough day for me. We began church and a young woman in our branch was speaking on temples. Nicole is her name, she is 17; at the end of her talk she began to cry -- for the most part I could understand what was going on but I didn't understand a lot of the main points, it was a little frustrating, but I was ok. After that we had to teach our gospel principles class. One man came to church who had never been to an LDS church before and the subject was on Prayer. His question was "how can you pray to God when you feel unworthy?" Now, I didn't know this was his question until a long time after -- but as the conversation went on I saw 2-3 people in our class of 10 get pretty emotional. The spirit was strong and I began to cry. But I didn't really cry because of the spirit this time, well maybe I did, but it wasn't out of happiness. I was so frustrated, because I could see these people wanted answers to their questions so bad, and I have been through those same feelings, but I didn't know how to tell them of my experiences and I couldn't understand what they needed either. I wanted to help them so bad. I began to cry and I just kind of put my head down to hide it. It was really hard. Being there, seeing people yearning for answers, yet not being able to help. The whole day was rough. I was frustrated with the language. But I know it will come.

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