September 23, 2013 My first bike accident

Monday September 16th:

Found some cool zombie posters at an investigator's trailer!

P-Day as normal. Not a ton happened, but Elder Hernandez and Me got taken out to dinner, so that was really nice. The Valdez family are the ones who took us. 

Tuesday September 17th:

Not much happened that day, but we got a new investigator.  He's 78 years old and has had 3 heart attacks in the past 6 months. He has been smoking for like 50 years, and he is trying to figure out why God let him live through 3 heart attacks, and he thinks that this gospel may be the reason.

Wednesday September 18th:

Pretty regular day, we taught a less active guy  who has some form of cancer in his eye. It's sad. 

Thursday September 19th:

I had my first bike accident! It really wasn't anything huge. Basically Elder Hernandez and I both kinda hit each other and fell. I got a little tear in my grey old suit pants, I'm going to look into getting those fixed. I'll send some pictures of the aftermath. 

Notice my handlebars and my wheel position.  

Friday September 20th:

Not much happened except we taught our 78 year old investigator again. 

Saturday September 21st:

We had service for the Valdez family by moving a ton of concrete out of their back/side yard into his truck and then to a dump. It was really hard and heavy work. Not to mention it was about 105 degrees when we were doing it! But they were kind enough to take us out to dinner (for the second time this week) to thank us. 

Sunday September 22nd:

We had dinner with one of my favorite members of the ward, The Frietz's. They're this awesome family that has had all of their kids serve missions, so they are just really missionary minded. They love having the missionaries over and to go out and teach with us. They also offered to to take us to the Stake Center for General Conference. Its pretty sweet!

That's pretty much all that happened! I had a great week all in all, and I'm so glad to be here to do the Lord's work. I love the people so much, and I wouldn't trade this for the world (Sorry Mom)

Elder Allen

An awesome picture describing what I did for 6 weeks in the MTC

Crazy Week 9/16/2013

Monday and Tuesday (9th and 10th) were pretty much your standard days. Go out and get groceries, etc...

Wednesday (11th): 

We met with one of our investigators, Ryan, and his Fiancee who is a member, Alexa. They are super cool and are getting married on the 11th of October! They asked me to be the translator for their wedding because Ryan's family doesn't speak Spanish but the wedding will be in Spanish. I was so honored, but My Spanish is not nearly good enough to do that. So I had to decline. But they are going with us to the temple Visitors center this Tuesday to watch the Restoration, so that should be good. 

Thursday (12th):

Pretty basic day, we just went by to see some Less active/Recent converts to make sure all was well or if there was anything we could do for them. 

Friday (13th):

We had weekly planning and then we had our Post-6 week training meeting at the building right next to the mission home. It was a good training meeting that was run by the Assistant's to the President. That took up most of the day though.

Saturday (14th):

Saturday was a crazy day. We started it with getting a knock on the door really early in the morning (at like 6:28am) And it was the Davenports with a new desk for me and a new couch for the apartment! It was pretty sweet. So naturally, we threw the old desk and couch out of the 3rd story window! (Totally normal for 4 guys ages 18-21 to do) and I video taped it. Hopefully the videos will send. THen we had a ward Kermes! Basically just a huge ward/stake party that involved A TON of food (as most latino functions do). It was amazing, but we went to go help them set up pretty much all day because they were really short on helpers. We were barely ready for everyone when people started showing up. I helped cook the incredibly yummy Carne Asada. Then it didn't end till like 7pm and they needed help cleaning up too! So we were basically there all day. The best part were the dances that the members of the ward put on! I'll send some pictures home.

Sunday (15th): We had our regular 6:30am meeting at the church (which is really starting to drag on me) and then our regular church. We went to the Bishops after church for a dinner/Lunch where we had Chicheron... I'll let you guys figure out what that was. It wasn't the best texture, but it tasted good? 

That's pretty much all that happened this week!

Love you all so much, and I am trying to give all I can to the people of South Phoenix everyday. 

Elder Allen

September 9, 2013 I didn't get transferred!

I didn't get transferred! Me and my companion, Elder Hernandez, are going to stay here for another 6 weeks. This will be Elder Hernandez's first and last area, so that is kinda cool. 

Facebook has been really cool to use! For those of you that don't know, we are now allowed to use Facebook for an hour a day for proselyting purposes. If we are teaching a lesson, however, we can go on longer. It is pretty cool because you can see how the Lord is hastening the work of salvation; the whole world is now open because of the Internet! A lot of really good friends of mine (S/o to Tia, Lucy and others) have given me some referrals of people who might be interested in the gospel, or at least hearing a spiritual message.

Monday:

Margarito got baptized! I'll send some pictures in another email, but it was a really cool baptism because there was a ton of his family there who are not members. 

Tuesday:

First day of facebook! It was a bit of a pain at first, because we had to hide LITERALLY (and I mean that in the dictionary definition way) every post ever that doesn't pertain to missionary work. At first I hated it because it was a lot of work, but I realized that all of that stuff doesn't matter and I'm glad that it is gone. 

Wednesday:

I went on exchanges with the Zone Leader, Elder Oscarson. Hes a good hard worker from Chicago (shouts to McClicky) and he is reallllly good at Spanish. He helped me make my language study time more effective.

Thursday:

We got some new investigators! We went over to a less active girl in our ward and she has a fiance who isn't a member. She told us that they really want to get sealed in the temple, so we are going to talk to him about Baptism and now we are teaching him! She has a son from her first marriage, Mark, who is 9 and he wants to be baptized too! So we should have them be baptized in the near future. 

Friday:

Friday was pretty chill. Because of Weekly Planning, studies and Facebook time, we didn't have a ton of time to go out and teach, but that's okay, because we had a good day on Facebook. I got 5 referrals, so that is always good :)

Saturday:

We had service after we did some studies in the morning, so we went over to some peoples house and cleaned up their yard. Then we went to Arby's for lunch (yum). I had forgotten how good Arby's is... 

Sunday: 

I had the opportunity of going to the meeting that the Zone leaders have with the Stake President. I went because one of the Zone Leaders, Elder Anderson, is leaving today :'( I'm going to miss him, hes a really funny and cool guy. And a great missionary. But he was leaving so they wanted someone who is staying in the mission to go! So they chose me! And so I went to the meeting and got to meet the Stake President, President Porter. Hes a great guy who is really on top of everything. 

That's pretty much all that happened! 

Love you all so much! 

Elder Allen

Hey!

Hello Everyone.  

BIG NEWS!!!!!!

We get Facebook on Tuesday. We will be able to get on for an Hour a day and try and teach lessons on the Internet. So that will be a big change. Apparently we have to go through and Delete all of our old posts... Or Hide them... I don't know. All I know is that is going to take FOREVER. Stupid social networking. But yea. Then they announced that in the coming months (probably by Christmas) the whole mission will have iPads and iPhones. So that's a lot of changes!

 

The Sunsets in Arizona are beautiful

Okay so this has been a slow week for me, so not a whole lot has happened to be honest. We have a baptism today for Margarito who has only been here for 2 months, so he doesn't know any English. Then we had interviews on Tuesday with President Toone, and that was nice. He told me he would try to keep trainers and trainees together for the whole 12 weeks. So hopefully that will happen. I don't want to leave and I don't want Elder Hernandez to leave.

Other than all of that, it's been a slow week. 

Dad: I went to an investigators house and Tremors was on. So That was a tender mercy of the Lord (It was in Spanish though)

That's all! Love you all so much and Miss you tons! 

Elder Allen