Planning in Action!

It has been the very best week ever!!!!!  This is why - we had such an awesome District Meeting the last couple of weeks that was all about weekly planning (where you spend three hours on Friday morning making plans for the week and your investigators).  It was all about setting up specific things and making specific plans and doing specific things.  This week, our goals were huge, and they ended up working great!!  One day, we had six lessons planned - which is way more than we have ever had!  We were so busy and so happy all week, got 4 new investigators, and taught 18 lessons (which is a lot more than we have been having!).  We now have 9 awesome people we are teaching.  If you could please pray for Elaudio, Yari, Amalia, Linday, Nati, Hna. Antequera, Filomena, and Carlos, that would be awesome! They are great!

So let's talk about Ed (also known as Brother A).  HE IS TOTALLY GETTING BAPTIZED ON DECEMBER 8TH!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We took him to a baptism service this week for some other missionaries (I translated) and he was inviting all of these people to come!  haha he is so happy.  We love to see the difference in his face and demeanor now that he has made this decision to change.  He understands that he is doing this for the rest of his life.  This opens the door I think not only for him, but also for his wife and daughter.  They are becoming softer and easier to teach as they see their dad/husband making such a huge change.  I love to be a part of this.  Haha so during the baptism service, they asked if the person baptizing was a missionary.  I said that he was, and after that Meri  asked me if I was going to baptize Ed.  Haha I thought that was pretty funny.  Our ward mission leader is baptizing him, which is going to be so awesome.  Ed talks about the 2 missionaries he met on the street in DC all the time that gave him his first pass-along card.  I love thinking about these two english sisters who made a contact and passed him on to the spanish elders in the area.  Now he is getting baptized!  I hope that happens to one of the many contacts that me and my companions make and pass on.  So cool!!!

Another one of our investigators is named Carlos.  He works on cars for NBA players, like LeBron James.  Haha welcome to Florida.  But he is a .... "husband" (not married) of one of the less-active members in our ward.  The bishop told us about them, and we set up a time to meet with them.  Sister D was so nice and welcoming, and her son Luciano is 16.  Carlos believes everything about the gospel, but they just need to get married and he needs to quit smoking.  We had a very powerful and spiritual lesson with their family about healing and the power we can get to change.  We fasted with them yesterday so he could have extra strength to quit.  They are so cool.  I shared with him the story of Poppy having to quit.  I love having such a wealth of stories from our family to pull from.  It is very powerful to share things so close to me in lessons with investigators.

BEING A MISSIONARY IS SO GREAT!!  Thursday we have special permission to eat with the other 2 missionary sets in our ward at a member's house.  I am so excited.  I love teaching people and visiting with members and finding frogs and lizards and gasping with delight at the beautiful sunrises and sunsets and talking to people after jumping off our bikes and eating WAY spicy guacamole at hole-in-the-wall mexican restaurants and keeping records and seeing Universal fireworks on our way to appointments and learning spanish and my leaders and EVERYTHING!  :)  And I love packages from you!  (Great news- I got the October and November ones this week. :)  LOVED THEM.)   Life is great. You are all great. Thanks for everything. :)

Love, Sister Allred

*This is an email we received a couple of days ago from a Sister in Salt Lake City.  I wanted to put it on her blog along with some pictures of this amazing conference.

At 7:15 a.m. on the morning of November 8, 2013, 36 Elders and 24 Sisters from the Orlando, Florida mission of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came streaming into the lobby of the Disney Hotel hosting the Prader-Willi Syndrome National Conference. 

The spirit filled the hotel and conference officials couldn’t hold back their tears.  One leader held out her arm covered with goose bumps, and said, what is happening to me? 

I am Lisa Thornton  from Salt Lake City, Utah, serving on the Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) national board  and was tasked with securing enough volunteers to run the conference.  I told the missionaries and President and Sister Berry that PWSA (USA) could not hold the conference without the missionaries.  I commended them for their service on their missions and told them of the profound affect their service was having the lives of their families back home.  My daughter is serving a mission in Mozambique, Africa, and our family is profoundly different because of her service.  I ache for her to come home, but at the same time, I love the new spirit that is in our home and our increased desire to seek after righteousness.

The missionaries would donate 1,200 hours in the next two days as they helped with the children and adult programs for those with the syndrome, so the parents could attend the conference classes and learn how to better care for their children.   Sister Kathy Anderson, a member of the Orchestra at Temple Square donated 65 Tabernacle choir CDs for the missionaries and President and Sister Berry as thank you gifts for their service.  I had to smile as every missionary hurried to the bag of CDs, eager to have a new CD of approved music to add to their collection.

President and sister Berry came with the missionaries and then stayed for about an hour observing the conference.  The missionaries all went to their stations and you can just imagine how the children loved them!  One girl in a wheelchair was drawn to one particular missionary and wanted him by her side always. It was so touching.  The good humor and positive happy approach of all the missionaries won everyone’s hearts.  On a lighter side, the mission president’s wife sat down by an older boy with PWS.  He said, “My family hates Normans.”  She thought, “Elder Norman went home three weeks ago,” then realized he meant “Mormons.”  She asked, “Why do you hate Normans.”  And he replied, “Because they don’t believe in God.”  As you can imagine, she was happy to teach him a sweet lesson on her belief of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  The whole day was magic because of the missionaries. 

The missionaries were in several stations helping the older children, including  a dance room, huge obstacle course, art room, story room and music room.

Several sister missionaries served with the younger children ages 7 and younger.  They did art projects, decorated bags, enjoyed two magic shows, learned a dance, played games (minute to win it style), golfed, had story time, sang songs, and loved a visit from Minnie and Mickey Mouse. 

In the afternoon, the missionaries had been asked to entertain for 30 minutes, and they had just had transfers, didn’t have time to practice, and didn’t even know they were to entertain!  I brought our ukulele and copies of some primary songs.  I also had my husband draw a cute birthday cake with candles.  The theme of the conference was All-Stars so I suggested they say they were the all-stars of birthday songs, knowing more birthday songs than anyone.  They sang several primary birthday songs to the kids.  The kids came up who had birthdays and chose a candle for what song to sing. 

The missionaries then did a version of “Somewhere over the Rainbow” with rap sounds in the mike and one talented missionary playing the ukulele.  There were several chicken heads in the prop bins so the missionaries got creative and performed a chicken dance and song and the kids loved it!  Then one of the sister missionaries explained how Heavenly Father loved them all, how special they were, and that they could overcome anything.  Then all the missionaries sang “I am a Child of God.”  It was wonderful and spirit filled. 

Saturday was another early morning with the missionaries arriving at 8:00 and working with the children all day.  I presented a legal seminar to the families and also spoke to all 500 attendees at the formal luncheon. I started out thanking the missionaries from our church and letting the parents know that they had made the conference possible, donating over 1200 hours that week.  The parents clapped and clapped.  I said that the way to thank the missionaries would be that when they returned to their countries and states, they should invite the missionaries over to their homes, feed them dinner, and listen to their message.   I also made sure a write up about the church was included in the general written program. 

For the closing ceremonies, the children, led by the missionaries, all marched in to the Ballroom where their parents had assembled.  The children marched in to fun music, wearing costumes with the missionaries, behind the banners the children had made that designated their groups.  For example, the 10 years olds were the Dolphins, and they learned during the two days about how to:  “Go with the flow” (with an arm motion like how a dolphin swims and “Stay with the group.”  Each group had a banner and a cheer.  The children then did a dance to music they had learned with the missionaries and sang a fun song about being filled with hope and love, with the lights dimmed, waving their star flashlights.  It was very powerful.  The missionaries made the whole event!

Many hearts were touched by the wonderful service of the missionaries.  I’m sure they wrote home about the experience and maybe were able to include a few pictures. 

I was able to go to church the next morning across the street from the Orlando temple.  8 of the missionaries were there from the conference and it was a delight to see them again and meet some of their investigators. They had a confirmation from the baptism the night before with more baptisms scheduled for during the week. 

What a privilege it was to see your sons and daughters with their happy spirit-filled faces, as they loved and cared for our children.   Thank you for your sacrifice.

Hermana Allred leading the whole group in song and dance. 

And here it is.  

Actual proof that Mickey Mouse does in fact live in the Orlando Florida Mission!

Hermana Allred was serving right along side Mickey for 2 whole days at this great conference with those special children.

Truly, the happiest mission on earth!

Being a Missionary

I love being a missionary!!!  I am finding that finally I am adjusting more and realizing how to live as a missionary, which is fun.  I am used to missionary and not home life, which makes it easier to work and have fun!

I am learning so very much.  I have the best Sister Training Leaders and District Leader in the world, and we get to learn from them all the time.  Elder Romero (our district leader) really cares about us and is really invested in our success.  He even made a plan with us to call us during a few language studies so he could talk to us in Spanish (he is a Spanish speaking missionary).  I am very grateful for leaders who are willing to help us and lift us up.  It is such a blessing.

Me and Sister Jackson have been super into Preach my Gospel lately.  You can basically find anything you would ever need as a missionary in there.  Someday, I will be so good at all of it!  But until then, I will focus on one thing at a time. :)  I encourage you all to keep reading it as a family.  More people should be familiar with the things it teaches!  So cool.

My Spanish is getting so much better it is crazy.  Speaking doesn't really faze me.  Listening, however, definitely fazes me.  haha I am trying to get better at that, pero iVoy mejorando! (but I am gradually getting better)  It is fun to learn and practice.

We have been trying to get to know and love our members better this week.  Because of these efforts, in Sacrament meeting I really sat there and was so filled with satisfaction, love, and peace with where I am at.  I love Florida.  I love Orlando.  I love our Windermere chapel.  I love the Windy Ridge ward.  It is all so great.  A visiting family came to our ward this week and I was talking to them for a second (poor things, in the Spanish ward!  Good thing it was the primary program.  -side note: I did not actually end up playing the piano-).  They said, "Orlando - that would be a great place to serve!" And I agree.  :)  Especially Spanish Speaking!!!

So you know how we have been working with the A. family?  We were about to drop them because they weren't progressing, but Ed surprised us by agreeing to a date on December 10th!!  .... Haha we are trying to move that to December 8th, which is the actual Sunday, but we were so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We will keep you posted on that.

Our schedule for this next week is so full!!!  Haha we are getting so much better at planning.  We plan to have 20 lessons this week, which would be totally the best.  We are excited to be having so many appointments and trying to teach so many people - members, less-active members, and investigators alike!

So we had an awesome story this week!  Yesterday, we finally met with a potential we have been trying to see whose name is H.  He is from Honduras, probably in his 20's, and lives in the complex next to ours with his 'wife' from the Philippines.  We went to see him and taught him the first lesson, the restoration.  It was awesome!!! I get so excited every time I share that beautiful message!  Anyway, we were talking to him about the first vision and he was very excited.  He kept asking, "What else did Jesus say to him?"  We told him about the Book of Mormon.  He said, "Ok, I will read it all.  Probably today."  Hahahaha we about keeled over.  After we said it was 500 pages, he said that he would finish it by our next appointment on Sunday.  He needs to understand a bit more about authority and baptism, but we are so very excited about teaching him!! Please pray for him as he reads this week.

Family, I was thinking about telling you all the story of H, and how I always tell you these super exciting stories and how about 5% of them actually turn into solid investigators or people who get baptized.  But I decided that I will keep telling them to you.  You know why? Because that is missionary life!  Exciting things happen all the time!  Unfortunately, a lot of our miracle experiences end up not working out the way we would like.  But we shake the dust off our feet and look for the next person who needs a miracle!  So even if all the people I talk about don't progress or get baptized, the miracles are still there.  Missionary life isn't all golden investigators, seeing angels, and miraculous conversions.  It is a lot of searching, a lot of hoping, and a lot of not giving up.  But isn't life kind of like that?  It has a lot of miraculous moments that keep us going, but most of it is keeping on keeping on.  One of the things we need to learn is to find more of the moments that keep us going, but moments in the every day things.  Same thing with missionary life here.  And I love it, just like I loved life at home!  :)  Keep finding those things that keep you going. :)

Thanks for writing me and praying for me.  I love you all so much and I laugh so much every time I read a letter from home.  I hope you all have the best week ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Talk to you soon.

Love, Hermana Allred

Crazy Happenings

So if you were to ask me if I listened to Lady Gaga, MC-ed a variety show of sorts, and danced onstage in front of hundreds of people this week, the answer would be yes!

Now you might be thinking, "Well, Sister Allred, those don't really sound like missionary things to be doing!" To this thought, I would reply, "Yes, I think you are right!"  Let me explain.

Last week, we got a text from our Zone Leaders asking us to block out Friday and Saturday from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm for a service project.  We almost had a conniption because that is two whole days!!  But we went through the week with that big ole' service project waiting.  As it got closer, we learned that we would be helping with a convention in a Disney hotel for people with Prader Willie Syndrome and their families.  People with this disorder don't have a trigger for when they are full, so they are constantly hungry.  They will go to great lengths to get any food they can because their bodies tell them they are starving.  Most of them also have other mental and physical handicaps.  So we all show up Friday morning, get our t-shirts, and assemble to find out what we are doing.  The first volunteers they asked for were dancers.  Me and Sister Jackson knew that was our calling, and so we ran up to do it and met Miss/Sister Sally, the dance teacher.  We then realized with horror that dancing is against the mission rules, so we excused ourselves to run and ask President Berry if it was ok (we got approval, don't worry!).  We then commenced to learn a dance and teach it to every group of people who came through from 9:00-4:00!!!!  Me and Sister Jackson, as you might imagine, were perfect for the job.  We were busting with energy.......... until day 2.  Haha we have never been so tired in our whole lives!  Plus, part of our rotation was playing a name game with everyone, so we knew just about everyone's name in the convention.  In the morning of the first day, Sister Thornton (one of the ladies in charge) asked us all to do an hour-long entertainment session for the kids.  We nodded and thought that Elder Patten (one of our zone leaders) was in charge, so we went on our merry way.  Halfway through the day, Sister Thornton stopped me and Sister Jackson to ask how the show was coming.  It was then that we were given the script and shown the props.  When our time came, we happily lead all the missionaries in singing, dancing, story-telling, you name it.  I am sure you can picture it.  Haha me and Sister Jackson laughed all night that these two newbie sisters just got put in charge of everything.  And that wasn't all!!!  The dance we taught to all the people was to be performed for all the families in a big show at the end, with the members of the board on the stage.  Last minute, someone decided it would be a great idea to have me and Sister Jackson be up there too, because we had taught the dance to everyone with Sister Sally.  So there we were, hopping around to Phillip Phillips and Jason Mraz in front of a huge ballroom of people.  Bless our hearts.  Sister Allred and Sister Jackson to the rescue, with their [almost] bottomless fountain of energy!  Haha what a time.  It was, however, really hard to come back to missionary work after listening to such worldly music and stuff.  We didn't like it at all, and we hope that coming home isn't like that!  We decided that even though it was a good time, normal missionary work is so much better. :)

So now lets talk about how awesome this week was!!!  Following some advice from our District Leader, me and Sister Jackson planned out some times a week in advance to tract in specific areas.  One of these was a park in my old area, Olympia (which is in our boundaries).  It was amazing to see how almost every single person we talked to was prepared in that time in some way or another.  Because we made our plans in advance, the Lord could put the prepared where we would be.  That was awesome, and we got some really good referrals for English missionaries there.  

Wednesday night, me and Sister Jackson had the opportunity to do a service project at Chick-Fil-A.  We supervised this booth thing that the church sponsored for the "week of the family" for a few hours.  We got to meet the mayor of Ocoee and some Florida Senator, which was pretty cool I guess.  It was fun to be there and talk to people.  

Thursday, we had this awesome experience!!!  I was very stressed all day, because our meeting got out an hour late and we were consequently late to all of our appointments.  Our last one of the night was with a part-member family, the A's.  We had figured that they all had been taught all the lessons and the daughters who were not baptized were only missing the permission of their father to be baptized (Brother A is their step-father).  We hadn't had time to plan in the morning because of meetings and appointments, so we didn't know what to teach them and were 20 minutes late without our cell phone (we had forgotten it at the house).  We decided last minute and after a prayer to teach the Restoration again.  We pulled up to their complex and couldn't get in.  No one was coming in, and I was frustrated and tired from a stressful day.  Something snapped and I was so angry and upset.  I felt not a bit of the Spirit, and I didn't care because I was so upset.  We finally got in and I was not ok and not wanting to teach a lesson feeling that way.  We went up and started to teach.  Well, I tried to but couldn't.  I knew I couldn't because I didn't have the Spirit with me.  Sister Jackson started talking about Joseph Smith and the first vision.  It came out that Yari and Amalia (the non-member daughters) hadn't thought about baptism before, and Yari was confused because she didn't know whether to join her mom's church or her dad's.  Sister Jackson told her about Joseph Smith who had the same problems.  During this I was praying for forgiveness and hoping that I could still do my part in the lesson.  It was a great lesson and the Spirit was so, so, so very strong.  They committed to pray (they did and felt the spirit - we asked them yesterday!).  This was the painful lesson I learned, however:  If I don't act like a missionary 100% of the time, then I do not deserve and cannot expect the Spirit when I need it.  The lesson was good, but I was not able to feel the joy that Sister Jackson did because I knew I wasn't qualified at that time.  It was a costly lesson, but a good one to learn!  I want to do that my whole life too.  To live always ready for the Spirit.

I love you all so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

Love, Sister Allred

Greetings from Orlando!

It was a very awesome yet interesting week!!  Let's start with a funny story.  Yesterday, we were talking to our Zone Leaders on the phone and Sister Jackson saw something in the bathroom.  Yes, lo and behold, it was a CUCARACHA (cockroach).  It was two inches long, with huge, waving, gross antennas.  IT WAS SO GROSS!!!  How do you kill something so huge?!  We had no idea what to do.  We jumped around.  We watched it crawl into a vent in our bathroom that is hanging off the wall.  We then proceeded to duct-tape the vent to the wall so it couldn't get out!  Haha literally. Sister missionary problems.  :)

We have talked to so many good people this week.  I love that about being a missionary; just getting to talk to so many different people from so many different walks of life.  This week we started teaching a lady named Karen.  We also have Jessica and Clara, who came to church yesterday and are praying about a baptism date with us.  We are still teaching the A. family and Maria, but they are not progressing too well so we might have to drop them.  We also have a non-member lesson set up for every day this week aside from Friday!  We hope these people will accept the message and become investigators. 

Sister Jackson is so awesome, and we make great companions.  We love to go do the Lord's work and learn from all the other awesome missionaries out here.  Our district leader, Elder Romero, is awesome.  He gives us so much good advice and it is cool that we get to ask him all the questions that we have about becoming better missionaries.  It is a blessing indeed!

Here is a great story from last week that we had.  We went to visit the S. family (the one with no kitchen table), who is inactive because they cannot get to church and sister S. works on Sunday.  As we started to talk to her, she told us how she hadn't said a kneeling prayer in forever, but one day her two-year-old, Hannah, followed her around screaming "Oracion! Oracion! Oracion!" (prayer) scooting on her knees.  Sister S. kept telling her that she didn't have time, and to have her siblings say one with her.  Eventually, after Hannah persisted, Sister S. broke down crying and knelt with her daughter in a prayer.  She said she felt the Spirit so strong and was so ashamed that she was inactive.  We talked to her about this and challenged her to stop working on Sundays and also to say kneeling prayers with her family each night.  She was very emotional and said she would.  When we came back this week, we ended our message with a kneeling prayer (Hannah lead the way again).  I love these stories from her too:  Her son, Joseph, got hit by a car a few weeks ago and hurt his hip.  Sister S. told us that she prayed so so hard that he would be ok; that he wouldn't feel any pain.  When we talked to her, she said that he felt fine, but her hip had really been hurting her.  She bore a testimony about how Christ answers prayers, and how He transferred the pain to her.  What a miracle!  Also, she told us her conversion story.  Her mother was a member of the church, but Sister S. never really cared or thought she would be.  Then she started reading the Book of Mormon.  When she opened it and started to read, she saw lights coming from the book.  Soft lights that shone into the room.  She looked around and thought she must be crazy, but it was coming from the Book of Mormon!  She ran and got her neighbor to look too, and he attested to the fact.  They were amazed.  She knew it was true.  What an amazing faith-filled woman who looks for miracles and sees them!  I thought you would like that; I did!  :)

I love you all so much.  Thanks for praying for me and writing me letters.  The work is moving onward, and I love Christ so much.  He is the perfect Master.  Please watch the Finding Faith in Christ video this week.  I did, and I was so so so very touched about the wonderful love and mission of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  He is perfect and loves us.  I know that! 

Until next week!

Love, Hermana Kara Allred