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Dear Mom, Dad, Tyler, Brandon, Bryson, Alyssa, Ethan, and Ashlyn;

I have already started to cry and I haven't even typed anything yet!!  That is just typical of the last few days, I suppose.

I couldn't be more grateful.  For everything.  I don't know how this email will go, but if it is horrible I guess you can take it out on me on Wednesday. :)

Every moment on my mission has been so special.  Every smile, every tear, every really hard day and every best day ever.  Every member, every investigator, every potential and contact and bishop and companion has taught me so, so much.  I am so grateful.

Last night and this morning I have come to some conclusions.  Funny, because they are the same conclusions Dad came to on his mission.  The only things that really matter are loving God and loving people.  Sometimes, and especially here at the end of my mission, I have felt a lot of pressure.  A lot of people telling me, "Make it count!" "Make it the best weeks of your mission!"  "Treasure every second!"  And then I get stressed. "Am I making this count? Am I happier than I have ever been?  Am I the best missionary I have been?  Are we teaching enough, are we talking to enough people, are we being obedient enough?"  And then I lose it - I lose what is really important about missionary work.  It takes away from the joy that makes the Lord's work what it is.  His work is about people and Him.  I won't forget it again. :)

I am excited to see you all.  I hope you know that. :)  It is going to be some gooooood times!!  Everyone is so excited that I get to be home with my family for Christmas.  And so am I. :)

I am also stressed!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have a lot to do today to make everything fall into place.  Pray for me, please. :)

Our missionary purpose is this: "Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored Gospel through Faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End."  To be honest, isn't that the purpose of every member of the Church?  Just insert the next covenant where it says "Baptism."  It could be the Endowment, the Sealing, or simply going to church next week to take the Sacrament.  My purpose won't ever change.  Isn't that great?

Missionary work is definitely the hardest, deepest, most meaningful work in the world.  It is great to help.  It is hard when people don't accept the help they need.  It is great to be people's angels.  It is hard to not be perfect.  It is great to learn that it's ok to not be perfect.  I am learning so much, and have learned so much.

Mom, Dad, Ty, Brandon, Bryce, Alyssa, Ethan, and Ashlyn; I know that God is real.  I know that He is our Father.  I know that the greatest Gift that this world has ever received is His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  He is the one Thing that has never changed, even when everything else has.  He is the only One that was with me walking into the MTC, getting on that plane, and landing in the Promised Land.  He is the only One that was with me through Sister Ward, Hermana Campos, Hermana Jackson, Hermana Day, Hermana Brooks, Hermana Sokolowski, Hermana Fisi, Hermana Hansen, Hermana Marsh, and Hermana Hernandez.  He is the only One who saw a stuttering, not-confident Spanish-learner receive the gift of tongues through many months and a lot of practice.  He is the only One who knows all of my friends in Olympia, Windy Ridge, Valencia, Lake Nona, and Semoran.  He is the only One who has seen Kara Allred learn, grow, change, repent, feel, love, and become more like Him over this sacred 18 months.  He'll come home with me, and help me start a new chapter of my life.  I wouldn't have it be anyone else.  He knows.  And that's the beautiful thing about it.  For every single one of us, He gets it.  He's lived it.  He understands.  Every rude rejection, every broken heart, every hard day, every opportunity missed has been chipping off the rough edges of my character.  Every renewed hope, every answered prayer, every lesson learned, and every mistake forgiven has made my testimony a little more deep and a little more mine.  I love my mission.  I guess there isn't much more to say than that.  Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving me these 18 months to try and serve You.

I have so much to share with all of you when I get home.  Please be patient with me as I adjust to a new life as a better person.  I really do love Him, and you, so much.  

See you soon.

Con amor,

Hermana Kara Allred

Florida Orlando Mission

June 2013-December 2014

"and the Lamanites shall blossom as the rose"

It has been, yet again, the best week ever!!!!!  So many awesome and miraculous things have occurred! :)

First, let's just get this out of the way:  Mom, you asked some questions in your letter that I should probably address about coming home.  Here we go!  

I have a lot of mixed feelings.  In a letter I got from President and Sister Berry, I liked the way they said it.  They said they were sure we all had a lot of "tender and mixed feelings," and boy is that the truth!  I am happy to have served a mission.  I am very happy thinking of all of the good times I have had, my past companions, my old areas, the people I have worked with, and the miracles I have seen.  At the same time, I feel nostalgic (classic me) thinking about all of those same things!  I feel proud of what I have done.  I also wonder if I could have done more.  I am excited to be at home with all of you in my beautiful state for Christmas.  I am also sad to leave my home and all of my family in my beautiful state next week.  It has been such a sacred and wonderful experience to be a missionary for the Lord Jesus Christ.  This is such a beautiful place for me.  I know it needs to end; it is how it is supposed to be.  There are a lot more things for me to do in life.  But it is so special to be a missionary. So special.  I can't really explain how I feel, but I tried my best.


On the other hand, I am totally anxious about coming home (surprised, anyone?).  I don't know why, but I am kind of scared too!  It is just going to be an interesting change in dynamic.  I am glad that we will be busy because it is Christmas; it would be horrible to come home in like the middle of summer where nothing is going on! 

Anyway, that is how it is going inside of my head I guess.  I am excited to see you - not going to lie!!

So back to this week of amazing miracles!!

I have really been trying to focus lately.  Because of that effort, I believe, we have been the recipients of blessings pouring out of the windows of heaven!!  A lot of these blessings also have to do with the "He is the Gift" initiative.  I hope you have seen the video.

A. is doing, well, ok.  Please pray for him to have the desire to change his life so he can be baptized!  He came to the Christmas devotional at the Church last night, which was awesome.  He is really cool.

D. is also doing alright.  We had an awesome lesson with her this week, where we were able to answer some of her questions about the purpose of her life with the Book of Mormon and the Plan of Salvation.  Wow, isn't the Gospel wonderful?!  Always has been, always will be! Back to how I feel about coming home, I am glad I learned to love the Gospel before my mission.  I have changed so much, but living the Gospel was always a part of me.  Thanks for raising me that way, Mom and Dad!  It will make it easier re-adjusting to normal life. Anyway, please pray for D. that we can meet with her again!!

So we have been attempting to share the He is the Gift video with basically anything that breaths and has two legs.  It has brought so many miracles!!  One of these was M and E.  We found E taking a smoke outside of her house.  Her apartment complex was one that Sister Hernandez has felt like we should be finding in (thankfully - we have 5 new investigators in that complex!).  Anyway, we asked if we could share a short video about Christ and Christmas and she agreed.  We went inside and met M, her son-in-law.  They loved the video.  We bridged into our purpose and introduced them to the Book of Mormon.  They loved it.  M was asking all kinds of awesome questions about the Book, and he was thrilled to have it.  After our lesson, Sister Hernandez went to the bathroom and in that 5 minutes I covered Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity, and eternal marriage with them because of the questions they were asking!!!!  Haha they are so prepared.  M specifically.  We talked to him yesterday to confirm our appointment for tonight, and he said he had been reading and had questions.  He also said in our lesson that we could come by every day during the week because he only worked on weekends (haha we will have to teach Sabbath Day soon).  MIRACLES!!!

The next day, or maybe a couple days later, in personal study I was stuck.  I didn't really feel like studying the things I was thinking of for our lessons.  I wanted to feel the Spirit and be guided by Him, so I prayed for direction and opened Preach My Gospel to a random page.  It was Former Investigators.  Haha I smiled and was confused because it was so random, but read it anyway.  I was really moved and excited about doing visiting past investigators from what I read, but it was still just random.  Later that night, we had an appointment fall through and ended up doing some finding in a complex that we are rarely in.  I remembered what I had read this morning, and we remembered a former that we had thought about before in the complex.  Apparently, he had requested the missionaries to come online.  At his house, we found his mother and father, whose daughter is getting sealed in the temple in January!! Part-member miracle!!!  We will be teaching E. and R. again later this week. :)  Personal study miracles!!

Also, we had found M. walking in her complex and shared the video with her.  We set an appointment and went back to see her.  We were able to teach her and her son, B., and they both accepted baptismal dates for January 24th.  They are so very prepared, especially B.  He wants to change his life forever and get closer to God.

Last but not least, last night we were doing some walking around the said miracle complex sharing the video.  We walked to this strip in the complex, but no one was outside.  We were about to go back and find more people (usually talking to people outside is more effective than knocking doors), but we figured we were there for a reason and decided to knock on the two doors with lights on.  Let's just say, one minute we were out on the street and the next minute we were sitting on a couch looking at mission pictures!!  L let us in her home and told us her children were members (her granddaughter piped up, "I'm a mormon!").  Her son served a mission in the Dominican Republic (she showed us the pictures).  She has never been baptized, and misses going to church here. We taught her yesterday and will be teaching her again this week!

Seriously, it has been the best week ever.  Thank you for your prayers.  Our companionship has been doing great this week too.  I tried to serve, and the love followed. :)

I also got to do a training this week on the Spirit of Elijah with Sister Hernandez.  It was awesome.  If you don't have a testimony of the Spirit of Elijah yet, get it now!

I love life.  I love you all.  Have the best week ever.  Talk to you soon.


Love, Hermana Allred

The best week ever!

I have so much to talk about this week! I hope you are ready!!! :)

Thank you again for your increased prayers.  Things have been going great in the area and in our companionship.  On Monday, we were able to teach an awesome man named A.  His wife died some time ago and he is living here from Puerto Rico with his son and grandchildren.  He used to be into church with his wife, but after she died things changed for him and he hasn't been as into it since.  It was awesome to be able to testify to him how this message could help him and help him to feel his wife's presence more strongly.  I know angels are real.  We are trying to help him live the Word of Wisdom so he can be baptized soon, hopefully in January!

Heavenly Father has been so good.  He has let me have a little walk down memory lane for the last few weeks - how appropriate. :)  It all started on Tuesday!

Tuesday night, I was thrilled because Sister Cabrera signed up on our meal calendar.  Sister Cabrera as in Keren's mom (the one who got baptized in January).  I couldn't have been happier to be sitting again in their wonderful home, listening to primary music with Emily and eating arroz con leche just like me and Sister Jackson did. :)  I was so happy.  And to only add more happiness to the best meal ever, who should knock on the door halfway through but Sister S (a less-active member I worked with a TON in Windy Ridge)!!!!  We had a very happy reunion.  Wow, it was just so awesome to remember all of the good and spiritual times I had last year.  I loved it. What a blessing. :)

On Wednesday we had an awesome day because we were sharing a little Thanksgiving video with anyone we could meet!  It was an especially spiritual experience to share the video with several ladies outside.  We testified that God had sent us to them and two of them started crying.  I almost started crying also because I felt the Spirit a lot!  We got their contact info to come back and see them.  It was so awesome.  That was a happy day.

Thursday was the BEST THANKSGIVING EVER!!!!!!  We had three dinners, which was awesome.  The first one was with the Elder's Quorum president's family and a few of my favorite members of the branch.  The next was with the Ramirez family and a Muslim family they have been working with.  The last was with the Aquino family, who are related to the Martinez' (the ones who got baptized in May).  That dinner was especially awesome, and here is why:  On Tuesday, we met someone at the library named T.  He was very nice and interested in the message, but declined a return visit because he is in the process of moving.  When we offered any service at the end, he said, "Actually, I don't have any family here and I have nowhere to go for Thanksgiving.  Is your church doing anything, or do you know anywhere I could go?"  We looked at each other and told him we would see what we could do. :)  Sister Aquino agreed and went to pick up T. on Thursday night.  He immediately began asking questions once we were all at the Aquino's about the gospel and what we do.  We testified of prophets, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, baptism, you name it!  He told us he was spiritually hungry and knew there was something missing from the Bible.  It was so awesome.  He will be meeting with the English Elders to investigate the church!  It was also so cool to see this man, without a family member anywhere near, spending Thanksgiving with a loving family.  They took him right in!  I don't think he will forget that ever.  I will do that too.  It was awesome.

Friday was another walk down memory lane as I did my last exchange in my first area - Olympia!!  I smiled as I slept in the same bed that I did on my second night in Florida last July.  I loved being in that apartment; it brought back the good old days. :)  The best part of the exchange was having dinner with good old Brother Si (you remember Si, right?)!  He was very excited that I was coming over.  He made dinner, had a special candle on the table, brought us out flowers, and blasted none other than John Denver (haha that was a little awkward... we hardly had the heart to burst his excitement, so we just asked him to turn it down).  Being in that garage brought back a ton of memories.  I loved listening to his testimony of Heavenly Father's love, how he had changed his life since he met us for the first time, how he has a call to be a missionary at the Bishop's Storehouse (he works there twice a week), and how he has shared the Gospel with people at the bus stop.  I was so grateful to be there, seeing how he had matured in the Gospel.  Oh how I love that mechanic voice and big heart!  It was a special blessing.

All week we have been sharing the new He is the Gift initiative.  If you don't know what that is, look it up!  It is the best thing ever.  Miracles abound because we have been sharing it with everyone.  The prophets are inspired!

Really, He is the best Gift that has ever been given to me.  I love Him so much.  I love that He came to be born into this crazy and wicked world to save me, a sinner.  His gospel has changed me forever.  I am so happy to be representing Him as best as I can.  I continue to learn and relearn every single day - and I am so glad and eternally grateful that He is forever patient with me.  He helps me learn again and again.  His voice is not one of harsh condemnation, but of quiet reassurance and strong support.  What a blessing it is to remember Him and to be a part of His work and His love.

Best day ever. :)

Love, Sister Allred

The Lord Giveth

Here we are, at the end of another week in Orlando.  It was an interesting week!  We are really having an interesting time trying to adjust to the new area and find new investigators - it worked last time, so it will probably work this time if you could pray for us to find more people to teach! Thank you thank you in advance.

R. who was scheduled to get baptized last Saturday, is currently missing in action.  We think he is still on his trip in Miami.  Please pray for us to find him so he can be baptized!!

Saturday was especially awesome because I was able to go to the temple with the other missionaries who are leaving in December.  I was companions for the morning with Sister LaForce, who is serving in the English ward where we are at.  It was so, so awesome.  I loved to be in the temple and feel such peace.  I was able to receive revelation for some questions I had.  I felt so uplifted and so happy.  At the end, we all had a chance to sit in the Celestial Room and, well, account to the Lord for what we have done with His time.  This has always been the scariest thought to me!!!  But as I was sitting in the room, praying, I was so happy.  I was so at peace.  I still have some good weeks to give, but as I accounted to the Lord, I could tell that He was happy and proud of me.  I have been anything but a perfect missionary, and I continue to learn and re-learn lessons about being better, but I knew that that was ok.  It was an incredibly spiritual experience, and put a wonderful tone on the day.  Plus, on the way home they gave us permission to stop for lunch, so I took Sister LaForce to my favorite place in Orlando - the taqueria on Oakridge (Windy Ridge area)!!!  It was awesome and it reminded me of the good old days with Sisters Campos, Jackson, and Day. :)

I have such a strong testimony of obedience.

I also have such a strong testimony of the redeeming power of Jesus Christ, our Savior.  What a blessing that is.

This week we were blessed to find and teach several new people!  Recently they instructed us to teach the first lesson to English people that we find before passing them off to their respective missionaries.  We were able to find 5 different families/individuals in the last week or so that fit in that category, and it is so great to be able to start them off on a strong foot.  It is also nice to be a blessing to other missionaries as we have been passing off these wonderful people.  I love being a missionary!

On the other hand, it has been especially difficult this week for us to find investigators that we can teach.  We have tried so hard to follow the Spirit, talk to everyone, and go one more step even when we are tired, but we haven't seen fruits in our investigator pool yet!  I guess it is a good thing to once again realize that the Lord is in charge - He gives, He takes away, and He tries our faith and dedication to Him.  Hopefully we will be seeing some awesome fruit this coming week!

One blessing was teaching Re.  We were able to teach him briefly yesterday - he had already read the Restoration pamphlet that we left him, and he is excited to come to church with us this Sunday!  We at least have one new person to be working with, and what a blessing that really is!

Mission life is so good.  We had an awesome Zone Conference this week in the which I felt the Spirit a lot.  I love President and Sister Berry, I love the prophets, I love you all, and I love the Savior Jesus Christ. :)

Have the best Thanksgiving ever!!!!


Love, Sister Allred

Hermana Allred with President and Sister Berry

Sister Conger

Hermana Fisi

The beautiful Orlando temple and a beautiful missionary!

"I'm not dead yet!"

It has been a great week! I start this email with a movie reference.

You know that part in Monte Python and the Holy Grail where the guy is
like, "Bring out yer dead!" And this one man takes out this old guy
who keeps protesting, "I'm not dead yet!" That is how I feel. And let
me tell you why.

This week, we had a Zone Training Meeting that was awesome. I always
love those. At the end, they invited all the missionaries departing at
the end of the transfer to give their testimonies. I was like, "Hello,
this isn't even my last ZTM! I still have over a month!" But alas, I
gave it anyway.

A few days later, I got a letter from the mission office that I threw
in my bag and forgot about until the next morning. When I opened it, i
realized with horror that it was my travel plans!! Already! I am
getting home at like, 10:45 a.m.. I was in shock. Last time I checked, I
still have quite a bit of time here in the field!

Also, the big "last temple trip" has already been scheduled and
announced -- for this Saturday. What?!

FLORIDA ORLANDO MISSION: I AM NOT DEAD YET!!

Haha.

In the meantime, old deathbed Sister Allred is still working Semoran!
In between a doctor's appointment and an MRI for some hearing loss
that Hna Hernandez is having, we had some great experiences!

One was with a recent convert of Sister Jackson and Sister Marsh in
the ward named Brother V. He is so so awesome, but has been feeling
really lonely lately and going through a hard time. I had been
thinking earlier in the week of what I could do to have the Spirit
more in lessons, and one of the ideas I found was to have a more
focused Personal Study. The day of Brother V's lesson, I had a very
investigator-oriented study and felt the Spirit. Brother V was not
originally in the plans, so I didn't get to study for him in the
morning. However, we set up the appointment and decided to teach about
the Savior and the atonement. We felt the Spirit incredibly strong as
we testified of the Atonement and our Friend Jesus Christ. I know that
it was because I had a focused study, even though it wasn't
specifically for the lesson! So awesome.

We found a super prepared family last night! We were trying to find
some old investigators, and on our way out of the neighborhood we
pulled over to chase down a guy we felt we should talk to. We set a
return appointment with him and his wife for today! On our way back to
our car, we decided to just randomly knock on the door of the
next-door neighbor of the former we were trying to visit. J opened
the door, and we ended up teaching him, his wife C, C's
mom R, and their friend A the Restoration. It was awesome!!!
They are looking for a church and seemed interested in being baptized!
It was so cool to teach the whole family. The English Elders will be
teaching them again Friday! The Lord blesses us when we follow His
Spirit - that I know!

This week, I grew in my testimony of the Savior yet again. On Sunday,
I just woke up extremely anxious and depressed and panicked. It was
one of the worst mornings of my whole mission. I didn't know what to
do, so I opened up your letters. Mom, I really loved what you shared
with me about answers to prayers and feeling the Spirit in the play.
It helped me a lot.  I also was able to find a lot of comfort in the
Book of Mormon and the Sacrament. It really was a healing balm to my
soul.  I have been thinking a lot about justice and mercy this week.
Haha I was actually thinking about Jean Valjean and Javer. They both
are confronted with a situation in which mercy is given. Jean Valjean
accepts the mercy and changes forever. Javer is so caught up in the
justice that he takes his own life. Sometimes, I get too focused on
the justice aspect of the Gospel. Not only does that make it easy to
judge, but it makes it easy to get down on myself. I had a clear
thought during the sacrament. It was, "You have forgotten Me." I
really had. I had forgotten that Jesus is merciful. I had forgotten
all of the instances in my life where I have felt of His love and
mercy. Let's not forget who Jesus really is.

I know that He lives. I know that He forgives. I want to keep being
more like him every day.

I love you!

Hermana Allred

Happy!

Mom, Dad, Tyler, Brandon, Bryson, Alyssa, Ethan, and Ashlyn:

Haha just so you know, I have already received a report on the Savior of the World play from Marissa. I heard you did great!  My family, the thespians. :)  Who knew?

It has been an AWESOME week as usual.  The transfer has started off with a bang!!

Remember J and E?  Your prayers worked! We finally got to meet with them again and set a baptismal date for the 13th of December.  They are so great and it was such a spiritual lesson.  We talked about the Plan of Salvation and I was reminded of the gratitude I have for my Savior and the role He plays in my personal plan.

Also, this last week we did Cockroach-house cleaning, part II.  It was awesome and totally gross, as usual!  But here is the cool thing: last time we were there, we had been referred there to do the cleaning for M, who was taking care of her grandkids.  This time, J, M's daughter, was there!  We helped her and talked to her.  She has just gotten out of a tricky situation, and said that she wanted to get into church and start over again.  We happily set an appointment and came back Friday.  She was so happy to hear the message, said that she had known there was something more than just the Bible, and was answering in the affirmative before we could even finish asking her if she would be baptized onDecember 13th.  She is so so great!!!!!  She wants to be a disciple her whole life, and baptism is just the catalyst that she needs to get her there.

So after all of this awesome success, we had a crazy multi-stake conference yesterday!!  They created a new stake in Orlando, the Lake Mary stake.  It was so exciting to be such a real-life part of Church growth.  I felt proud to have contributed a few souls to the army of the Lord here in Orlando.  We are not part of the new stake here in Semoran, but we are becoming a ward in a few months!  Also, our stake boundaries were altered, as well as our ward boundaries.  I don't know if you remember the street Oakridge that I was always on in Windy Ridge, but now it is a part of our ward! Taqueria, Keren, and all!  :)  (Keren is the one who got baptized in January)  I am so excited to be with some of my old friends again!  Also, the division changed big time between us and the Elders.  Instead of a North/South divide, it became an East/West divide.  This is just fine, but J, E, and Jo all live on the West side of our divide.... and we are the East missionaries now.  All of the Elder's investigators were on our side too, so we basically did an investigator swap!  This is a cool opportunity to start again again, and I am excited to work with a new batch of people while still being able to see Jo, J, E, J, etc.  Crazy stuff!  I have faith in our Church leaders, and I know that for whatever reason this is what the people here needed.

We did find two new investigators this last week that we get to keep!  J and A are from Honduras and Guatemala.  We had a very spiritual lesson with them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and they said they would be baptized when they felt ready.  They are so, so awesome and I am excited to keep working with them.

So I have a testimony this week that I want to share.  It is one that I have shared before, but I would like to reiterate it.  I have a testimony that the Lord blesses us when we try.  When we have a goal, but aren't sure how to accomplish it, so then we just come up with our best idea and try it.  Then the Lord blesses us immensely with the change and Spirit we wanted, just for doing our best.  I have seen it in trying to do genealogy work.  I have seen it in preparing for conference.  I have seen it in serving a mission.  And this week, I saw it again!  I have a goal to really strengthen my testimony specifically on our Savior, Jesus Christ.  I heard the talk in the Women's Conference about memorizing the Living Christ, and I thought, "Oh, that's cool!  I will do that when I get home."  And then didn't think about it more.  Until mom wrote me about it!  And then, during sacrament meeting last Sunday, the thought came to me to do it now.  So I did!  I wasn't sure how to strengthen my testimony in Christ exactly, but I figured that was a good place to start.  So every night after planning, I have tried to memorize a paragraph.  I will recite it to myself and do my best to remember it and ponder it.  This week, me and Sister Hernandez were in a house to say a prayer and we both felt strongly that we needed to leave.  We did after the prayer, but the scary feeling stayed with us.  We prayed, but it was still there.  I recited what I had memorized from the Living Christ on my bike and while we were waiting at the crosswalk.  The powerful words helped my fear go away.  In our lessons, from the simple act of trying to memorize, I feel a deep gratitude and love for my Savior as I testify of Him.  Our lessons have been more powerful and more Spiritual.  My testimony is getting deeper and more real, and my love for Him is growing.  It is such a miracle.  Do it!  I know He will bless you.

I love being a missionary.  I love working at my weaknesses.  I love President Berry.  I love being a member of the Church.  The more I think, the more I get excited for life - all of it.  There is so much work to do, and I am ready!!!


I love you all.


I know that Jesus is real.  He is the living Christ.  He talks and loves and helps and guides.  He knows where I am and what I am doing.  He really did live the perfect life to give us a perfect example.  I know He is at the head of this work.

What a blessing. :)

Love, Sister Allred

So Profound an Influence

Transfers are this week! .... And nothing is changing for this
Hermana! Looks like I will be finishing out my mission in good old
Semoran with Hermana Hernandez. :)

This week was awesome! I love being a missionary! I have loved
rediscovering a positive attitude , hard work, patience, and charity.
Haha but really. How easy is it to be happy when everything is  going
well? Really easy! It is the true test of a positive attitude to stay
happy in spite of challenges. I am not perfect yet, but I am getting
better at it!

I love reflecting on my mission. I still have many lessons to learn,
but every day basically I discovering gems in my soul that have been
refined through dozens and dozens of normal, every-day experiences as
a missionary.

Something that has been fascinating me lately is how little I actually
knew as a new missionary. They give you a couple weeks of training,
the White Handbook, PMG, and a few DVDs and send you out! I knew so
little bout the daily grit of missionary life. Yet I knew so much
about what being a missionary really meant - sometimes I think I got
it more then than I do now! The Lord doesn't require us to be really
well-versed or an expert. He just asks for a willing heart and an
obedient Spirit. If we do our best to learn and obey, we WILL become
who he wants us to become.

I am really grateful that i have tried my best to do that. I have
changed. I have seen missionaries who have gone through their whole
missions unchanged. That makes me sad. The mission can be a beautiful
chrysalis for change if we obey and give it our all.

Our investigators are.... Falling off the face of the planet. Please
pray for us to be able to get into contact with the ones who are ready
to change and progress.

Wow, we are getting better at teaching on the spot! I feel like a
better missionary than before; like I am filling my purpose better.

Especially pray for J! He needs to be baptized on the 6th of
December, but we have to be able to talk to him first!

I am determined to know my Savior better. In the last few days, that
has been a blessing to learn more about Him. Life just keeps getting
better!

Hmm, what else.... Oh! Halloween was fun. We had a ward trunk-or-treat
on Wednesday, all the ward members loved our Mormon.org card costume.
:) we taught some lessons on the 31st, which was good! We found a
member who wants to come back to church! He is awesome.  I got your
package and of course loved it. Those pumpkin spice Oreos are to die
for, and the jewel jelly beans were awesome. And, of course, the
leaves and pictures. :) I love you, mom!!

You are all the best. Have the best week ever!

Hermana Allred

Happy Halloween!

The life size pass along card!

The stone will fill the earth!

It has been an awesome week!! Where to begin, where to begin......

I know! Today, we are having a district activity in the which we are
carving pumpkins. We were invited to come in costume. In grand Sister
Allred style, I have been plotting this costume for not days, not
weeks, not even months, but for a year. In a few minutes, we will be
putting the final touches on a massive Mormon.org card. The kind we
give to investigators. It is huge, and there are spaces for my face
and sister Hernandez' face. I will send pictures next week. I must
admit, it is pretty awesome. Some things never change! :)

It has been another miracle-filled week! Let's go ahead and talk about
all if my favorite people.

We have been "teaching" W. for a few weeks now. Well, not really
teaching. We taught him and his wife once a few weeks ago, but haven't
been able to get a solid appointment since. However, we have seen hi
several times and he has come to church for two weeks in a row now. He
is really awesome. In Gospel Principles yesterday, he said how he
loved the way Mormons preached. How they did it with love and not
belittling to other faiths. He still is struggling with the concept of
being baptized again, but we have big hopes for him! Please pray
specifically that we can set up a time to meet with him and that he
can feel the desire to be baptized.

O. is struggling with a lot of problems in his life, and that is
making him anxious about his baptism. Please pray that the Spirit will
be able to touch his heart this week! We are hoping to do a lot of
service with them to help out.

J. is a new investigator we found last week. He is working towards
a date on December 6thh! We are having to adjust our teaching methods
because he was never able to go to school or learn how to read. This
is a new challenge! He also has no CD player and no access to the
internet. We are trying to read with him so he develops a testimony on
his own.

Speaking of no reading, on Tuesday we met a man who I will probably
always remember at a bus stop. He is from Guatemala and, like J.,
never learned how to read. This grown man started crying as he told us
about how he was a drunk and couldn't read. He told us how lucky we
were to know how to do such a beautiful thing. He lamented that he was
stuck; he couldn't progress anymore. It was so very sad and humbling
to see someone in a situation like that. We got his number and address
and assured him we could help. Unfortunately, both were wrong so we
couldn't get into contact with him. I hope he is ok.

We had interviews with President Berry this week. I love President
Berry. I know I was supposed to serve in his mission. He is such a
kind and gentle and inspired man. It is always a pleasure to be with
him.

Oh right! I am still reporting on our people! We also found R. and
B. this week. They are a miner and daughter from Mexico. We have
taught them twice and R. is thinking about baptism on the 29th of
November. She is awesome. B. is twelve and they are already
talking about her being a missionary. Miracles abound!

Also, last night we taught a wonderful man named J. He is taking
care of his old mother. He was very open and wants to be baptized. I
have never found so many new investigators on my whole mission! It is
such a blessing. I can't even believe it.

We are getting a lot better at teaching on the spot. It helps us to
fulfill our purpose as missionaries. I feel good when I teach. I
continue improving with practice, or I hope so at least!

It has been a good transfer. Me and Sister Hernandez are finally
getting used to each other! We are friends, and it is a blessing. I
continue to be surprised at how The Lord stretches me and helps me
develop into the sister He wants me to be.

I am happy. Life is good. I am so happy I get to be a missionary my whole life.

I know that the Spirit is real. I feel so uplifted by my personal
study every morning. A lot of this has come through me striving to be
guided by the Spirit in what to study. I invite you to try it! Try and
pray to be guided before. As I have done this, by the end of my study
I am shaking with the Spirit. I am excited and feel a burning in my
bosom and I want to go and do the Lord's work! A study journal has
also been really helpful for me.

This is all kind of random I guess, but life is just so good. God is
real, and He is our Father. He sent His Son to be our Best Friend. He
sent and sends prophets to guide and help us, and scriptures to fill
us with His Spirit. I know it!

He is also loving and gentle. He wants to forgive. He wants us to be free.

I love helping people see that light of happiness.

One more story! I had to go to the CVS this week for my prescription
(thanks, mom!). We walked in, happy as usual. We waved and said hello
to the pharmacists. Monique waved and said, "Wow, I want some of what
you have!" We laughed and told her we would gladly share some! Turns
out she was having a horrible day, but prayed before she got to work.
She told us that since she saw us, she wasn't having a bad day
anymore. Her sister is a member in New York. We invited her to listen
to the missionaries again. She was so excited. It felt so good to be a
ray of sunshine in someone's life.

Anyway, I love you so much!! Happy Halloween, and happy birthday to my
faithful writer!

Love,

Hermana Allred

Las Elderes

Family:

YOUR EXTRA PRAYERS WORKED!!!!   I really appreciate them.  We felt the blessings big time this week!!

Bummer, but I don't have a lot of time because I am trying to figure out some BYU stuff.  But I will try to get in everything I can; there is a lot!!

It was really hard at the beginning of this week.  I was really in a mood last Monday.  But the Lord has His ways of taking us to our very limits and then pouring out blessings on our heads!!  I wish I would just remember that every time.


This week, we committed G. to a baptismal date for November 22nd.  She is awesome and we are working on preparing her for that date!!  She came to church yesterday and brought her little sister too.  We are excited to keep working with her!

Also, we went to see a member family in the ward on an assignment from the branch president.  O, the father of the family, is not a member.  Very unexpectedly, we ended up teaching him about baptism and committed him as well to be baptized on November 22nd!  Miracles abound!!  He is very ready to be baptized.  We are so excited to be working with their family.

Additionally, the branch president came out with us to find people on Wednesday! We hit a gold mine because we were walking around a school at the time school got out.  A ton of Latino moms were walking to pick up their kids! We talked to four of them.  All four of them were spanish, and all four of them gave us contact info to get in touch with them.  Miracles of using our branch president's finding keys!!! So cool.

I have talked before about W and A.  They referred us to J and E, the other people they are living with.  We were able to teach J and E on Saturday, and they and W came to church yesterday!  It was awesome.  They are hungry for truth.  We are excited to meet with them again on Tuesday.

It was crazy and oh-so-awesome to have 4 investigators at sacrament meeting! What a blessing!!!!

The title of this email is "las elderes."  People don't really know what to call us - members included! We get las elderes, las elderas, las hermanas elderes, and my personal favorite, "the woman elders."  Haha.  Pioneering the sister missionary front!!

I am super happy.  Haha it was such a miraculous week.  Oh yeah, there is more!

We stumbled into many less-active, lost members this week.  I love being able to get their information so they can be taken care of by the church.  One of these was L.  We biked into L's complex, and we waved at each other by his second-floor door.  We stopped and started talking to him, and he told us he was baptized 10 years ago when he was 14!  We right then and there had an awesome lesson about the Restoration.  We talked about healing spiritual wounds.  We talked about the sacrament, priesthood leaders, and becoming whole.  About feeling the love of God.  About starting again.  We committed him to talk to the bishop of his ward the next day (Sunday) at church and start healing.  He said yes.  It was awesome.  I have such a testimony of the Lord's plan for each of us.

As we have been following our plans, we have felt the Spirit and been where we need to be.  I love talking to people.  I love giving out the little stickers that Aunt Traci sent me forever ago (I still use them all the time).  I love making people smile and offering service.  Service! Right!

We went to see a member referral this week (another miracle) to give service.  She had no electricity.  We cleaned with a flashlight in some places.  We (well, sister Hernandez [I was holding the flashlight]) bathed her dog.  We also cleaned the kitchen table.  Kitchen table?  Yes, the table.  And by "cleaned," I mean "de-roached."  There were probably 40 german roaches living in the table!!!!  I almost threw up, several times.  Hahahaha oh, the good times of missionary work.  We are going back this week to finish! Que dicha es! :)

I also crashed on my bike this week! It was hysterically funny.  I was trying to talk on the phone to a member and get to an appointment, and then brake with one hand.  Needless to say, I went sprawling.  I have some nice bruises as souvenirs, but me and Sister Hernandez laughed the whole ride to our appointment.  I am a real missionary now!

Family, you know, the Church is true.  I love obedience and hard work.  Like, I really love working hard.  And getting things clean.  People, houses, cars. souls. :)  I love getting better every day and getting improvement suggestions and trying my best.  BEING A MISSIONARY IS THE BEST!

Again, thanks for the extra prayers.  They really worked!


I love you,

Sister Allred