Old Woman Windy, descending from her throne

How is everyone?!  I love you all so much and I am doing just great here. Aaaaannnnddd, they are kicking me out of Windy Ridge!  I said goodbye to all of my friends here in the ward yesterday, and it was sad, but good.  I am excited to have a new set of experiences in a new ward..... but nervous too!!!  We will see how it goes - I don't know where or who until tomorrow, so I will update you next week!

These last few weeks have been difficult for various reasons, but it is always good to feel the peace that comes deep down when you trust in Heavenly Father and believe in His gospel.  I am trying to become more of who He wants me to be.  It is really good!

We got a new investigator this week!  It is the mother of one of the Sisters in our ward.  Her (the investigator) name is Sister V.  She is old and Mexican and so funny.  I love teaching her with the Ordinolas (member family), because I know how much she means to them and how much they want her to enjoy the gospel with them.  It makes me think of our Nonnie getting baptized when she was 80 - it meant so much to us as our family to have her partake of all of those amazing blessings.  I really hope she finds a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Gospel and that she gets baptized. :)

We are also continuing to teach G and E, C, and R.  Oh yeah! Let's talk about R.  :)

R decided to quit her job and is getting baptized on March 16th.  She is the best ever!!!!!!!!!!!!  Thanks for praying for me and everyone.

Haha I am sorry this is the worst email ever..... everyone is here at the place where we email talking about transfers and stuff and we have a district activity that we are going to (berry picking?).  But know that I love you so so much and am so grateful for everything you do.  I will have so much to say next week with my new area!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I love you!

Love, Hermana Allred

A Fascinating Week!

Mom, Dad, Tyler, Brandon, Bryson, Alyssa, Ethan, and Ash (who thinks I will be dead by the time she is a missionary),

HAPPY PRESIDENT'S DAY!!!!  Maybe I will warm myself up a big old can of stew in memorial. :)  I loved hearing about the Russia party and dangly earrings and all that fun stuff. :)  You are all the best!!!

This week was another classic missionary week full of ups and downs.  We went to the temple on Friday.... and it was the. best. thing. ever.  It was so wonderful and so needed.  We all got to go as a zone to the 7:00 session and it was absolutely fantastic.  I don't know what else I am allowed to even say in here, but just know that I loved it all. :)

Also we got a call from the Assistants this week asking me and Sister Day to do a musical number for our huge zone conference.  Haha wish us luck this week!  I am playing the piano, so thankfully I don't have to sing or anything.  :)  The piano was really the best thing I ever did - I use it so much here.

I am curious about something.  In Alyssa's letter, she said that you had an FHE on Hope.  That is funny, because that was a theme of mine this week!  I have done a lot of thinking about hope.  It can seem kind of ambiguous, so I really wanted to understand what it meant.  We all know the three big virtues are faith, hope, and charity.  I did a lot of thinking on faith and hope; I think they are sister virtues and sometimes they seem very similar.  What I concluded is that faith is believing, or having a knowledge of Jesus Christ and His plan/Atonement.  It is knowing what it is and how it works, and acting on it.  You obey when you have faith, you keep the commandments when you have faith, and you try to repent when you have faith. Hope is something a little different, however.  Hope is knowing all of the things that faith encompasses, but also believing that it will work for YOU.  Not that it works for mankind or humanity or your friend or your mom or everyone else, but for you personally.  That YOU can be forgiven.  That YOU can change.  That God loves YOU, even though you are flawed and imperfect.  Hope is what makes faith-filled people keep growing, keep changing, and keep repenting.  Without hope, all your faith is incomplete.  It is this hope that makes us happy, optimistic, and confident (Elder Uchtdorf explained hope that way once).  Without it, Satan makes us belittle ourselves and doubt ourselves into damnation (not progressing).  I know that Hope comes from Christ and despair from the devil.  I wish I could always remember to keep that Hope so I can build on my foundation and have that true Charity.  Good stuff!

I am here going to paste something I wrote to my mission president that happened this week:

A miracle I saw in our area actually happened yesterday. [...] It has been an interesting week for both me and Sister Day. Our numbers were really down, and it was Saturday night and we had no lessons planned for Sunday. I really, really desired to get two lessons on Sunday, so we made plans and I prayed very specifically that we could get those two lessons. The next day came and the plans we had to teach didn't work out, but we were invited to a members home where we were able to teach her non-member mother and aunt, and then we were able to stop by one of our recent convert's house and share a lesson with his family. It was a miracle, and a direct answer to my prayer! I love the Lord, and I love doing His work here.

I am so grateful to be here in Florida.  It is beautiful, and the people are beautiful.  I love meeting and loving everyone, from the Action Gator mechanics to our apartment gate house workers to the mailman to the relief society president to people biking down the street or the Panda Express worker on break.  There are so many people to know and love! I don't want to leave them!  Thanks for supporting me and loving me and helping me know how to love others!  Haha but especially I love you - my family! :)  I will talk to you again soon!

Love, Hermana Kara Allred

Sunrise, Sunset

I love you all so much!!!!!!!!!!  

So it has been a very interesting week!  A lot of highs, a lot of lows (classic mission life).  The best day by far was our exchange day, when Sister Thomson from New Zealand came to Windy Ridge with me.  It was a day so full of the Spirit.  Here is my favorite story:

We were planning to teach a less-active member in our ward, whose name is Sister S.  You have heard about her before.  Well, we haven't been able to see her for the last couple of months because she has been very busy.  We finally set up a time, and the night before, me and Sister Thomson knew exactly what we needed to teach her.  That morning, I asked if Sister Thomson studied anything to help for our lesson, and she said that she just felt all this love for Sister S. in her studies, which I thought was really cool.  Sister Thomson does not speak Spanish, but we went in for the lesson and it started out great.  I asked a lot about how she was doing and things like that, and Sister Thomson started with the prayer.  In her New-Zealand English, she thanked the Lord for everything she had already learned from Sister S, and for the example she was and the blessing she was for her kids.  It was a beautiful prayer, and I remember thinking, "I hope she understands this!" (Sister S. is learning English).  After the prayer, I started with our lesson and talking to Sister S.  She said to me that she didn't understand hardly anything in the prayer, but during it, she felt the Spirit so strong, like it was giving her a hug.  I was amazed at the power of the Spirit in that room and in those moments.  I have always known that people feel the Spirit even when we don't speak Spanish very well, but I figured that a lot of those emotions were from the love they saw from us trying to speak their language.  But just knowing that Sister Thomson was sincerely expressing her love, in pure English, not even trying, and that Sister S. knew exactly the love that she felt through the Holy Spirit.  It was such an amazing experience, especially for me being in the middle of it, understanding both sides.  I loved it so much.

I am finally being able to use the skills that I had developed before my mission in Spanish!  It has been a long time coming, but I finally feel like I can do what I am good at, even in Spanish.  I love being able to grow so much. When you are a missionary, you are so much closer to the Spirit, and that helps you see your life more clearly.  The things you did wrong and the things you did well.  It is cool, because you can work on them all while you are out here!  It is awesome.  Please keep praying for C., K, and E.  C. will get baptized as soon as we can!! Keep praying! :)  I love you all so much.  Don't forget about me here!!

Love, Sister Allred

The Best Week Ever!! Or maybe I'm just in a really great mood!

A MISSION IS THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Haha I am in the greatest mood ever today.  You know why?  Because of your letters that I read this morning!  I am so grateful for you all and the support you give me.  I loved Kurt's baptism announcement!  The best. :)  I was so grateful today thinking about what a happy life I have had.  What a happy family we have.  Immediate, extended, the whole bit!  I love what you have all done to make me who I am.  From staying in our Sundayclothes to going to musicals to the state fair to "If ye had the chance to change yer fate....... would ye?"  All of it!  I love you all and am so blessed to have the best family ever.  Thank you. :)

This week was awesome!!!!! K's baptism last week was great, and her confirmation was also the best.  We have noticed that the Lord really is gathering His elect.  The people we are baptizing are more and more prepared - we have to do less and less for them as they are so ready to follow the Lord into His kingdom.  I love to think of K and E as two precious souls and soldiers of God who are safely tucked into the fold.  Now they just need to stay there! :)  Haha I don't worry too much about them, they are awesome.  :)  Come, join the ranks! 

Elder L. Tom Perry came this weekend to our stake center to talk to all the ward councils in Florida and a couple in some other places.  It was broadcasted to like 130 other locations.... big deal.  We got to sit in the chapel and listen to him talk about...... hastening the work! Suprised? No.  Haha I wasn't sure if everyone was talking about missionary work because I was a missionary and just noticed it more, but I think they really are.  All the time.  How awesome! I was so inspired by this man of the Lord.  He is like 92, but was popping all around making jokes and pounding his fist.  He was the most animated/easy to listen to speaker ever!  We all loved this story he told.  He said, "When I go to restaurants when I am traveling and the waitress puts a cup of coffee down for me, I say, "I don't drink that! I'm a Mormon! We are the happiest people on earth and you should be one of us!  Do you know any Mormons?"  I am amazed that almost every one replies that they do.  I then give them my card and say, "Take this to your friend and tell them that this man told you to ask them about the gospel.""  Haha we laughed and laughed thinking about that.  Then he threw his card off the podium for someone to pick up, which we also thought was pretty funny.  He must have said, "Shame on you!" at least 5 times to us, but no one cared because he was laughing the whole time.  It was very effective because we felt humbled but ready to work at the same time.  So awesome.  He helped us understand more about how we can love people and take them into our wonderful world and lifestyle. I am very excited to be a missionary now.  The Lord has been fine-tuning His missionary machine for almost 200 years, and now is the time for it to fully function!  Wow, it's the best.  Good luck with your missionary work at home. :)

Also, we got our iPads this week.  Yes, that's correct.  That is not a type-o.  iPad minis, to be specific (boys, I know that you will be interested in this).  We are fazing out the paper planners, area books, everything!  Yes, it is stressing me out.  Haha you know me - let's just say they don't exactly call me Sister Tech out here.  But I am trying hard to use it and get better at adjusting.  They are pretty sleek.  We have the whole Gospel Library, can show Mormon Messages, are now inputing hundreds of records...... haha it is intense.  And awesome! The Lord has shaped the world to help us with the work at this time! I will keep you posted.

So, remember the member I told you about who goes out tracting by himself?  So this family he found is actually the best!  M., the mom, said she was praying for help the same day that he knocked on their door.  She and her son, M, have a baptism date for February 16th.  I loved thinking about the Lord touching the heart of this member because He knew that he would go out and find this family when the missionaries couldn't. So cool!  C is doing pretty well, but we might have to wait a bit for his baptism.  Keep praying! :)  Also, our other investigator R is going to get baptized, we just have to wait for her to change her job. We are setting a date together this week!  Keep praying for them and us, we need all the help we can get!  The work is so great.  We love it.  We love the people we are working with. 

I think that one of the reasons I am here in Windy Ridge still is the ward.  In the last couple weeks, I feel so happy to be here with my friends.  They are wonderful.  We know each other, we love each other, and we help each other.  They help me with my Spanish and help us with our investigators too.  It is great to have a family wherever I go! That's what the gospel does. :)

I love this work.  I love the Lord.  I love that He let me come out here to live, to learn, and to grow. I am excited to have this wonderful experience for the rest of my life.  This is His work, and I know that.  He is in charge.  He puts His people where they need to go.  It is amazing.  I love it.  It is true, it is true, it is true!!!! And I love it. :)

All my love as always, Hermana Allred

(Hermana Allred and Day 'role playing" with a creepy investigator!)