Let no one shirk!

Another week of wonderful in the promised land!  Well, the word 'wonderful' as used here has many facets.  Wonderful as in a lot of biking, a LOT of heat, a lot of bugs, a lot of Gatorade, a lot of people, a lot of stress, a lot of prayers, a lot of smiles, a lot of joy, and a lot of miracles.  I would call that a successful and somewhat typical week of a missionary. :)

You may have noticed that I titled this letter using a line from a hymn.  Years ago, when I was doing a point for Personal Progress, I was trying to memorize all of the verses for some hymns in the hymnbook.  I wasn't quite sure what ones to choose.  I asked Nonnie what her favorite hymn was, to which she replied, "Put your Shoulder to the Wheel!"  And so I memorized it.  On Sunday, our gospel principles teacher mentioned the hymn and I was reminded of the confusion that I have always had about it!  Why would anyone, bouncing along the prairie next to their handcart, lean over and put their shoulder to the wheel?! I imagine that my dress would get worn through from the friction, I would get all dirty, and it would probably hurt.  Maybe I would even trip and fall and get run over by the said wheel! But I have been thinking about it, and now I think I get what it is trying to say. The only time anyone would need to put their shoulder to the wheel would be when it isn't moving.  If a handcart/wagon isn't moving, it is probably stuck.  And when I picture pioneers getting stuck, I picture it in the pouring rain - caught in the mud with nowhere else to go.  When the pioneers got stuck in the mud, I bet they tried everything they could.  They pulled and they pulled and they pushed and they pushed..... to no avail.  The wheels are huge.  The wheels were dirty and muddy and in the middle of the pit - but they were the only way to get out.  So someone had to take a deep breath, grit their teeth, jump right into the thick of things, and lower their shoulder to the wheel.  It wasn't the fun job, but it was the necessary job.  It was what got things done.  I reread the hymn this morning and was moved by the force behind the words: "The world has need of helping hands and hearts that know and feel - the work to do is here for you; put your shoulder to the wheel! Put your shoulder to the wheel, push along.  Do your duty with a heart full of song.  We all have work, let no one shirk.  Put your shoulder to the wheel!"  I get it now, Nonnie.  And it is one of my favorites too. :)

This week we have had to do a lot of "shouldering the wheel."  We are desperately trying to find people to teach and help receive the gospel.  We are doing our best to be obedient, improve as teachers/contacters, work through the members, and talk to everyone!  I know that as we continue to try and do our duty with hearts full of song, we will be blessed with people to teach.  It is kind of exciting to take a deep breath, grit our teeth, jump into the thick of things, and lower our shoulder to the wheel. :)

Yesterday was awesome.  It did not start awesome.  Haha we had been feeling just like the great Book of Mormon prophets - really weighed down with the sins of the world.  It definitely reared its ugly head this week.  Satan is working hard, and is deceiving a lot of people.  He is telling them that things are more important than God, and he is convincing them to eat, drink, and be merry.  It is hard to see people sell their birthrights for a mess of pottage and miss out on all of the blessings that Christ has given us for the taking.  It really was depressing, and yesterday we were nearing the ends of our ropes.  I have been reading in Alma lately and I remembered that he passed through some of the same things.  I read his prayer in the Book of Mormon and noticed how he asked for his soul to be comforted in Christ.  I had the same prayer in my heart in the afternoon, and my day changed completely.  I found new energy and happiness.  The Spirit was strong and deep in the lessons we taught.  We were able to be part of a great lesson with some friends of a member family.  It was the best night ever.  Heavenly Father is the best listener ever.  Prayer is a balm that heals heavy, saddened, lonely, or guilty hearts.  I love applying that principle that I learned lately and seeing it work.

A few weeks ago, we felt impressed to go visit the Baerga family in our ward.  We didn't really know them well, but we set an appointment and went to visit.  Sister Baerga told us about a friend she had named M. from work who she had considered sharing the gospel with.  We did a follow-up visit last week, and she told us that she was going to invite M. with her parents from Puerto Rico to a dinner Sunday night, and invited us too.  Yesterday we went, and it  was the best.  They all felt the Spirit really strong during our little thought, and were asking about the Church websites and stuff.  We are following up with the Baerga's today - please pray that M. and her family will become new investigators!  We think they will. :)  After the lesson, we drove home with Brother Baerga and his mother-in-law.  He thanked us for coming, and emotionally said that we reminded him of the missionary who baptized him.  I thought that was the biggest compliment ever.  I was very grateful for him for sharing that with us.


I love being a missionary. :)  Life is so good!  Oh! Me and Sister Hansen are staying together in Lake Nona for another 6 weeks.  I couldn't be more excited!  The work to do is here for you - put your shoulder to the wheel!! :)

Expect your letters this week! :)

I love you all so much,

Sister Allred

Minutes into hours and the hours into years!

You have the oldest daughter/sister around!! 20 years old and one year
out! Crazy stuff. We have had a very happy week!


On Tuesday we had a 'Taft Adventure.' There is a part of our area
named Taft that is a ways away from where we normally work, probably
about 7 miles. We figured it was time again to have a day down there,
but we were without a car. So we planned an epic Taft adventure on our
bikes. Haha we packed service clothes, snacks, band-aids, and extra
Gatorade in our bags, put on sunscreen and bugspray, and made sure to
be wearing our best biking skirts. It was the biggest production ever.
Before we had even passed our apartments, I had almost crashed on my
bike and my hands were filthy from fixing the chain. It was hilarious.
Here we were, two sister missionaries making the biggest bike trek of
our lives! It was totally fun. We talked to a bunch of people. And a
member drove us home that night. :)


In the said day in Taft, we had the greatest miracle ever. We swung
back to talk to a lady in her garage. She was very not interested in
listening to our message, but eventually she said, "Well I was
baptized Mormon 10 years ago..." We almost had a conniption! We
assured her that we were from the church (she had thought we were
Jehovah's Witnesses... A common occurrence, actually), and she was
thrilled. She started crying by the end. We were so happy to meet
Sister P and we got her info so her records could be transferred.
Her husband turned out to be an old Potential investigator of ours!
Crazy. It was awesome. We were so humbled to be used like that to find
one of the Lord's lost sheep. They are never lost to Him.


So yes, I have been gone for a year now. It has been a year since I
have seen a movie, walked barefoot in grass, or gone by my first name.
I have been wearing a skirt every day, waking up at 6:30 am, and giving
out pass-along cards for a year. That is wild. It is going too fast, I
can't believe it.


Today we went to 'Wild Florida' as a district, which is kind of like a
zoo. Held a gator! Awesome. Good old Florida. :)


This morning I was so happy and grateful. Sister Hansen was taking a
shower and I was eating breakfast, and I was just overcome by this
wave of joy. I just got on my knees and thanked my Father for the
chance I have to be a missionary. For the happy life I have behind me
and the happy life I have ahead of me. For the happy life I am living
right now. I love finding, teaching, and baptizing. I love being in
the Lord's army. I love learning and getting better daily. I love my
calling. I love being a missionary. :)


Glad that summer is in full swing at home, with camps and treks and
vacations! Enjoy the dry heat. ;) I love you all and will talk to you
next week!


Love, Sister Allred

Do you know any Allred's?

It was an awesome week!  First off, I will start with a little story from last Monday. We were riding our bikes (shocking), and contacted a nice older man in a jazzy (you know, those electric wheelchairs?).  We introduced ourselves, and he said, "Allred, Allred.  You know, waaay back in 1948, before you were born, I lived next door to some Allreds...."  I smiled, because people always have crazy Allred connections to people who actually aren't my relatives.  "....... and their boys' names were Darvel, Merlin, and Rex."  My eyes about popped right out of my skull onto the street!  There simply cannot be more than one Darvel, Merlin, or Rex Allred in the world.  I excitedly told Leroy (that was his name) that Rex was my grandfather, and he told me all about growing up by them in California, going to church with them a couple times, and how their mom was really strict.  I loved it.  It was so exciting. Small, small world, eh?

So easily the highlight of this week was the baptism of our good friend D! The baptism was one of the most hectic things of my life - we had two prayers and a talk cancel the day of - but everything ended up pulling together and it was a nice service.  Because of some, er, instances in the past with the baptismal font being filled on time, me and Sister Hansen were determined that that would not be a problem this time!  We showed up like 2 and a half hours early to make sure everything would run smoothly.  That was a great plan and all, but we ended up skurrying around like madwomen trying to pull together last minute talks and prayers and waiting for the brother who was supposed to perform the baptism to come.  And then we looked at each other with horror halfway through the talk on baptism because we forgot to tell D to bring a towel!  Haha we were frantic, especially because we were in charge of the music while she was changing, but we hastily signaled to the other sister missionaries there and they filled in for us as we scrambled around for a towel. Haha thankfully, one of D's cousins had an extra T-shirt in her purse (now that's a Mary Poppins bag!) and that worked.  Despite all of the craziness (isn't that just typical missionary life?), it was awesome.  All of D's family came and she was really happy.

The biggest miracle of all was seeing D on Sunday!  She was a new woman after she received the Holy Ghost.  She had a fire in her eyes and a new dedication to the gospel.  You know how she has been struggling to recognize the Spirit? She told us yesterday in Gospel Principles that she definitely felt it at her baptism.  That was a miracle.  She is bringing her 13-year-old, K, to young womens on Tuesday.  She told us she had her tithing in the car, and asked how she could pay it.  We told her we might have to wait for them to process her membership record number first. :)  I am so excited to keep working with her and her family.  She is so dedicated to the gospel.  I love being a missionary. :)

So speaking of the baptism, my good friends Sister and Elder Nielson came to see it.  Before the service, Elder Nielson informed me that he had seen my father this week.  I couldn't make it register in my mind.  I said, "My father?!  A really tall, happy guy with blue eyes?!"  He said, "Yep, that's him!"  Dad!!!! You were in Orlando this week?!!! Happy Father's Day!!!!!  I was thinking about this, and I realized that you might have been in all of my old areas.  I am guessing you stopped by the temple, which is in Olympia.  Your convention was probably in the HUGE convention center close to International Drive, which was in Windy Ridge.  Because you work with Universities, you might have stopped by to see the UCF football stadium (knowing you!), which was in Valencia.  And surprise, the airport is in Lake Nona!!!  Did you get to look around? Tell me all about it!  The weather was horrible this week, I am so sorry you didn't get to see my beautiful Florida (though you did get to see some Florida storms!)!  I saw a plane leaving the other day and I waved and said, "Hi, dad!"  Haha that is so exciting.  I love Florida.  I am glad you got to be here and stopped in the mission office (which is in my zone!). I love you!!

Family, mission life sure is the best.  I love having a really fun group of sister missionary friends.  I love going to conferences and learning more.  I love being around people who I can share my testimony with.  I love just talking and loving and sharing and learning and the whole nine yards!  :)  I hope you all have the best week ever. :)  I love you!!


Love, Sister Allred

(Making Smores!  Happy Summer Everyone!)

The stone keeps rolling!

To my wonderful family.  I miss you and love you so much!

.

It has been a pretty great week.  Me and Sister Hansen started it off with a Monday-evening-first-day-of-summer meal, complete with corn on the cob, barbecue chicken, watermelon, and potato salad.  We were quite proud of ourselves.  I live from little party/tradition to little party/tradition.  I guess we could say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, eh? :)  Haha this week we have a great plan to do a little s'more making.  Now that's summer if I've ever heard it!

Speaking of summer, we are roasting here.  It is so hot!!  It is kind of fun, actually, to be so hot.  It is almost past annoying and just funny.  Nothing like biking in the summer!  And it's only June! Love it.

Mom, you will love this.  There are two young men we are working with right now who aren't currently active in the church.  They are 16 years old, and they are twins.  One's name is Kendall Javier [last name], and the other's name is Kendall Javier [last name].  They. Have. The. Exact. Same. Name.  Not even kidding!  I couldn't believe it.  I was and continue to be completely fascinated by this.  Their names are the same.  And they are twins.  Fraternal, but still.  And supposedly there was supposed to be a third Kendall Javier!!  Crazy times.

We have had a great week full of a lot of good things.  We have been really trying to work with the members, and it has payed off!  A lot of them have people that they are working with.  It is exciting to play a little of all parts of the missionary field.  We do a lot of all kinds of the work - active members, recent converts, returning members, contacts, potential investigators, the whole bit!  It is so great and I really love this area.

So we had the best experience ever last night! I wrote to President about it, so I will copy and paste it here:

We had a wonderful experience yesterday that really showed that God loves His children. We were leaving an apartment complex, and I was backing Sister Hansen out of her parking spot. I noticed a man sitting on the stairwell of his apartment building. I felt like we should go talk to him, but I quickly had a million excuses why we couldn't. I figured that Sister Hansen was already in the car, we only had a little time to go to our next activity, and so forth. But I knew that when God gives us promptings He expects us to follow them so we can get more, so I told Sister Hansen and she hopped out of the car to go. As we started talking to this man, he quickly said he was having a bad day and wanted to be left alone. We offered our help and gave him a pamphlet and a smile slowly crept onto his face as we told him who we were and what we do. His sister came out of the apartment and, upon finding out who we were, said, "Well you just came out of here saying we needed a pastor to come bless this home! I guess God heard your prayer!" We agreed, and went in to their home to say a prayer with their sick father. We testified of the truthfulness of our message and that we were sent from Christ. The whole family could not believe the answered prayer and were happy to exchange info and receive a visit from the Elders so the father could get a priesthood blessing. Both the family and us recognized the love of God in that answered prayer. It was amazing. He cares, and He hears. Everything. I love that.

It was so awesome.  It was so awesome to feel the Spirit work in me to answer a prayer.  And that God trusted me enough to act on the prompting.  It was such a great night.

D is getting baptized on Saturday!  Every investigator is so different, and it has been fantastic to work with her and help her with her challenges.  Please keep praying for her to feel ready and find a love for the Book of Mormon!  I like our experience with D, because looking back we can see the hand of God slowly helping her and preparing her.  She recognized that she felt the Spirit this week, and that was wonderful.  I will keep you posted!

Me and Sister Hansen are learning so much together.  I really love her and her example to me.  We learn and grow, we share and repent, we have fun and work hard.  It really has been such a blessing and I am doing so well.

I continue to be blessed every day.  My mission, day by day, is being filled with memorable experiences and gained knowledge and deepened testimony and cherished relationships.  I am learning for a lifetime.  Thank you for everything you do every day to make this possible for me.  I love being a missionary.  I love trying to hearken to the call of Jesus Christ to follow Him every day.  Someday we will all be perfect, but for now we will repent and always get better.  And I am ok with that!  


I love you all so much!

Make it the best day ever!

Love, Sister Allred

A Week of Miracles

Family (saving time here),

Warning: iPad week, so I will do my best!

This was the greatest week ever. So many wonderful things happened!

First, E. and M. were baptized on Saturday and
confirmed on Sunday. We met with them almost every day, and it was
just so wonderful. Sister M. cried and tried to express how much
gratitude she had for us and how grateful she was that it was me and
Sister Hansen who could come and teach her children. Now they are all
members of the Church and just so happy. Hey have been through a lot
as a family, but they are so strong and repenting a lot. The Lord is
showering blessings on them because of that! Their brother, M., was
able to perform the ordinance. It was such a happy day! Being a part
of their conversion is so fulfilling. I love helping people change and
be baptized. Bothe M. and E. are excited to be missionaries.

So all this week we have been really worried about our investigator,
D. She has had some doubts and concerns, and we have been
worried and trying to seek revelation in preparing her for her
upcoming baptism.  Yesterday, we were so lost. We had been praying and
fasting to know what to do for her, but we were running into a
brick wall.  We felt stuck. We were very disappointed and surprised
when D. wasn't at church, and then halfway through The Lord sent
us an angel! Sister Wise is the gospel principles teacher and a ward
missionary. She came up to us to ask about D., and we told her
about the plans we had to visit her right after church. She shared
with us that she wanted to come and that she felt inspired to share
certain things with her. We all went over after church, and sure
enough, it was exactly what D. needed. I was so grateful for that
inspired teacher, magnifying her calling. In the act, she answered the
pleading prayers and fasting of two desperate sister missionaries. It
was such a miracle. Please pray for D, we hope she will be
baptized on June 14th.

I love prayer lately! It has been my goal lately to pray more. I have
seen so many blessings. I used to think having a testimony of prayer
meant that you had a repertoire (sp?) of stories to draw from of
answered prayers: lost things found, comfort given, or angels sent
(like our experience with Sister Wise). I knew that sometimes the
answers took time, but I thought that was it. My understanding of
prayer has expanded and deepened so much. I now know what a testimony
of prayer really is.  I try to pray every time we are biking. It makes
me happy to talk to my Father, and He likes to hear from me. We talk
to each other. I say what I feel, like what I am thankful for, how I
am doing, what I want for the people we meet, and what I want to do
better. Then He talks back. I find myself thinking thoughts or saying
words in my prayers that are inspiration.  I come to know things I
never knew before. I think of specific things to do to be better. I
have deep feelings of gratitude and joy. Then I smile and talk to Him
some more. It is great. I invite you to find a place to pray out loud
this week. I felt really, deeply joyful last night. I asked myself
what I did earlier to bring down that blessing, and a thought came
into my head that it was because I prayed. Just the act of praying
qualified me for a sweet manifestation of the Spirit. I now have more
than a testimony of answered prayers, I have a testimony of prayer in
itself.  That is what the mission does to you, I guess. :)

So I assume you are all at Snowbird! Yes, I wore my purple shirt in
honor this morning when we cleaned our apartment. We are so lucky to
have such an awesome family. :)

I love being a missionary. Haha what will I talk to people in Walmart
about when I am not a missionary?! Can I still hand out cards?! Haha
good thing I don't have to worry about that for a while. It is just so
great to smile and laugh and bear testimony and talk and discern and
love and grow. I am a different person. Slowly but surely, I am noting
that I am getting better. I am getting stronger and more dedicated. I
am also noticing more things that I need to work on! It is like the
scripture in Ether: "When men come unto me, I will show unto them
their weakness." It is so true. And it is actually great. I am
learning to love correction. I am just learning so much. Far from
perfect, but always learning. Isn't that what life is about? :)

I love you!! Tyler, I have a few tips that I have been thinking about.
First, read the story of Enoch in the book of Moses. Write me and tell
me what you like and how you think it applies to you (a wild man is
among us! Haha ok not that part, but that's hilarious). Second, write
down every day a moment when you felt the Spirit. Even if you have to
sit down before bed and think for 15 minutes, find one and write it
down. Will you do that? Awesome. Congrats on all the graduating! I
have your announcement taped up by my study desk.

Everyone, you are the greatest! Enjoy your week together, and please
sleep in, gaze at the mountains, and play ticket-to-ride for me (using
the black trains) (....and don't let Travis win). Haha :)

And I will wake up at 6:30, gaze at the swamp, and bike in the rain
for you!! I love it. I couldn't love it more. :)

Love, Sister Allred, who is super happy again today (probably an
effect of prayer, don't you think?)

Oh! P.S. Keep practicing the piano. I continue to play for
conferences, musical numbers, meetings, and church. It is a
significant contribution I make to the Lord's storehouse. Don't give
up!