Learning to recognize and understand the spirit

Best week ever!! I have felt so successful and guided as a missionary
this week. Like, deep-down good about the things we have been doing.
And it was a week filled with miracles!!

Me and Sister Marsh have been talking to everyone. Like, everyone. We
yell up to people in their tractors, we give people cards on their
scooters while they are waiting for us to cross the crosswalk, we rub
the sleep out of our eyes at 6:45 a.m. while we are out running to talk to
a fellow early-bird, it is awesome! Because we have been talking to
everyone, we have seen AMAZING miracles this week. Heavenly Father.
Has blessed us as we have used our faith to follow the Spirit, and the
fruits are not few.

Before I jump into those miracles, I want to talk about a fasting
miracle.  Last week we taught the Gospel Principles lesson on fasting.
It was a really spiritual experience. My testimony was renewed on the
communion with God that is the fast.  I had a whole bunch of ideas for
my fast coming up in September. Then, by a sequence of inspired
events, on Tuesday we ended up visiting two members we had never
visited before. The first one was the A. family. They are Peruvian,
but the other sister missionaries in our ward have been working with
them because they live in the same complex. We had a great lesson with
them, and she told us about the temple tour they went on with the
sisters and how it was a miracle that she could go because she has
back problems that have been troubling her.  At the end of the lesson,
I asked her what we could do for her.  As I was saying that, the
thought, "fast" came into my mind. I acknowledged it and made a mental
note to add her to my fast in September. The next lesson we had was
with a young couple named Brother and Sister E. They had just lost
their first baby in a miscarriage. I had the thought again to fast
during their lesson, and is recognized e message and committed to fast
the next day. That night, I knelt down and began my fast for the A's,
the E's, and to be more humble and sensitive to the Spirit. It was a
good fast, though I almost felt silly at the end for fasting for these
two families I hardly knew. That night, we had a correlation meeting
with all the missionaries in the ward. The Assistants (who also serve
In our ward) gave a report to the other sisters that we were fortunate
to hear. They said that they had visited Sister A that day to help her
move a cabinet. They said, "Did you hear about the miracle that
happened to her today? She went into the Honda dealership to deal with
her car payment. She was going to have to take out a loan to be able
to do it.  But the guy looked at her and said, 'What are you doing
here! It's all taken care of!' It was such a miracle!" I smiled to
myself and felt the Spirit during that report. I know that my fast had
a little part in that miracle for Sister A. My testimony was
strengthened again on how The Lord does his own work.  I would never
have known about Sister A's miracle, but The Lord made it so I knew. I
don't know what happened to the E's on Wednesday, but I trust that the
fast was all part of the plan. :)

I am now going to copy and paste two of the miracles we saw this week
from my letter to President:

"One this week was R. We were leaving the neighborhood we had
been working in all day, with minimal success. We had left and were on
the main road to go to the next part of our area, when the thought
came to us of someone we had see walking on the road back before. We
turned around in response to the prompting, and found M. doing
service for one of his friends. We offered our help and pulled weeds
for an hour. As we were leaving, R, the owner of the house, came
out in tears saying how she had been praying for someone to come. How
she needed God so badly in her life. How she was going through some
hard times and would love a visit from the missionaries. The Spirit
lead us to someone who was softened by our service and willing to
accept the message of the Gospel.

Another was E. We talked to E right before he went into his
friend's apartment. As we talked to him, he told us that he needed a
new start, a change, help getting his life back together. We testified
of the power of the Gospel, the Message of the Restoration, and
baptism. We invited him to be baptized when he knew it was true, which
he accepted and asked us how he could get baptized. He had talked to
us months before, but the Spirit touched his heart and humbled his
circumstances. Now, he is also going to start listening to the
Elders."

Another one we found was T. We had pulled up to visit a
potential investigator, right in front of his house. In the prayer we
were saying, we asked to be guided by the Spirit. The thought came to
turn back and talk to a family we had driven past waiting for the bus.
We obeyed. They had no interest when we talked to them - they wouldn't
even take a card! But we saw a couple outside doing yardwork.  We
talked to them, and T.a was almost in tears. She told us she
needed the message so badly that day. She knew it was no coincidence,
and so did we. We were able to give her to the Sisters to teach.

All of these people were so prepared. It was awesome to be a little
part of their story. I know that these miracles also stemmed from my
fast to be sensitive to the Spirit.  That one little fast changed my
whole week!

We have two great new ladies to be working with. One is G, who is
very interested in the message and coming to church.  She has a
husband and two little boys, who we are hoping to get involved
eventually. The other is E, who has a sister who is a member
in California. She is probably in her 60's and very much wants to get
baptized.  Miracles never cease!

I lllooovvveee being a missionary. We also had a great Zone conference
with Elder Hemula from the seventy. It was awesome.


I love you all!!


Hermana Allred

Miracles tied to the end of our rope!

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!  I hope that the 10th, 8th, 6th, 4th, and 2nd grades were all the best. :)  We live right by a school and have talked to a couple moms today sending off/welcoming home their kids for the first day.  Oh wait, is it even the first day of school in Utah?? Oh well. Haha.
 

So my new companion's name is Sister Marsh! She is 21 years old, from a tiny place called Joseph Utah, and has a brother on a mission in Honduras.  She is so great.  We are having an awesome time.  She really likes to contact people and work hard, so we get along great!  I am still in Lake Nona and life is good. :)  Speaking of transfers, Sister Jackson is my new sister training leader! We are serving in the same ward and we couldn't be more pumped about it.  We are still just the greatest of friends.  Good times, good times.
 

Random: I had a dream last night that Tyler wrote me like a 3 page letter.  A mom-status letter!  Dream on, Sister Allred!
 

Random II: I bet you didn't know you had a musical prodigy in the family.  Oh wait, that would be because I am not a musical prodigy.  But somehow I got roped into doing another musical number for zone conference (where half of the mission is getting together to listen to a member of the Seventy).  And no, Sister Piano for once is not the accompanist. She is a singer!! What?!  I have been having a conniption about it all day.  And it is in Spanish! Heaven help me.  Heaven help everyone who will be listening! 

So this week has been wild!  We un-merged the two areas we have been taking care of, which means we are starting again in our little half.  The Elders had a lot of people to take care of on the other side, so we had a lot of our efforts focused on that part of the area.  Now we get to pay special attention to Lake Nona North again! :)  It has been crazy to go from days full of a TON of appointments to almost no one to work with.... but we have been working hard this week to talk to everyone and find new investigators.  This phase of missionary work can be tiring and at times discouraging, but always worth it in the end!  As a result of all this hard work, we have seen a lot of miracles! Let's talk about them.
 

The first one is my favorite one.  On Tuesday, we had made plans to try and stop by J. in the Elders' area one last time.  We got special permission to leave our area and biked way down to his house to give him a paper copy of the Book of Mormon.  I knew we had to try just one more time.  When we got there, he wasn't home.  And wouldn't answer his phone.  I cried. But I figured it meant we just weren't supposed to see him, and maybe the Elders would be better and help him in another way.  On Friday, we ended up having to give the Elders the car unexpectedly in the middle of the day. We had to bike aaaallllll the way down to their house through their whole area in order to do so. We were trying to be positive, but the two of us were kind of bugged about the whole situation, especially when the sidewalk ended and no one would let us cross the street.  Haha we tried desperately to be happy and play the gratitude game when we had a negative thought, but it was hard.  We were trying to get home and passed a bus stop when I noticed someone was sitting down.  I braked my bike to get off and talk to them, and when I turned around I almost fell down with shock. It was J!!!  He said, "Allred!" and was very surprised to see us too.  I couldn't believe it.  I bore my testimony to him.  I invited him to be baptized someday.  I told him the Elders would come with the Book of Mormon.  I told him also to write me a note to Utah when he got baptized.  I told him to call the missionaries as soon as he moved out of his grandma's house.  It was awesome.  He was happy to see us.  It was a very special miracle from Heavenly Father to me specifically.  He pulled a lot of strings to get us down there when we needed to be, but I am so grateful He did.  It was awesome.  I trust that J. will be baptized.
 

We had a ward activity this week where we watched the Testaments on a huge projector at the church with food and stuff.  It was so great.  It was geared towards investigators, so we asked all our members to bring their friends.  We had a decent number of people show, and quite a few nonmembers.  The movie was really powerful, and at the end there was a family who walked up to the Sisters and said, "We cannot deny the Spirit that we just felt." and asked to be taught the lessons.  Most of the other nonmembers requested Book of Mormons and gave their information for the missionaries to come by.  It was awesome.  Sharing the gospel is actually not that hard!  It can be fun! :)  It was cool to see the ward and the work come together like that.

So it was kind of a challenging week, right?  Sunday we were at the end of our rope and I was very stressed and discouraged.  We knelt down in the middle of the day and said a prayer that we would be guided in our efforts and activities during the evening.  We have been trying to find new investigators and also talk to EVERYONE.  As we were trying to visit people last night, we talked to someone outside named R. from Cuba.  He commented that he was familiar with the church, but said his wife was more into that stuff.  He then said we could knock on his door and talk to her, which we happily proceeded to do.  B. opened the door, started talking to us, and then went to get her Gospel Principles book and her Book of Mormon which were sitting beside her couch.  She told us about how she went on a temple tour, how she always used to attend the Sunday meetings, and how she was preparing for baptism but then decided not to because her husband wasn't on board.  We picked our jaws up from off the floor and set a return appointment!  Haha what a miracle.  They are a great couple and I really think they will come around and get baptized.  Another fun part of the story - before the movie nighton Saturday, Brother Najera (one of the members who was putting the party together) randomly gathered us missionaries together to talk about the Popol Vuh - the Mayan bible.  He showed us some parts that corresponded with the Book of Mormon, and it was really cool.  I had never heard about it before.  But on the porch last night talking to R and B, he mentioned it!  He started talking about the Popol Vuh!  Haha it was the craziest thing ever.  The very next day.  We were able to connect his knowledge to the Book of Mormon, and that was awesome.  God always knows!
 

So, family, life continues to be good here in Lake Nona.  Please pray for us to find some new people to teach.  We did pick up a new investigator, I, this week, and she is awesome.  But a few more would always be nice. :)  Everyone needs to hear the gospel!
 

This week I have come to find, yet again, that Heavenly Father will push us to our limits.  He will test our endurance and faith to the extreme until we can't go any farther.  And then we go a liiiiiiiiittle farther.  And then we find the miracles.  A lot of them.  I am grateful for those miracles.  Looking back, I am even grateful for the endurance.  :)  It makes me stronger.  It reminds me that I can to hard things.  And so can you!  Do hard things this week.

 And read the scriptures every day.  :)  The straight and narrow path lies DIRECTLY below the iron rod - if you hold to it every day, you cannot step off the path.

I love you all!!!

-Hermana Allred, the "singer," apparently.
 

Changes afoot!

I suppose you are all at Park City right now! I would be lying if I said I am not missing that!!  Haha who knew that family reunions would be the hardest thing to miss? Good news is, there will be plenty of Park City's for me to attend for my whole life! Anyway, I hope you are enjoying the giant chess, movie marathons, dominoes, and swimming. :)  I love and miss you!

So I have just been obsessed with being a missionary lately.  And I think I finally figured out why!  I tried to explain it to President in my email this week, so I will just paste it here:


"It has been another happy and successful week here in Lake Nona.  I have made major strides lately in my progression as a missionary, and I thought you of all people would appreciate the change that has happened.  Especially at the beginning of my mission, it was very very stressful.  I knew a lot of examples of good missionaries, and I felt very accountable to the Lord and my family and had a deep desire to serve Him fully and perfectly.  I was on a quest to be exactly, 100% obedient, baptize all of Orlando, and be full of the Spirit.  All of these things were good, but in this quest I got very caught up in the letter of the law.  Even thought I was still a happy missionary, my life was a constant stress of completing every task and complying with every rule.  I lost the Spirit of the law in fear of letting things slide and not living up to my own expectations.  These last two transfers, I have learned to be deeply happy in the work.  In the last couple of weeks, I have learned to embrace the Spirit of the law.  That doesn't mean that I let things slide, but that does mean that I understand the purpose behind what I do.  Missionary life is not an endless list of do's and don'ts, but rather is a full life of working to save people.  I am so much happier.  I follow the Spirit so much more.  I love better.   I am changing.  I am so grateful for that.  I think that I am finally becoming the missionary the Lord wants me to be. "

And that about sums it up!  I have changed.  I continue to change.  And it is really making a difference in the work.  Missions are awesome.

Random, but Tyler, are you going to college next week or what?!!!!! I almost had a hernia this morning on our jog when that thought occurred to me.  Crazy!!!

So last Monday was one of the craziest days of my whole mission.  We started off the night with a lesson with a less-active friend named Pedro (don't worry, we actually call him Brother _____, but for the sake of privacy we will just call him Pedro). The sisters have been working with him for months.  He is an older man who lost his wife a few years back. About a month ago, we had decided to stop teaching him because he wasn't progressing.  That very week, he told us he wanted to change his life around and was starting to do things to make it happen. We couldn't have been more proud of him. The next week, he told us that he wanted his name removed from church records and he was done with trying to change.  During the lesson, we cried and prayed a lot.  Our mouths were filled, especially Sister Hansen's as she testified of the Book of Mormon, the truthfulness of the Gospel, and how it was his decision.  We left that lesson saddened, but feeling the Spirit.  We didn't know if he was going to let us come back.  We prayed so hard that week for Pedro.  Pedro has one home teacher and friend in the ward, who's name is Brother L.  We prayed very specifically that night for Brother L's heart to be moved by the Spirit so he would visit or call Pedro.  And then we waited.  And prayed.  We knew that it was Pedro's decision for the eternities, and we hoped he would choose the right way.  After a week and a half, we managed to meet with Pedro again.  He told us that he was coming back.  Once and for all.  That he was going to fast to strengthen his relationship with God.  That he was going to come to church for him and him alone.  And that Brother L came to see him the week before.  We left so amazed.  So happy for Pedro.  So in awe that the Lord does His own work.  That we do what we can, and then He works His miracles.  And that he answers prayers.  It was awesome.  Yesterday, we got a call from the Elders in our ward saying that Pedro shared a great testimony in Elders' Quorum about change and coming back.  It was the best.


So we went straight from that lesson to a lesson with J. The first thing he said to us was that he couldn't get baptized.  That he prayed and heard a very distinct "No."  He seemed very shaken up and afraid.  It wasn't the J we were used to meeting with.  It was another very intense lesson with a lot of prayers and a lot of following the Spirit.  We testified of the Atonement, of the Spirit, and of new beginnings.  We all felt the Spirit very strong.  By the end, J said that he wanted to get baptized again.  Much to our sorrow, he has kind of dropped off since then.  He stopped answering our phone calls and texts, and his grandma sent a text to the Young Men's president asking us to not come back.  We have been sad about this obviously.  We care about J and want him to feel the wonderful effects of baptism.  But that morning before the lesson, me and Sister Hansen had a powerful experience.  We were talking about/worrying about J, and said a very heartfelt and specific prayer about when he should be baptized.  I felt such an immense love for J from Heavenly Father.  I also felt a deep peace inside telling me that it didn't matter when he got baptized, it was all going to be ok.  That experience has helped us to understand that things will be ok with J, even if he doesn't get baptized soon.  We are trying one last time to see him tonight, we will see how that goes!

So transfers are tomorrow, and Sister Hansen is leaving.  I am going to miss her.  Haha just like the letter you sent, dad!  We have had a great run here.  A LOT of crazy things have happened, but as we have embraced the big picture of missionary work and the Spirit of the law, we have been so happy.  I am happier than I have ever been out here.  I love being a missionary.  Going on a mission was the best decision that I ever made.  I am glad that I never, ever have to stop being a missionary.  Or serving the Lord.  Life is good.  It always has been, and it always will be.  I love you all.  I miss you, but I am so happy to be here where I should be, doing the things I should do.

Until next week!

Love, Sister Allred

Just another happy week!

What a week!!! Being a missionary is the BEST.  But really.  I am so happy about it all the time.  It is such a pleasure to work with so many amazing people who are making big and real and awesome changes in their lives!  It is just good.  Learning to make big decisions, follow the Spirit, and "conquer old Goliaths" are skills that will help me for the rest of forever.  Every day, I realize a little bit more how much I need a mission.  I always thought that I would just go and change the world and change other people, but the Lord knows better, and knew I would need to change a lot in the process.  I am grateful for that change.

So we had a couple awesome miracles this week.  Here is one of my favorites:  On Saturday, we finished dinner a few minutes earlier than we had anticipated and had some time to do an extra activity.  We presented two options - to go and contact some potential investigators in a neighborhood called Chicago Woods, or to finish a map that we had been making to help our area book be more accurate in an apartment complex called Villa del Sol.  We said a prayer about where we should go.  Usually when we do this, I feel like either option would be acceptable, but with a slight feeling towards either side.  This time, I clearly felt that we should go to Villa del Sol.  I told Sister Hansen that, and we commented that we should keep our eyes open for "the one" that we were apparently supposed to talk to while we were making our map.  We finished our map quick, and parked the car to talk to a lady with three young sons.  She was very friendly and a good contact, but didn't seem particularly interested in coming to the ward activity or meeting with us.  On our way out of the complex, Sister Hansen commented, "Remember that lady who lives in here that invited us to dinner on Father's Day?  Why didn't we go to that?" I remembered - we had contacted a lady named "Pastor J" who said she was having a bunch of people over on Father's Day and that we were welcome to come, just to call and confirm that we were coming before.  We thought that sounded like a good finding opportunity, but the night before came around and we had forgotten to call and confirm, so we figured it would be better if we just didn't go so we didn't show up as a surprise.  Anyway, that was Sister Hansen's random thought.  A few hours later, we were filling our car up at a gas station.  Before we left, we went over a couple "aisles" (for lack of a better word) to two ladies filling up their cars - one of them actually happened to be a former investigator and they were both really interested in the ward party! So that was an awesome contact.  Then, as we crossed the other aisle, the lady there looked at us and said, "You never showed up."  With panic, we racked our brains to figure out who this lady was, but I was coming up with nothing.  Sister Hansen said, "Wait, do you live in Villa del Sol?" She confirmed. I said, "Wait, is your name J?!"  It was Pastor J!  We hadn't thought about that invitation in weeks!  She was really good natured and was just joking around with us, and decided that we definitely needed to come back for dinner next Monday.  We agreed!  Haha it will be fun to see what comes out of that.  It was just really cool to see that the Lord sent us to Villa del Sol so we would remember J when we talked to her.  Just another day in the life. :)

J hopefully will be getting baptized still on Saturday.  He is very faith-filled.  It has been so different and awesome to work with J.  He is so prepared and has a strong testimony, but he also really needed the guidance of the missionaries to get him where he needed to be.  I love helping people do things that will last for eternity.  Please pray for him a lot this week - it might be a tough one because Satan tends to do that!

Another cool miracle - every week we do something called "accounting" with our district leader.  That is basically a phone call where we set some goals and talk about our area and some things we can keep up/improve on.  Then the district leader reports to the zone leaders on our goals.  And the district leader continues to help us during the week to keep our areas moving well.  One night this week, Elder Stanford (our district leader) mentioned on the phone out of the blue, "Sisters, do you think you could get one more investigator with a baptismal date this week?" We said yes. He said, "Really try to make that happen, ok?"  And that was that.  The next day, we had an appointment with our investigator named F.  He is a great man, but we have been struggling to help him accept the invitation to be baptized.  We had tried before to help him accept a date, and he wasn't exactly excited about that.  So we had been teaching the lesson that we had planned on Sabbath Observance and the commandments.  Things were wrapping up and going well, when I heard that comment from Elder Stanford in my head.  We invited F to choose a baptismal date with us again.  And he did!  He is scheduled now for August 23rd.  We will probably have to move that around, but that was a miracle!!  And it was huge for his progression!  We asked that night what prompted Elder Stanford to say that to us, and he said it was something the Zone Leaders had talked to him about concerning our area.  I am grateful for A) the Spirit, and B) inspired leaders to help us live to our potential.  Good stuff!!

I just want to say that sorry if there was anything urgent in your letters that I needed to respond to via email - I haven't got the mail yet today.

So, I love you all! Life is good and fun and spiritual and deep and awesome!!!! I continue to be learning so much about, you know, life.  And the Savior.  And what really matters.  I love you.  We talked about temples yesterday in Relief Society.  I am grateful to be sealed to you 8 forever - you can never get rid of me! ;)  Even though it kind of feels like a while to be gone on a mission, it's not.  We will always be together if we stay righteous.  What a promise.  I am grateful, mom and dad, that you were sealed in the temple and have kept your marriage strong and good.  We sure are a lucky bunch. :) 

Until next week!

Love, your favorite oldest daughter/[sister] Allred