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