Brady sent a couple of pictures so check out the photo page.

I´m glad to hear that you guys had a great thanksgiving.  I did eat an extra bowl of cereal before bed to celebrate but it´s nothing compared to chocolate pie.  I´m glad to hear you got to play some games, and
I´m really sad that I had to miss that.

I´m getting pretty excited for Christmas, there are lights popping up all over hear.  It´s kinda neat that everyone here believes in Christ, even if they aren't members of the church.  Most people just have a
ton of lights centered around the Virgin Guadalupe (The virgin Mary, but the Mexican version that the Conquistadors used to convince all of the Lamanites to convert to Catholicism, a few months ago the Pope
said that it´s not Guadalupe, but the people don´t really care).

Honestly, this week really stunk.  We lost all of our investigators, except for like 3.  They all decided to stay Catholic or their spouse told them to stay Catholic, or they decided they don´t have time to meet with us any more.  It really stinks.  We also contacted a whole bunch of people trying to find new investigators.  We found that everyone that lives in our area is not interested in listening to us, but everyone else would love to get baptized.  Pretty much it got to the point that if  the person was interested and involved in questions (both answering and asking) then we knew that they lived in Victoria, Tampico, Altamira, Veracruz, or any number of other cities.  We sent in about 20 great references this week and the Secretary of References told us that we caused plenty of work for him this week.  But with all of this work we only found 2 people to teach, and one of them already told us that he´s not interested.  So that was pretty fun.

My companion also got a little sick this week so that cut out a little bit of efficiency and energy.  But we´re both feeling great and we´re ready to give it all this week.

I hope that you've heard about Ilumina el Mundo, or Light the World (?).  The Christmas initiative that the Church has put together.  It´s pretty cool.  It has one main video about service and how we are here in the place of Christ, and then there are 25 short videos, one for each day of December for how we can serve.  It´s pretty cool and I hope that you all get a chance to do it.

It´s going great here.  I love the food, almost everyday.  I haven´t really gone hungry yet, but only two meals a day is a bit of a struggle.  I hear in December that we get fed in almost every house and I really hope that it´s true.  I love the Pan Dulce or sweet bread that they have here, it´s really good.  I also love that I can just
buy bread from people on bicycles for really cheap and it´s really good.  Bread is so good and so cheap.

Keep doing the things that you should.  I hope you can all find someone to share the Gospel with, at school at home, in the neighborhood or in the street even.  Just talk to people and try to share the gospel.  It is part of the covenant you made to get baptized.  And the missionaries will love you more for this than for ice cream.

I love you and hope you can start having a Great Start to December.

Elder Brady Allred

This week went pretty well.  We are working hard and doing everything we should but sadly people still have to have their agency.  We  just do everything we can to help them to use their agency to choose Christ, but ultimately they all have their agency to choose.  Nobody came to church yesterday, and honestly we have no investigators that are planning on getting baptized within the next month.  It is really hard to give it everything I have, and then get nothing back in return.  In preach my gospel it does talk about this.  It is the hardest thing to watch them understand, feel the spirit, know it is true and then even with the pleading of the spirit reject everything.

I am however getting better at talking to people.  I am starting to contact people in the street without even thinking about it, and my conversations are starting to get more natural.  It is incredible to see God work through me to share a message that needs to be shared, or even just ask a question that needs to be asked.

Yesterday we were in a lesson and I opened my mouth to say something and suddenly a very direct and in fact perfect question came out.  It went perfectly with the lesson and actually helped a ton with the direction of the lesson.  God is at the wheel but we are the gas.  We need to take our foot off of the break and give the Gas everything we have and then we can really start to get to where God wants us.

I´m a little sad to miss thanksgiving since it doesn´t even exist here.  We did have Revolution day yesterday.  The celebration of when the government reformed and lost a lot of power, but we really didn´t celebrate anything, there just weren´t any people at church.  We already have 3 weeks celebrating Christmas because the people here don´t have to respect the Turkey this week, but it´s pretty fun to hear all of the same songs while shopping for food that are one the radio at home.

This week I met Indiana Jones.  His actual name is Carlos.  He is a less active, but the missionaries only stop by at his house every few months.  I´ll probably go twice, this week and when I´m showing some one else the area.  He´s pretty cool but also a little crazy.  He speaks 5 languages.  Spanish, French, Portugese, Latin, and Nawatl.
Nawatl is the indigenous language and he understands and can speak 4 distinct dialects.  He has an incredible collection of ancient idols. He has really old furniture a ton of books.  He was making some homemade wine out of toxic fruits that you can only drink the juice of after it has fermented.  We talked for a bit.  Shared a message, in
fact he told us that he still reads the book of Mormon realatively often, but it seems like he is still not interested in coming to church, that´s why we only stop by every so often.  It was a pretty fun experience.

I´m glad to hear that everything is going at home.  It´s really good to hear that Tyler is still scheduled to come down here.  President Ramirez btw does not always put the english missionaries with native
spanish speakers.  Just usually because there are more Latino missionaries than Gueros.

Rollo also emailed me and told me 35.  It´s either the number of days until Christmas or his ACT score.  I sure hope it´s just the number of days until Christmas.

Thank you for all of your support and love.  I love you guys and hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving.


Elder Brady Allred

Brady sent more pictures too.  See the photos page.


This week was pretty good.  We worked quite a bit.  But honestly nobody here wants to listen to us, and our more consistent investigators really aren't progressing all that fast either.  5 of our investigators need to get married before we can really start progressing with them.  Another investigator, Oliveria, is kind of iffy on if she is going to progress or not.  But Alan is progressing really well.  His parents have finally started giving permission for him to
come to church, and they've actually started opening up to us.  It´s because we brought a brother from the ward.  Hno Medina, he is great and can always seem to open the doors on those that are hard hearted.  The family realized that really the church may be a good influence on their son so he is starting to come more.

Really it is getting hard.  WE can talk to everyone, but really have no one interested in listening to us.  Hopefully we can get it figured out this week and find the people that are really interested in changing their lives for the better.  Some references from the members would be really appreciated.  (In 2 weeks we have not received a
single reference, and we ask every one for references.)

Yes we do try service.  Nobody here wants service.  We offer to everyone and when we try to help they just yell at us to go away, it makes it really hard to get in the door when they don´t want help when they need it.  Sometimes it is more humble to ask for too much help than it is to reject to much help.

I cant believe that you guys are unusually warm.  We are about normal, or maybe even a little cool, for Tampico.  But we did have a nice storm blow through about a week and a half ago.  I expected you to ask about it, so I forgot to write about it.  It flooded about every street and some of the streets up to 3 or 4 feet.  There were car accidents, a few people actually died.  We got a ton of rain.  It made national news actually.  So I was kind of surprised you didn't ask about it.  But I am ok, We weren't allowed to go out because the streets were too
dangerous, and we couldn't even order pizza because the delivery motorcycle driver couldn't get through to our house.

We have been having lows in the 60´s and highs in the 70´s.  It has been fantastic, but it´s about to really pick back up again to the 80´s for a few days.  I´m really not looking forward to it.

So Frederico got baptized on Saturday.  I am really happy about that.  I was a little disappointed that I couldn't go.  But we had to go to a baptism where my companion performed the ordinance.  It feels really good to know that I helped him to change his life, and I know that he is really happy about it.

Yesterday we had stake conference, kind of.  It was more of a regional conference that they do every four years.  It was all of Mexico.  230 stakes, 40 districts, 34 missions, and a lot of people.  It was a broadcast from Utah.  Sister McConkie (YW PRes), Elder de Hoyos (70) and Elder Hales and President Nelson all spoke.  Elder de Hoyos is a
native Spanish speaker.  Elder Hales spoke English with the Spanish voice over.  Sister McConkie and President Nelson both spoke in Spanish.  Their Spanish was not very good, but it was understandable.  Apparently in the past 2 or 3 years is when President Nelson learned Spanish which is really impressive for his age.  The real focus was on the doctrine of Christ and obeying the commandments.  It was a really cool experience.

I can´t believe how much everyone is already talking about Christmas.  I guess when you don´t have Thanksgiving as a rule of thumb for starting to celebrate, you just start after Halloween.

I´m glad to hear that everything is going well at home.  Keep doing the things that you should and never let anything become a priority over God.  School, sports and even family are second to God.  If we put God first then everything will fall into place in our life or even fall out of our life.

I love you.
Elder Brady Allred

PS I can´t believe that Trump won.  I sure hope that I can get back
home when I´m done.

Brady's first week in his new area.

Nueva Cecilia is really good.  To be honest, we follow the book on a lot more of rules.  We weren't disobedient before, but how we ran the lessons and everything was not exactly how Elder Marrufo likes it.  The lessons are very structured now, a little bit too much and sometimes we don´t follow the spirit and the thoughts of the
investigators as much.  I am not nearly as tired this week though.  Honestly we do not work nearly as hard as we should.  I´m going to try to put a little bit more focus into this, and especially into working with the members (the work is impossible without references and members assisting the lessons.

Elder Marrufo is from Chiuaua, Mexico.  He has 6 more weeks than I have here.  He´s pretty serious, and I keep telling him to enjoy the work while still working, but I guess it will just be a serious 6 weeks, but he is loosening up a bit, which is really good.

The baptism did go on yesterday. It was really good to be able to go.  Elder Mercado (the new missionary in Hidalgo, Trainer Elder Felix) did the ordinance.  It only took about 10 tries, maybe more.  Apparently she has a severe fear of water, and this was the primary reason that she did not get baptized about a year ago with her family.  We ended up with her on her knees and just went forward into the water.  But it was pretty good.

We didn't work nearly as hard this week and the numbers really show it.  I´m honestly a little bummed, but not depressed by any means.  I only see it as a sign that I need to work harder and that I have plenty of room to improve on.

We did a lot of splits this week with the Zone Leaders and I really like them.  Elder Button and Elder Martinez (from Monterrey, Mexico) are both really cool and really good missionaries.  I´m glad we get to eat lunch with them every day.

I am really glad to hear the cubs won. Thursday I asked an investigator and he said that they had lost.  I was really
disappointed until Saturday when a member out of the blue said that the cubs had won.  I didn't know who to believe until yesterday I saw a newspaper and on the front is showed that the cubs had won.  I have the newspaper clipping in the house and a picture of it too.

Yes we had day light savings.  We are still one hour off.  Elder Mondragon didn't tell me until like 8 o'clock (really 7 o'clock).  I guess getting up at 5:15 you can get a lot more done with your day. But honestly daylight savings didn't kill me as much as usual.  I assume it´s because I just changed back the hour that I changed when I got here 2 months ago (already 2 months?!?!?!?!?!)

Yesterday was my favorite day this week.  Yesterday was fast Sunday and it really set the pace for my day.  I was happier and had more energy yesterday than I have had any other day out here.  I have found that when things are going the best that is when I think the most of home.  It´s less of a distraction.  I don´t understand why, but the
harder I work and the more focused I am the more I remember and think about home.  It´s not a bad thing, just a very interesting side effect of really giving it my all.  I hope that all made sense to you.

I love you guys and hope that you keep making the right decisions and are always an example to the others around you.  Treat the missionaries well, always, always give them treats when they stop by. Cookies, brownies, smoothie, ice cream, anything that is a treat.  It honestly helps a lot with the work.  I´m not just saying that, I really mean it.  The missionaries will love you and will help you to get more involved.  And give them water too.  If you offer they will not say no.

I love that 85 degrees is starting to feel normal.  I hate that mosquitoes bite no matter how much bug spray you put on ( the worst is the bite in the middle of the palm of my hand, how? I have no idea)  My stomach is great, and everything is going really well.

Thank you for all of your support.  I love you
Elder Brady Allred

PS the milk here is really an adventure, everyday is a new flavor.