I´m officially finishing 5 months in the mission!!!!!!!!  It´s pretty crazy to think that I´m already almost at 25% of the way done with my time.  It is going really fast, but it is worth every second.

Victoria is really pretty. It´s really nice to see some mountains and they honestly really do look a lot like the Utah mountains.  It´s weird sometimes when I´m walking down the street and see scenery that looks so much like home.

I´m loving working here in the work.  I've been so much less stressed here with Elder Flores, because we are always joking around.  He´s from Cuernavaca Morelos, Mexico.  He's got about a year and a half in the mission field.  He's got a great testimony and is an alright teacher.  We work really hard and we're both exhausted but the time is really starting to go a lot faster and I´m loving the work a lot more.  If you enjoy what you are doing then you will never work a day of your life.  We have a lot of extra responsibilities that we're getting used to.  Elder Flores is a Zone Leader and I'm helping him a lot with everything he has to do.

We got an assignment from President Ramirez (which means from God) to look for a family.  It's an assignment for every companionship of the mission to find a family (3 or more people) and to help them get to a baptism on the 11 of March.  We worked so hard this week looking for a family.  We actually found several families and some of them have a lot of potential.  One of the most promising families is the Family Castillo.  They are already married.  They have at least 5 children with about the following ages, 20, 17, 12, 10, and a new born.  That's at least 4 kids that are old enough to be baptized and there might be one or two more.  Everyone in the family has a lot of questions, and they are very open to what we teach.  They told us that the other night they sat down to read one of the pamphlets as a family and that they noticed that there really was a lot of peace in their house when they were reading and that they want that peace always.  Pretty much they are ready to progress.  They went on a vacation this weekend but were planing on reading the three pamphlets The Restoration, the Plan of Salvation and the doctrine of Christ.  We have a lot of confidence that they are going to read them, and tomorrow we have an appointment to answer all of their questions.

We have a few other families that also have a lot of potential and we hope to put a lot of baptismal dates and to have a lot of investigators in church Sunday (it would be pretty cool to double the church attendance of 50 that we had yesterday, I´ll let you know).

This area is great, it's a whole lot more fun in the cold than in the heat.  I've been staying warm, but if there's no snow then it's not actually cold.  Everyone else is dying but I'm really loving the weather.

This week we also had  world mission training.  It was so cool to learn directly from three members of the quorum of the twelve and from all of the church mission council.  We learned a lot of things from the experience that have already helped us a lot in the missionary work.  It´s great to see improvements day to day and that God can really work on us and mold us little by little if we let him.

Really if we put our focus on the things of God then we will always see blessings in our lives.  Like President Nelson said in conference, It isn't so much our situation that decides our happiness, it´s our focus.  If we are focused 100% on Christ then we can never be sad because he has already overcome all of our problems if we just let Him help us. 

Keep doing the things that you know are right and God will always bless you.  If the temple and our covenants are the center of our lives then we will see a very big difference in all aspects of our lives.

Thank you for all of the support and love from home.

I love you.

Elder Brady Allred

Check out the new pictures on the "photos" page.

I got changed.  I´m in the Zone Victoria Norte, in the Area Carrera and with Elder Flores.  It's going to be a big change.  It´s still a big city and we get to buy at Walmart, so that´s pretty great.  Elder Flores has about a year and a half in the mission, almost all of it in Victoria and he´s been in Carrera 2 times now.  I think we´re going to get a long great and have a lot of success. (I think it will be fun because we did spend more time in the toy section than buying food)

Elder Crum got here just fine,  I had to pass by the mission office this morning and he was there.  He was talking about how hot it was, but I don´t know what he was talking about, it felt about normal to me.

Here in Victoria it´s a lot drier than in Madero.  Something to do with mountains rather than the beach.  It´s also going to get really hot if I stay here.  I've heard we can get up to 50 or 60 degrees, and yes that is in Celsius.  It also gets a bit colder but without the humidity it shouldn't be as bad.  And we shouldn't get snow either, but it´s possible, especially with prayer and fasting.  And those pictures of snow are beautiful. I want to touch it.

So with all of this we did have a pretty successful week in Nueva Cecilia.  We found a whole bunch of people and a lot of our investigators did go to chuch this week.  We would have put a few baptismal dates but we decided to leave that to the new Elders  (They took out me and Elder Marrufo).  We have all of the plans laid out and I´m planning to hear about 6 or 7 baptisms from there in a few weeks.  My companion says that we have a few good investigators that are already progressing to baptism.  I´m pretty excited to get to know them and keep helping them.

It´s actually kind of pretty here.  It also feels a little bit more like Utah, without the humidity and all.  I did get the opportunity to give a talk Sunday for my first time in Spanish. I wrote my talk with pictures and it was actually pretty fun to give.  I had scriptures written down but everything else was pictures.  Everybody said that it was really good.

Nothing else really happened this week.  We had divisions with the District Leader, but that's about it.  

I´m excited for what´s to come and I´m planning on having a good time.

I love you 

Elder Brady Allred

We did have some success yesterday in investigators coming to church.  We had 4 people show up.  Adolfo and Carlos (a new investigator) didn't show up until after the sacrament which really stinks, and then a part member family showed up too.  We´re a little mad at the members of the ward who never told us about this family, especially since we've been asking and they never mentioned them.  But we're going to start teaching them this week.  The Dad is a member of about 30 years and a high priest, but his spouse and daughter are not members, but want to come to church and learn more.  Hopefully we can see some good progress there and that they really want to change their lives.

That means that Oscar and Sarai did not go to church yesterday.  They ended up out of town this week, and they´re not going to be able to get married this week either so their wedding (and subsequently their baptism) will be postponed a few weeks. Hopefully I´ll still be here, and Elder Marrufo wants to be here too, but transfers are next week so we´ll see what happens.  I really hope that I get to stay another 6 weeks cuz we´re really starting to get going.

Martin and Isidra didn't go either this Sunday, but that was because we never found them to invite them.  We talked to them yesterday night and taught Sabbath Day observance and they agreed to come to church.  Hopefully they come this Sunday (we planned with them this upcoming Sunday morning) and we´re planning on putting a baptismal date with them.  They are both reading the book of Mormon and really starting to understand and progress a lot.  We´re pretty excited.

Adolfo is doing great too.  He's also reading the book of Mormon, and he's gone to church 5 times now.  We're still helping him resolve a lot of doubts that he has about Joseph Smith, but after Gospel Principles yesterday he has a lot of questions about the plan of salvation because the teacher explained it all in about 5 minutes and left a lot of room for people to not understand.  We're going to get all of that figured out tomorrow and we're also planning on putting a baptismal date with him too.

We're starting to have a lot more success with finding people and we have a few other families that are just starting to visit with us too, and we think that they have a lot of potential.  Hopefully I do get to stay because I think that the next few months are going to be really successful and eventful with all of the investigators we're finding.

The TJ´s knocked our door the other day (TJ is short for Testigos de Jehová, or Jehovah´s Witnesses, but it is pronounced Tee Jay by all of the missionaries and because of that nobody else actually knows what it means).  We left the apartment with a lot of excitement and we actually scared the TJ.  She was pretty new to all of this and was very intimidated by us (something about being Mormon does that to people).  She gave us her pamphlet of their version of the Word of Wisdom, what we should eat and do to stay healthy.  So when they passed by coming down the stairs we tried to give them our Word of Wisdom pamphlet.  They said that they can´t accept it during their proselyting but that if we come to her house someday then we can share what we believe.  We got her address and her name and passed her reference over to the zone leaders.  It was so cool.

We also got stuck planning the ward activity last week.  The elders quorum was in charge and about 2 hours before the activity we found out that we were the only 4 elders going.  We had to plan the whole activity (mainly because the ward council told us that we had to do it all, even though it was their activity) in two hours and we actually had a great time.  It was one of the funnest ward activities I've ever gone to, and it only took two hours to plan.  Hopefully the ward does a bit more of the work next time, so that we can get a bit more work done with the investigators.

Then the funniest experience of the week.  We were in a contact and it was going really well.  Suddenly a block away one of the brothers of an old investigator came around the corner yelling.  He was yelling across the street to some people working on building a house.  Suddenly about half a block away, he stopped, still yelling across the street.  He undid his belt and his pants and started peeing in the middle of the street, all the while he was yelling across the street.  He finished his business and walked away.  It was so  weird but so funny at the same time.  We didn't really focus on the contact as much as we should have during all of that, but the contact didn't see anything and did accept an appointment.

I´m still playing the piano for the ward.  I don´t practice as much before as I would like but I can testify that God is improving my talents for the piano.  I have played several songs that are very hard not perfectly but good enough with only two or three run throughs before sacrament meeting, and I´m actually getting better and better at the piano every week.  I can testify that God will qualify who He calls.

I hope you guys have a good break this week.  I  hope that everything is going well.  I pray for you often and I hope that you keep doing the things that you know are right.  Your testimony is either growing or shrinking it never holds still so make sure that you keep it growing.

I love you and hope that every thing is great.
Love Elder Allred

Everything went really well this week it was honestly an awsome week. It did get really cold but the sweater and
suit jacket that I have did the trick and then the experience I have with putting on a lot of layers at night helped too. I stayed warm enough at night so you don´t need to worry.  It is also one of the coldest January's here too, and it sounds like that in February it gets even colder so we'll see what happens.

We actually had talks yesterday too.  January 1 we had testimony meeting and yesterday we had fast Sunday, I don´t know why they did that, but it all worked out cuz the temple president ended up taking my spot speaking. (Three weeks in a row I've dodged the bullet.  Three different talks prepared, 0 given)

I´m glad to hear about Sofie too.  Tell her congratulations.

I´m glad to hear about all of the other missionaries, family, friends and neighbors.  De hecho (in fact) Jack sent me an email too this week and it´s just really cool to get the support from everybody and hear that everyone is alright.

That night that we were locked out of the house we stayed in the Zone Leader´s house because they live in the ward and like 5 minutes from our house.

I do miss the snow. Everyone here is so cold and I´m loving it.  I am honestly happier with the cold and feel an extra energy and excitement to be in the cold, it´s so much fun, but I´m looking into buying some gloves too for the next time.  I wish I could help shoveling the driveway, I really want to build a snowman, but it sounds like I can
build plenty with 3 feet of snow in college.

This week was awesome in the work.  Oscar and Sarai are still planning for their baptism next Saturday. They are old investigators that last week told us that they miss going to church and that they feel that it is missing in their life.  The ward will hopefully help us get them married and then we can get them into the water the 21st of this month.  They have already received lessons for 3 months and we stopped teaching them in December, like the first week, but now they came to us and said that they are ready to get baptized and are making the changes necessary.  I sure hope everything works out and that we can get everything reviewed for this baptism next Sunday.

Alan, the young adult that was also an old investigator has started going to chuch now too, without us teaching him or anything.  I guess his parents have softened up, and I think we may start teaching him now again too. Hopefully we can teach a bit to his parents and maybe they´ll be interested in learning more too.

Then Martin and Isidra are starting to progress too.  Martin is a Taxi Driver that we contacted a month and a half ago.  We can only find them in their house when his taxi is out front, and so we haven't taught them all that much. They are starting to show more interest though and are starting to read the Book of Mormon and to pray. Hopefully we can help them to understand the importance of Church attendance and we can get them to come to church next Sunday.

We are contacting a lot of people in the streets looking for new investigators and it´s honestly helping us a lot.  Everyone in the zone acutally saw a lot more success this week as we came out of the holiday break (break for everyone else, not for us) and hopefully we´ll really get some good teaching experiences going too.

Actually this morning we had a lesson with the Brother in Law of the Bishop, Adolfo. He is great.  He has a lot of really good questions and wants to learn more.  He has several problems that the church is helping him with and now we´re trying to help him too.  He´s very direct with his questions and sometimes he comes across angry even
though he is honestly just asking a question.  At one point this moring he said, "Ok, what is your testimony of this?" When I started to bear testimony of the Book of Mormon he said "No, I want what you´ve seen in your life"  Well I gave him what he asked for.  I bore testimony to him and it was cool to see the change in his eyes as he
felt the spirit.  My companion got the same question asked right after and it was awesome to be able to bear straight testimony of the family, the priesthood and the blessings of the church in my life with him sitting there listening with all his attention.

He´s excited to read the book of Mormon and to pray about it too.  He already has a few weeks going to chuch but this was our first time teaching him.  I sure hope everything gets worked out and that he gets an answer to his prayers.  He wants to know it´s true and I know he can get an answer.

I´m loving the work now that we are having more spiritual experiences, it´s so cool to see how the gospel can change people´s lives and I know that it is changing my life too. Thank you for all that you do. I hope you all have a great week and do everything that you know is right.

I love you
Elder Brady Allred

I hope you guys really enjoyed the new year´s party and that you have some good goals set for the new year, both spiritual and temporal goals.  As long as we keep improving God will always be happy with us.

This week went pretty well.  Wednesday we went to the stake center for the District Class.  We learned some good stuff and then came back to get to work.  We went to an appointment with a less active sister, Rosa.  We got there and talked for a few minutes.  She asked us to give a blessing to her mom so we did.  Her mom is Catholic but
everyone else in her family are members.  We talked for a minute.  The Elders used to pass by their house all of the time and talk and eat, and take naps, dance, tell jokes, and all sorts of stuff.  But she said that they never drank Coke because that was a sin for them.  So they were a little bit of missionaries not all that focused on the
work, but they have a good relationship with the missionaries.

As we were talking, Rosa told us a story.  She said that she was fishing one day a few weeks ago.  It was a competition (She´s a competitive fisher) and she was not having any luck.  She said that she decided to say a prayer and ask God for some help.  She said she promised 2 things in the prayer.  1 She won´t tell us.  The other was that the next time she sees missionaries in the street she´ll invite them to dinner.  Not two days later, we come walking down the street with a strong impression to talk to her.  I guess God will get her to keep her
promise.

She did give us some fish for dinner so we went to take it to the house.  We saw the neighbor outside with a foot long rat that they had killed in their house.  It was kind of disgusting but really cool too.  He killed it with a long metal pole (about 2 feet long) by poking it really hard.  I guess you've got to do what you've got to do.

We went to put the food in the fridge.  But we didn´t have the keys. We lost the keys.  We searched but never found them with any of the members or in the stake center.  I guess they probably ended up with the taxi driver (and he really didn't like us all that much for trying to contact him during the ride) so the keys are long gone.

We climbed in the window the next day and all´s well that ends well cuz we got in and have all of the keys back now (we went to a locksmith to get a key for the lock, it was honestly pretty cheep).

So with all of that under our belt we got back to work.  We went with some old investigators Oscar and Sarai, to see what they think of the Church.  We got there and to our surprise Oscar has a job and they are planning on getting married now and are excited to get baptized.  They think that they´ll get married in March, but we're planning on hurrying that up a little bit more to do it in January.

I do have a blanket now.  I saw one sitting there in the grocery store today right in our path so I bought it.  I never thought to look for it so I guess God answered your prayers by putting it right in my path.

I come home next year.

I hope you have a good week and a good year.  Keep up the good work.

I love you
Elder Brady Allred