That was weird.  I was writing the date and then I remembered that today was the day that I got Fisher (the dog from Build a Bear).  That sparked up some happy memories.  I guess that means that he's 13 years old, right?

Anyway, this week was pretty good.  It sounds like you guys had a good week too.  I'm really jealous of the snow that you have.  I'm sweating like it's the fourth of July and you are all bundled up in school.  I think I prefer the fourth of July, not for the heat but for the experiences.

I guess I'll start with President Nelson.  It was a pretty awesome experience. He answered a few questions that I had had and gave us a lot of really good advice.  He explained more about our purpose and about repentance.  He shared a great experience about starting to work before God can answer our prayers and questions (another story with heart surgery in which he had no idea how to do a surgery and it had never been attempted before but that when he got everything opened up he suddenly knew how to do it, just another break through).  We got to go to a reunion with 50 missionaries from the mission and then in the evening one with all of the city.  Maybe about 3000 people went, maybe.  He talked more about the family and that we need to teach our children about God and teach them to be firm in their beliefs.  I'm so grateful for the great parents that I have that have put me on that path that is bringing me so much happiness.  We also got to hear from the President of the 70 and the area president of Mexico.  We learned some really great things that have already really started helping us work better.

One of these things was with prayer.  L Whitney Clayton the President of the 70, asked us if we actually kneel down to say a prayer with the investigators at the end of the first lesson.  We admitted that we do not and then he explained to us how.  We have to get the investigator to ask God if what we are sharing is true.  We did it the next day.  Fernando is interested in the Church but he's not reading or praying.  So after explaining the Book of Mormon a bit better we invited him to pray.  He said yes.  We told him to ask God, "God, I want to know if what the missionaries are teaching me is the truth."  He prayed a very beautiful prayer and when he got to the question the spirit filled the room in a way that I've never felt in a lesson before.  When we finished all he could say was "that feels weird"  We told him that it was the spirit and that it was answering his prayer.  He knows now that its the truth.  But I guess that wasn't enough to get him to church yesterday.  I guess we'll figure that out this week.

We have kind of fallen a bit.  We didn't have a ton of time to work last week with the conference all day Wednesday, and then a stake activity Friday and a ward activity Saturday.  We've been really busy but we haven't had all of that much time to work with the people.  We've already figured out the plans for this week and we're going to have a really good week.

I'm really excited for Friday.  I feel like it´s going to be a really good day, and I´m hoping that you all have a good birthday on Friday.  I´m excited to open my present on Friday it´s been there for over a month and I'm anxious to see what's inside.  And if you don't mind for my birthday dinner when you have time I think it would be great to eat grilled cheese (they don't have cheddar cheese here and I'm kinda disappointed.)

I did get to see Tyler this week with President Nelson.  He's doing pretty good.  He´s getting there on his Spanish and I think he's enjoying his mission.  He was pretty excited to see me too.

I can´t think of anything else.  This is always the fastest hour of the week.  Have a great week I love you.

Elder Brady Allred

New photos on the photo page.

Hey, Sorry I didn't tell you about the baptisms before, but yes they did happen this Saturday.

The family is the family Gomez.  Remigio, the Dad, is a recent convert from about a year and a half ago.  He went inactive for a bit but now he's back.  His wife, Norma, had listened a bit before but she felt very pressured by the missionaries to get baptized and so she decided not to. Now her daughter Michel is old enough to get baptized and my companion started teaching them again before I got here.  We've been working with them for a few weeks and then after some work we finally were able to get them baptized.  Remigio baptized and confirmed them both and it was really cool to be able to unite a family in the church.

Really other than that we have been running all over the place without really much time to work.  We have had a ton of homework from everyone in the ward and President Ramirez.  We had to organize cameras for this Wednesday for when President Nelson is going to talk with the missionaries.  That's right!  He´s coming to Victoria and we're going to have a reunion with him and about 50 missionaries.  We're pretty excited, and we did get the camera crew figured out.  We also are planning on going to the reunion with all of the city in a college this Wednesday with President Nelson.  We are really excited and hoping to learn a lot of good stuff.

Really with all of these assignments this week we didn't have much time to work at all.  When we were not busy we were making sure everything was ready for the Baptism.

This week in splits me and Elder Chero had some good experiences.  one of them was with one of our better investigators Santiago.  He has had a lot of problems and he is really humble due to that.  He has been reading and praying and is seeing a lot of blessings in his life from that.  He found a few jobs and he now has some money for food and clothing.  We're pretty excited for him and we're a bit disappointed that he didn't make it to church yesterday.  Were going to figure out what happened and we hope to help him progress soon.

Another cool experience from the divisions was with Thomas.  He's an old investigator that we've been working with a bit.  We passed by to see how he was and he told us that he hasn't been reading the Book of Mormon.  We started to teach a bit about the Book of Mormon and it really wasn't going well.  Suddenly Elder Chero bore his testimony and everything changed.  We shared Moroni 10:4 and suddenly Thomas said that he was going to start reading again.  He said that before he hadn't been reading to ask God if it was scripture or not, but that he'll read it now with the question in his heart until he knows.  We haven't had a chance to pass by but I sure hope that he has been reading.

Really there's not all that much to write this week.  Everything is good and this week we're going to "echarle ganas" (yeah I can´t really remember how to say that one, it´s kinda like work really hard or be really successful, more or less) and we're hoping to find a lot of people to teach and that they'll be able to start learning and progressing.

Thank you for all of the support and love that I get from home.  Have a great week Cuidense mucho.

Love

Elder Brady Allred

Sorry for the delay.  It has been a busy week.

Hey.  How are you all?  I'm glad to hear that you had a good ward conference this week end.  We had a stake conference and it was really good, the only bad part is that it makes it a lot harder to have investigators come to church when it's a little further away.  But we learned a lot and the 70 told everyone that they need to fulfill their duties and to help us with the missionary work.

This week was another crazy week.  I´m deciding that there is no such thing as a normal week.  One of the funniest experiences this week was with an old lady.  She yelled at us in the street "and my friends walk by without saying hi"  So we stopped and that was where we messed up.  She was dressed in rags, and really short and really angry at the world.  She said that they had just kicked her out of the party across the street for dancing to their music, and when see showed us her dancing I would have kicked her out of a party too.  She said that everyone says that she's crazy even her kids and neighbors.  I didn't believe her at first, but now I do.  She knows the bible like the back of her hands, but when she quotes the scriptures she makes everyone close their eyes and then raises her hand and turns in circles and dances while reciting them.  She violated our space a little bit.  We talked to her daughter a little bit and she said that she was abused as a child and because of that she has some problems.  We shared the plan of salvation with her daughter, and neither of the sisters wanted anything to do with us, just to talk to us in the street for 45 minutes about all of the neighbors and children that want to kill her.  The weirdest part was at the end.  She said to my companion "I like you becuase you´re a good person" and then turning to me she said "but you, I love you like a boyfriend."  Just imagine that coming from a very crazy, Mexican Senora Denny dressed in colorful rags and you've got the image in your head.  I hope you don't have nightmares and I hope that mine stop hahaha.

We had divisions this week for my companion to go to the Mission leadership council.  I went with Elder Chero again.  He's from Peru and it's pretty fun to be with him.  We visited a member and Elder Chero went to the bathroom.  He said his stomach hurt, and I guess that explains why he was in the bathroom for an hour and a half.  I ate some really good tostadas during all of that and then we ran home as fast as we possibly could.

We didn't see a ton of success this week with the investigators, but this week we've already decided what changes that we need to make and we're going to make them, and have a really good and successful week.

Thank you for all of your support and love from home.  I hope you all have a great week and keep doing what the Lord has commanded.  Never forget to read the scriptures personally or as a family.

I love you and hope you do what is right.

 More Photos!  Check out the "photos" page.
 
This week was pretty great.  We worked hard and saw a lot of fruit for our efforts.  We´re improving a lot in our contacting and in our teaching and it´s amazing to see how much more we help the people when we give our best efforts.

This week we had some good and funny experiences.

We got a reference a few weeks ago, so we contacted it this week.  The guy came out of his house.  He was very catholic and very angry that we were there.  He said something along the lines of, "I´m very thankful for the work that you are doing, but I´m catholic and I´m very content to stay that way.  Keep moving along and find someone that will actually listen."  My companion said to him something along the lines of , "We´re here to help the people and help them do the things that they need to in order to reach salvation.  Have you been saved?"  Well that made him a little angry (I don´t know why ;P)  And then word for word what he said "Who gave you the authority to ask me that question?!?!?"  He rambled on for a few seconds about how he´s catholic and that we have no authority to ask people if they are saved.  We told him to have a nice day and let him go. I guess he doesn't know what the name tag means.

Another good experience this week was with the family Valderaz.  The family includes Alejandro and Ilda (grandparents) two of their daughters and 4 grand kids (one of which is 9 yrs old).  We have been teaching them for a week and a half and they said that they would come to church yesterday.  They haven´t really read or prayed but we were excited yesterday.  They did come so in the afternoon we went by to see what they thought of church.  

They loved it.  They learned a lot and felt the spirit very strongly.  They asked us when we´re going to give them a Book of Mormon (we only have like 2 in the house, mine and Elder Flores´)  and then asked about tithing, fast offerings, the salary of the bishop and a few other things.  They told us that they read in the pamphlets that we had left and are reading the manual that they gave them in church yesterday.  So there´s only one problem,  they still only say that our church is better than their other church, not that our church is the only church.  We´re hoping to get that figured out this week and we believe that the family will progress really fast after that.

Just a fun experience, yesterday we taught a recent convert family about the animated stories from the book of Mormon to show their toddler on Sundays because he always wants to be watching the TV.  They turned it on and during dinner we explained a lot of details about Nefi (Nephi).  It brought back a lot of memories to see that video again.

 

We are really starting to get going, and this weekend we´ll have stake conference. It´s a little bit harder to get investigators in church but we think that we can do it.  We should have two other families in church this week and if everything goes well in the next few weeks we should be able to have a lot of baptisms in March and April.

We´re excited for what this week will bring and we think we´ll have a lot of success in finding and teaching the investigators that we have.  Everything is going really well.

Keep going on all of your good endeavors.  I love you

Elder Allred