This week was really great.  It's rough getting to the year mark, but now that I'm almost here it's getting easier to get back into the rhythm again.  I bought myself a new pair of shoes and a tie and socks for my "birthday".

 

We are loving this area and Barrio Flores (Flowers Ward).  The members here are super great and they are really willing to help us with the missionary work and to organize and plan great ward activities.  We decided to plan one for in September and we are hoping to have a lot of members and investigators come.  We are going to preset Lehi's vision, but we are going to do it in a very original way.  We presented the plan yesterday to a committee that we organized and we improved the plan a ton.  Really church committees can get a ton done when they are well organized and have a good direction.

I am really starting to get a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon.  The more problems and stress that I have the more the Book of Mormon helps me to find direction and peace.  As there are more responsibilities in the mission experience more and more I want to read the Book of Mormon and feel the spirit that we can always feel when we read it.

The other day we were talking to a brother named Jaime and he was telling us about all of the problems that he is facing and that everybody wants to give him good advice but that nobody really knows what he is feeling.  I told him that Christ knows how he feels and the way that he can receive Christ's help is by reading his counsels that he gave to the Nephites just after suffering everything that would help him understand us.  In other words Christ suffered and died for us and then after being resurrected he taught to the Nephites the ways to receive his help and his secret for how he passed through our problems.  It was really cool and Jaime committed to start reading the Book of Mormon again.

This week we also worked quite  a bit with Alberto and his mom, Maria.  They are very willing to change their lives and are starting that process.  They have a very rough and personal backstory, but they were very willing to tell us because they really see us as Angels, and believe that we can help them.  It is incredible to believe that two 19 year old young adults who have never had a problem with drinking, smoking, or real life family problems, can help people with all sorts of problems and 3 or 4 times our life experience.  It really strengthens my testimony of the importance of the gospel because it is the Gospel that changes their lives, not us.  We are just the messengers.

Now that school started here too, Steve has disappeared.  We are trying to look for him but it is really hard to find him, except after 10pm, and even at that we may not find him.  And Daniel is also having a hard time in his family and business problems and it is really hard to help him too, because he is moving away from our help in his attempt to fix his problems.  We keep telling him to read the Book of Mormon and he is, but he is really struggling.  but we are there still to help him.

We hope to keep working with Maria and Alberto and hopefully this week we can find a few more people to teach.  We are looking at teaching a sister that got baptized a few years ago but there is not paper or registers or pictures of anything.  And it is not in the computer.  So we are going to have to teach her again.  her name is Rebecca and we are going to try to reactivate her family again and baptize her again.  She is 13 years old and she and her little brother are really fun to work with.  Hopefully she can start to remember what she already knows.

It`s a really great experience to be on a mission.  It is really hard but very worth every effort.  Really I know that this is the true church and that through the ordinances available with the restored priesthood we can find more peace and happiness in our lives.  Really God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son for us.  I know that the Book of Mormon is a true testament of him and that a man can come nearer to God by obeying his precepts than by any other way or book.  I know that all of this is true because I've lived it.  Don't ever forget that God loves you and that he wants to help you get rid of every mistake.  It's not easy, but He will help you.

Thank you for all of your love and support.

Love,

Elder Allred