​Today is revolution day here in Mexico.  It's not that big of a deal. It's more like Labor day, we don't do anything really special.  There is no school, but there are only a few small parties in a few houses.

This week was weird because my companion got here Wednesday in the evening, so I worked with Elder Adair and Elder Andrade until then. It was weird being with two missionaries.  I did work a bit in my area with some members and it was fun to work with them.  We did find a few new people and we put a baptismal date.  But it is so much better to work with a companion always by your side.  A lot less stressful.  you have to focus on a lot of things at the same time.  When is my companion going to get here? And how am I going to get him from the bus central? And a whole bunch of other things as well.

But now he's here.  Elder Sanchez is crazy, but really great.  He's from Mexico City and he has a little bit more time than I do, but not too much. He's really excited to work and to be obedient.  He met almost all of the members this week, and we are now going to work super hard because we now have the whole week to work.

So we are now teaching a sister called Dalia.  She accepted a baptismal date. The problem we are going to have with her is getting her to be able to come to church every week. Her spouse is a lawyer that works in Monterrey and he only comes here to Victoria every few weeks. He is an inactive member, and he just wants to sleep on Sundays when he comes, because he usually gets here Sunday mornings at 2 am and then sleeps in and just wants to play all day.  But we are going to try to help him to change and that way his wife can come to church at least.

We are also teaching a young man called Alexis.  We just have to talk to his parents and then we are going to baptize him. He has been coming to church with the Bishop's family for a few weeks and we have been teaching him little by little, but he wants to get baptized, so when we talk to his parents he's all ready to get there.

We are super excited for these next few weeks. I hope you all enjoy your Thanksgiving this week.  I am getting excited for Christmas. This Friday they post the video "Light the World"  Share it with everyone you know and live it.

There are some frogs and some pictures from the zone.

I love you all so much and hope that you have a great week this week and can keep doing everything right.

Love,

Elder Allred

We are still working hard but we are still not seeing results.  We are trying everything and we have finished organizing the area book and we are looking for all of the past investigators.  We have found a lot of people but honestly we have almost nobody in our teaching circle.

The few people we have right now are Alexis AKA el Chino (the Chinese ? who knows why) and Amayrani.  But we are thinking about leaving Amayrani for a time because she isn't really progressing either.  That's one of the hardest parts.  Leaving an investigator.  Because we are just losing our time teaching them.  They aren't reading, praying or going to church and so really it leaves us no choice.  And usually it is almost impossible to find them.  Out of every three times we go we find them there once.  So sometimes we just have to say "we're moving on" and then 2 or 3 weeks later go back.  

We have found a lot of people to teach but when we go back for the first appointment they are never there.  Don't think that we are depressed or anything.  We just keep swimming.  We keep going whether there are results or not.  It's hard sometimes but we enjoy the little things.

El Chino is a young man, 14 years old.  He is the Bishop's neighbor.  He came to church a few weeks ago and now we are teaching him.  He said that he wants to get baptized but he wants to know more before he takes that step.  We have yet to talk to his parents and we hope that today in the evening I can go there and talk to him and his parents in a family night with the bishop and his family.

Now there's a funny thing it what I just said.  I said that we hope that I can go.  That is because today are transfers.  And my companion, Elder Melanson, is going all the way to Huejutla.  For those of you who don't know Tamaulipas and Veracruz Geography, that is about 8 or 9 hours in a bus.  So he went and my new companion is the ex-Financial Secretary, Elder Sanchez.  He has to finish a few things up in the offices of the mission and he is going to come to Victoria to be my companion on Wednesday.  I am going to be with Elder Adrade and Elder Adair these two days.  But we have appointments in Lomas, so I am going to be traveling back and forth with members to be able to go to some of the appointments.  For example the family night with the Bishop.  And then tomorrow we have more appointments than I have had in one day in all of my mission.  We have 8 appointments tomorrow.  They are all new people that we have never taught before so there is a very low probability that we find them. But I am going to go with Brother Hernandez to talk to each of them, and if they are not there then I will talk to their neighbors.  It should be super fun.  And then in the afternoon I am going to go with a recent convert named Homar to visit some other people.  He is super excited to go with me and I really hope that we have some great success so that he can keep being excited about the Gospel. He really shares it with everyone so maybe I can train him a bit tomorrow on how to do it better.

The computers these weeks aren't working to be able to send pictures so sorry about that.  We saw about 3 million frogs today by the river San Marcos and took some pictures.  They are smaller than the thumbnail but they are all over the city now,  It's super cool.

Thank you for everything.  I'm super excited for what's to come and I hope and pray that we can start having more success.  It's a lot of work but worth every single moment.

I'm loving the work and can't wait to start working with my old District Leader as companions now.  

I love you and pray for you. I can hardly wait for Christmas.

Love 

Elder Brady Allred

This week was a lot of hard work, and once again everything fell apart at the last moment.  It was pretty rough.  I guess we are still missing something.  We had great goals and plans, and we worked hard and finished tired. I guess we are just going to have to focus in a little bit more and work a little bit smarter.  I think that we can do it.  It's just a ton of hard work.

We had a few great lessons that we were able to use several great scriptures to help the investigators to understand a little bit more about how to have the Holy Ghost and revelation always.  We talked several times about the idea that we can all receive revelation from God and that when we get baptized and receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost then we can have constant revelation. We also could tie the sacrament to that principle. So that way we could teach everything; The Book of Mormon, prayer, baptism, prophets (they go right with revelation) and going to church all at once.  It was really cool and we felt the spirit very strongly in many lessons that we had, the only problem is that no one actually showed up.  So we are going to have to do it better this week.

We have been working a lot with the members helping them to preach the Gospel. More than anything, we have been sharing videos from Mormon channel with them and then having them share those videos with friends or family. We are not receiving a ton of results still but they are at least sharing the gospel message with people. Hopefully if we keep it up in a few weeks we can start to receive references. But I invite all of you to look into Mormon channel and maybe (maybe) think about using a social media outlet or at least text messages to share those videos.  You can just send the link from a text message and you can all share the Gospel while being at home and without actually having to talk to people. Mormon.org is also a great resource that the church has for preaching the Gospel. Look into them.

Really nothing else happened. Just a lot of hard work and trying to share the gospel. I'm sorry that it's kinda short.  I also had some good experiences in my personal studies. One of the most profound things that I have learned ever in my study came the other day when I sat down to read the 11th Chapter of 3rd Nephi.  I read the first two verses and then learned that through the death of Christ the Americas were changed from a wicked place to a very good place.  Through the faith of the people they were able to outlive the disasters. So if we have faith then through the sacrifice of Christ we can change from wicked people to only good people and even though it is a hard process we can really change completely like it says in verse one.  It was honestly a great doctrine that I learned about the power of the atonement and repentance that I have reflected on several times.

I really liked this video. Look into it and you can share it with someone else.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znzx2HXY8fo

I really love you guys and hope that you take advantage of the things that are within your reach.

Love

Elder Brady Allred

I think that I have about 62 weeks now.  Something like that. Maybe more maybe less.  But yep I made it to 14 months.  Now is the time in the mission when everything should be about 2nd nature.  And it's getting there and I'm starting to enjoy it more.

This weeks was really crazy.  We went to Tampico on Tuesday for a Mission training and then on Wednesday we had the rest of the training and came back in the evening.  So that's a lot of traveling, especially for us because we usually don't travel more than about 5 or 6 kilometers every day, and we went three and a half hours two days in a row.  But it was worth it and I learned a lot about how to be a better missionary and I saw a bit more the vision that President Ramirez has for the Mission.

Then on Thursday we had Zone Conference and interviews with President.  It was really great and a very worthwhile experience.  I hope to keep putting in pracitce everything that I learned.

Friday we planned in the morning for this week and we actually set goals from here to the end of the year.  That was a great spiritual experience.  We prayed a lot and put very high but achievable goals.  And we are now working like crazy to achieve them.  And I think that we should be able to do it.

Saturday we went with a few young women investigators that we have.  They are great and we are trying to make sure that they are interested in the gospel and not in us.  But that is why we leave the pamphlets and the Book of Mormon and other commitments, because usually if they do those things then they are looking for God in their lives.  But it's a little weird to teach young adult women that are our age.

Yesterday we had two really great experiences with two families.  The first one was with Gerardo.  A new investigator that we found about a week ago.  He has a great past and is a very smart and questioning person.  So this type of person is my favorite type of person to teach.  Somebody that has very well developed questions and understands when you explain it.  You don't have to simplify as much with them.  So he asked a few questions about why the Lamanites had to be colored.  We told him that it was a way that God could show Nephi's descendants who are the good people and the bad people, and that the skin color could change based upon obedience.  His other question was about evolution.  We told him that God created man, and everything else, but that He hasn't actually told us how.  We read 2 Nephi 2:27 and told him that God has given us everything we need to be able to make right decisions, the decision between the great Mediator of all men or captivity and death by the power of the devil.  We told him that HOW God created us is not going to influence our decisions about right and wrong as much as a testimony that God did create us.  If God created us is going to affect us a whole lot more than worrying about HOW God created us. And he was honestly very convinced that he doesn't have to know exactly how.  It was super cool and super spiritual and he told us that after many years of doubts, specifically those two, he feels that now is the time that he has been waiting for to change his life.  So next time we see him we are going to put a baptismal date.  We're super duper excited.

The other great experience yesterday was with Rocio and Hector (Rocio is a very beautiful name, it means dew in Spanish.  It's pronounced Row-SEA-o).  They go to a Christian church, and told us that they are rather happy there.  We asked how their family is (it was a question given us directly from heaven) and it is honestly not up to par.  They have a lot of problems between them.  So we told them that we have a unique way to help them.  We taught them about prophets, and then we showed them the family Proclamation for the World.  The spirit filled the room as we talked about their family and how these direct counsels from God can change their lives.

I said, "Wait a second! How do you feel right now in this moment?" 

They said, "Really peaceful."  

We read Galatians 5:22-23.  The fruit of the spirit is love...peace...tranquility.

"Is that what you feel right now?"

"Well...yeah?"

"That's the spirit.  How would you like to always feel that way?"

They said It would be great but it is really hard to feel that way at work.  It's a warehouse and the people are sometimes a little cranky, they complain, they fight, it's not a peaceful place.

I told them, "Guess what.  I worked in a warehouse and I was able to feel peace.  The prophets have taught a way that we can always have peace and ALWAYS feel the spirit." 

So we explained the doctrine of Christ.  Faith, Repentance, Baptism, and then the glorious gift of the Holy Ghost, or in other words, constant peace. Hector said that if the Family Proclamation is really written by prophets then he will get baptized.  Rocio said that she'll think about it.  It was super spiritual and a really great experience. I think that they are going to get baptized very soon as well.

I love you so much and I am so grateful for the opportunity that you are giving me to be on a mission. It is life changing and a great experience.  It's hard, but worth every thing.

I love you

Elder Brady Allred