One new photo this week.

This week we worked hard to find people.  And we organized a baptismal service for this upcoming Saturday.  We are pretty excited because Sandra passed her baptismal interview with flying colors.  She is so ready and we are so excited.  Hopefully I can send some pictures next week without losing them in the computer.

Tuesday was a crazy day.  We had appointments all morning and didn't have a chance to return home to grab our water.  We asked an investigator for water.  I guess that my cup was a little dirty and I got a little sick Wednesday.  I guess that I pulled the good old Allred family problem at 5 am.  The rest of the day I had a very explosive situation and it made my companion laugh pretty hard all day.

We also had a training in Tampico this week and got to go there because my companion is new.  It was pretty good and we learned some very good things to apply to improve our companionship and keep having success.  We also got to eat some very tasty carne asada. Then on the bus ride home we both felt pretty sick.  Good news is that by the morning we felt great.  I guess that means I only got sick one time this week.  I also got to see Elder Crum there.  It was great to see him again and he seems to be doing well.  I'm now taller than him again.  I don't think that I'm growing but maybe a little.  I haven't noticed.  He has pictures and he's going to send them to me for next week.

Lolis is also doing great. We are thinking that we are going to move her baptism up a week because she is so ready.  She is really working hard and is progressing like nothing I have ever seen.  We are really excited and she is really doing well.  She told us the other day that she has made changes in her life that she has wanted to make for years and she's done it in a matter of a month.  I can testify of the power of Christ for that.

I love applying the concepts learned in conference and seeing the changes in my life.  I testify that God has prophets on the Earth again and that because of them we can have the restored church.  I testify that the Living Christ is the living head of the living church.  I know that He has a body of flesh and bones.  Through His Atonement he can help us overcome everything and helps us become more than we can without Him.

I love you and I know that we have an eternal family.  Keep doing what is right and God will bless you.  I hope you have a great week and enjoy Easter.  BTW there is no Easter bunny here.

I love you and I hope to have those pictures for next week.

Elder Allred

This week was great!!! we worked hard and we are getting there.  Really we are only teaching two people because we have been working with a lot of people for a few weeks.  We thought that conference would be a good opportunity for them to come to church at least one time.  I guess it just wasn't easy enough to make time for 2 hours this weekend.  We only had two people come to church, and one member brought one friend.  I guess that talking to and inviting everyone and asking 20 members to bring one friend to one session just wasn't enough.  We handed out over 60 invitations this week.  I guess that's what you call a "Brady Party" for every 30 people invited 1 person comes.  Typical.

The good news is that the two investigators that did come, came 3 or 4 times and were going to come to the Priesthood session too.  The only problem with that is that they are not male.  Sandra and Lolis are really excited and they are really working hard.  Sandra is going to get baptized next Saturday April 15th.  She is great and is reading and now we got her praying.  The only problem with this baptismal date is that she is now 8.15 months pregnant and is expecting for the end of April.  Hopefully nothing happens suddenly.  That would make it a little hard.  Lolis is also doing great.  She is reading and praying too.  She had some really good questions yesterday.  She felt like the talk by Joaquin E Coasta was directly for her....and I think she's right.

They are two of the best investigators that I have met in my mission and we are excited to see them progress.  They are really excited and working hard to get to baptism.  April 15 and May 6.  And good news we also are putting Baptismal dates for the 20th of May.  When my companion said that day I knew it was an important day in my life.  I´m sorry to say that it took me about 5 seconds to remember that it is one of the two most important days of my life.  We´ll see if dad remembers why...

Conference was also a highlight in my week. We also had the English subtitles for President Monson's talk.  It was rough to see him that way but it really motivates me to pass my physical limits for the work of the Lord. He could have easily sat down to give his talk, but he knew that there is no excuses to only do a job at 90% (and that is not talking bad about the other apostles that sometimes do sit down) but he gave everything that he had to help us to understand his message.

Have a great week and keep doing what you know is right.  I love you.

Elder Allred

More Photos!

Happy Monday.   This week was pretty good.  We are working hard and we are getting along great as companions.

Just a great note about this week.  I have spoken with more people in English this week than in 7 months (that's right, we're crossing the 7 month line!!!).  Everyone stops me in the streets to talk in English.  There is quite the range of English speaking ability here.  Sometimes I answer with a Utah accent and it loses them.  Other times I respond and they carry a heavy southern accent.  It's pretty cool and it's motivating my companion to learn English even faster (but it is going pretty slow, I´m being patient but he's taking his time ha ha).

Yesterday Sandra and Lolis came to church.  They got there late (after the sacrament) and left right after sacrament meeting.  But they did come.  Now we're working of two more hours, or 7 more for this weekend.

I'm really excited for the conference.  We are planning on inviting everyone and we hope to see a lot of people there.  I'm planning on good health this week.  But don't worry if I miss it. I still listen to the last conference and I know just about every talk based on how it starts.  And I'm planning on keeping up the habit.

It´s going great here.  The people are a little weird.  They'll talk to you for 3 hours but in the second that you say God, Church of Jesus Christ, Religion, Joseph Smith, Prophets, Bible or just about anything else they go running.  We're working on that, and we have some good plans.  Hopefully my idea gets approved to talk to some of the AA groups in the area and ask them to "advertise"  Hopefully they let me and hopefully it works to find some people to teach.

I had a very spiritual experience yesterday in church.  It started off really bad.  So I play the piano in the branch and so I played the sacramental hymn. When I finished they blessed the bread and passed it.  And then I realized just as they were starting the water that they never came to me.  I was meditating a bit and didn't notice.  So they passed the water and after a lot of confusion they brought me the bread and the water.  It started as a very stressful moment when I realized I hadn't eaten the bread but then when they brought the bread and water to me the peace and the joy I felt to renew my covenants was so incredible.  I have never felt the importance in the way that I felt it yesterday.  I always knew that it was important but it took a whole new meaning to almost not be able to take it.  And then they let me talk about the Sabbath Day observance.  It was nice to add a little bit more heartfelt meaning to my testimony of the Sacrament.  It was a good experience but I don't really recommend it to everyone.

I hope you all enjoy conference and have a great spiritual week.  I pray for you.  I love you

Elder Allred

Brady sent a few more pictures this week.  Check out the photos page.

It´s going really well here.  We are starting to really get going and we have some really good plans already for the upcoming Transfer.

My favorite part about training is all of the extra help/luck that God gives us to find people to teach.  We have not had a lot of success knocking doors or talking to people in the street but we have had a ton of success with references.  Everyone that we ask for a reference gives us a reference, and then it leads to more references and more.  And almost all of these references are actually really interested in listening to us.

Our Number 1 Investigator is Sandra.  She is the wife of Efrain a returned missionary and less active.  They went to church the week before we got here and had a great head start.  Sandra is pregnant and is going to give to the light (the Spanish way to say give birth) at the end of April or the beginning of May.  She is really excited to get baptized the 15th of April and is reading everything and learns really fast.  She's really excited and everything is going really well there. 

Now I'm sure you're asking how we're going to baptize someone that is almost 9 months pregnant.  The good news is that we already have that figured out.  We've been talking to some missionaries and the plan is to put her in a chair in the font and then just tip her back and baptize her while she's sitting.  We're pretty excited for all of that.

Our next best investigator is Lolis.  She is the wife of Jonathan a member.  She just had a baby and is also reading and studying and learning really well.  Our biggest problem with her is that her "spouse" Jonathan is not actually married to her.  Surprise!!! OK, so they get married.  Nope.  The problem is that Jonathan is in the USA and he can't come back for a year and a half more.  So the Law of Chastity is a bit of a problem.  So as we've talked to our leaders about this.  We have decided that if she really does everything and actually repents then she will be able to get baptized.  So it's just a matter of repentance now and then get married as fast as is possible when Jonathan gets back.  We'll see how that all works out and hopefully it all goes well.

So something that I find a little weird.  There are public bathrooms here.  But guess what, you have to pay 5 pesos to use them.  Sometimes 4 sometimes 6.  WHO KNEW!?!?  You have to pay to use the bathroom.  It's crazy but true.

Another crazy thing.  There is no time change in the spring.  They have one time change in November.  One year forward one year back.  So guess what, we are living at the same time right now.  Yep who would have thought.  Only in November.

I dont know if you have looked up Ebano on a map but it is a pretty decent size.  We have officially walked everywhere just about.  It´s much bigger than you would think.  But we're enjoying it and my feet are feeling better today ;)

I love you guys and hope that you keep on doing the things that you know you should.

I love you

Man, this week was crazy.  We worked really hard all week and we had some pretty descent success.  We're working on contacting more people. It was really hit or miss.  We had some days that we found a ton of people and every person that we talked to accepted an appointment.  And then other days in which the people wouldn't even listen to us.  We knocked doors a lot of the week.  We had some very good experiences with that and some not so good experiences.  Sometimes the people are just so funny.

Yesterday my companion contacted a door.  The guy came out of his house.  "What are you offering?"  My companion started to talk and the guy said "well we're Catholics here"  My companion bore his testimony, and the guy said "alright" turned and walked in the door without saying anything else.  My companion looked so confused and I was laughing for like 5 minutes straight.  The guy really did not want anything.

Yesterday we had quite the rainstorm.  We woke up and everything was wet, we got our umbrellas and went to church. When we left if was a beautiful day, so we left our jackets home and our umbrellas.  We went to work and then it started looking rainy again.  We grabbed our umbrellas and got working again.  We were about 5 or 8 minutes from the house and it started to drizzle, I grabbed my umbrella and my companion his jacket.  And then it started to rain more.  And more.  And then there was a really cool lightning bolt.  It started on one side of the sky and then flew across the whole sky.  it made a sound something like cckckdciabooomscksocokks.  something like that.  Everything turned purple too.  And it really started to rain.  But I had to put away my umbrella because that was not the only lightning bolt that was falling from the sky.  I either had to laugh or cry so I laughed as the guy that we had just contacted drove by and said have a nice day and laughing (he was nice it was just a funny situation).  We ran to the house and got there soaked.  We gave it ten minutes while we changed into dry clothes and everything cleared up.

The attendance in the ward is about 50.  We have found members everywhere.  The branch has the members to have a ward  but nobody goes so it's only a branch.  We're working on baptizing and reactivating and hoping to have a lot of success in both aspects.  The stake patriarch (of a stake because Panuco is only a district) came yesterday to give some blessings and when he spoke in sacrament meeting he said some pretty cool stuff about the future here in Ebano.  The members and us are very excited for the potential that he saw here.

I;m 4 for four on my houses.  Four houses and four of them we have lost the keys or left the keys inside or some sort of problem.  I guess that now we are protected from losing the keys again here because we locked them inside yesterday.  We got the door open thank goodness.

It's great to hear about all of the great experiences that you guys are having.  I hope that everything is going as well there as it is here.  The time goes so fast and it is hard to get done with everything that we have to do, but we're keeping busy.

I hope you have a great week.  I love you

More pictures on the Photos page

We received this email late on Monday night.

All's Well

Hey I´ll write tomorrow I´m training and we had training all day to do that.  I´ll write you tomorrow.  Everything is great and we're really excited!


Then on Tuesday we received his weekly letter.

Well, I hope that you got my email last night.  We were busy all day with some training for us as trainers and then training for our new companions.  We got 4 new missionaries this transfer, a lot smaller than the 12 to 15 that have arrived for the last 6 or 7 transfers.  For some reason President Ramirez thought it would be a good idea for me to train one of the 2 Elders that got here yesterday.  After spending a few hours eating and in the training we got paired up with our companions.  I'm with Elder Maceda.  He's from Puebla Mexico, south of Mexico City.  We're pretty excited to get to work and we have plenty to do.

So it's my 5th transfer, 4th companion and guess what...............4th area too!!!!!  We got put in Ebano, San Luis Potosi.  That means that I am in a different state of Mexico!!!! I guess what my zone is Panuco, which means that I get to go to Veracruz for my district classes!!!  I´m getting to know some new areas.  It´s pretty cool.  We are opening Ebano after about 5 months of it being closed.  There hasn't been a ton of success here in the past but there is a lot of potential.  It really does depend on the missionaries.  We have some good plans already laid out to find people to teach.  I figure with 40,000 people in our area there should be a few people willing to listen to us.  There are people everywhere we just have to stop them and teach them, and with faith and hard work and maybe just a little bit of luck too (aka blessings from God) we should be able to have some baptisms.  We are going to give it everything we have these first two weeks so that this transfer we can have some baptisms.  We're really excited and have some great plans. (PS Ebano is a branch).

The good news is that they left my companion this time in my old area to keep working. I really appreciate that.

Well last week we went to eat on Saturday. We sat down and the sister brought what she thought was chicken.  Now there are a few options.  Maybe the chicken had steroids.  Maybe I´m going crazy. #3 the most likely is that it wasn't chicken.  It was shaped like a chicken leg/drumstick, but it was way bigger than my hand.  My best guess is that was cat.  It tasted good and something similar to chicken but it was definitely not chicken (and it wasn't turkey either).

My birthday was really good.  We worked all day and really there wasn't time to eat in a restaurant nor were we hungry enough.  It was a really good day and we had some alright success that day.

Our only thing that we have left to worry about now is the food for the rest of the week.  We´re trying to get in contact with the branch president and the relief society president.  We´re going to find them tonight and we should have food for the week.

Everything is really good and we are giving it everything that we have.  It's warm and sweaty but really good (we do have AC)

Keep up the good work and doing the things that you should.  I love you all and hope that you can all take advantage of the time and opportunities taht you have.

I love you

Elder Brady Allred

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