Brady sent a couple of pictures so check out the photo page.

I´m glad to hear that you guys had a great thanksgiving.  I did eat an extra bowl of cereal before bed to celebrate but it´s nothing compared to chocolate pie.  I´m glad to hear you got to play some games, and
I´m really sad that I had to miss that.

I´m getting pretty excited for Christmas, there are lights popping up all over hear.  It´s kinda neat that everyone here believes in Christ, even if they aren't members of the church.  Most people just have a
ton of lights centered around the Virgin Guadalupe (The virgin Mary, but the Mexican version that the Conquistadors used to convince all of the Lamanites to convert to Catholicism, a few months ago the Pope
said that it´s not Guadalupe, but the people don´t really care).

Honestly, this week really stunk.  We lost all of our investigators, except for like 3.  They all decided to stay Catholic or their spouse told them to stay Catholic, or they decided they don´t have time to meet with us any more.  It really stinks.  We also contacted a whole bunch of people trying to find new investigators.  We found that everyone that lives in our area is not interested in listening to us, but everyone else would love to get baptized.  Pretty much it got to the point that if  the person was interested and involved in questions (both answering and asking) then we knew that they lived in Victoria, Tampico, Altamira, Veracruz, or any number of other cities.  We sent in about 20 great references this week and the Secretary of References told us that we caused plenty of work for him this week.  But with all of this work we only found 2 people to teach, and one of them already told us that he´s not interested.  So that was pretty fun.

My companion also got a little sick this week so that cut out a little bit of efficiency and energy.  But we´re both feeling great and we´re ready to give it all this week.

I hope that you've heard about Ilumina el Mundo, or Light the World (?).  The Christmas initiative that the Church has put together.  It´s pretty cool.  It has one main video about service and how we are here in the place of Christ, and then there are 25 short videos, one for each day of December for how we can serve.  It´s pretty cool and I hope that you all get a chance to do it.

It´s going great here.  I love the food, almost everyday.  I haven´t really gone hungry yet, but only two meals a day is a bit of a struggle.  I hear in December that we get fed in almost every house and I really hope that it´s true.  I love the Pan Dulce or sweet bread that they have here, it´s really good.  I also love that I can just
buy bread from people on bicycles for really cheap and it´s really good.  Bread is so good and so cheap.

Keep doing the things that you should.  I hope you can all find someone to share the Gospel with, at school at home, in the neighborhood or in the street even.  Just talk to people and try to share the gospel.  It is part of the covenant you made to get baptized.  And the missionaries will love you more for this than for ice cream.

I love you and hope you can start having a Great Start to December.

Elder Brady Allred

This week went pretty well.  We are working hard and doing everything we should but sadly people still have to have their agency.  We  just do everything we can to help them to use their agency to choose Christ, but ultimately they all have their agency to choose.  Nobody came to church yesterday, and honestly we have no investigators that are planning on getting baptized within the next month.  It is really hard to give it everything I have, and then get nothing back in return.  In preach my gospel it does talk about this.  It is the hardest thing to watch them understand, feel the spirit, know it is true and then even with the pleading of the spirit reject everything.

I am however getting better at talking to people.  I am starting to contact people in the street without even thinking about it, and my conversations are starting to get more natural.  It is incredible to see God work through me to share a message that needs to be shared, or even just ask a question that needs to be asked.

Yesterday we were in a lesson and I opened my mouth to say something and suddenly a very direct and in fact perfect question came out.  It went perfectly with the lesson and actually helped a ton with the direction of the lesson.  God is at the wheel but we are the gas.  We need to take our foot off of the break and give the Gas everything we have and then we can really start to get to where God wants us.

I´m a little sad to miss thanksgiving since it doesn´t even exist here.  We did have Revolution day yesterday.  The celebration of when the government reformed and lost a lot of power, but we really didn´t celebrate anything, there just weren´t any people at church.  We already have 3 weeks celebrating Christmas because the people here don´t have to respect the Turkey this week, but it´s pretty fun to hear all of the same songs while shopping for food that are one the radio at home.

This week I met Indiana Jones.  His actual name is Carlos.  He is a less active, but the missionaries only stop by at his house every few months.  I´ll probably go twice, this week and when I´m showing some one else the area.  He´s pretty cool but also a little crazy.  He speaks 5 languages.  Spanish, French, Portugese, Latin, and Nawatl.
Nawatl is the indigenous language and he understands and can speak 4 distinct dialects.  He has an incredible collection of ancient idols. He has really old furniture a ton of books.  He was making some homemade wine out of toxic fruits that you can only drink the juice of after it has fermented.  We talked for a bit.  Shared a message, in
fact he told us that he still reads the book of Mormon realatively often, but it seems like he is still not interested in coming to church, that´s why we only stop by every so often.  It was a pretty fun experience.

I´m glad to hear that everything is going at home.  It´s really good to hear that Tyler is still scheduled to come down here.  President Ramirez btw does not always put the english missionaries with native
spanish speakers.  Just usually because there are more Latino missionaries than Gueros.

Rollo also emailed me and told me 35.  It´s either the number of days until Christmas or his ACT score.  I sure hope it´s just the number of days until Christmas.

Thank you for all of your support and love.  I love you guys and hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving.


Elder Brady Allred

Brady sent more pictures too.  See the photos page.


This week was pretty good.  We worked quite a bit.  But honestly nobody here wants to listen to us, and our more consistent investigators really aren't progressing all that fast either.  5 of our investigators need to get married before we can really start progressing with them.  Another investigator, Oliveria, is kind of iffy on if she is going to progress or not.  But Alan is progressing really well.  His parents have finally started giving permission for him to
come to church, and they've actually started opening up to us.  It´s because we brought a brother from the ward.  Hno Medina, he is great and can always seem to open the doors on those that are hard hearted.  The family realized that really the church may be a good influence on their son so he is starting to come more.

Really it is getting hard.  WE can talk to everyone, but really have no one interested in listening to us.  Hopefully we can get it figured out this week and find the people that are really interested in changing their lives for the better.  Some references from the members would be really appreciated.  (In 2 weeks we have not received a
single reference, and we ask every one for references.)

Yes we do try service.  Nobody here wants service.  We offer to everyone and when we try to help they just yell at us to go away, it makes it really hard to get in the door when they don´t want help when they need it.  Sometimes it is more humble to ask for too much help than it is to reject to much help.

I cant believe that you guys are unusually warm.  We are about normal, or maybe even a little cool, for Tampico.  But we did have a nice storm blow through about a week and a half ago.  I expected you to ask about it, so I forgot to write about it.  It flooded about every street and some of the streets up to 3 or 4 feet.  There were car accidents, a few people actually died.  We got a ton of rain.  It made national news actually.  So I was kind of surprised you didn't ask about it.  But I am ok, We weren't allowed to go out because the streets were too
dangerous, and we couldn't even order pizza because the delivery motorcycle driver couldn't get through to our house.

We have been having lows in the 60´s and highs in the 70´s.  It has been fantastic, but it´s about to really pick back up again to the 80´s for a few days.  I´m really not looking forward to it.

So Frederico got baptized on Saturday.  I am really happy about that.  I was a little disappointed that I couldn't go.  But we had to go to a baptism where my companion performed the ordinance.  It feels really good to know that I helped him to change his life, and I know that he is really happy about it.

Yesterday we had stake conference, kind of.  It was more of a regional conference that they do every four years.  It was all of Mexico.  230 stakes, 40 districts, 34 missions, and a lot of people.  It was a broadcast from Utah.  Sister McConkie (YW PRes), Elder de Hoyos (70) and Elder Hales and President Nelson all spoke.  Elder de Hoyos is a
native Spanish speaker.  Elder Hales spoke English with the Spanish voice over.  Sister McConkie and President Nelson both spoke in Spanish.  Their Spanish was not very good, but it was understandable.  Apparently in the past 2 or 3 years is when President Nelson learned Spanish which is really impressive for his age.  The real focus was on the doctrine of Christ and obeying the commandments.  It was a really cool experience.

I can´t believe how much everyone is already talking about Christmas.  I guess when you don´t have Thanksgiving as a rule of thumb for starting to celebrate, you just start after Halloween.

I´m glad to hear that everything is going well at home.  Keep doing the things that you should and never let anything become a priority over God.  School, sports and even family are second to God.  If we put God first then everything will fall into place in our life or even fall out of our life.

I love you.
Elder Brady Allred

PS I can´t believe that Trump won.  I sure hope that I can get back
home when I´m done.

Brady's first week in his new area.

Nueva Cecilia is really good.  To be honest, we follow the book on a lot more of rules.  We weren't disobedient before, but how we ran the lessons and everything was not exactly how Elder Marrufo likes it.  The lessons are very structured now, a little bit too much and sometimes we don´t follow the spirit and the thoughts of the
investigators as much.  I am not nearly as tired this week though.  Honestly we do not work nearly as hard as we should.  I´m going to try to put a little bit more focus into this, and especially into working with the members (the work is impossible without references and members assisting the lessons.

Elder Marrufo is from Chiuaua, Mexico.  He has 6 more weeks than I have here.  He´s pretty serious, and I keep telling him to enjoy the work while still working, but I guess it will just be a serious 6 weeks, but he is loosening up a bit, which is really good.

The baptism did go on yesterday. It was really good to be able to go.  Elder Mercado (the new missionary in Hidalgo, Trainer Elder Felix) did the ordinance.  It only took about 10 tries, maybe more.  Apparently she has a severe fear of water, and this was the primary reason that she did not get baptized about a year ago with her family.  We ended up with her on her knees and just went forward into the water.  But it was pretty good.

We didn't work nearly as hard this week and the numbers really show it.  I´m honestly a little bummed, but not depressed by any means.  I only see it as a sign that I need to work harder and that I have plenty of room to improve on.

We did a lot of splits this week with the Zone Leaders and I really like them.  Elder Button and Elder Martinez (from Monterrey, Mexico) are both really cool and really good missionaries.  I´m glad we get to eat lunch with them every day.

I am really glad to hear the cubs won. Thursday I asked an investigator and he said that they had lost.  I was really
disappointed until Saturday when a member out of the blue said that the cubs had won.  I didn't know who to believe until yesterday I saw a newspaper and on the front is showed that the cubs had won.  I have the newspaper clipping in the house and a picture of it too.

Yes we had day light savings.  We are still one hour off.  Elder Mondragon didn't tell me until like 8 o'clock (really 7 o'clock).  I guess getting up at 5:15 you can get a lot more done with your day. But honestly daylight savings didn't kill me as much as usual.  I assume it´s because I just changed back the hour that I changed when I got here 2 months ago (already 2 months?!?!?!?!?!)

Yesterday was my favorite day this week.  Yesterday was fast Sunday and it really set the pace for my day.  I was happier and had more energy yesterday than I have had any other day out here.  I have found that when things are going the best that is when I think the most of home.  It´s less of a distraction.  I don´t understand why, but the
harder I work and the more focused I am the more I remember and think about home.  It´s not a bad thing, just a very interesting side effect of really giving it my all.  I hope that all made sense to you.

I love you guys and hope that you keep making the right decisions and are always an example to the others around you.  Treat the missionaries well, always, always give them treats when they stop by. Cookies, brownies, smoothie, ice cream, anything that is a treat.  It honestly helps a lot with the work.  I´m not just saying that, I really mean it.  The missionaries will love you and will help you to get more involved.  And give them water too.  If you offer they will not say no.

I love that 85 degrees is starting to feel normal.  I hate that mosquitoes bite no matter how much bug spray you put on ( the worst is the bite in the middle of the palm of my hand, how? I have no idea)  My stomach is great, and everything is going really well.

Thank you for all of your support.  I love you
Elder Brady Allred

PS the milk here is really an adventure, everyday is a new flavor.

Transfer Day!  Brady has been transferred and has a new companion.  He also sent a few more pictures so check out the Photo Page.

I´m really glad to hear that everything is still going well at home.  I´m still scared about my safety wtih Jakon´s driving, but I think I´ll be ok here.  I´m probably more scared about the date.

I did get transfered.  I am now in Ward Nueva Cecilia, Stake Madero. It´s about 5 minutes from Hidalgo.  I´m with Elder Marrufo.  Elder Mondragon got transfered to Valles, about three hours away.  We are a little disappointed to leave Hidalgo, and each other, especially since we have a baptism this Saturday.

More about Elder Marrufo.  He just finished his training last week.  He was with our other Zone leader Elder Hall.  We arrived this morning and cleaned the house pretty thoroughly.  He´s pretty cool.  He´s a little bit more focused on the numbers than I want to be, so I think I´ll share the comparison about Alma and the Sons of Mosiah.  I sent
a picture of us in the other email.  (See Photo Page)

I´m sorry but I never did take pictures of the poeple I was working with, but really the scenery in this area is just city, kinda boring. Sorry about that, but I should be able to take pictures Saturday of the baptism and I may be back over there another day this week to show Elder Felix and his New training companion around a bit, and if so
I´ll take pictures.

Fernanda passed her baptismal interview.  She will be baptised this Saturday, and I think I should be able to go.  Frederico, didn´t pass but he didn´t fail either.  He´s going to try again this Saturday in a
more peaceful setting, and hopefully they´ll be able to go on with the baptism.

This last week went really well.  We worked a ton, but really we have nothing to show for it.  Our progressing investigators kept progressing, and we really didn´t find anyone new that was really good, so we were a little disappointed.  We do believe that Elder Felix and his companion can have a lot of success with the few people
and few families that we left.

One of our greeatest lessons this week was with Lizbeth.  She is 16 and she is better than gold.  We left the Doctrine of Chirst pamphlet and she read it.  We went back to her house and she [recited] atonement,
apostacy, baptism and it´s purpose, repentance and faith, from memory. She not only read and practically memorized the pamphlet, but understood it too!!!  She is am incredible investigator.  In fact she even asked us,  ´´So I should be reading the book of Mormon every day. and then I should pray about it. and when is church´´  So she is doing our work for us which is great.  I imagine she should be baptised here in the next 3 weeks too.

I am really glad to hear about stake conference.  Dad, that talk is what we teach.  We center everything on the path, Faith repentace, baptism, confirmation and gift of the holy ghost, and then taking the sacrament every week, with out distractions.  This is the key to staying strong.  The Sacrament.  Between this, praying and reading the
scriptures everyday Satan can never shake us.  Remember the path that you are on, and then help others get on the path.

Everything is going really well here, I hope everything keeps going good at home.  Do the things that are right and God will bless you.

I love you-

Love
Elder Brady Allred

Make sure to check out the photos page for a few more photos from Mexico.

I got Grandma´s first letter this week, the one from the MTC.  I guess it takes about 5 weeks for letters.  I got the package too.  Thank you for the letters.  

I´m really glad to hear that you can still manage to pull off a little fun without me at the cabin.  I really enjoy the hour every night in which I can sit and look at the trees and think about mountains, snow, wolf creek, and especially a little bit about home.

I am really getting used to the weather, I don´t have to drink quite as much water to stay alive everyday, and if nothing else it does not feel nearly as humid as it did when I got off the plane.  When I got off the plane there was water on all of the windows, but I guess I´m nearly used to it.

And I am using the insect repellent, it really does quite a number on the mosquito bites, but really what helps the most is that it has stopped raining.  All of the ponds in the street are drying up.

So the baptisms this week.  Not happening this week.  We should have two baptisms next Saturday.  Fernanda (the 16 year old) and Frederico (the blind one).  We lost our family, Nataly and Bradon, and their daughter Melony.  It´s not even a family any more.  The couple was never married but they decided to move out and so they will not be baptized here.  Brandon, might be staying here, and we are hopping so, because he is really close to ready to be baptized.

Fernanda and Frederico are really excited for their baptisms.  We have contacted a few new people, and have a very promising family of 6, but we´ll see after 1 or 2 more lessons.  We taught an incredible lesson last night to Wendy (a recent convert) and her mom and brother.  We taught her dad a few weeks ago, and so they are kind of interested.

Transfers are this week end.  We think that president will leave us together, but that means that I will probably have more responsibility as a "Zone Leader"  It won´t be official, but Elder Mondragon will be a Zone Leader solo.  We´ll see what president does, but either I´m co-Zone leader, or I get moved just before my first baptisms.  It´s
really the only option, because the zone is losing wards.  We´ll see and I´ll let you know next Monday.

Everything is going really well.  We are working well together and I am really starting to learn to contact, and to teach more by the spirit and with more confidence.  It really helped that yesterday I taught Gospel Principles to the investigators and recent converts.  It was on Family History and Temple work.  They all said that it was really good and that they all understood.  My companion said that if I can teach individuals like I did the class of 8 or 9 people then I will be a great teacher.

I hope everything is going well at home.

Invite all of the neighbors to church every week, the missionaries would love that.  I promise.

Keep choosing the right.

Love Elder Allred

We got a really short letter this week.  In a note he wrote to Kira and Zander he mentioned he had a lot of other people to write this week.  Since he didn't share much with us this week, feel free to post what he wrote to you in the comments.

Man the work is great.  I love being here in Mexico, there is nothing else that I´d rather be doing.  It is incredible to see the blessings of God everyday.  I've learned that sometimes the greatest blessings that we have are honestly our greatest trials too.  My companion has taught me this.  To not pray for everything to be good, but for us to have trials because that is the only way that we learn.  I´m going to try it, so I´ll see how that goes.

Sounds like everything is good at home.

I want to share just one short experience.  We had a lesson last night with an investigator.  It was his first lesson but he read first the folleto (booklet) about the plan of salvation.  We asked if he had any questions and he went straight to the complex doctrine.  About the Celestial kingdom and judgement.  So we explained it and then went back to basics like prayer and baptism.  I have been memorizing scriptures in Spanish first to learn the language and second (unknown to me before last night) to be able to recite them to investigators.  We aren't here to recite scriptures, but to teach and to love.  (Also), I share James 1 5.  But not word for word.  I knew it wasn't word for word, but it was almost exactly this scriptures.  It was so well portrayed by the Spirit that my companion actually didn't notice that it was a scripture, until I pointed it out.  I hope Juan Carlos can remember the spirit he felt last night, and continue progressing.

I love you guys.  Keep working had and be obedient.

Love Elder Allred

Not a lot to report this week.  But it looks like the work is progressing.


I´m doing really well this week,  It was a pretty boring week, but we worked really hard, and are both exhuasted.

I just realized I haven´t described my district.  We have 2 sisters Hna Clark (from Provo, not related to Judy) and Hna Laurence (i think).  They are the leaders of all the sisters in the zone.  Then we have the assistants and secretaries, one of the secretaries is one of the district leaders.  The other district leader is Elder Nixon and his
companion is Elder Button.  Then there is the other companionship with Elder Hall and Elder Marrufo, Elder Hall is one of the zone leaders. Elder Mondragon is the other Zone leader.  So pretty much I have the best district.

We had a few investigators in church this week.  We had 14 set up, and only 4 of them came and 1 other new one.  We have 4 investigators progressing.  Frederico, the uncle of July.  He is blind and has some sort of special needs that makes him move a little slower.  But he is really smart and is picking up the gospel topics really well.  He has a huge desire to be baptized and was excited to come to church.  We will be baptizing him the 29th of this month if everytihng keeps going well.

Then Nataly, Brandon and Melony (daughter).  Nataly and Melony came to church, and Brandon got his schedule permanently changed to always come on sundays from now on.  In 4 and a half weeks Nataly and Brandon are planning on getting married and then the next day wee are tentatively planning a baptism.  They both have desires to be happier in their life, and have a pretty good testimony that the church is the way to do that.

Then the last is Fernanda (we don´t know the 5th person, they went to another ward)  She is 16.  Her brother and mom are members, but she has avoided the church a bit for some doubts and because she has 2 kids, and doesn't want to be judged.  But she has changed and has a pretty good desire to be baptised.  I think if everything goes well she´ll be baptized around the same time as Melony, Nataly and Brandon.

BTW, every one here has problems with the law of chastity and with marijuana and smoking, but they are all pretty willing to change, so that´s really good.

I´m glad to hear about all of the great stories in your lives in the emails, the parties, blessings, work, Jehovah´s witnesses, Grandparent, the program, red Lobster, all of it.  Its good to hear that life is still moving along.  Thank you for the info on the other missionaries.  I´m really glad to hear about the blog, keep doing that it´s a lot easier for me.

love,
Elder Allred

October 3, 2016

Man, you guys get a 30 degree drop.  I wish I could get one of those.  It´s still pretty hot here, but I do think that it was a little bit cooler last week so that was a great break from the constant heat.

I´m glad you guys got to watch conference this weekend what I saw of it was pretty good.  We were late to almost every session because we were working really hard to get people to come.  We ended up with 5 total investigators in conference, but all 5 of these investigators are new, none of the people we have been teaching.

Last week we got a lot of rain on a few of the days, and let me describe this.  The roads are litteraly rivers. Usually it is only a few of the roads that are rivers, but some of these are impassable and knee deep, so we have to walk through.  The water fills my shoes, soaks my pants and I am soaked in water all day.

I figured out the best way to describe my companion.  Two words.  Craig Bluth (or I guess Elder Bluth).  They are almost exactly the same.  There are two differences.  Craig is white, my companion is Mexican.  And second Elder Mondragon is 2 years older and 20 months on a mission more mature.  so when Craig gets home they will be the same.  They are both very direct, say what they think, can always convince me that their way is the most accurate and best, know a ton about a lot of random things, have a lot of energy (Elder Mondragon´s is just more contained), and they are both great people.  It´s a good thing I always liked craig so that it was a pretty easy adjustment to my companion.

The work is going great.  We don´t have any investigators with baptismal dates, none of our investigators have come to church (besides those that the members bring, which are really great investigators that have a ton of potential), but we talk to a lot of people.  July and Alejandra are two 15 year old girls, that we have been teaching.  July is really direct and has a bit of a potty mouth (I guess that´s why I have such a hard time understanding her), and she really doesn´t like the church.  Her mom is inactive but is trying to come back and bring her daughter.  Alejandra is their neighbor, she is really receptive, but her mom is very catholic and doesn´t support her coming to church or anyting.  We´ll keep trying and see what happens.

Andrez is another investigator.  He is 17.  He has a lot of questions but we really have to teach him slow, because he doesn´t move very fast.  But he really wants to learn and this is helping him a lot to try.  Trying is all that God wants, then God will do the rest.  We´re trying really help him and focus on him.  His grandma came to the last lesson.  She is a catholic, but understands the doctrine of the bible really well, and learned the plan of salvation really easily.  Hopefully she will continue to come to Christ and bring Andrez with her.

And then we have a golden investigator.  Her name is Juana Maria.  She is really receptive to the plan of salvation, because one of her sons died when he was only 5 and it was a really rough situation.  She is really receptive to the gospel, and I think we will be able to move really far really fast with her.

I loved the emphasis on member missionary work and just missionary work in conference.  Get involved, bring people to church.  Just invite them and those that are ready for the gospel will come and accept the message.

Thank you for all of the support that you are giving me.  I can feel it everyday.  I love you guys.  Keep doing the things you should and God will always bless you, just sometimes you wont see it immediately.

Love Elder Allred

Two emails today!  The first was hurried because they were low on time.  They found more time and he sent a second.  He was also able to get his camera to communicate with the computer so we have a few pictures form the MTC.

Email #1

So I figured out my problem with the pictures.  The lock was on, but this week I ended up on a computer without any place to put in the flash drive so hopefully next week I have a computer that is better for this.  I sure hope so, I have over 30 pictures to share.  I`m really glad everything is going well at home, It`s going great here.  We`ve talked to a ton of people and have a ton of lessons set up.

Elder Mondragon is great, we work hard, it`s really hot, it`s really humid so I sweat all day.  We walk 5 or 6 miles and then every morning we run 3 to 4 miles too so I`m getting pretty tired.

I`ve learned a lot about buying food.  first that it`s important to always have a snack ready if you cant get a meal. second that it`s not good to cook your eggs on the sidewalk nor freeze them in the fridge. Third that beans and rice are ridiculously cheap.  and fourth that people here serve really good food and I`m not sick yet.

So more about my companion.  He is from Mexico.  umm he works hard, and likes to be pretty obedient.  I don`t know.   If you want anything else it would probably be better to ask specific quetsoins

So the people do serve good food.  I`m not sick at all yet, and I`m drinking tons of water because I`m always sweating.  My biggest complaint about the food is that we eat breakfast at 7 or 7 30 and then eat at 2 or 2 30 and then again the next morning.  It is sooo long inbetween meals, but I guess I`ll adapt.

We do get to watch conference live.  it starts at 11 local time but 10 mdt.  It`s cool to think that we are watching it together but I have to have the voice over.  We have lots of investigators coming to watch too.

Sorry we don`t have as much time to write today, we had a busy p day.  But the grocery stores are pretty similar.  Different sections and stuff, but they do just have stuff sitting out more, meats, bread...you know it`s not packaged until you take it to the counter.  But it`s all really good.

So I am in the city and stake Madero.  In the ward Miguel Hidalgo.  WE live on 13 de Enero (13 of January) all the way next to the factory PEMEX kinda in the north east of the neighborhood.  We are just one block north east of the chapel.  All the way at the end of the street and on the left side.

I don`t really have any specifics on investigators.  We have about 10 or 15 investigators that are all about at the same point right now.  We are going to start teaching actual lessons this week so we`ll see how many of them are actually interested.  I`ve learned a ton about teaching the gospel and that it is very importan tsometimes to just
stop arguing and testify.  My companion has a really hard time with that, but we`re figuring it out.

I want to invite you to talk to somebody this week about the gospel. It`s really not that hard you just talk to them.  It`s probably way easier for you guys because it`s in english.  I wish I had been more involved in the work before I came.  It`s really the memebers that do the work, the missionaries just teach.  Please be like the members in
this ward and have inactives that you want to help and nonmembers to help teach.  It really doesn`t matter where they live they have a system to get references around and it works great.

I know that Christ is our Saviour and the God is our loving Heavenly Father.  We have the potential to be like Him if we are obedient and make the covenants that He has comanded.  I know that this is His church and that we will be blessed by living it.

I love you guys.  Keep doing the things you should and you will be blessed.

Love, Elder Brady Allred

Email #2

​So since my compainion didn´t get the chance to email earlier, we are emailing again and since I didn´t get a full hour I am on the computer again for just a few minutes.  And I am uploading photos for you guys.

I just remembered to write about the smell here.  So it´s hot, humid and then there´s a smell.  It´s only occasional. and I finally figured out what it is.  It´s the sewers.  They are just rivers that run along side the road, open for the whole world to smell.  Only on some roads but it is the worst smell I have ever experienced in my life, and you do not know the deffinition of the word stinky until you have smelled this for at least 10 minutes total in your life.  It almost makes me throw up every time and my companion just laughs at me, but trust me it is horrible.

The ward has about 100 active members, at least that´s about how many I think there were at church yesterday.  They´re pretty good and they want to work with us and we want to work with them.  The bishop is pretty great, he doesn´t talk much.  We went to ward council last week and it was pretty alright.  We´re going again this week.  The people are really open to talk about religion here, but most of them are pretty stubourn about their beliefs that God is God and that all religions are bad, and then they group all religions like the catholic church.  But it really does feel good to testify to them aobut the gospel.  Sometimes you see the spirit change them right there, other times they completely reject it.  It´s hard to watch them reject it.  But it´s amazing to see them change dramatically right before your eyes.

One inactive member was talking to us and wouldn´t let us get any ground (agian with my companion getting a little bit into fighting mode) and I stopped him and bore testimony.  He changed right there in front of us.  He softened up a lot, and even though my companion had no faith that he would come to church yesterday, I knew he would come and he did come and had a pretty good time.

I hope that I have more stories like this next week, but like I said we are still figuring out who is here because there haven´t been any missionaries here for 6 weeks so it´s like starting a new area.  I think we´ll have a great week this week we have some really promising investigators, so I´ll let you know what happens.

I have already learned so much from Elder Mondragon he is a great trainer, definately hand picked by God to train me.  He thinks in a way that I can understand so well and learn so well and fast.  He has decided that I am really smart and so tells me everything he knows, because he knows I can handle it.

What´s really funny is that I am our navigator.  Me with not even 1 week out of the MTC am the one who gets us around.  I know most of the streets already and if it weren´t for me my companion would have us on the wrong end of the Ward before we realize we are lost.  So I´m really glad that I have a good sense of direction.

I hope everything goes well this week. You guys can all be examples to other people at school, they all need it and can learn a lot from you.

I love you.

Love Elder Brady Allred