Fluffy's on Facebook?!?!!

As most of you have probably already noticed, I'm on facebook now! This week has been crazy. On Friday, we had a Zone Conference in Ossining, NY. That's about 40 minutes from Bethel, and it took up most of the day. At the conference, President Morgan announced that the New York New York North Mission has just been authorized to start online proselyting. So every day this week, we've been taking about an hour to log on to our accounts and get them cleaned up and ready for missionary work. By mid-November we will each have an iPad and each companionship will have an iPhone. Pretty crazy! Some things you should know about this. Facebook is a tool that will be used for proselyting only. I'm not on there to chat or to communicate with anyone aside from the purpose of a missionary. I'll be using Facebook to teach lessons and update my page with inspiring church related articles to spark interest in those that can see my page. I do invite you to like and share my posts. That way all of your non-member and less-active friends will be able to see what missionaries are posting. Communication with friends and family will still be through letters and emails on Wednesdays. I won't be able to communicate with any of you through Facebook. This is a very exciting time to be a missionary. President Morgan said that a few months ago he went to a training for mission presidents. Elder Richard G. Scott 

http://www.lds.org/church/leader/richard-g-scott

was speaking at that training, and compared this time in missionary work to some of the biggest moments in church history. He said that the hastening of missionary work today is ranked up with the first vision, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and the restoration of the Gospel. Words can't express how blessed I feel to be trusted as one of the missionaries pioneering this aspect of the work. One day I will be able to tell my children that I was in the field when all of this was introduced. I can't imagine where missionary work will be by then. With today's technology as an instrument in the hands of missionaries, more people will be reached than ever has been possible before. It's so exciting, and here I am right in the middle of it! I'm really looking forward to seeing where this will go. That's probably been the most exciting thing for the week. The work is still fun and rewarding. We're still meeting with our three main investigators. I find a lot of fulfillment as I get the opportunity to share the Gospel with other people every single day. Thank you all so much for the love and support. It sounds like things at home are pretty good. I count that as a huge blessing. I know that in my absence the Lord has really stepped in and is watching over and protecting each and every one of you. I love you all so much! Have a fantastic week. And don't waste too much time stalking my profile;) Haha. Keep up the good work everyone. Keep on smiling. I love you, I love you, I love you!!

Love, 

Elder Allred 

I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I Can....

Still chugging along! I'm really starting to see how much of a challenge being a missionary can be. I miss you all so much, and some days all I want is just to be home. There are times when I doubt whether I can do this or not. In those moments I pray a little harder and read a little more intently, and the Lord always pulls through! It's building my testimony that no matter what we face in this life, there's nothing that He can't get us through, as long as we turn to Him. Every time we put our trust in Him and let Him help us get through a trial, it builds our faith just a little bit more. I encourage you all to do the same. Pray continually, and when life gets hard, when you have stress because some dumb kids are partying at the apartments, when you have to stay up late to finish an assignment, when one of the kids at work is giving you a hard time, when you don't get to go home for another two weeks, pray harder! Talk to your Father in Heaven. He's listening and waiting for you to come to him. He wants to help you, and as soon as you make the decision to let Him, you will find more comfort and strength than you could ever imagine. The power of prayer is incredible! Everything with our investigators is going pretty well. D. and his mom were at church on Sunday, so that was awesome. We finally met with J.S. again and we have a meeting with him tonight. Both D. and J. well on their way to being baptized around the end of November. It's such a blessing to be working with them. Not too much to complain about. This last week has been fun. On Sunday, Elder Kroff and I got to teach the priest quorum, so that was pretty cool. It feels like I was just barely a priest and preparing to serve my mission. Now I'm giving young men advice to help them prepare. The ward here is fantastic. It feels just like a Utah ward. I better enjoy that while it lasts, because I heard that some of the wards in the city are a whole new experience. I would imagine so. I love it here in Connecticut. There's a good chance that I'll be here until at least the end of the year. Which would be great. I'm sure the holidays here are so much fun. We have a ward Halloween activity coming up on Friday. We got to help the youth one night get all the decorations ready and set up for their "Haunted Trail" in the woods behind the chapel. We also get to sing in sacrament meeting next week. Me and the other three elders in the Newtown ward are going to be singing Army of Helaman with the primary kids. I'm way excited for that! Life is good here. Thank you all for everything you do. I love you all so much! Have a great week!

Love, 

Elder Allred

Blogs of Note and Notes to Blog

Sister Morgan updated the New York New York North  Mission blog today and if you look closely, you can see Elder Allred in one of the photos!

http://nynynorthmission.blogspot.com/

Also a cool new blog from New York missionaries. Check out the awesome project on Union Square from October 21. 

http://reachmygospel.blogspot.com/

Mom received an email from the mission home reminding us to send Christmas packages to the mission home at: 

New York New York North Mission 

700 White Plains Rd. Suite 315

Scarsdale NY 10583

Elder Allred is also having a birthday on November 29, so use the same address if you'd like to send something then. 

If you're regular readers of the blog, you know that last week was kind of discouraging with three appointments cancelled:( Elder Allred is missing his music and has requested the following tunes: 

EFY:2012

EFY:2013

Strength of Youth: 2013

"The Work" by Nashville Tribute Band

"Lead Thou me On" by  Vocal Point

"Take it Home" by Jenn Blosil (A sister missionary in the NYNY South mission!)

"Seeking What's Good" by Ejay Mulitalo

If anyone would like to get any of these for Elder Allred, please let Tina  know either by facebook message or email at yankeegirl617@live.com, so we don't double send them to him. I'll be sending a package the second week of November for his birthday. 

We expect an email from Elder Allred tomorrow, so tune in then! 

Challenges

Hey everybody! I hope you all had a wonderful week! I know I sure did. This week had it's challenges for sure, but it was still a good one. We have been meeting with basically three main investigators while I've been here. We have D. who we meet with every Thursday, and he and his mom had to cancel this week. I was sad we had to miss an appointment, but I feel very confident that we will pick right back up tomorrow. I feel the Spirit so strongly every time we teach them, and I really believe that he will be ready for baptism by November 30th. Our other two investigators are K. and J.S. . K.just got a new job and things have been kinda crazy, so we haven't been able to meet with her for about two and a half weeks. We finally met with her again the other day and talked about her baptismal date for January. We told her what needs to happen if she wants to be ready by then. She hasn't really been doing the things that we have been asking her. We invite her to pray and read the Book of Mormon all the time, and she hasn't really followed through very much. So, we told her that if she wants to do this that her commitment level is going to have to increase. I have faith that she will realize what needs to happen, so hopefully it works out. Then there is J.S. ! We haven't been able to meet with him for almost a month. He had a baptismal date for this Saturday, but that will have to be pushed way back, because the only things we've been able to teach him was the Restoration (which was an awesome lesson by the way!) So that's been kind of hard. Last night we had an appointment set up and he cancelled last minute. He felt really bad and told us he wasn't trying to avoid us. He just has a lot going on with work. Plus he's in the army, so he has had to go to drill a few times too. We rescheduled for tonight, so I'll let you know how the next lesson goes! Other than that we're just trying to find new people to teach and getting fed by members almost every night. I love my ward so much! We haven't been able to have regular church for a couple weeks because of General Conference and this last Sunday was Stake Conference, which was amazing! They talked a lot about temples and the Manhattan Temple President spoke. It made me so excited to go and do a session there. Hopefully I'll get a chance to do that soon! Other than that there isn't much going on. I'm just loving it so much and I feel blessed every single day. I hope you are all doing well and loving life. I miss you and I love you all so much! Thanks for everything and for all the support. Keep smiling, and don't let a day go by without realizing how blessed we are and how much the Lord loves us. Have a great week, and keep smiling. Love you!!

Love, 

Elder Allred 

The Missionaries' World Series

 Sushi with Elder Kroff

Elder Allred's first zone

This has been a wonderful week! I don't know if I've told you about D. or not. He's one of our investigators. He's an eleven year old boy and his mom is a member. She's been less active for over twenty years though, so she doesn't know very much about the church. We've been teaching D. for a while and he's decided that he wants to be baptized. Last Thursday he set a date for November 30th! How cool is that? I felt the Spirit so strongly and was so excited when we got out of that lesson. I just feel so blessed that the Lord has put these people in our lives to teach. It's amazing to see people coming to the gospel. General Conference was awesome! As a missionary, General Conference is kind of like our Super Bowl or our World Series haha. We spend pretty much all day at the church or at members' houses in between sessions. We just get to relax and soak up everything that our prophets, apostles and other leaders of the church have to tell us. I hope you all got a chance to watch some of it and enjoyed it as much as I did. I really enjoyed Elder Edward Dube's talk on Saturday morning.

 http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/look-ahead-and-believe?lang=eng&media=video#watch=video

He talked about how we have had trials in the past to get over and how we'll have more in the future. He shared a story about when he was a kid working in a field with his mom. He was proud of how much they accomplished and told his mom to look back at what they had done. She told him, "Never look back. Look at what we still have to do." For some reason, that just struck me. Especially being on a mission.  Look at what I still have to do. 22 more months seems like a long time. It seems like it's going to be really hard. The truth is, it probably will be. But I know that no matter how hard it is, I can get through it. If we turn to the Lord we can do anything. I also really liked how much emphasis there was on member missionary work. I want you all to think about what the role of our prophets and apostles is. They have the keys to receive revelation from the Lord to know what to tell us as members. So, this call to action is from the Lord. Missionary work is hastening and He needs all of us to push it forward. I know that it can be scary to share the gospel. Elder S. Gifford Nielsen talked about three things that members should do to fulfill their role as missionaries. 

S. Gifford Nielsen

The first is to pray about how you should share the gospel and who you should share it with. While you're at it, you can pray for strength to get over your fear of talking about the gospel with others. The second is to pray for the missionaries and their investigators by name. I invite you to have the missionaries in your area over for dinner. Get to know them. Ask them who they are working with.  Pray for them and their investigators by name. The third is to invite someone to an activity. The challenge was extended by Elder Ballard to reach out to one person before Christmas. 

M Russell Ballard

I invite you all to do that. I'll be praying for you, and I'm excited to hear how it goes. There was so much more that I loved about conference, but I don't have enough time to type it all out! I hope everyone is good. Thank you so much for all the support. It means the world to me to hear from everyone and to know that you are doing well. I love you all so much! Have a fantastic week! 

Love, 

Elder Allred

First 6-Week Cycle

Elder Allred said that in this photo he and Elder Kroff were at a sweet lake house doing service. How about that aura surrounding these guys? Pretty cool :) 

Wow time really flies! Today we had our transfer meeting in Ossining. I can't believe my first cycle is over. There are a few people that got transferred and are in different areas now. It's kinda sad to see some of them go. I have loved my zone so much! I've been surrounded by such great examples. Good news is we got some awesome missionaries to replace them. We also got two sisters in our district this transfer. So now we'll have a total of eight missionaries in our district. There are only going to be more and more sisters in the future. We got five new sisters today and only one new elder. By next year sometime, it is projected that forty percent of our mission will be sisters. Pretty crazy, but exciting. Having elders and sisters working together really keeps everything in balance and makes everything work out much better. The best news about this transfer is that Elder Kroff is staying!! I'm so relieved that he will be finishing out training me in the next six weeks. He's already been in Newtown for seven and a half months, so I was worried that he would get transferred. By the end of this cycle he will have been in his first area for nine months. His brother went home to Montana last night from a mission in Croatia, so that was pretty cool for him. I think if I stay here for nine months I'll go crazy! Haha. I love it here, but that just seems like it's way too long. Elder Kroff doesn't seem to mind it though. Plus any area is awesome if you have the right attitude. When you realize that you are where you are because that's where the Lord needs you, it makes it a lot easier to be excited about anything that you're called to do. I'm so excited that I get to continue working here. The people are so nice here. A lot of people are already Catholic or Jewish or something else, so not a lot of people are very open. Plus the people here are very wealthy, so they aren't as open to religion because life is generally pretty good for them already. But it's okay. All we can do is invite them and teach by the spirit if they are willing to accept. We're still teaching a few investigators, and they're doing great. We have an eleven year old kid that we're teaching right now named Declan that could be getting baptized soon! His mom is less active and hasn't been in a chapel for over twenty years. This last Sunday she and Declan were both there! It's so cool to see miracles like that. The Lord is truly blessing us for our efforts. Sacrament meeting was awesome this week. It was the primary program, which is always fun. The ward here does this thing every once in a while that they call a "Linger Longer". So, after primary, the whole ward cancelled sunday school, priesthood and relief society and everything and just got together in the gym and ate food and mingled. It was so nice! Our investigators that were there (Declan, his mom, and Kim) were able to meet and talk to a lot of the members in the ward. This ward is so great! It feels just like home, and the atmosphere is just like a Utah ward. I love the members so much. They really take good care of us. Well, that's about it this week. I look forward to the next one with general conference coming up! Make sure you all watch it!!!! At least one session. I love you all. Thank you so much for all that you do. Your support means more to me than you know! Have a great week. I love you, I love you, I love you!! 

Love, Elder Allred