My Man! Yo, My Main Man!

Sorry you guys didn't get an email yesterday. I know you look forward to Wednesdays! Haha. Our P-day got changed to Thursday this week, because we had a big zone conference yesterday. The meeting was great! Do you remember at the beginning of my mission when I talked about consecration? The principle of consecrating ourselves to the Lord's work is pretty much the core of everything that President Morgan does with this mission. He came out with this concept in July, right before I arrived into the mission field. When I first got here in August, I  could just feel that the bar had been raised in New York New York North. As missionaries strived for consecration we saw huge blessings and so much success. The fall was an exciting time when everyone was focused on this. President Morgan expressed yesterday that he feels we have kind of strayed off of the path of consecration in the last few months. In the excitement of Facebook and trying to figure out how to best use our iPads, we have given a lot less time  and energy to consecration. I can definitely feel that I have lost focus since those first couple months in the mission field. The winter found me spending most of my efforts on figuring out how to use Facebook as a missionary tool as well as working through the struggles of being a trainer. I didn't spend much time even thinking about consecration, much less putting into practice the ways of a consecrated lifestyle. So, zone conference was awesome. We got to hear President and Sister Morgan speak! Along with the AP's and a few other missionaries. It was a great motivation for me to refocus and begin again with doing all that I can to submit my will to God's will and and give Him my whole self. I learned a lot yesterday and got a lot of ideas about what I can do to get back into it. I'm excited to see what will happen now that the whole mission will be back on track and back on the road to consecration! We've had some pretty good success in the work this week. A, the less active guy from Jamaica, came to church! We left the apartment early Sunday morning so that we could go over and pick him up. He has glaucoma, so it's hard for him to see. With the ice on the sidewalks, he is worried about walking to the bus stop alone, so we offered to walk with him. It was great! He's a good guy. It's still really hard for me to understand what he's saying sometimes, but I'm getting there. I love working with the people here. It kind of gives me a different perspective as to how the gospel can bless the lives of people. Everyone here comes from a much different background than I do, and it's strengthening my testimony that the gospel is for everyone. The gospel principles and all the doctrine is the exact same. But the way that the gospel effects you is different for every single person. I have to tell you guys about a funny guy that we keep seeing on the streets. Of course, there are plenty of homeless people around here begging for money. This one guy, though, seems to like to just hang out really close to the McDonald's by our apartment. He never asks us for money, but every time we walk past him, he just says "My man! Yo, my main man!" Haha he'll say that a few times until we're gone. I used to just think it was weird, but now I look forward to seeing My Main Man! The other day, Elder Hansen gave him a dollar, and he got so excited. He just started going crazy, "My man, my man, my man, my man! My main man!!" It was awesome! We also got to go to a Spanish dinner appointment this week. It was a great experience for me, for a couple of reasons. First is that we were with Elder Romo and Hausenfluck. Those guys were in my first zone in Yorktown, and now I'm in the same zone as them again. It is so cool to be able to hang out with some of my already established missionary friends. The next reason this experience was great for me is that not a single word of English was spoken. I didn't understand anything that was said. The cool part was that I just knew that the scriptures that were read ou of the Santa Biblia and the words that were spoken were true. The Spirit testifies truth to us sometimes and works in ways that are just unexplainable. It's amazing. Elder Hansen and I are getting along so well! He and I are just so similar in pretty much everything that we do. He's even my first companion that is a country music fan. Things are just going really well. I can't believe that this cycle is halfway over already. I'm afraid that Elder Hansen might leave in three weeks, because getting along this well with a companion is just too good to be true. We'll see! For now, I'll just have to enjoy it while it lasts. Have a great week everyone! Thanks for everything that you do for me. Love you guys!!!
~Elder Allred

NomoredinnerappointmentsbuttheBronxisprettycool, mon.

The Bronx is awesome! I live in a decent apartment that's really close to the Bronx Zoo. I have a pretty good view of the skyline from my living room, so that's pretty cool. We cover the Morris Park area. I don't think it's really the stereotypical atmosphere that everyone thinks about when they hear about the Bronx. I imagine there probably are some pretty sketchy parts close to here, but where I'm at just isn't one of them. There are a few project buildings in the area, but not a whole bunch. There is actually a pretty good amount of actual houses here too. They're fairly small and really close together, but they're houses nonetheless. And I didn't expect to see any of those. The people have been generally pretty friendly so far. I don't know if we've just been lucky and run into more friendly people than normal in the last few days or if that's how it always is. Either way, the friendliness is another thing I didn't expect. Our schedule is fantastic. We don't have dinner appointments, so we just work until like eight o' clock and go home to have dinner. I'm usually in bed somewhere between like 9:30 and 10. I love my sleep! We live like a block and a half from Planet Fitness, so we wake up early to go there. I have to work off the twenty pounds that I gained in Newtown! Haha. I think I should be able to do that pretty easily. I don't eat nearly as much food anymore. Plus I do a lot of walking. We do ride buses quite a bit too though. The ward here is definitely not too well established. There was probably like sixty people at church on Sunday. The sacrament was blessed by Elder Hansen and an older guy. Then me, a deacon and the Elders' Quorum President passed. There are found companionships of elders in this ward and one set of sisters. They definitely need the missionaries to keep things in order. It's good though. It will give me a perspective that I haven't ever gotten to see before, and it will show me what the gospel can mean to all different kinds of people. My companion is Elder Hansen from Logan, Utah. He's such a good dude. He's super smart and he has a good way of thinking about the best way to do things. He's been in this area for a little over four months now. He actually just finished training someone too. He and I are very similar, and so far we've agreed on basically everything. I think we are going to work really well together! I expected to be teaching a lot more people when I got to the city, but it's about the same as Newtown in that aspect. The first night I was here, we went over to a member's house named Sister Murray. She has a little baby that's about eight months old, and he is super cute. Her husband is not a member, so he's one of our investigators. He's a super cool guy named Michael. I'm not sure where he's from but his accent sounds Jamaican. I'm probably off on that guess. People here are from pretty much everywhere. There's no way for a white guy from Utah to be able to tell where everyone is from. We also taught this guy named Alvin, who is a less active. He for sure is from Jamaica. It was so hard to understand him. He has a super thick accent. He just really mixes his words and mumbles a lot. He makes entire sentences sound like one long word, mon. He really did say mon...a lot. It's the real deal. Haha it was tough, but I'm sure I'll be able to understand him better the more I visit with him. About three or four weeks ago, Elder Hansen baptized this lady named Barbara, so we should hopefully be working with her soon. She has some kind of personal issue going on and won't tell us what it is. So, it's tough, but hopefully she will let us meet with her soon. I think I told you guys last week, but one of my new zone leaders down here is Elder Taylor from Salt Lake. He's my mission "grandpa". He was Elder Kroff's trainer, so we already had that cool connection going on. He was way excited to have me in the zone. He even set up a companion split with me yesterday. That's where missionaries switch companions for the day to work with other people and in other areas. It was awesome to spend some time with him. We were both pretty excited to talk about Newtown with each other and have a lot in common with each other on missionary experiences. So that was a super cool day. There are actually quite a few people in the Olmstead zone that used to be up in the Yorktown zone with me. So, it's a lot of fun to work with some of my old friends. Wow, time flies. I can't believe I hit my six month mark this week! It is seriously so crazy!! The work is great here. I'm excited to see what else the Bronx has in store for me. I feel relieved, because I was super sad about leaving Newtown, but I have found that I am just loving it here. I definitely miss the old ward, but this new adventure is exciting! I just truly am blessed you guys. I can see God's hand in my life so much more clearly that I ever have before. He truly is refining me and changing me into the man he wants me to be a year and a half from now. He's giving me this experience to prepare me for the rest of my life and eternity. It is amazing. Anyway, thank you guys again for all of your love and support. I hope you have a fantastic week. I love you so much!!! 

~Elder Allred

The BRONX!

I was gonna save this part for the end of the email.... but I just can't wait to say it. I'm getting transferred to......drumroll please.....the Bronx!!! I'll be heading down today. Usually for transfers we meet at the chapel in Ossining, NY, which is about a forty five minute drive from here. Then when we get there, those who are going from upstate to the city get driven to their new areas. But today we woke up with about a foot of snow, and now we're getting some nice freezing rain to top it off. So, to avoid car accidents, we won't be driving to transfers. We're waiting to hear from our AP's what is going to happen. We might end up just taking the trains to our areas, or we might just wait for the weather to pass and do transfers tomorrow. I bet President Morgan and the AP's are pretty stressed right now trying to figure out how to move 250 missionaries to where they need to be. Anyway, the point is, I'll be going down to the Bronx sometime in the near future.  I am so excited!!! I finally get to experience living in the city. I'll be working in the Olmstead zone, which is one of two zones in the Bronx. I'll be living right next to the Bronx Zoo. My companion is named Elder Hansen, and I have heard lots of good things about him. One of my zone leaders is Elder Taylor. He is the guy who trained my trainer, Elder Kroff, so that will be lots of fun! I'm so sad to be leaving Newtown. I have experienced so much here, and I have gone through a lot. I have grown so much in the last five and a half months that I have lived in this area. It will be a crazy transition, because Newtown is all I've known of my mission. This has really become my home. Plus I just love the people here so much. It was so tough to say goodbye to people. I have shed quite a few tears in the past few days as I have prepared to leave. It's all good though. As sad as it is to be moving on, it's super exciting at the same time! I'll finally be where I pictured myself going when I opened that call to New York City. I had a pretty cool opportunity this week. Elder Savage's flight was scheduled to leave for India on Monday. We were supposed to drive him down to Scarsdale and drop him off at the mission home. The original plan was that our roommates, Elder Plouzek and Nielson, would come with us and I would just ride back to Newtown with them, but it was a really snowy day that day. President Morgan didn't us driving the car. So, what he had us do is just take the train down so that Elder Savage made his flight in time. We got to the mission home in the afternoon and visited with Sister Morgan and the AP's for a little bit until President Morgan got home. Then they took us out to dinner at a pizza place in Scarsdale. It was a really cool place. Authentic brick oven, New York style pizza. It was super neat to watch them make the pizzas. They have a huge brick oven that they heat with coals. When they cook a pizza, they have to put it all the way in the back, so they use this huge wooden spatula thing that's like six feet long to put them in. You guys have probably seen something like this before, but it was just super cool! Plus we got to have dinner with the AP's, President, Sister Morgan, and their son Ryan. That's an opportunity not too many missionaries get. It was great to have some more personal time with President Morgan and his family and get to know them a little better. They are such wonderful people. I already love them so much. After dinner, Elder Savage rode with President to JFK to fly out. I spent the night with the AP's, Elder Passmore and Kerr. That was a real cool opportunity too. They treated me really well, and I had a ton of fun with them. Yesterday morning I went with them to pick up some new cars for the mission. We went out of the mission into Queens so that was super cool! So yeah, that was my big adventure for the week. Now I'm just looking forward to going to the Bronx! Love you all so much. Have a great week and remember that God loves you!!! 

~Elder Allred 

White Wash next Week?

 Hey everyone! This week has seriously gone by so fast. It feels like it was just yesterday that I was emailing and now it's already p-day again! We've had a lot of good stuff going on this week. We looked a lady up that was on our list of potential investigators. Her name is Tiffany, and she is super nice. When Elder Kroff was still here we actually had an appointment set up to go over to her house, but it fell through, and we haven't been able to contact her in a few months. Elder Savage and I finally caught her at home the other day! She said that she used to be friends with some Mormons when they lived in California. She was super impressed at how good the family dynamics among Mormons are. She asked us if we had any material that the Church had produced on families. I got so excited because I know how much the gospel can bless families. The restored gospel is exactly what she needs and will help her so much with her family. I'm looking forward to seeing what she thinks about the proclamation on the family and especially the plan of salvation. She has been so prepared by the Lord to receive our message. What a blessing! Another cool story is that this week we got a call from a guy in Florida. Turns out he has a brother in law that was moving into Brookfield, CT on Saturday. He said that his name is James and that he wanted the missionaries to come visit. James got baptized about a year ago and has a wife and son that aren't members. We ended up helping them move into their apartment when they got here. James is a super cool guy! He came to church on Sunday and was way eager to meet everyone. He asked us right  away to introduce him to the bishop, the elders quorum president and the relief society president. He even said that his wife was very impressed at the way the gospel has changed him and had expressed that she wanted to become a member herself. So, we will be trying to go over there again sometime this week to get to know her a little better and hopefully start teaching her soon! I think I told you guys about Erik already, but he's one of Kim's friends, and we've been teaching him for a few weeks. After Kim and Declan got baptized, things were pretty tough. We had absolutely zero investigators and weren't teaching very much at all. The last little bit and especially this last week have been so great. Things have really picked up and we have some exciting new prospects! I feel super blessed for that. Hopefully I'll get to stay here for awhile and see some of these people progress. Transfers are coming up next week, so I'll find out on Saturday whether or not I am leaving. I would be excited to go to a new place. I've been here for a while, and I kind of want to start experiencing more of my mission. I would also love to stay here though. Newtown is awesome, and I've made so many good memories here. I've called it home for over five months now, so I'm definitely comfortable here. There's a good chance that I'll stay since Elder Savage is leaving and I know the area well. Sometimes they will do what they call a "white wash", which is when they pull both missionaries out and start with a totally new companionship. We'll just have to see what happens. Wherever I end up going, I know it will be where the Lord needs me. Other than that, there's not too much going on. I'm doing really well! I just really can't believe how fast the time goes. Every cycle goes faster than the one before it did. I want you all to know how much I appreciate all that you do for me. I miss you all so much. I think about you all the time and pray for you often. I love you so much! Have a fantastic week!! 

~Elder Allred