June 4

Hey everyone!

This week was awesome! We had our mission tour on Thursday with Elder Steven E Snow. He is a general authority in the quorum of the seventy who is currently serving as church historian. A lot of what he and his wife talked to the missionaries about was church history and personal history. They really stressed the importance of keeping journal entries, especially on a mission. Sister Snow said something that I really liked. She said that if you don't keep a journal on your mission, your children and grandchildren will only what you did. They'll know that you served a mission and where you served, but they won't know how you felt when you were there. They won't know you. Those weren't her exact words, but it was something to that effect. I really like that. I've been really dedicated to writing in my journal in the last ten months and have an entry for every single day of my mission. My entire mission story will be able to be read long after I leave this earth. My posterity will be able to know who I was and what I experienced and felt on my mission. Elder Snow also came to the Westchester, New York stake conference. This stake includes the Bronx wards and wards in New Rochelle, Scarsdale and Yonkers. It was awesome to see him speak three separate times. The stake that I am serving in just got reorganized, which is actually why Elder Snow was here. It was cool to see that process, because I've never seen it before. Since Elder Snow was on special assignment to call a new stake president here, he had a junior companion with him, Elder Kunz. Elder Kunz was just called to be an area seventy in the April General Conference. So, we got to hear him speak on Saturday and Sunday as well. Along with them, we heard from President and Sister Morgan each a couple of times. Talk about a spiritually uplifting weekend. Hearing talks from stake presidents, our mission president, general authorities and all of their wives. That's a lot of powerful talks packed into one weekend. It was awesome! I definitely filled my spiritual canteen this weekend. Now it's about taking everything that I learned and using it. You can listen to talks and receive instruction all day, but if you don't act on what you learn it doesn't mean too much. Besides that, the week was good. We didn't get the opportunity to teach too much this week, but that just happens sometimes. We're working our hardest! Some weeks are just slower than others. We did make contact with quite a few people and and got ourselves out there. We tried a new finding technique that was really cool. We went out on Saturday and played street ball at Bronx park. Nobody expected a few white guys to do much, but we killed it. We surprised everyone at how well we can play basketball and that got us talking to people. If nothing else, we got our faces out there and people know who we are now. Plus, it showed people that we're not just weird guys who walk around in white shirts and ties but that we're normal people. I'm excited to have more opportunities like this as the weather warms up. I have a funny story for  all of you. So, every Tuesday night we go to Baskin Robbins/Dunkin Donuts and get ice cream. Last night we were there and all of a sudden a fire truck pulls up outside with sirens blaring. Turns out they were just there because a guy was drunk outside and hit his head on the side of the building. That's not the funny part, though. The funny part is when the truck pulled up, five or six guys stepped out. Rather than checking out the scene and helping, one of the firemen walked right into DD and bought himself a donut. Haha! That's classic New York City fireman for ya. lol. It was super funny. Anyway, nothing else too big going on. Just getting ready for transfers next Wednesday. We'll find out Saturday night whether I will be staying here or leaving. So, you'll all know by next Wednesday! Thanks for everything guys. I love you and miss you!! 

~Elder Allred