Riken and the Plan of Salvation (November 12 email)

Hello family!

We had zone conference yesterday, which was awesome! President and Sister Morgan focused all of their messages toward the Savior. Sister Morgan's talk invited us to ponder how well we "Know the Shepherd". So throughout the holiday season we will be thinking about Christ and studying a lot about His life! We naturally kind of do that more around Christmastime anyway, but I think this year there will be even more of an emphasis on it. I have a feeling this holiday season is going to be really special. It's my final one as a missionary, and it's also President and Sister Morgan's final one. They will return home to Sandy, UT about a month and a half before my mission comes to an end. Anyway, I'm excited for the season. By next Saturday, I will find out where I will be spending my birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. There's a pretty good chance it won't be in Harlem, because I've already been here for four cycles, and and I've been with Elder Raine for three of those four. We'll see what happens! I did have one really cool experience teaching this week. Elder Raine and I were over at Rafael and Kristina's on Monday night. After someone gets baptized, they need to be taught all of the lessons over again to review and make sure they have a basic understanding of it all. So, we're teaching them about the Plan of Salvation, which is usually one of the more difficult lessons to teach, but this time it was really easy and going really well. Right when we were just about to start talking about what happens during our life here on Earth, Rafael noticed that the background on my iPad was a picture of Riken. He pointed it out right in the middle of the lesson and said that he was a cute kid. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity to talk about Riken for a minute and to show him off a little bit, like I always do haha. So I showed them a couple of pictures and talked about how much I love the little guy. You might initially think that took us off track a little but and distracted us from the lesson. In reality, it did the opposite! I was able to talk about how Riken is just beginning to grow and learn. To learn how to use his body. To learn how to talk and walk and run. To learn how to be funny and express his emotions. To learn how things work in the world. I related that to all of our experiences here on earth. Just like Riken is growing, learning, and progressing, so are all of we as we live in this part of our Heavenly Father's plan. It was perfect! Never thought I would be able to talk about Riken (Which is something I do a lot) and teach a missionary lesson at the same time. It was really cool. One of the best Plan of Salvation lessons I've ever taught on my mission. Anyway, life is good! The mission is great! Love you guys!!

~Elder Allred