Conference is the Super Bowl

First off today, general conference was amazing! The super bowl for missionaries! Haha. I absolutely loved it. Those ten hours went by way too quickly. I'd have to say that the talk that got to me to the most was Elder Holland's talk in the Sunday morning session. Such a powerful testimony of the Atonement of Christ! I loved it. Of course, Elder Bednar's talk about putting faith over fear was great too. I love how he explained godly fear, because I think a lot of people think that fear of God is a negative thing, when in reality it's really a positive thing. It gave me a good perspective. Elder Bednar is easily my favorite apostle. Just as almost else would say, I think the overall message was centered on marriage and families. Not really the message I was expecting to get the last conference of my mission. There was one more highlight that I wanted to mention. In the priesthood session, Elder Ballard talked about how we need to raise the bar. A few years ago he said this in a general conference talk, speaking specifically to missionaries. This time he restated it and spoke to prospective missionaries, current missionaries and returned missionaries. He said that we need to be the greatest generation of young adults in the history of the church. Pretty much a call to action, speaking directly to the people in my age group. He also had a quote that I liked. He said something along the lines of, "RM does not mean 'Retired Mormon". It was a good reminder for me. In the past couple of months I've been thinking a lot about preparing to return home. In the past, that has been kind of a scary thought for me. Back into the real world. I know that will not be the easiest thing to do. There will be a lot of challenges that come along with adjusting back into life as a normal person. But I've been thinking about what it means to be a disciple of Christ. I think I might have mentioned this in an email a few weeks ago. You don't have to have a name tag or be set apart in order to be a disciple of Christ. This realization has given me a lot of comfort in the recent weeks. In preparing to be released from my calling to be a missionary, I'm not nearly as scared as I used to be. I know that as long as I keep both feet planted firmly in the gospel then everything else will work out. I'm grateful for general conference this weekend and excited to study the talks again. Everything in the new area is great. I'm happy to be back in the city again. I love the city, and it's cool to be in an area of the city that I haven't seen before. Elder Coburn and I actually cover the entire East side of the island of Manhattan, which is a huge area. We've had lessons this week from right next to the Brooklyn Bridge, to Park Avenue by Grand Central Station, up to East Harlem, and a few places in between. It's definitely the most diverse area that I've served in. The work is going great. We got a couple of new investigators this week that we're pretty excited about. There's Robin who came to general conference and loved it. He was initially introduced to the church by a friend that he met when was going to school in Arizona. There's also Christian who was referred to us by a member in one of the family wards in Manhattan. Christian is from Mexico, and he is in New York working for JP Morgan, which is a huge bank for super rich people. He's loaded. He's the one that lives by Grand Central. He's really cool. Super busy, so it will be tough to consistently meet, but I see a lot of promise in him. Other that that everything is great. The weather is getting nice, and I'm just as happy as ever. The clock is ticking. I think this will be an awesome area to spend the last part of my mission in. Not sure if I'll finish here or if I'l have one more area. We'll see what happens. For now I'm just going to enjoy my time here. I love you all. Have a great week!

~Elder Allred