Dan and Little Dan in Danbury

Awesome week! I love this work so much. I love this area. I was pretty bummed out when I left Manhattan. Only being there for six weeks was pretty sad for me. It's cool being here now though and seeing that the Lord definitely has purposes for me up here in Danbury. I've emailed a few times about our investigator, Brother Dan. He's so awesome. We went over to teach him on Sunday night. Each time we go over, his thirteen year old son (also named Dan) goes into the bedroom and doesn't join the lesson. This time we made an effort to invite him to stay and join us. So glad that we did! About ten minutes into the lesson the house phone rang. Little Dan answered the phone and stepped into the other room. When he came back I was overcome with a feeling that we were supposed to change the direction we were going with the lesson. I stopped talking about what we were talking \about before and just started to testify about the Savior's love. I told them that I didn't know everything that they are going through but that Christ does. I also promised that if they would accept and apply the gospel of Jesus Christ that they would be happy and they would be able to overcome all of the adversity that they are faced with. Then Elder Richan started talking about baptism. It was perfect. Just the right time and situation. We told Little Dan that his dad was preparing to be baptized on the 11th of July and invited him to prepare himself for that date as well. He was very hesitant at first. He told us that he had been baptized in another Christian church before and that he didn't know why he would need to be baptized again. We explained briefly about Joseph Smith's experience and the restoration of the priesthood power. That made sense to him, and he must have felt good about it, because after that he accepted the baptismal date! It was amazing. The Spirit that was felt in that house was undeniable. It was really cool as Elder Richan and I were talking in the car afterward. We just realized how much we were led by the Spirit in that lesson. We are not the teachers. The Spirit is, and I could definitely feel the Spirit teaching Brother Dan and Little Dan and myself. I love these guys so much. This is why I came on a mission. To bring the gospel to Dan and his son and a number of other people. On that note, I saw Elder Coburn and Elder Steiner at the temple on Saturday. They told me that Murphy was getting baptized that night! Murphy is an investigator that Elder Coburn and I were teaching while I was down in Manhattan. I was so happy to hear that she was finally getting baptized. Wish I could have been there. We had a super busy weekend, and I'm exhausted. The reason we were at the temple was because we were asked to help with an activity for the youth in our stake. We had to wake up at 4 in the morning to make it to the 8 am start. It was a lot of fun. It was called "Alma Academy" and it was to help the youth prepare to go on missions. Elder Richan and I were in a trio companionship with one of the priests in our ward. We got some talks from President Morgan, the AP's and one of the counselors in the stake presidency. Then we had a companionship study and went outside on the streets of Manhattan to contact people. It was so cool to see these youth and their enthusiasm! I wish I would have been that excited about missionary work when I was their age. After the activity we went up to Ossining for the adult session of stake conference, which was awesome. President and Sister Morgan were there and both spoke. The stake president, President Checketts (awesome guy! I've served in his stake for seven months of my mission now) talked about how much he will miss the Morgans when they leave in two weeks. We were also lucky to have Elder Gordon Smith of the seventy at the meeting. During his talk he talked about the Morgans as well. He said there are a lot of great mission presidents, but there are none as great as the Morgans. I was really impressed by that. Elder Smith has got to know so many mission presidents, and he genuinely thinks ours is the best one! I love President Morgan and Sister Morgan so much. I don't think they will ever fully realize how much of an impact they have had on my life. I sat in the congregation as he was talking and I got pretty emotional looking up at the Morgans on the stand. It's sad to see their time in the mission coming to an end. We got home at about 10:30 on Saturday and had to wake up and drive to Ossining again for the Sunday session. Then we had to drive to Ossining again on Monday for car inspections from the vehicle coordinator in the mission office. It was just a lot of traveling and lack of sleep! Good weekend though. I can't believe we're already down to two weeks in this cycle. It's pretty sad actually. Knowing that my time in Danbury is coming to a close seemingly faster than it started. I was thinking about it a lot yesterday. My whole mission it has taken about two cycles before I"m really comfortable with a new area and a ward, and at that point I feel like I can really start being effective. By the time I'm at the two cycle point in Danbury I'll be on a plane to Utah.It's all good though. I"m just doing everything I can to do the Lord's will with the short time that I do have to serve here. Anyway, everything is awesome. I'm happy and healthy as ever. Have a great week everyone. Love you!!!

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

Saturday Is A Special Day:)

Hey family! 

I hope you all had a wonderful week! Everything is good here. I don't think I fully realized it until this week, but I have seen some incredible miracles since I've been in Harlem. On Saturday, Rafael and Noel are getting baptized. They both had their interviews in the past few days and both passed! Both of their conversion stories are incredible in unique ways. Noel has been awesome. Elder Raine and I were just out knocking on doors his first day here. The very first door that Elder Raine ever knocked on on his mission was Noel's. Whenever I used to hear people tell stories like that I thought it would never happen in my mission.  But here we are. We've been meeting with him two or three times a week for the past three months, and he's getting baptized! He's just such an honest and humble man. He will be an awesome addition to the Harlem 1st Ward. Rafael is one of the best friends I've ever had in my life. He and I have a really good relationship, and we've both grown together in the Gospel over the last four and a half months that I've been here. I remember the very first time that I went over to teach him and Kristina. I could just tell that there was something special about them. I remember feeling the Spirit so strongly and I could just feel the strength of their faith. I knew they would both eventually be baptized. I'm excited to continue to watch them grow in the rest of my time here, and I'm excited to keep that relationship with them for the rest of my life. I hope you all get to meet these people one day. They are incredible. I've learned so much about charity in the time that I've served here in  Harlem. I love these people so much. I've expressed that love to them time and time again, and I've shed a few tears over the intense emotion of love that I have for them. There aren't words to express how grateful I am to have them in my life. Saturday will be such a special day! Everything else is going really well too. I had the opportunity to have another interview with President Morgan on Monday. He is such a good man and has done more for me that I could ever repay him for. He leads the mission with love and care. He has developed a relationship with me on a personal level that means a lot, and I'm so grateful for him. They say behind every good man is a good woman. Such is the case with President Morgan's wife. Sister Morgan has honestly been like a mother to me here. She provides the kind of care that only a mom can give. I'm so grateful for both of their dedicated service to this mission. In my interview with President Morgan I told him that I can feel my time slipping through my fingers and that it kind of scares me. So, I asked him what I needed to focus on to make the most out of the rest of my mission. It couldn't have been a better time to ask. This weekend he was in Palmyra at a special conference with Elder Holland! (Crazy right?) I can't imagine how awesome that would have been. He said that he got to spend a little one on one time with Elder Holland, and when I asked President Morgan that question, he relayed a message that Elder Holland had given him this weekend. That was pretty powerful and the advice he gave me will give me a lot of direction for the next ten months. One last thing from this week was that we had stake conference, and it was really good! Saturday afternoon we found out that all of the missionaries in the stake were going to be singing a musical number for the Sunday session. So we showed up at the temple early so we could rehearse. Luckily the song was Called to Serve, so it wasn't hard for anyone to sing. It was really cool! Oh yeah, and my highlight from the 120 day challenge this week was Alma 14:26. Alma understood that strength from the Lord was totally dependent upon his and Amulek's faith. Such is the case for us. The divine help that we receive is only as strong as our faith in the Savior is, and the way we gain more faith is by fully living the doctrine of Christ! Anyway, life is just so good. I love it here more and more every day! Thank you all for everything you do, and don't forget that Jesus loves you! !

~Elder Allred 

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