4th Yankees Game

A few months ago, Elder Wagner's family offered to get him four Yankees tickets for a game in May. At the time I was his companion, so he offered to give me two of the tickets. Of course I jumped on the opportunity! We got permission from President Morgan  and got it set up, so today I'm headed down to the Bronx to go to my fourth Yankees game on the mission! I think I might just stay here forever. It seems like all I have to do is be a diligent missionary, and I'll continue to go to Yankees games! Before I came out on the mission, I had high hopes that I would have the opportunity to go to one game while I was here. By the time I come home I will have been to five! Pretty awesome. Anyway, this week was great! We have a new investigator named Brother Dan. He's super cool. The Portugese speaking elders tracted into his door a few weeks ago and handed him off to us. We had our second lesson with him on Friday, and we brought our ward mission leader along. Brother Dan also has a thirteen year old son (also named Dan), so our ward mission leader brought his eleven year old to fellowship a little bit! It was awesome. We visited with him again last night and talked a little bit about the Plan of Salvation. Little Dan's mom passed away a couple weeks ago. It's a tough time for them. I think that the message of the Plan of Salvation is very comforting right now. It's especially important for Little Dan to know that he will see his mom again. I love being a missionary. It's so amazing to see the happiness and relief that comes to people amongst life's challenges. Another highlight for me this week was that we had interviews with President Morgan on Sunday night. President and Sister Morgan go home in four weeks. So sadly, this was my last interview with him. I got pretty emotional. President Morgan has been an amazing support to me while I've been on my mission. He's been right by my side through several different challenges that I've been faced with. He and Sister Morgan both have done a lot to fill the hole that was left in my heart when I had to leave all of you behind. They are true friends, and I will always love them. In our interview I asked President Morgan a question. The same question I've been asking a lot of people recently. Over the last twenty one months I feel like I have come so much closer to God than I ever have before. I feel very close to the Spirit, and I feel like I can recognize its presence very easily in my every day life. So I asked President Morgan what I need to do when I get home to stay close. The things he told me helped me a lot and gave me confidence that I will be okay. Among several things that he said, I'll just highlight a one-liner that has been on my mind. "You can go home, but you can't go back". Powerful statement. I'm coming home to Utah in about two months. But I can't go back. I can't go back to the same bad habits that I had before. Not that I'll be a totally different person, I'll just be living on a higher plane than I was before. I'm confident and excited. Can't wait to see you all soon! Love you!!!! 

Another Great Week

Another great week! This one went by super fast again. This whole cycle has gone by really fast. Glorias's baptism was on the first Saturday of the cycle, and it feels like that was just the other day. Now we're here at the end of the cycle. Next Wednesday is transfer meeting, so I'll find out on Saturday if I will be staying in Poughkeepsie for another six weeks or moving to a new area. I really want to stay, but I have a feeling I'll be getting transferred. Elder Wagner and I have already been together for twelve weeks. It's pretty uncommon for a companionship to stay together for more than two cycles. We'll see what happens. No matter what happens I know I will feel that familiar calm assurance that the Lord has a divine purpose. I've felt that way for fourteen different transfer calls now. His will is ALWAYS much greater than my will. That principle is true for everything in life. He knows much better than we might think we do. Anyway, I have loved my time in Poughkeepsie. Four and a half months has felt much too short. We've continued to see amazing miracles among the Spanish people. I think I may have written about a little Mexican family a couple weeks ago, Oscar and Cristina and their daughter. I can't remember if I wrote about them or not. Anyway we found them tracting a couple months ago. We found them at the perfect time, right when they were ready to receive messengers of the Lord. Just a few days before we knocked on their door they had lost almost everything they owned in a fire in their apartment building. Sorry if you've already heard that story, but it has all just been amazing. They're so incredibly humble and open. They came to church for the first time on Sunday! Cristina also brought her sister who was there with her son. So we had a whole family of five at church! The ward was so excited to see them. Especially the Spanish people. There aren't too many active Spanish members. The regular sacrament meeting attendance is about 80 people with maybe 5-10 of those being Spanish. So they were so happy to see more Spanish people there. It may sound like a broken record, but I love the Spanish people. I love them so much! Well that's about it for now. Kind of a short email this week. I love you all! Have a great week! 

~Elder Allred 

Still working on Spanish

Hey family!

This week has been great! We've seen a lot of success with the Spanish people lately. The English work has been a little bit down. Since Joe and Gloria got baptized we haven't really had any progressing investigators in our English teaching pool. So we've been knocking a lot of doors with whatever extra time we have. We have some good potentials that have come from that effort, but nobody too solid yet. I do love the Spanish people. We met with a little Mexican family for the second item the other night, and they are just so awesome. It's a young couple named Oscar and Kristina, and they have a cute little five year old daughter named Katie. Elder Wagner and I found them tracting a few weeks ago. At the time they had just lost almost everything they owned due to a fire in their apartment building. They are are so humble and just have a wonderful spirit about them. I wish I could communicate with them. It's kind of frustrating sometimes to just have to sit in lessons and say nothing. I'm trying to learn a little bit, but I still can't really say much. I've gotten pretty good at saying prayers in Spanish, so I've been able to do that a little bit. I only really started practicing my Spanish about three weeks ago. I wish I would have started when I first came to this area. I bet I would be able to talk a little bit by now. Now I'll probably get transferred soon and I won't have too much ability by the time I leave. Oh well. I'm still so grateful that the Lord had allowed me to serve here with the wonderful Spanish people. We had a zone conference yesterday, which was awesome! Zone conference happens once every three or four months. It's a meeting where several zones get together and receive training from President Morgan, his assistants, and some other speakers. This time we got to hear from President Checketts. He is the Stake President of the Yorktown Stake. That was the first stake that I served in when I was in Newtown, so it was cool to see him again. He's a great leader and an exemplary priesthood man. He talked to us about being all the way focused on the mission and fully dedicating your time and effort to serving the Lord. He shared with us some stories from the mission he served in Los Angeles as a young man. I'm always amazed at how much people treasure times from their missions. Great men and women who have done so much good in their lives consider their missions their greatest accomplishments. I remember when I was at the MTC and Richard G Scott spoke to us in a devotional about how every good thing in his life is a direct result of the mission he served as a young man. This is an apostle, and he considers his mission the greatest service he has ever given. It's so awesome. A full time mission is a very special thing, and I'm so grateful that I have the opportunity to serve one. Well there's not too much else from this week. Everything is great. Just trying to enjoy every moment of the time I have left! I love you all, and have a wonderful week!

-Elder Allred

Espanol es facil Elder

Don't worry, I'm alive!! I'm sure that most of you heard about the storm and were pretty worried. There was a ton of hype and people made a really big deal out of the whole thing. As it turned out, the storm missed my area by quite a distance. It ended up coming through to the east of where I am, and we only got probably two or three inches. I'm glad that we were prepared, though, and I'm grateful that we have President Morgan and Sister Morgan to watch after us. If conditions would have gotten too bad we would have been well prepared. The funny thing about it was that they were expecting a foot and a half to two feet in my area. That's a lot of snow, but I feel like we've had snow like that in Utah, and people don't freak out like they did here. New York City kind of shut down from what I've heard. A lot of the subway lines weren't even running. New York schools are kind of ridiculous too. They use any excuse they can to call it a snow day. Days that we wouldn't even question going in Utah they just shut down here. Other than the storm there hasn't been too much exciting news from this past week. We're looking forward to Joe's baptism on Saturday! He is so awesome. It's really cool to be teaching someone that's my age. I think he and I will be good friends for a long time. I secretly hope he ends up moving to Utah somehow. I do have one funny story from the week. I told you before that my area is kind of an interesting one, because we cover all of the Spanish and English work in the ward. The other night we went out to teach a lesson, and we had our ward mission leader with us. He doesn't really speak much English, and the lesson we were teaching was in Spanish. On the drive down I was practicing some of the Spanish phrases that I was memorizing to use in the lesson. Hermano Zhunio noticed that I was trying to learn, and he and Elder Wagner were talking about it a little bit. He started talking to me and told me "Espanol es facil Elder". To which I replied, "Gracias, Hermano." I thought that he was complimenting my Spanish and telling me that I was learning well. Turns out what he said was "Spanish is easy Elder". And I said, "Thanks, Brother". Haha! I'm trying to learn a little bit, but I'm really not very good at Spanish. It was really funny! Anyway, that's pretty much it this week. I hope you're all doing well. I love you!!

Upcoming Baptism:)

 Mom is SO jealous that Ty got to see the Yankees bike and Jorge's jersey 

At the gorgeous OCC showroom. One of his top 3 best Pdays ever! 

Life is great! The work is going really well here in Poughkeepsie. Our investigators have been progressing pretty well, but we're running into some concerns with some of them that are difficult to meet. One of our investigators told us a few weeks ago that he wants to be baptized, so we've been working with him to get him there. He has some pretty big concerns to work through before he can be baptized, though. We actually had a pretty frustrating lesson with Brother Smith yesterday. I love him with all my heart, but he is a very stubborn man. He has this whole theory about Joseph Smith and the Word of Wisdom. I won't go into the details, but it's super untrue and pretty disturbing. It's been a roller coaster with him, because he's so sincere about knowing that the Book of Mormon is true and that ours is the only church with the fullness of the truth. He even admits that he knows Joseph Smith was a prophet of God but tells us about how he thinks he was a really bad person. It hurts to hear that kind of thing about our beloved prophet, who I respect so much for his leadership and his character. Anyway yesterday was just more of the same disagreement on the Word of Wisdom and whether or not outlawing coffee was revelation from God. I walked away feeling very discouraged and a little angry. I didn't show it while we were with Brother Smith, but I sure did vent my frustrations to Elder Wagner in the car. I couldn't really think straight, and Elder Wagner couldn't either. So we decided that we should just pray. I prayed that we would be able to think clearly. That we would be able to put aside our frustrations with Brother Smith for the time being and just focus on the people we would be contacting and teaching for the rest of the night. I'm so grateful that I did! About an hour later we had a lesson with Joe. I haven't seen Joe for about a month. He's been visiting his family in Washington and his girlfriend, Jordynn's family, in Utah for Christmas break. We tried to set up Skype lessons with him, but it never really worked out. It was great to see him again. He looked really happy. When he and Jordynn walked into the room and sat down, I noticed that he had a brand new quad with his name engraved on it and a new CTR ring. It turns out his visit to Utah was awesome, and he spent the eighty bucks or whatever it costs these days to get himself a nice set of scriptures. He told us that his family still isn't completely on board with his decision to join the Church but he knows that he needs to do it. He told us that he's ready to be baptized! We were able to set a date for his baptism on the 31st of January, next Saturday. I just felt so incredible after the lesson with Joe. He's such a good guy. I know that the way the lesson turned out was an answer to the prayer I described from earlier in the day. If I had still been thinking about Brother Smith and still frustrated, I don't know if the lesson with Joe would have turned out so well. There is no doubt in my mind that the Lord is fully aware of each one of us. Doing the Lord's work is more and more amazing all the time. I'm grateful that I still have a good amount of time to have these kinds of missionary experiences. There is still so much ahead of me in the next seven months! Well that's the big thing from this week. Other than that everything is great! It's pretty cold here, but I think January will be the worst month. It will start warming up before we even know it. Thank you all for everything you do. Remember that God loves you and that He answers your prayers. I love you all so much. Have a wonderful week.!! 

$13 Suit

The New $13 Suit:) 

I LOVE Poughkeepsie! Everything about this place is just awesome. The work is going super well. The Ward is incredible. Super supportive. I was really impressed and grateful on Sunday morning in Ward Council. The Ward leadership is just so willing and capable of helping us in our missionary efforts. We definitely have the trust of the members here, which is always a hug blessing. Our investigators are amazing, and a few of them are really close to baptism. Also, Elder Wagner and I are getting along super well. We flew out in the same group, so we've both had quite a bit of mission experience. He's in the Spanish speaking program, which means he spent six weeks in the MTC compared to my two weeks. So he'll go home a cycle before I do. We're on the same page on everything that we are doing here, and I am just loving it. We have been really focusing on just being diligent and obedient. It's incredible the way the Lord blesses you if you will just do things His way. He knows a lot better than we do. I can't believe that I've already been here for almost two months. Time is already flying, and it kind of scares me. I can tell that my time in Poughkeepsie will just feel like a dream. I'll just enjoy every minute of it while it lasts. Random news. I found out what the new mission president's name will be. President Smith! He's currently a Bishop in Texas, and I'm sure he and his wife are nervously preparing for their calling to serve here. President Morgan goes home in June, so I'll serve under President Smith for my last six weeks. That time is fast approaching. Crazy! Another random thing. I have two suits, and both of them wore out on me this week. Just old and both got holes in the pants this week. I tried to save them, but my efforts were fruitless. So this morning I went to Goodwill to see if they might have one for me. I walked out with a perfectly fitted suit for 13 dollars. Pants and jacket. Perfect condition. I call that a tender mercy of the Lord! I also feel like I may need to repent, because I almost feel like I stole it haha. Anyway, we're on our way down to the temple right now. The Ward mission leader from the other Poughkeepsie Ward offered to drive us down to the city. I haven't been for a few months, so it will be nice to be back to the temple. We're so blessed to have a temple so close in our mission. There are missionaries who go to the temple before they leave home and don't see a temple until they come back. Overall, I just feel very blessed and very lucky to be serving in the place that I am serving. Wouldn't trade this for the world! Have a great week everyone. I love you!!

~Elder Allred 

Elder Wagner

Hello family! A lot of change this week! Elder Romo went home on Friday, which was pretty sad. He was a really good companion. I felt like our five weeks together was way too short. I learned a lot from him though, and I'm grateful for the time that we had to serve together. For the past few days  I have been working in a trio with Elder Burton and Elder L'Esperance, the other elders that are assigned to the Poughkeepsie 2nd Ward. I think I might have told you all of that last week, but I couldn't remember. Anyway, here's something new. My new companion will be Elder Wagner! He actually came out in the same cycle that I did. I saw him in the mission home the first night, and I don't remember seeing him much ever since then. We haven't served around each other at all. I may have seen him at the Christmas Devotionals or something, but that's pretty much the only time we would have been in the same place at the same time.  Anyway, the point is I don't really know him. I'm excited to get to know him and work with him! I've heard really good things about him. He got called to the Spanish speaking program, which is good. We really need it here. Since Elder Romo left we haven't been able to visit any of our Spanish people. So it will be good to be able to go visit them again. Elder Romo also had a big responsibility in the ward. None of the members know Spanish and English well enough to translate for the Spanish members. All of the meetings are in English, and there is a small handful of members who don't speak English at all. So Elder Romo has been the translator for the ward. Not having him there on Sunday made it kind of tough. So it will be really good to have Elder Wagner here! Anyway, transfer day is always crazy! So I will send you a longer email next week to update you on how our investigators are doing and everything. I"m doing well! Loving Poughkeepsie! I hope that I stay here for a while. I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week! 

~Elder Allred