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 

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