April 3, 2017 Elder Shah, District Leader

Hey Mom & Dad, thanks for the email it is always nice to here from you all. I know that you are excited about getting me a cake, but you know I am gaining weight like a hippo and I am trying to eat as healthy as I can. We, I swear get cake, pie, or ice cream everyday. I weighed myself at the food bank on Friday where we do service and it kept switching from 199-200 pounds and it is scaring me. So sorry, but if you could maybe send me a letter or something, that would be more meaningful to me in more than one way. I got a new companion on Thursday his name is Elder Shah he was one of my zone leaders when I first came into the mission field.  He is from California. He is a pretty sweet dude. He has been out 20 months now. Back home he ran track and his main event was the 400, 200, and the 100. He is still in good shape and since we have been together we have ran every morning. So hopefully I can drop 15-20 pounds of fat. At transfers on Thursday President Miles came over to me and asked me if I would be the District Leader, I told him that I would, I am sure that this is going to make me grow more but it is also hard because now I won't get a normal study in. I will have to be planning for the next District Meeting. But other than that I am excited. Last night I had the opportunity of interviewing two people for baptism. I was pretty nervous but it's not that bad, it is actually pretty fun because I was able to see how solid they are and hear their conversion story.

On Friday we ate dinner with the family that I think that I told you about. They are an older family, the mom lives there that is maybe in her 80's, and also her two daughters that are maybe in their late 60's. One of them was Rose who had a really bad smoking problem and wanted to stop and she had been praying and praying trying to get the strength that she could to stop smoking. She had been inactive for 30 years. Then when Elder Dolinar and I were going over the new move-ins we prayed and asked which one that we should go and visit and to guide us to the one who needs us the most. That is when the name Rose stuck out to me, so we went and visited them and Rose and her family thought that we were there to give her a blessing. It was funny because they thought that it was scheduled, it was so confusing but it was pretty cool. I ended up giving her a blessing, I don't really remember what I said but on Friday with Elder Shah they told us that after that blessing Rose had cold turkey-ed it. That means that she stopped completely, and since then she has been coming to church every week. This has been a great testimony builder for me. She exercised her Faith by praying and asking for strength, just like the Israelites had to exercise their Faith by stepping into the river Jordan.  I know that there is great power in the Priesthood and that there is also great power in Faith. I feel that both Faith and the Priesthood work together and with both miracles can and will happen.

I really enjoyed General Conference on Saturday. We watched the Morning, Afternoon, and the Priesthood Session. Wow that was a long 6 hours of just sitting there taking notes. It reminded me of school... But it was really good I really enjoyed it. On Sunday we watched both of the morning and the afternoon sessions, they were also good. Elder Shah and I watched all of it at our Stake Center. There was a whole lot that I liked, I took a ton of notes.

We taught Keelee and Rob the other day and Keelee will still tell us everything that is in the lessons because she is so solid. I am excited to keep teaching her. She is so sweet. We also ran with Rob this morning and there was a little bit of snow on the ground from last night. But thank goodness it wasn't too deep. I hope you all are doing well.

Love, Elder Allred