April 10, 2017

This week I can't tell if it has gone by fast or has gone by slow just because of all that we have been doing during the week. Probably the highlight of this past week was when we got to eat dinner at a black dude's house. His name is Larant. He had fed me two other times in the area and he can really cook. I love the guy. So I was really pumped when I found out that he was going to feed us again. I have my new companion, Elder Shah who is a pretty sweet guy, and I was telling him that he was about to have the best meal he has ever had. We got there and he had cooked noodles, like the KD noodles. I thought to myself that isn't too bad I mean not as good as the other times but I am sure that it will still be good. He had chunks of what looked like beef chunks in it. I later came to find out after I had dished them up on my plate that only a few were beef chunks the rest were these round pieces of meat and then also flat pieces. I took a bite of the flatter piece of meat and it just didn't taste good at all. When I was chewing it it turned into a kind of paste or something like that. I asked him and said, "Larent so a what part of the cow is this?" He then said it is some beef chunks and some kidneys and also some liver. My belly just turned over.. I didn't know how I was going to eat it. The liver was okay still pretty nasty though, the beef chunks were really good, but the kidneys where so hard to get down. It was horrible because I had only one beef chunk, a couple pieces of liver and then the rest were all kidneys. I had maybe 6-7 kidneys on my plate. Man that was about the hardest meal I have ever had. 

Lee and Finola are still struggling with their relationship. Things would be really good just if Lee could stop his drinking addiction.  We took Lee running on I think Wednesday morning and it was funny because we had a lesson with them the night before and he was just passed out the whole time. When we took him for the run he was really out of it. He was still a little loopy, but it was fun running with him. He was so out of shape, and he stunk pretty bad because of drinking so much. I don't know why some people get addicted to that stuff it is gross. Elder Shah ran track in California and out of the state he took 8th place in the 400. Lee wanted to race him up a hill he really thought that he could beat him, so I ran to the top of this big hill and then signaled for them to come up. Elder Shah just crushed him. Lee about passed out, it was kinda funny. I was hoping that that would get him to stop drinking but since then he has just been drinking more. It is really sad how drugs and alcohol can tear families apart. Keely and Rob are still as solid as ever. Yesterday it was snowing a little bit, nothing stuck but it was snowing on our way to church and we saw Keely pushing her little baby down the sidewalk going to church since they don't have a car. The gospel principles teacher was gone and so I had to teach it on the spot which was kinda crazy. Keely doesn't like to pray and so for a little bit of a joke I called on her to say the closing prayer, and her face went kinda white it was so funny she laughed about it after. I think that she will be getting baptized in the next couple of weeks. 

Since Elder Shah has been with me we have been running with Rob Broached every other day and when we don't run with him we will go run. We run about 2-3 miles every morning except for Sunday, and today because we played squash with a couple of guys from the ward. I thought that I would be dropping weight but I weighed myself Friday and with my little jacket on I weigh 200. 

We have been contacting a lot of the new move-ins which consist of new move-ins but mostly it is people who have fallen off the charts because they don't want to be contacted, so a lot of them are really grumpy. Elder Shah, since he has come from California has lived a bit of a rough life growing up with the two gangs around him all the time. He has been in quite a few fights and he isn't scared of anything. He won't let anyone get the better piece of him it's awesome, it makes me laugh every time when someone try's facing up to him. 

Well I have to go, thank you for the emails, you all should try to send some more pictures. I miss seeing you guys. It sure is cool that mom is in Denmark. Love you all and have an awesome week! 

-Love E Allred