January 16, 2018

Hey fam! 

Sorry that this is coming a little later then the usual, but here are a few highlights from this week.

This week was pretty great we got to teach Kyra and Shannon again, they are both doing well and are getting more and more excited to get baptized. Shannon is finally done with all the court papers that she had to do to get custody over her granddaughter, Kyra, so they have been super happy about that. We taught Kyra the Plan of Salvation and she really liked it and seemed to understand what we taught her. 

We also got to do some more service for Dave and Marriet. We helped them cut and split wood. At least this time it was a lot warmer. After we helped them with their wood they invited us for dinner, they always cook the best food. They have been investigators for quite a while now. We always try to have some kind of a gospel discussion with them while we eat. During the meal we talked about Elder Whicker going home in a couple of weeks, they were pretty sad about that but they did tell me that after he was gone they hoped that I would still come over with the new guy, I told them I definitely would. 

Something else that was pretty awesome was that we were invited by a member named Tammy to meet one of her son's friends who he had invited to come to mutual. She was still in with the young women when we got to the church. The young men had just gotten out and were starting to play some basketball. A couple of the Lehr kids wanted Elder Whicker and I to play with them and so we did. There were probably 10-12 of them all playing with us, I happened to get a fast break and I dunked it in my proselyting clothes, it was pretty funny to see all the guys' reactions. One of the kids that was on my team in the next possession threw me an ally-oop it was so sweet. After playing with them for a couple of minutes the young women got out and we were able to meet her. She is pretty sweet and we will hopefully be able to teach her in the near future.

I had the opportunity of watching Thomas S. Monson's Funeral.  It's sad to know that such a great man has passed away, I know that he was truly a chosen prophet to lead and guide us. We also got to hear from our new prophet, President Nelson this morning. He is such a great man, I know that he too has been chosen for us in this day to lead and guide us. I love what he said during his message to the world.

“Whatever your concerns, whatever your challenges, there’s a place for you in this, the Lord’s Church.”

I know that as we go to church and learn more about our Savior and the role that he plays in our lives that we can overcome our concerns and challenges.

Keep up the great work, love ya guys, have a great week! 

Sorry that it's a bit short but I hope that you all have a great week, I sure do love you guys! 

Love, Elder Allred

Herd of Antelope

Antelope

Cutting Wood with Dave and Marriet

While we were out in
Brooks, we had to pull some hair out of a drain in the
Sister's Apartment.

Deer

 

January 9, 2018

Hey Fam!

This week has been pretty great it hasn't been so cold. It had to have just been a cold snap that went through because pretty much this whole week it has been above freezing during the day. 

So the highlight of the week was the lesson we had with Kyra and Shannon talking about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. It went very well and Kyra already has a great desire of being baptized. Something that I thought was amazing was that Shannon was already reading the Book of Mormon with Kyra for betime stories and they were a little way through first Nephi. 

We are hoping that Shannon and Kyra will get baptized in the near future. The only problem is, before I got here Shannon says that when she prayed about a baptismal date she got her answer of being baptized in May on Kyra's birthday. She thinks that she had that as her answer because shortly after getting it she got custody over her granddaughter and she figured that they would be getting baptized together on Kyra's birthday. The only problem that I see is that Shannon is already ready for baptism and Kyra is going to be ready in the next few weeks, so in all reality they could get baptized a whole lot earlier. I think that it would be neat, and also neat for them to be baptized on Kyra's birthday but why would you want to postpone the wonderful blessings of baptism and the Holy Ghost?

Something that was pretty cool was that on Saturday we didn't have a dinner and so a member in the ward gave us a $50 gift card and a separate $50 bill for the Beef Eater. We thanked him and headed to the restaurant. We walked in and didn't realize just how fancy this place was. We ended up getting the top 2 most pricey things on the menu which was a steak with crab legs, and a steak with shrimp and then split the shrimp and crab. It came with a side of stuffed potato and french fries and all you could eat soup and salad. It was soo good maybe a little over priced though. Our meal was going to cost us a little over $100. But the thing was, that somewhere in the restaurant a pipe broke and there was water running out of the bathrooms and the kitchen it was crazy. We were one of two tables that the owner of the restaurant came up to and said your food is on me. We said oh no you don't have to do that and he said no its on me this was not as enjoyable as it should have been for you. So we got over $100 worth of food for free and ended up tipping the waitress $15 off of the gift card and then returning the money and gift card back to the member it was pretty awesome! 

We have also been moved out of our apartment temporarily due to members of the apartment smoking in it. Apparently there is not  anything in the contract that tells them that they can't smoke and so for our safety they have moved us out for the time being until we get a new one at the end of the month so we are going to be staying with another set of elders until we move into our new one. And then we will have to move everything out of our old apartment into our new one. 

Well I'm running low on time, but I sure do love you all and I hope that you have a great week!

Love, Elder Allred 

January 1, 2018

Hey Fam! Happy New Years! 2018

This week was great it has been super cold and our car is barely starting in the morning but other then that things have been good. I still feel like it should be 2016. Braden Hartle just emailed me and told me that he is in Canada, about 5 hours away! Sure is crazy to have someone I know visit Canada when back home I thought that nobody visited it. 

So some exciting news, we got our letter back that we sent into the police about our parking ticket that we had received for parking in the loading zone of our apartment complex. I forgot to take a picture of it so I could show you so I will have to next week. But apparently our complaint was good enough because it has been canceled, so that saved us a good 25 bucks. 

On Thursday we were at an older couple's home visiting them. The husband isn't a member. I have no idea why because he comes to church pretty much every week and has been through the discussions a few times. He is a great guy but maybe just needs some time. While we were over visiting them right before we were going to leave they got a phone call from their daughter in California. They had it on speaker phone so we heard the whole conversation. Their daughter said that she had some strange pains in her chest and was having a hard time breathing, she said that the doctors thought that it was a blood clot in the lungs and she said that she could possibly die at any time, and they were headed to the hospital that was about 3 hours away. It was pretty sad listening to the conversation. After the call ended they were a bit shooken up and we asked them if we could pray with them. Elder Whicker was asked to say it. It ended up being pretty good and the spirit was definitely felt. The next day we called them and asked them how she was doing and they said actually she is doing great! When they got to the hospital they went in met the doctor and surprisingly enough the doctor had the same thing a couple of years ago and he knew exactly what to do to help. As soon as he gave her a bit of medication she was 100 percent back to normal. It sure is interesting just how powerful a simple prayer can be. 

We also got to help Dave and Mariet Chop up and split some wood. It was fun being able to run the chainsaw. We had a pretty good system. Dave would bring over some logs I would chop them up with the chainsaw and Elder Whicker was splitting. After bringing some of the wood in and stacking the rest of it outside, we went in and Mariet had fixed us dinner. They always make a ton of food and it is so good. After dinner we talked a little bit about their religious background and talked a little about our church and even invited them to come to church. Elder Whicker and I don't know why they won't come but they are pretty great people. They have a nephew that is out serving a mission in England close to where Dave came from. Dave said that he is going to have it hard in that part of England. It has been neat though hearing them talk about their nephew and what he has been doing on his mission. 

Elder Whicker's Art

We also got to visit Sharon and Kyra, they are doing well they do have to go to court one more time to get everything finalized with Sharon taking custody of Kyra. We offered to give Sharon a blessing and she said, "Sure I could never turn one of those down."
So we ended up explaining to Kyra what a blessing was and what we would do and all that good stuff. Sharon and Kyra both ended up getting blessings it was pretty cool. We have planned to see them again Tuesday night and share the first discussion with them. We are pretty excited for that. 

Well that is just a few cool highlights of this week. I hope that you are all doing well I sure do love you guys and hope that you have a great week! 

Love, Elder Allred