October 22, 2017 Elder Crawley

October 17, 2017

Hey fam, 

This week was a bit of a disappointment but it was still good. Aaron, who was supposed to be getting baptized on Saturday, had to cancel the day before. The good news is that we are going to reschedule with him. He is still wanting to get baptized. The problem was that a couple of people that he was wanting to be there were unable to make it, and it discouraged him.

This week we found out that Elder Darrow, who I have been training, is going to be training a new missionary. So I will be getting transferred, we don't know where yet, the calls come out tonight. If I am close I will be able to go to Aaron's baptism. Aaron seems to think that wherever I am in the mission he will be able to talk President Miles into letting me come, it's kinda funny. I hope I can make it, he was a fun guy to teach and be around.

I forgot my planner again, we had to get up at 4:30 this morning and leave by 5 to email and then head to Banff. It made me think of the times back home that I would wake up to play morning ball at the church. That was so early.. 

We went on splits with Brother Cuckow again this week. He got a new car and I found out the craziest thing. They are putting back massagers in car seats now! All you have to do is push a button and it will start massaging your back. We were able to talk to a few less actives in the ward and had good visits with all of them. 

Sorry this is so short I'm so tired, I will email you some more when we get back from Banff.

Have a great day.

Love, Elder Allred 

October 10, 2017

This week was pretty good, nothing too crazy happened. I left my planner at the pad and this week flew by like you wouldn't believe. I know that I am going to have a hard time remembering things. 

This is a huge dog named bear. We saw him while spreading bark chips around the gardens by the church.

On Wednesday, we had one of the guys in the Tuscany Ward named Boston go on splits with us. It made me think of when I was back home and I had the opportunity of going out with the Elders in our stake. I only did it once but that experience has stuck with me. We had a big list of people to go and visit but only got to visit with 2 of the people on our list. One of them was Mason. I have never seen him come to church the time that I have been here. We went up and knocked on his door and there was no answer and so we started walking away and that was when he pulled up, it seems like that is what always happens. We then talked in his driveway for maybe 15 minutes and he said, "I always take the new Elders out to eat" and we happened to have our dinner on Saturday open so we told him that he could take us out that night. I had a feeling that he was going to be taking us to Boston Pizza and I was super excited. While we were traveling in his Dodge Challenger, which by the way has a super low roof.. He said, "Well guys the place that we are heading to is a Japanese restaurant." I was a little disappointed, I'm not going to lie, I honestly don't like that kind of food at all, but it is free food so you know you can't complain. We got in there and started ordering. We started off with a bunch of sushi with vegetables, raw salmon, and crab. The crab and vegetables weren't that bad still not my favorite thing in the world. After we finished that up he ordered some pretty strange food. He ordered some deep fried Octopus and some Oysters. The Oysters came first and I wasn't going to touch the things but of course he noticed that we weren't eating them and said, "Come on guys, eat the Oysters." I told him that this is going actually quite far out of my comfort zone. But he put a little hot sauce and some lemon on it and then Elder Darrow and I decided to eat it at the same time. He told us to just swallow them down so that's what I did. I honestly thought that the thing was dead but after we had swallowed them he broke the great news to us. The things were actually alive..  He told us that they serve them alive because when they die they can be dangerous to eat. He said once they hit the stomach the acid kills them. The next thing that we got to try was baby octopus. I was determined to not eat this one. I had calamari in my first area and I did not like them really at all. But he ended up talking me into it and I ate it. It is so gross to me that when you eat those you are eating the whole thing. The only thing that they really take out is the beak. When I watch the video of me eating it I still have my gag reflex go off. 

The other person that we were able to meet with is Ed. He is the guy that I may have told you about who came from England. He is 85 years old and a great guy. We tracked into him a couple weeks ago. While we were with Bosten we decided to stop by him and see how he was doing. We talked a bit about Joseph Smith, he watched something on the TV about him and I think that he is a little caught up on him. It's too bad but we will try and work things out. I think that what we are going to do is bring our Ward Mission Leader, Brother Melchin to his house because he seems to know every little detail about Joseph Smith. We got to play him in Snooker, which is a game comparable to pool but not really the same at all. I was getting so lucky on all my shots it was so funny. Boston and I were on a team and we just slottered them the first game, then the second game Ed caught fire and they beat us. 

On Friday we helped out at the gardens by the church again and dug out some big plants because they were taking over some of the plants that were in the surrounding areas. We got to spend a lot of time with Bob and his wife. They are both non-members and honestly I don't know why they aren't members. 

On Saturday we raked all the leaves at the church and in all the people's yards around the church. We had 2 out of the 3 wards helping us. The other ward got offended because they weren't given enough time to get it planned into the schedule so none of them showed up. Kind of irritating but whatever. We were raking from 9 in the morning to a little after 12. Our bishop then took us out to wendy's. We then headed over to Brother Blackwells' who is currently inactive and helped him out with some things. Our dinner was with Mason and all the weird food. Then we went over to Aaron's new basement apartment and helped him move a dresser thing into his home. Aaron is still super excited for his baptism that will happen on Saturday. We are going to have his baptism in the Cochran Building which is pretty close to Banff. Our building is going to have a wedding going on and the font is hard to get the right temperature. So it was decided that we were going to hold it in Cochrane. 

On Sunday we went to both wards which takes up like the whole day. We had to wake up at 6 to get ready for everything and ward council at 7:30 and then go till 4. And then go to dinner.

On Monday we had our district meeting, helped a non-member lady move with a guy that looked like santa clause. I asked him, "So what are you dressing up for halloween? Santa clause?" He laughed and said, "No but I am actually going to be Santa Clause for Christmas at several different locations." We then went to dinner which happened to be Canadian Thanksgiving. It's kind of crazy because that is my second Thanksgiving while being out here. We had a good dinner with the Blackwells in Tuscany Ward. After that we had a correlation meeting with our ward mission leader in Tuscany. 

Well That is a quick run down of some of the highlights. This week flew by so fast. Well I sure do love you all. l hope that you all have a great week! 

Love, Elder Allred

October 3, 2017

This week was very exciting it was great to hear all of the talks that were given during the weekend of General Conference. Just a few weeks ago Brother Melchin was telling us how none of the people speaking are given a topic to speak on. It was pretty neat that it was mentioned again during the conference. Brother Melchin says that when they prepare their talks they don't compare them or have a specific topic. It's pretty cool that they never end up talking about the exact same thing, and that they are all different and so inspirational. 

I think that the highlight of this week was on Saturday, we had a final lesson with Aaron before the first session of conference. We have been very worried that Aaron would be unable to be baptized because he has mentioned that he didn't want to pay tithing for a year so that he can get back on his feet. 

I think that I had mentioned to you guys that he was in a super low in his life where at one point he was living in his truck with his dog (which is part wolf by the way). He had no job, no home, and barely any food. He had a friend who happens to be in our ward, Brother Spackman, who found out his situation and let him stay at his home until he got back on his feet. The only way that they had known each other is through the big foot research that they had been doing. From what they have told me it sounds like they had barely even known each other.  

So you can see why he wouldn't want to have to pay tithing. He just recently got a job and has just moved out of Brother Spackman's home. When we were teaching him about tithing he said, "You know what I wonder, how much it took me money wise to smoke what I did in a month?" It came up to be somewhere in the $300's which just so happens to be a tenth of what he is making at his job right now. He said, "You know I always somehow came up with the money to buy smokes, so I am sure that I will somehow come up with the money that I need to pay my tithing." He said that he will start paying his tithing after he is baptized which will be for sure happening on the 14!

We call John and he never answers his phone or gets back to us about the messages we leave, so we are just going to go to his friend Bob's house and get his address and knock on his door. He seems to be really solid and asks lots of questions during the garden service. So we will see if we can get in contact with him before Friday.

I sure do love you all I hope that you all have a great week! 

Love, Elder Allred 

September 26, 2017

This week has been awesome. The guy that called you on Saturday was Aaron Arcand! He is doing so well. I really love that guy. On Saturday he invited us out for breakfast at Denny's at 7:30 in the morning. I have had a cold for about a week. I got it from Elder Darrow, who has had it for a couple of weeks. It was rough getting up to make it to Denny's by that time. But it was fun. Later that afternoon he went to Brother Spackman's granddaughter's baptism. He got one of the announcements there and got to see what all went down. After the baptism he called us and asked us for a lot of the leader's phone numbers in the ward, and the people who he had gotten pretty close to. In a couple of hours he had his whole baptism planned out on his own. He has asked Elder Darrow and I to be the official witnesses. I am super excited for that. 

What was funny was that when we had the lesson with him up at the temple he saw our zone leaders and we had to tell him who they were and why we called them zone leaders. When he was calling us on Saturday he asked us if there was anyone who had a higher rank then the zone leaders and so we said the Assistants to the President I guess you could say. He said there are two of them? And we said yes there are. He asked me which one was cooler. So I said Elder Wolf Is super cool and just so happens to be the only one that I know. He made me give him his number. Aaron said that Brother Spackman's granddaughter got a welcome from the primary president and so he said since he wasn't going into primary he wanted an official welcome from the highest ranking missionary, it was so funny. He also gave us an invitation to his baptism to give to President Miles on Monday, which was yesterday at our zone conference. We gave it to Him and he doesn't know if he will be able to make it because he might be in BC. He told us that Elder Wolf couldn't go, but if he doesn't have to go to BC, I think that he will come to Aarons baptism. 

On Thursday we were given special permission to go with Aaron to the mission office so that he could pick out his own set of scriptures. Aaron ended up not getting any scriptures because he thinks that Brian Spackman is going to get him a set for his baptism but he knows what he wants and what he wants on them so we are going to some how ask Brother Spackman if he is going to be getting him some. Aaron did buy "Jesus the Christ" though which is pretty awesome. He has been reading so many books about our faith. 

In zone conference one of the last things that President Miles said was DON'T SETTLE. I think that it can be taken in several different ways whether it is in missionary work or whether it is in our regular daily lives. I think that a lot of times we settle because it is easier. But why settle when it is so much better not to.

I am super excited for general conference. Something that I have been thinking of lately is how in the world do we gain a relationship with them when we haven't ever met them or even shaken their hands. We just recently took Aaron through the baptismal interview questions and one of the questions is do you believe that (the current church president) President Monson is a prophet of God? And he said, "To be honest I can't say that I do. How can I know that if I have never met him before." I think that it is super awesome that he has that special opportunity to listen to the prophet and apostles and feel of their love and their concern for all of us, and to also feel of the spirit that they bring. I think that is how we truly come to know them and trust them even though we may have never even seen them before. 

Well I love you guys, we have to go meet a member for lunch so I might be able to email a bit later. 

Love, Elder Allred 

September 19, 2017

This week has been pretty good. Lots of little miracles.

On Wednesday we had ESL which is always pretty fun. Elder Dolinars companion hit his 2 years and went home, so Dolinar was with us for a night. He is the District Leader so it worked out perfect. We got Danica interviewed and she passed for baptism. We also got to have Work Burgers. Brother Work makes the best burgers. Every Wednesday he makes them for us, he goes to Costco and picks up some fresh meat and then we BBQ it. I look forward to that every week. 

Thursday was a pretty average day nothing too crazy happened, lots of weekly planning. But on Friday we had a lot of good things happen. To start it off we had Garden service with Bob and John except Bob wasn't there because his brother died so he was up in Edmonton at a funeral so it was just John telling us what to do. This time we were spreading bark chips on a path through the garden. It was really cool, we got to see the new missionaries who came out a week ago who came into our zone. They seem pretty cool. We were working and talking to John and John said, "I sure do like being with you guys." I said, "Yeah its really fun working out here in the garden with you, we should totally go get some frostys together sometime at Wendys." He then said, "That would be really fun, in fact I will take you to the best shake place in Calgary!" So we set up a time that night to go out for shakes at Peters. 

After we worked at the gardens we made some stop-bys and then had dinner at the Redekop's home. They invited a couple that is their next door neighbors, they were maybe in their 70's. The husband was from Australia and his wife was from Canada. We talked a lot about Australia and how my Dad went on a mission like us to Australia when he was my age. After we had dinner his wife pulled out an Australian dessert called Pavlova, boy it was good. They claimed that it didn't have any calories in it. But there was lots of whipping cream on top so it had to have had some calories in it. 

After dinner we called John and he came and picked us up at our apartment and we headed to Peters. He paid for the shakes, we told him that we would but he insisted that he pay. The shakes were really good and it was kinda funny because it was just a bit out of our zone.. We were almost to down town Calgary. It was good though, we talked quite a bit about his work and just random stuff. We got to our apartment and before we left I asked him I said, "John, you have had a lot of questions about us and the church and what we do as missionaries is answer those questions that you have and teach you about our church." I said, "That doesn't mean that you have to come to church or you have to get baptized but is that something that you would like to do? And kinda paused for a second and he said,  "Yes I would like that." So we will be teaching him the first discussion either Saturday or Sunday. I am super excited, he is a great guy. 

On Saturday we did some help moving for a lady named Karen. After that we went to have interviews with President Miles. President and Sister Miles said that this is the happiest that they have seen me. I have defiantly been happy we have been having so much success lately it has been so great. In the interview President Miles told me that he doesn't want me to burn out on him. He made me promise that I wouldn't. It was pretty funny that he would say that because I feel that I am a long ways from going home. I have a lot of time before I will burn out. After interviews we helped at the food drive I will have to send some pictures of that too. I will do better at sending pictures.  

We had a Baptism! Danica was baptized. Elder Darrow and I gave the talks, I talked on baptism and Elder Darrow talked on the Holy Ghost. I think that I felt the Spirit more at this baptism then what I have ever felt at any other baptism it was amazing. 

We had dinner at the Burnett's home. She is a member and her husband is a non-member but a really good guy. After we ate we found out that he grows his own hot peppers in his backyard. He grows all the super super hot peppers. He is growing Carolina Reapers which we didn't get to try. I did get to try a little bit of a dried Carolina Reaper in Lethbridge and it was hot I can't even imagine trying it not dried, it is the second hottest pepper in the world. He did have the third hottest pepper in the world though which is called the Trinidad Scorpion. He cut a couple of little pieces off of the pepper for Elder Darrow and I. We put it in our mouths and started chewing. Elder Darrow chewed it up and swallowed it. I chewed it up and it felt like my head was going to explode so I spit it out. The heat was so crazy though. Elder Darrow ate half a carton of ice cream, and I had a couple glasses of milk. It was so hot I would get a mouth full of milk and just let it sit in my mouth for maybe 7 seconds and then I had to swallow it and get some more cold milk in my mouth. The heat finally went away after maybe 10 minutes. We have a video of it, I will send it to you when I get a chance. At Church on Sunday Sister Burnett broke down in tears to us and told us how much it means to her that we visit her and her family. She said, "You have no idea the impact that has on us."

When we got home that night we realized that we left our dinner calendars in the truck. Elder Darrow has had a cold and so I told him that I would go out and get them so that we could confirm dinner for that night. So I put on my runners and my hoody and headed to the truck. I decided that I would take the long way to the truck so that I could get a little run in that night. It ended up being about a mile. I got to the truck and got the dinner calendars and headed back. When I was waiting for the elevators to come down a guy came up to me and asked me if I was out on a run and I said, "Yep I was."  He said, "Man you are my motivation, I used to run but I haven't for a long time." I told him that I run everyday and he was pretty blown away. I asked him if he wanted to run Monday morning with us and he said that he would. So we got down stairs and he was there at a little after 6:30 waiting for us. He is from Libia and came over to Canada when he was 18 for school. He is now 28. So for the past couple of mornings we have been running with him. He is pretty out of shape which is too bad because I like to get a good run in but maybe we will have the opportunity of teaching him in the near future. 

On Sunday I had to speak in one of the wards. I still don't like getting up in front of people but I feel that it has for sure gotten a ton easier. I can see a change in myself and I think that it has been a big change. Elder Darrow and I were talking last night. We were talking about a couple of scriptures and trying to figure out some questions that we have had. Elder Darrow said, "I can't even believe that I am talking about the scriptures, back home I didn't even read them." I had to agree with him, it is crazy, back home I thought that the scriptures were definitely true but I didn't have a real desire to read and to study them. Being out here has definitely developed a desire in me to read, study, and ponder them to learn more about the scriptures.

Well this is some of the highlights of what has been going on up here in Canada I hope and pray that you are all doing well. I love you guys and hope that you all have a great week!

Love, Elder Allred

Elder Darrow 

September 12, 2017

This week has been awesome, it's pretty crazy to hear of all the crazy things happening in the world, with all the fires in Canada and the U.S, the earthquakes, and the big hurricanes. I am always forgetting that I am actually in a different country... 

Well we were able to finish up the lessons with Danica and she is going to be getting interviewed on Wednesday. Her baptism is going to be on Saturday and they have asked Elder Darrow and I to give talks at the baptism. I will be giving a talk on baptism, and Elder Darrow will be giving one on the spirit. We have been told that there are going to be some non-members from the family there, and the missionaries in our zone will be trying to get their investigators to the baptism as well. It is going to be a great experience.

We have been able to teach Aaron a few times this week, one of them was on the temple grounds of the Calgary Temple. He was able to go into the waiting room with Brother Hamilton, who is a temple worker, and was able to talk to him. He gave him a cool binder with a lot of information in it about temples it was pretty neat. 

At the beginning of this week we taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and what was cool was that he realized that he was already starting to live the Gospel before he even knew what it was. He had exercised his faith and because he exercised his faith he had experiences that helped him come to know that it is true. And because he knew that it was true he has been repenting or changing his life to follow our Savior Jesus Christ. He has made some big changes in his life. He has been 2 weeks without coffee and 1 week without smokes. He is wanting to go 2 weeks without any smokes to know that he is done and that he isn't going to pick up another smoke. In 2 weeks he is going to be baptized.

Something that kinda hit me while we were teaching Aaron was that he said, "I like to pray, it makes me feel good." It hit me because it made me think what we all think about praying. It was cool to hear a person who hasn't said a prayer since he was around the age of 14, start praying and then feel good every time he prays, and to pray a lot because of how it makes him feel. 

For the past couple of days I have been thinking about one of the 10 commandments, to not take the Lord's name in vain. When we read that we instantly think to not swear by using the Lords name. When we were teaching Aaron about this Brother Spackman pointed something cool out. He said, "If we aren't doing what Christ would have us do while representing him we are taking his name in vain." When you think about it when we are baptized we enter into a covenant with God to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ, keep His commandments, and serve Him to the end. So in a way we who have been baptized are representatives of Jesus Christ and His church. And it just makes me think if we aren't becoming like Christ and doing the things that he would do, we are taking his name in vain which is a pretty scary thought. Since non of us are perfect and are not like Christ because of the natural man that is in us we have been given the Gospel to have the opportunity to constantly repent and to become better and better. A famous scripture that talks about this is Mosiah 3:19 which says, "for the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." Elder Bednar talks about this verse and how bad men can become good, and good men can become better. I like how it says to follow the promptings of the Spirit because as we listen to those promptings which are good we will be led to become better and better people. 

This week we had a corn bust in both the Tuscany and Rockyview Wards. There were quite a few non-members that came to the ward parties. We talked to all of them, it's pretty strange to go up to someone you have no idea who is and talk to them, something that I would definitely not do back home. We invited Bob, a guy that we work at a garden with to come and to invite his family. He ended up coming and brought his daughter and son-in-law and their family to the corn bust. We were talking to his son-in-law, his name is Chris about the gardens and how nice they were and he said, "Man I sure wish that I had someone that would come and help me with my yard." We immediately offered to help. He was pretty shocked, he is a pretty well off guy. He is from Germany, and speaks english very well. We ended up going and helping him out. He is a really nice guy, we will have to go and help him out again. 

This week we might be able to pick up 3 new investigators, one for sure. He was referred to us by the Elders who are in Stathmore he seems super solid. I will have to let you know how that goes.

Elder Darrow and I gave each other hair cuts, they actually aren't that bad, they actually look pretty good I think, haha. I will have to send you some pictures, I have been slacking on that. 

Well that is pretty much it for this week, hope you are all doing well! Love you guys

Love, Elder Allred