I'm Just a Kid

hey guyyyysssss hows the weather in the northern hemisphere? its getting a little bit chile here.... haha.

this week was bom. we had a lot of good things happen and like all of the other weeks of the mission we also had some disappointments! but were happy, were rolling, and were looking to have an awesome month of july! tomorrow president kahnlein goes home and president diaz arrives. theyll have two hours together where he will show him where everything is and then he peaces out. its gonna be weird, but im excited at the same time! 

on friday ill get to meet president diaz because we will have mission council. so at 1 o clock in the morning friday elder swindler and i will take the bus ride to viña where the water freezes before it gets to your mouth and spend the day there! its always really fun going down to viña.. its hard to explain the joy that you feel when you see friends and comps for the first time in a while and can just talk and see how everything is going. its one of my favorite things about the mission!

yesterday we had a baptism! we have been working with a while with a part family, the cortes family. the mom is a member, and her two kids that live with her and her husband are not. she has a son that left on the mission to argentina that was living in santiago. the dad, mauricio, has become one of my favorite people that ive met here in coquimbo. he has a solid testimony of the church, goes every week, and reads the book of mormon, but he cant get baptized because theyre not married. the mom receives a certain amount of money from the government for not being married and ahving kids (sounds kind of backwards right?) and she doesnt have the faith to lose that money and get married. but yeah anyway the non frustrating part is that their son matias wanted to get baptized so we did it yesterday and now were working with his older brother nicolas!

lots of things have happened with the espejo family that we had found last sunday  night, but they didnt go to church :(. were afraid that the dad is looking for more physical evidences of the book of mormon than spiritual. we had a lesson with the stake president in their house and the spirit was really strong for about 45 min, and then it slowly went away as the lesson dragged on.. the guy asks like yactillion questions every single time its hard to keep in on subject. were going to keep helping them though i have faith they could get there!

i received the news this week that jacob and romina, the son and his girlfriend of the castillo family in viña got married and baptized this weekend! im so happy for them and the chance i had to know their family. i always think back about that day when the spirit told me to keep contacting down that street and at the very end we found maria elena and juan. so many miracles occurred it was just the coolest experience!

this week i went on interchanges with elder bojorquez, ex assistant to president and now he is our district leader here in coquimbo to finish his mission. i learned a lot of cool stuff from him and hes probably the best missionary i have seen in my life. when he was 17 he played basketball with his friend in the church and met the elders there in LA. a year and a half later when he told his parents he was getting baptized they immediately went to the house of his friend that had presented him to the missionaries and threatened him and his family. but he got baptized anyway. 6 months later he got his mission call and when he told his parents they told him they didnt want anything to do with him ever again. hes an amazing person and missionary

it was a great week and it was capped off last night. i came into the room and walked past elder swindler sayhing his prayers. as i walked to my bed and pulled the covers back he had crept behind me and then whispered ¨helllllooooo¨i shrieked and fell paralyzed onto my bed. i thought i was going ot die haha. 

love you guys hope you have an awesome week! 

happy birthday to my role model, best friend, and older brother alex. love you big slice!

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

The Boys are Still in Town

so changes came and left and the bus couldnt get us to board. elder swindler and i are here to stay another change together! it was great news and were pumped to put in the work here in coquimbo and have an even better change than the last one!

just to start out i want to wish my old man a happy fathers day even though hes everything but old! lay off that coke and einsteins bagels and in no time we´ll be playing for the championship in winbledom for doubles. no but for realzy steve is a stallion. love you dad and i think about ya every day here. i dont know where id be without your example and advice. probably not in chile though. after spending a few months in broken homes and seeing the affects of it, i realize a little more every day jsut how lucky i am to have my dad be a worthy priesthood holder and overall just a great guy. love ya homie g

despite the fact that we did not get changed this week, we had one of the toughest days of my mission, and probably my life last wednesday. the whole day we didnt get into a single house, we walked a lot, it was hot for 20 min, and then really cold right after, and overall it was just really tough. we got kind of frustrated with one another even though WE KNEW it was a trial god wanted us to pass through. but we got through it and bounced back the next day. god has to send something like that every once in a while so we dont catch ourselves sleeping and not looking for things that we can improve. 

this week i started writing down a miracle that had happened every single day. it was pretty cool because i could look back on every single day and remember something cool that happened. one day we were looking endlessly with our ward list that were cutting down and that we have received a promise from president to baptize every month if we use, but anyway we entered some apartments and had the worker look up this guy on his computer and after about 5 min of looking he told us it didnt exist.. so right as we turn away to leave this lady walks in and shes like hey! im a member and i want to reactivate myself in the church! also i have a daughter and i want you guys to teach her. haha so we went ot her house the next day and taught them! the daughter is athiest but she said shes going to read the part we assigned in the bookof mormon!

on tuesday night we were in the church calling the zone and telling everybody who was leaving to viña when this elder walks in the room and gives us a hug. he was from a different ward but he had gotten homethat day from ecuador and actually he knew josh sueldo too! but yeah so we talked for a little bit and then he left and got released in his interview with the stake president and came out without his plaque. it was supppeerrrr weird to see. elder swindler and i just thought about it a lot that night and how short the mission is. that this is the only time i n our lives that we willl have the power and authority like we have now. that why its so important to take advantage of every single moment to invite others to dothings that will change their lives!

we found tons of investigators this week to do just that! including a family that we found last night! first we talked with this kid outside his house about the states and english, then with his mom, and then the dad arrived like 20 min later and was like what are these guys doing outside come on in! haha little did we know he was going to barrage us with questions for an hour and 15 min! it was crazy, yet ive never felt the spirit guiding our words so much! it was like he was trying to get us to cross ouselves somehow but at the end of everything were going back tonight ot teach the family about hte restoration!! :)

that was my week. and also a really cool blessing that i gave to an investigator from peru that we have been teaching in the beach side tenth floor apartment of a recent convert! at the beginnning of the blessing i could just feel that they were my own words, the slowly i just forgot about myown thoughts and i could feelthe spirit guiding me! it was awesome to see the difference and thats how every priesthood blessing needs to be!  

in mormon 9:24 it says that in the name of christ we have the power to cast out devils,  speak with new tongues, drink and eat things and not be hurt or get sick from them, and lay our hands on the sick to heal them. i can honestly say that when i read this verse this morning the spirit hit me on the head with a bag of bricks. i have seen every single one of these blessing be fulfilled in nine months of the mission. the promises are true, sometimes we just lack the faith. if you dont believe me ask my brothers how long i spent in the bathroom on a daily basis before the mission. and i dont expect it to be different after either. haha but seriously i have not had almost any problems with my digestive system here adn i know that that is a blessing from on high. they used to call me allredy pooping again!

love you guys and hope you have an awesome week becuase im going to have one too. <3 shout out to the cousins that are reunited love you guys thanks for being such good examples see ya soon!

I KNEW THE BOYS WOULD PULL THROUGH! I LOVE STEPH

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

Coquimbano to Stay

so i didnt come through with my promise that i was going to start writing down something cool that happens every day... this week! people can change. but yeah is was a tough week numbers wise, but other than that it was awesome. the change officially came to an end and really ive never felt better! i seriously learned something every single day from my comp elder swindler and im kind of sad because it looks like he´ll be taking off on wednesday... but hes a beast and im glad i got the six weeks with him.

the american cup is being played here in chile and messi is staying in a hotel like 20 minutes from us right now. the stadium that theyre playing in is in la serena but its been pretty much impossible to get into houses this week. there is always game on in the afternoon and even though its not necessarily chile playing everybody is watching the games. i cant even imagine how the world cup would be..

but in interchanges with my brasilian district leader, elder lima, we did find two twin investigators that are really good. they are 19 years old and are looking for the truth and they have already started reading the book of mormon. they couldnt come to church this week but in the first lesson when we invited them to get baptized they both accepted. its like the whole lesson was good but the spirit wasnt too strong, then all the sudden the moment came when we invited them to follow christ and be baptized and their eyes just lit up! the spirit was super strong and i think if they really pray to find out the truth that they are going to progress. we just have to help them get to church!

we have two other investigators named luis and eliana. they are from peru and are staying here for like a month of two before they go back. when we started teaching them they had a ton of doubts and everything they knew about the church was based on rumors. however this week we had a marathon of activities in the church, and they went to all of them including arriving at the church at 830 in the morning saturday to clean everything! haha they seriously spent like 5 hours cleaning the church with all of the members and us it was awesome. they are not married so itll be hard for them to progress fast but were gonna make sure by the time they go back to peru that they meet up with the missionaries there and can progress towards a temple marriage!

on friday we took the long bus ride into viña and arrived at like 730 in the morning to what felt like 5 degree weather! it was seriously so cold. i have it good up in the north even though i feel like im going to die some mornings! but yeah anyway this was my first mission council as a leader and also president kahnleins last one! it was pretty special. intense... but special. like they put a lot of pressure on us as leaders, and if your zone is not performing you get cut to pieces haha. its crazy i was genuinely scared. but it was a good time and extremely spiritual. president kahnlein read us the letters that the first presidency and also elder nelson sent him giving him thanks. it was sweet and then after when lunch rolled around they surprised us and took us all to a beachside restaurant and treated us to a prime cut steak! but it was a good day and i actually slept alright on the bus ride back so that was good.

president also made us a promise.. we have started working on a new ward list in the whole mission... personally i HATE working with lists. it seriously kills me to pass less actives all day written on a piece of paper, it just bores me to death. but were making the list into a part family register so that little by little we can narrow down all of the part families that live in every ward. which is a whole fetching lot in chile. almost all baptisms come from part member families! but yeah anyway the promise is that if we put all of our worrk and atencion into this list, that we are goign to baptize every month. im down. but yes, it is tough work for me. i much prefer contacting a million people in teh street. but were going to do it because the lord always fulfills his promises.

last monday we had our zone activity. we played volleyball , soccer, and ate a lot of churripanes. lessss goooo zona coquimbo! i love my zone. i dont think im leaving, but one of the assistants told elder swindler he was going to leave. so we´ll see what happens. i think elder gonzalez, my mexican zone leader from viña is going to come here with me! tune in next week to find out! :)

love you uglys(< that was a typo but im going to keep it) and i hope your all gripping tight on the rod of iron. this church is true. theres not a single error to it. the only errors are what we as humans do with it. thomas s monson is a prophet and if we listen to him and our other leaders then we cant go wrong. 

...also id be lying if i said i havent been thinking about the warriors... VAMOSSSSS STEPHHHH

con amor 

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

photos: me and alexis sanchez, zone activity pic,  and last pic with president kahnlein

President Kahnlein's last week

well another week has passed by here in the bronx of Coquimbo. we had a stellar week and really i cant believe how fast this change has passed by. next wednesday will be changes and although i seriously havent even had time to think about them, i think im finally right this time... and both of us are going to stay here in the big apple.

this week we had our last conference with president and hermana kahnlein. they visited every zone in the mission and our zone was the last one they went to! ill really never forget the impact that both of them have had on my life and even though im going to viña this friday to see them again it was really sad. theyre incredible people. im like 99% sure that president kahnlein will go back to argentina for a short break and then head somewhere as a seventy. almost sure. also in the conference elder swindler and i gave a presentation about always inviting people to get baptized and it went really well!

so yeah this thursday at one o clock in the morning we will be heading on the bus 6 hours south to viña for my first mission council meeting. that will last about 7 or 8 hours and then at 7 o clock friday night ill head back to coquimbo and get here at like 2 in the morning where i will then get up at 7 the next day to keep working. ive heard its rough.... but im really excited for mission council i heard its a blast and plus im gonna see a lot of people that ive missed!

this week we had a couple investigators come to church including the bishops dad oscar. he still doesnt feel like hes recieved an answer but tonight weve got a family home evening planned in the bishops house and were gonna watch elder claytons talk from general conference about choosing to believe! oscar is almost there. he seriously progresses little by little every time we see him plus he is the most sarcastic old man ive ever met and every knows i love sarcasm. so thats why i love oscar. :)

we met a new investigator, this 21 year old kid named marco. we were contacting in the street and we talked to him, he gave us some bread, and told us to come by on sunday. so yesterday we went and had such a spiritual lesson! it just filled the room and he felt it so strong he accepted a baptism date right there! he studies and works a lot but hopefully we can help him progress this week!

i feel comfortable with my responsibilities and im super happy where im at. even though i dont enjoy having less tiem to email everyone on monday, i do love having more weight on my shoulders and having people expect more from me. elder swindler is a boss and really is teaching me new things every day. his testimony is a boulder and were always finding ways to have fun and laugh and thats really what makes the mission fun. being able to have a good time while still maintaining the spirit and keeping your focus. it was a little hard for me to find that balance my first change or two...

love all of you guys so much and im so grateful for the experiences that im having here every day. im going to start writing down a miracle from each day starting to day so that i can start telling you guys more about them.. there are things every day that just blow my mind. i love this gospel and i know its true. be true to the covenants youve made and look to share the gospel every single day.

love you guysssss

-elder allred - chilean street raptor

photos: andacollo this small city like 3 hours away that has a virgin and it very catholic, the cross where i had interchanges, and my last pic with hermana kahnlein :)